The Planet Savers Including the Waterfall

Free The Planet Savers Including the Waterfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley
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wants to be sane? Good night, Camilla. See you an hour before sunrise," and strode away, leaving her to go before him into the shelter.
     
           A clear night, over the planet of the four moons. Banshees prowled on the heights, freezing their warm blooded prey with their screams, blundering toward them by the heat of their blood, but never coming below the snow-line; on a snowless night, anything on rock or grass was safe. Above the valleys, great birds of prey swung; beasts still unknown to the Earthmen prowled in the depths of the deep forest, living and dying, and trees unheard crashed to the ground. Under the moonlight, in the unaccustomed heat and dryness of a warm wind blowing away from the glaciated ridges, flowers bloomed and opened, and shed their perfume and pollen. Night-blooming
 
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    and strange, with a deep and intoxicating scent... .
           The red sun rose clear and cloudless, a brilliant sunrise with the sun like a giant ruby in a clear garnet sky. Rafe and Camilla, who had been at the telescope for two hours, sat and watched it with the pleasant fatigue of a light task safely over for some time.
           "Shall we start down? This weather is too good to last," Camilla said, "and although I've gotten used to the mountain in the sun, I don't think I'd care to navigate it on ice."
           "Right. Pack up the instruments--you know how they go--and I'll fix a bite of rations and strike the tent. We'll start down while the weather holds--not that it doesn't look like a gorgeous day. If it's still fine tonight we can stop on one of the hilltops and camp out, and you can take some more sightings," he said.
           Within forty minutes they were going down. Rafe cast a wistful look back at the huge unknown range before turning his back on it. His own undiscovered range, and probably he would never see it again.
           Don't be too sure , a voice remarked precisely in his mind, but he shrugged it off. He didn't believe in precognition.
    He sniffed the light flower-scents, half enjoying them, half disturbed by their faintly acrid sweetness. The most noticeable were the tiny orange flowers Camilla had plucked the day before, but there was also a lovely white flower, star-shaped with a golden corolla, and a deep blue bell-like blossom with inner stalks covered with a shimmering gold-colored dust. Camilla bent over, inhaling the spicy fragrance. Rafe thought to warn her, after a moment;
           "Remember Heather and Judy turning green? Serve you right if you Do!"
           She looked up, laughing. Her face looked faintly gold from the flower-dust. "If it was going to hurt me it would have already--the air's full of the scent, or haven't you noticed? Oh, it's so beautiful, so beautiful, I feel like a flower myself, I feel as if I could get drunk on flowers--"
           She stood rapt, gazing at the beautiful bell-shaped blossom and seeming to shimmer with the golden dust. Drunk , Rafe thought, drunk on flowers . He let his pack slip from his shoulder and roll away.
           "You are a flower," he said hoarsely. He seized her and kissed her; she raised her lips to his, shyly at first, then with growing passion. They clung together in the
 
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    field of waving flowers; she broke free first, and ran toward the stream which flowed down the slope, laughing, bending to toss her hands in the water.
           Rafe thought in astonishment, what has happened to us , but the thought slid lightly over his mind and vanished. Camilla's slight body seemed to flicker, to go in and out of focus. She stripped off her climbing boots and thick socks, dabbling her feet in the water.
           Rafe bent over her and pulled her down into the long grass.
     
           In the camp on the lower heights, Heather Stuart woke slowly, feeling the hot sun through the orange silk of the tent. Marco Zabal still drowsed in his corner, his blanket drawn over his head;

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