Dry, flushed skin, the ragged breathing. Her temperature rising quickly as her body stopped fighting the heat and succumbed.

There was nothing he could do here to protect her from the heat. He measured a tiny portion of the remaining water into her mouth and she swallowed convulsively. The thinnest of the clothing protected her slight body from the direct rays of the sun. After that he could only take her in his arms and keep on toward the horizon. An outcropping of rock there threw a tiny patch of shade and he walked toward it.

The ground here, shielded from the direct rays of the sun, felt almost cool by contrast. Lea opened her eyes when he put her down, peering up at him through a haze of pain. She wanted to apologize to him for her weakness, but no words came from the dried membrane of her throat. His body above her seemed to swim back and forth in the heat waves, swaying like a tree in a high wind.

Shock drove her eyes open, cleared her mind for the instant. He really was swaying. With sudden horror she realized how much she had come to depend on the eternal solidity of his strength. Now it was failing. All over his body the corded muscles contracted in ridges, striving to keep him erect. She saw his mouth pulled open by the taut cords of his neck and the gaping, silent scream was more terrible than any sound. Then she screamed herself as his eyes rolled back, leaving just the empty [Pg 45]white of the eyeballs staring terribly at her. He went over, back down, like a felled tree, thudding heavily on the sand. Unconscious or dead she couldn't tell. She pulled limply at his leg, but couldn't drag his immense weight into the shade.

[Pg 45]

Brion lay on his back in the sun, sweating. Lea saw this and knew that he was still alive. Yet what was happening? She groped for memory in the red haze of her mind, but could remember nothing from her medical studies that would explain this. On every square inch of his body the sweat glands seethed with sudden activity. From every pore oozed great globules of oily liquid, far thicker than normal perspiration. Brion's arms rippled with motion and Lea stared, horrified as the hairs there writhed and stirred as though endowed with separate life. His chest rose and fell rapidly, deep, gasping breaths wracking his body. Lea could only stare through the dim redness of unreality and wonder if she was going mad before she died.

A coughing fit broke the rhythm of his rasping breath, and 

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