Free none Page B

crush her, and the next moment she hadwrenched away from him and dashed away between the trees, screaming wildly.
    The trees seemed to waver and dip before his eyes, to form long black witch-claws to entangle him,tripping him up, throwing him full length into briars that raked along his arm and stung like fire. Lightningflashed with the color of the pain in his arm; he felt a wild and sudden
    terror as some unknown animal crashed a path in the forest, a stampede, hoofs, beating, beating,
    crushing him... he flung his arms around the bole of a tree and

    53
    clung to it, the pounding of his heart driving out all other thought. The tree's bark was soft and smooth, like the fur of some animal; he laid his hot face against it. Faces were watching him from the trees, faces, faces... .

    Page 40

    "Camilla," he murmured, dazed, slipped to the ground and lay insensible.

    On the heights, clouds gathered; fog began to rise. The wind died, and a thin fine rain began to fall,slowly turning to sleet; first on the heights, then in the valley. The flowers closed their bells; the bees andinsects sought their holes in the tree-trunks and underbrush; and the pollen dropped, its work done, tothe ground... .

    Camilla woke, dazed, into dim darkness. She remembered nothing after she had run, screaming,panicked at the wideness as of interstellar space, nothing between her and the spreading stars... no. Thathad been delirium. Had it   all been delirium? She explored slowly in the darkness, was rewarded by agleam of light--a cave-mouth. She crept to the door of the cave and shivered with sudden icy cold. Shewas wearing only a thin cotton shirt and slacks, torn and disordered--no. Thank God, her parka was tiedaround her neck by its sleeves. Rafe had done it while they lay together by the bank of the stream.
    Rafe. Where was he? Come to think of it, where was   she   ? How much of the wild and disordereddreams were real and how much insane fantasy? Evidently she had caught some fever, some illness whichlay in wait here. This horrible planet! This horrible place! How long had elapsed? Why was she alonehere? Where were her scientific instruments, where her pack? Where--this was the burningquestion--where was Rafe?
    She struggled into her parka and zipped it up, and felt the worst of the shivering subside, but she feltcold and hungry and nauseous, and her body ached and throbbed with a hundred scratches and bruises. Had Rafe left her here in the shelter of the cave while he went to fetch help? Had she been lying in feverand delirium for long? No, he would have left some message in case she recovered consciousness.
    She looked through the falling snow, trying to figure out where she could possibly be. Above her, a
    dark slope rose. She must have dived into the cave in mad terror of

    54

    the open spaces around her, seeking any darkness and shelter against the fear that lay on her. Perhaps MacAran was out in this wild weather looking for her, and they could wander for hours in the dark, missing one another by a few feet in the driving snow.
    Logic bade her sit down and take stock of her situation. She was warmly clad now, and couldshelter in the cave till daybreak. But suppose MacAran, too, was lost on the hillside? Had it attackedthem both, that sudden fear, that panic?   And where had it come from, that joy, the abandon... No,that was for later, she couldn't think now about that   .

    Where would MacAran seek her? The best thing was to climb up, toward the peak. Yes. They hadleft their packs there; and it was the one place from which they could orient themselves when the sun roseand the snow subsided. She would climb, and chance that logic would prompt MacAran to do the same.

    Page 41

    If not, and she found herself alone when dawn broke, she could make her way back to the camp wherethe others could help--or to the ship.
    She climbed in the dark, driving snow, seeking each step for the way straight upward. After a time
    she began to guess