Uezen. Snowdon King
for?”
“Suara? No, noo! I can’t do that. I can’t.… I’ve got to know where she’s going.…”
“As you wish then,” Mud said and handed him the cup.
All his lost love, all his suffering, all his remembrances, everything was draining down the throat of a body that was abandoning itself to the unknown. He saw in quick succession what had mattered most in his life: his mother’s tender words, her fingers playing with his curly blond hair; his father’s support, his strong arms balancing him on his shoulders; his grandparents’ joy, the enchanted realm of the stories; Suara’s voice, her hot lips melting him in the silence of the night.…
Suara, beloved,
You carry me on the kiss of a thousand lips,
Upon my wish, you change into the most beautiful face,
Long forgotten voices vibrate in me,
Embrace me,
I thought you would never come,
You were but a mere whisper lost in a thunder of echoes…
Suara…the milk of each starry night
Flourished your bosom
While I recited my bone flute psalm,
Remember what I felt…
Remember my thought, the most beautiful moment of sincerity…
A child exiled in a cage of erotic dreams
Forever sentenced to endless desire.
Do I still exist?2
The liquid was burning his guts. The veins swelled and all his senses grew ten times, a hundred times more powerful. The transparent vision of an old man reading a book appeared before him. On the yellowed pages there was a map. At once he recognized the outpost, the Tanor, and near it the former springs.…
1. Snowdon King—Giving In, translated by Vanda Florea.
2. Snowdon King—Suara, translated by Vanda Florea.
CHAPTER TWO
KARAN
He felt a cold touch and opened his eyes. A young nurse was wetting his forehead with a compress.
“Look who’s woken up!”
He tried to sit up but his body wouldn’t budge.…
“Don’t move. You’ve got to get more strength first.”
The nurse fed him, spoonful by spoonful, as if he were a baby, almost half the bowl of hot soup. Soon Tarek opened the door and asked in a low voice.
“Excuse me, can I speak to the gentleman?”
“Do you have a pass?”
“Yes, I’ve just talked to Dr. Kilmer,” he answered and handed her the paper.
“OK then. Make sure you don’t tire him out. He’s still very weak. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“No problem.”
Tarek waited for the nurse to leave and came closer to the bed.
“How do you feel, young man?”
“Lousy.… What did you expect?”
“I believe you, young man. You were in a deep coma for a whole week. No one thought you’d ever recover.…”
“You know.… Not long ago I was in Zayon, even if I was twiddling my thumbs in the factory.…”
“I understand you. But what kind of life was that? You wouldn’t have left if you’d enjoyed it, right? Anyway, it’s really so strange what happened to you.… In the middle of the desert, next to a heap of corpses.… People keep talking about Uezen’s murders.…”
“Uezen??”
“What? Haven’t you heard of Uezen?”
“Well, I have but I didn’t think.…”
“There are all sorts of rumors in the outpost.… According to most of them he’s a horrible creature that kills out of sheer pleasure.…”
“In the middle of the desert? Who could live there?”
“I don’t know, I’ve kept wondering myself. But again there might be one of those schemes. Another excuse to get rid of the troublemakers, eh?”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it’s true.… Listen, what do you remember exactly?”
“Well, I left Zayon, crossed the equator line.… About half an hour before getting there I don’t know how I lost control of the topter. I found myself in the desert, with the communication system burnt out. I tried to fix it but I failed.… Eventually I decided to leave the place, I couldn’t wait forever, not with the little water I had.… I kept walking north till…and now comes the hard part.… I really don’t know what happened. Like a strange dream, and now I’ve got to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Besides, my head’s about to explode!”
“Hm…there’s something rotten here.…”
“What do you mean?”
“We got an SOS from your coordinates.… But if you say that.…”
“I didn’t send anything, there was no way I could do it.…”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now.… I’m sure you’ll remember, sooner or later. You know, if you’d cared to spend more darins on a better topter, you wouldn’t be such a mess.…”
“Listen, Tarek, I’ve got this thing on my mind, do you know anyone by the name of Mud?”
“Who? Mud? Haven’t heard. She may be one of the newcomers.… I haven’t had time to meet them all.… Why do you ask?”
“Actually…she’s…an acquaintance.…”
“Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday. Let me guess.… Your new sweetheart?”
“Yeah, and more special than the others.…”
“Well, they’re all special at first.… One thing is clear, though, after a while they shut you up and you lose the taste of adventure.… Right? Tell me, what is she, a Terran, a Pteolean?”
“No, it’s not that.… There was something odd about her.… We met in a.… I wish I knew where.…”
“And did you take any drugs?”
“No, let me just clear my mind a little bit and I’ll tell you.…”
“How is it going, gentlemen?” the nurse asked entering the room.
“Pretty well. Tomorrow I’m gonna introduce him to some of the girls here.…”
“Be patient, Mr. Tarek,” the nurse said laughing.
“Tomorrow he’ll be moved to warden 205. Which doesn’t mean we’ll stop keeping an eye on him… With so many young women around who knows what he may be up to.”
“Ha, ha! I can’t agree with you more. See you then. Have a nice day with Nagur.”
“You too, Tarek.”
* * * *
He was alone in a large room, lying on an iron bedstead. On the left-hand-side wall there was a mirror. Strange. He felt his face and noticed some of the wrinkles had disappeared.… Maybe because of the