Part 48 (1/2)

'The men of j.a.pan, Kataya's ancestors, were every bit as cruel as the Germans during World War II. They killed millions in their march through Asia, raping women to death, cutting men to pieces, never sparing the children..... So that when America finally developed the atomic bomb, those with the power to use it had very little sympathy left. But loosing that atomic death, whose lingering effects were not yet known, on Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki, making war against the innocent women and children of that tragic country..... One atrocity doesn't justify another.' And while he was not sure she would understand the parallel, he knew no other way of reaching her.

'The problem with revenge, Sylviana, is that you never hurt the people you're trying to, but only create new victims. Your country condemned to a slow and horrible death, by all the ills and cancers of radiation poisoning, more than a million men, women and children who had no knowledge of, and took no willing hand in, the butcheries of their military government.'

'I don't care!' cried the young woman bitterly. 'You have to care,' said Stenmark grievously, 'Even if it happened before you were born. And even then, that's only the smaller part of Kataya's anger. You lost your father, as we all lost those dear to us..... Imagine if you had lost Kalus, in the full flower of your pure and uncorrupted love for him? And not only Kalus, but the innocent life his seed had planted in your womb.' But Sylviana only wept harder, unable to feel anything but her own pain.

'She may be the last j.a.panese left alive,' he continued. 'And the silent suffering forced on the women of that country by their culture is beyond any power of mine to convey. Should it all be for naught? Hate the men of that time if you want; sometimes I do myself.

But not the women. G.o.d love them.....

'She has the right to bear a child, Sylviana, and to choose that child's father. Think about that the next time you find yourself hating her, or despising the blessed and innocent life that now grows inside her. I don't think you'll have the heart to hate her then.

Not in your worst moments.'

But it was all too much for her: too overwhelming to forgive, or even understand. She raised herself, angrily pus.h.i.+ng away the hands that would have comforted her, and ran out of the room with a wordless cry of pain and self-loathing. And kept on running, as if the Devil ran behind her.

In time she slowed to a walk, though she could no more stop moving than deny her lungs the air they screamed for. 'Just walk!' she cried.

'WALK. Until you can't feel anything.'

But after another mile she stopped, and knelt down and wept for the third time. Because she knew that she would do it. She would betray the one she loved most. Until she made him feel her pain, thinking nothing of his own---

'I don't care!' she cried, raging, the three words which so often precede the worst that we are. And though they were not entirely true in her case, the tragic end is often identical.

She would go through with the evil act. She would do it.

Chapter 47

That night Kalus dreamed he was alone in a dark cave, too small and dank for a man. But the light rose slowly through a stone-lipped entrance, and he saw a familiar form beside him as he sank into the wall, to watch. Kamela lay with three cubs beside her. But two had been turned to stone. He struggled to wake himself, because he knew what was to come.

A large wolf entered, looking black, and bared its yellow fangs.

Another stood guard outside as the earth parted to admit the terrible and magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Shar-hai. He entered, silent as death, and lifted the living cub and set it gently, almost lovingly, in a corner.

Kamela never once moved, or changed her expression as they came closer, snarling s.a.d.i.s.tically.

They raped her, as he struggled to break free. Only then it was no longer Kamela, but Sylviana they raped, and the face of Shar-hai became human as it tore at her. He struggled desperately and called her name as Smith and Rawlings pinned him to the floor. BUT THEY'RE MY FRIENDS!

He cried out to her with heart-crus.h.i.+ng pa.s.sion, as the sound of it filled his ears, and woke him.

He lay on his back, wet with sweat, unable to remember. He threw off the sleeping bag which now seemed to him a coffin, or a mummy's wrap.

He tried to shake off the dream, but the images of Kamela's rape had never left him, and those of Sylviana as the victim transferred themselves with terrifying ease. His own reality, as it returned to him, seemed far less real. And it came as no surprise as he recognized the human face of Shar-hai. It was William, his teeth like knives.

The sun was climbing: she would be awake. But this was only an afterthought, as he ran toward the compound. He threw open the first door, then the second, and burst into the room he had never seen. She was there, half dressed, seeming but a continuation of the dream from which he felt he had not woken. For there was no waking from the truth.