Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [90]
He stepped in close to her and said tightly, “How about an eternity of lifetimes, Eppy? Because that’s what we’ve got here. And you can spend eternity arguing about it, and refusing to accept what’s right before you… or you can start taking things on faith.” And he stomped away, so incensed over Shelby’s refusal to accept what he was telling her that he didn’t notice the freshly dug ambush pit until it was a millisecond too late. As he plunged, with the jagged, sharpened stones rushing to meet him, he cursed Eppy with his dying breath and wondered how many times he’d made that curse…
“Is that what this is about, Eppy?” he demanded. “You have trouble believing in higher powers, and as a consequence, all this is too much for you to cope with?”
“I cope with being your wife, Calhoun. That’s enough coping for one lifetime.”
He stepped in close to her and said tightly, “How about an eternity of lifetimes, Eppy? Because that’s what we’ve got here. And you can spend eternity arguing about it, and refusing to accept what’s right before you… or you can start taking things on faith.”
He started to stomp away, and at that moment, Shelby felt a sudden warning in her head. She had no idea why, no clue as to what could or would happen, but it was enough to make her cry out, as if his life depended on it, “Mac!”
He stopped, but remained with his back to her. She walked quickly to him, boots crunching against the dry ground, and she wondered if it ever rained in paradise. Taking him by the elbow, she turned him around to face her. “What’s going on here, Mac?”
“What do you mean, “What’s going on here’?” he said, looking and sounding defensive. “I’ve already explained the”
“No,” she shook her head. “I mean what’s going on here, with you. I’ve never seen you like this.”
He looked at her uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know what you mean”
“Yes, you do, Mac.” She took a deep breath. “Actually… I don’t think you have to tell me. I think I know what’s going through your mind.”
“Do you?”
In the distance she saw the Xenexians going through training maneuvers. For all she knew, another wave of opponents she couldn’t call them “enemies,” really would come charging from across the way at any time. And why not? That’s what it was all about, after all, wasn’t it? Endless strife? Endless battle? She let out the breath she’d taken and told him, “I think you want to stay.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No. No, it’s not. I think it’s damned attractive to you. No rules, because they don’t matter. What you do by the book one day, you throw out the next day, and none of it makes any difference for as long as the sun rises and sets. But this place, Mac… this place… it can’t be. There’s nothing that says the gateways can actually take us to… to otherworldly spheres. We’re having a… a mutual delusion or something, trapped in some sort of other-dimensional limbo perhaps. It’s a spacial equivalent of a holodeck. There have been cases, documented cases, of sections of space where the mind makes reality out of fantasy…”
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded, and she saw that he was getting angry, really angry. “Why is it so damned impossible for you to believe? I’ve been hearing stories of Kaz’hera, believed in it, since as… as early as I can remember…”
“And I heard about the Hundred Acre Woods, Mac, but I’m not going in search of Winnie-the-Pooh. This, all of this… it’s not real. It’s what we said before, a sort of… of mutual delusion. But it’s not real…”
“It’s as real as we want it to be,” said Calhoun forcefully. Then his eyes widened as he realized, “Xyon…”
“Your son? What about him?”
“I… I thought he was dead. But I haven’t seen Xyon here. Maybe… maybe he’s alive. Maybe…”
She took him by the shoulders and said firmly, “Mac… we have to leave.”
He looked at her defiantly. “If this is being formed by our mutual delusion, why is it only someplace that I’m familiar with?” he demanded. “Why aren’t we in whatever you picture as heaven?”
And with all the sincerity that she was capable of mustering, she said, “Because