you, Nic, that I was wrong about you."

He waited motionless, keeping his eyes thin and hard.

"I thought you were strong, Nic. I thought you were the strongest man I'd ever seen. You were a challenge and I wanted to see that strength break. That's why I did what I did in that clearing back there. Only just before the Venusians came I knew you were going to love me, hating me at the same time. I didn't want you that way.

"It wasn't just a challenge then," she said, her white teeth gritting. "It was you, because I suddenly thought you were noble and honest and because I thought the strength was real. But I was wrong, Nic."

Caine wiped his palms slowly back and forth against his jacket.

She shook her head. "You haven't got any real strength. And you just carry your nobility and your honesty around like a sign. They're not inside of you. You scream for the rights of Venusians, you swear at injustice. You damn the people who've colonized this planet, and you hold yourself up like you thought you were a god. Only you're not. You're not anything. You're just another cheap screamer with wide shoulders and no guts. And instead of trying to do something about what you're screaming against, you climb into the first ship going out because you can't stand the sight of blood. You're not strong, you're weak. I thought I loved you, only I can't love a weak man, and you're weak." Her hand slipped from the vine and she crumpled to the ground.

Caine stood watching her for a long moment, then he walked slowly back and picked her up. He held her in his arms. With his left hand, he lifted her head so that he could see her face, and he saw the fatigue there that had finally made her collapse and he saw the blood that was still trickling along her cheek.

He bent down and kissed her lips, gently, and then he began to walk toward the yellow light and the warmth and the rest. She was light and soft in his arms, and he liked the feeling of her there. And so he took his time, step by step, because he knew he wasn't going anywhere, not for a long time.

 Prev. P 27/27