As for the rest of you gawkers,' he added with mock
severity, 'We can put Kalus under the microscope tomorrow, and then
heaven help him! You're in a colony of scientists, my boy, and
you'll get no rest until we're as bored with you as we are with
each other. Enough now! Break up this little party or I'll come up
with a new vaccine and inject you where you sit. Literally.'
With this, chuckling, responding in kind, the company began to disperse
to the various huts. The Commander approached Kalus, shook his hand,
and apologized personally, while the hill-man repeated his own
contrition.
At last, looking down, Kalus found himself seated at the table alone,
his thoughts as dark and empty as the place itself. Sylviana had been
ashamed of him. ASHAMED. As if the past meant nothing, had never
happened.
He lay wearily on his arms, trying to understand. How had it all
happened so fast? The colony had absorbed her like water into sand,
leaving nothing for him. Even the cub had gone in to sleep beside her.
To sleep beside her! How acutely he would feel the absence of her body
tonight. He felt himself out of place: in the wrong tale, immersed in
chapters and characters that all around him understood, but which were
to him as incomprehensible as the Valley had been to Sylviana.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290