Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [92]
“Leaving? Leaving for what?” he asked skeptically. “Even if we manage to retrace our steps, even if we find the gateway… all it’ll do is put us right back out onto the ice world.”
“Maybe we’ll be rescued.”
“Not a lot of time to be rescued in, Eppy. More likely we’ll die.”
“Well then,” she shrugged, “maybe I’ll get to explore the whole heaven thing after all.”
For a long, long moment he was silent, and in that moment, she was absolutely positive that she had lost him. That she was going to wander around, on her own, trying to find perhaps unto eternity the gateway. Hell, the damned thing probably wouldn’t even be open.
He wasn’t moving. Well… that was that.
She stood on her toes, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and she wasn’t sure what prompted her to say it, but she whispered, “Godspeed” into his ear. Then she turned and started to walk away, and found to her surprise that she was praying for Mac to come with her.
From behind her, he called, “You’re asking me to give up everything I believe in, in order to be with you. And if we go back and we die together… I’d likely wind up back here, and you would be… wherever…”
She stopped, turned and smiled. “I guess that’s what “till death do us part’ is all about, isn’t it, Mac?”
They faced each other then, a seeming gulf between them, and she wondered whether they’d ever faced each other like this before. Whether they were, in fact, replaying a moment over and over and over again, coming this far together and no further.
Calhoun let out a heavy sigh, then, and it seemed to Shelby at that moment that a very, very small part of him died just a little bit when he did so.
” ‘Till death do us part,’ ” he agreed, and walked toward her. And with a cry of joy that was slightly choked, Shelby ran to him and threw herself into his arms, holding him so tightly that she found it hard to believe, at that moment, that there had ever been a time when they weren’t embracing one another.
That was when, from behind them, a gruff voice growled, “Is this what you’ve come to, then?”
They turned and Gr’zy was standing there, the mustache under his nose bristling, his purple eyes dark and furious as the sea. His hand was twitching near the great sword that hung from his hip, but he did not draw it. “Is this what you’ve come to?” his father said again. “A chance to be with me… to be with your own kind… and you throw it all away to run off with…” He could barely get the word out. “… her? You would place love above the glory of battle? Have you no priorities?”
“I have mine, you have yours,” said Calhoun. Shelby had no idea what that pronouncement was costing him, but he said it with conviction and certainty. His mind was made up, and for that she felt abundant relief, because there was nothing in the universe more stubborn, more determined, and more implacable than a Mackenzie Calhoun with his mind made up.
“You’re no son of mine,” said his father angrily, turning away.
“No son of yours?” Calhoun repeated the phrase with obvious incredulity. But when he spoke, it was not in a pleading or whining tone, the voice of a child imploring a parent for approval. It was the voice of a man who knew his mind, knew in his heart that he was right, and was setting the record straight for someone too dense to see it. “Everything I did, I did in your memory. Every Danteri bastard I cut down with my sword, I did so avenging your death. I freed a planet on your behalf and if that isn’t good enough to earn your approval in the afterlife, then to hell with you.”
Gr’zy took a step toward him, drawing a hand back as if ready to belt his son across the face. Calhoun made no move to stop it; merely stood there, his chin upturned,