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By Root 453 0

and she felt a suffocating pang as memories surged into her mind of the many, many times she had cried, feeling that there was nothing worthwhile left in the whole world. Yet with the rise of empathy came a rush of shame. Whenever some small thing went wrong in her own life she had indulged in misery and self-pity, thinking she knew what suffering was. She did not know. But Ruth did. Alone in an alien world, sick and weak and grieving for the death of someone close to her – Ruth was suffering in a way that she, Nina, could not even imagine.

Her voice choked with an emotion she was only just beginning to understand, she said helplessly, 'Don't, Ruth! Please – I'll help you. I'll do anything I can –'

Ruth said something that sounded like, 'C ... can't ...'

'I can, I'm sure I can! If you'll let me try.'

'Nn . . .'Her head moved jerkily. 'I only want ...'

'What?' Nina pressed eagerly. 'What do you want, Ruth?'

'I w-want ...' Ruth's throat quivered and another eerie howl began, but with a huge effort she quashed it. 'I want to ... go home.'

Nina wasn't wearing her watch, so she had no idea how much time passed before Ruth's emotional storm blew itself out, but it was a nightmarish experience. The two of them sat together on the cave floor, their arms around each other, while the terrible howling sound went on and on. Nina had retrieved the torch and switched it off to conserve the battery, so the only light now came from faint phosphorescent patches in the rock around them. To her strung-out imagination they seemed to be fading slowly and letting the dark encroach, like the gradual closing of a huge prison door. The underground heat added another oppressive dimension, and Nina began to feel that time had stopped and the world would be this way for ever.

But at last the howling subsided and finally ceased, and the moment came when Ruth gently shook herself free and said in a voice that was almost normal, 'I'm ... all right. Better now.' In the gloom her face was a dim, sickly-pale oval as she turned to look at Nina. 'Thank you.'

Nina tried to smile. 'That's all right. I understand.'

Ruth stood up. She was unsteady, but some strength had returned, and she moved slowly towards the far end of the cave, where she stood staring at the patch of darkness Nina had seen earlier. It was a tunnel, as Nina had surmised, and as Nina also approached it the machine-like thrumming, which had been a constant if almost unnoticed background noise, seemed to grow louder.

'I don't know what to do,' Ruth said quietly. 'I just don't know.'

'You want to go home, you said.'

'I can't.'

Nina got to her feet, wincing as cramped leg muscles twinged, and walked towards her. 'Why not?' She hesitated. 'I know how you came here. The Doctor told me about the spatial gate.'

'Oh, yes. That.' There was a bitterness in Ruth's tone which Nina didn't understand, and she persevered. 'Is it here, in the mine?'

A nod.

'Then –'

'I can't,' Ruth interrupted flatly. 'And anyway ... I'm too frightened.'

'Frightened to use your gateway? Ruth, that's crazy! There's far more for you to be frightened of here! You've got to go back – you're sick, and the sickness will get worse as long as you stay on this planet! You must know –'

'Of course I know! But I'm still frightened.' She hung her head. 'Because of what we did. What I did. I can't face telling them what happened to ...'

'Your friend?'

'He was my ... I don't know your word ... We were ...' Ruth shook her head and made another of the eerie hiss-clicking sounds. 'Mated?'

Oh, God, Nina thought. Very gently she said, 'We would say: you were lovers.

'Lovers.' Ruth repeated it, but to her it was clearly just a sound with no meaning. She started to shake again, and the beginnings of another grieving howl vibrated in her throat, but with an enormous effort she stemmed it. 'I know it was his idea, but I went along with it. We broke the law, and he paid for that with his life. I heard him crash, Nina. We were communicating; I heard the flier fail, I heard him trying