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hundreds but I'm letting her be my choice...."
He saw Lyla half lift her hand, as in some mute gesture of protest, then she turned and walked swiftly away; up the path that led into the ghost trees, and out of sight.
He waited, but she did not come back. He went into his cabin and moved about restlessly, hearing again Narf's sadism-and-sex boasting and seeing again how she turned and almost ran from it--
* * * * *
"Rootenant!"
Alonzo was panting, a look of frantic appeal in his eyes.
"Prease herp me ... Princess Ryra ... she wirr die!"
He felt his heart lurch. "She's hurt?" he demanded, and was already on his way to the door.
"She are about to cry and she are going to where the tree tigers riv. They wirr kirr her--prease come with me!"
He asked no more questions but went out the door and up the path, Alonzo running ahead of him.
The ghost trees grew thinner as they went up the mountain's slope, and the blue-green fernlike trees of the tiger forest began to appear. They grew thicker and thicker, until the ground was black with their shadows and the midday sunlight was filtered out by the foliage overhead. Alonzo was trailing her, his nose to the ground, and Hunter hurried close behind him, watching for the red-and-white of the clothes she was wearing and hoping they would not find her too late.
They were deep in the forest when they found her.
She was standing motionless in the center of a clearing, facing away from him and looking as small and alone as a lost child. She seemed to be waiting....
He realized for the first time how alone she really was, with only a doglike alien, Alonzo, to love her or care what might happen to her, and with a future she could not bear to face. But Rockford had been wrong when he had said, For her, there is no escape.
There was escape for her. She had only to wait, as she was waiting now, and it would come in the windlike whisper of a tiger's rush through the grass behind her....
He hurried to her. She turned, and he saw the stains of tears now dry on her face and in her eyes the darkness of utter defeat.
"I was afraid you might get hurt, Lyla--"
Then, seemingly without volition on his part, he put his arms around her and she was clinging to him and crying in muffled sobs and trying to say something about, "I didn't think anybody cared...."
It was some time later, when her crying was finished, that he was reminded of the tigers by Alonzo:
"Rootenant ... awr the time, some tigers are coming croser and croser. We better get her out of here, Rootenant, before they find us."
Lyla looked down at Alonzo. "Thank you, Alonzo, for watching over me and ... and--" Her voice caught and she dropped to her knees and hugged the shaggy head tight against her.
Hunter watched ahead, Lyla beside him as they went through the dense trees. Alonzo walked soft-footed behind them, watching the rear. When they came to the first ghost trees and the dwindling of the tiger trees, Hunter thought it safe to walk slower and talk to her.
"I saw you go," he said. "I didn't know where until Alonzo came running to tell me."
"I heard him bragging about killing, and about his women--I was weak, wasn't I?"
"Weak?"
"I was afraid to face the future, just because it isn't to be exactly like I thought I wanted."
"What was the kind you wanted, Lyla?"
"Oh ... I guess I wanted a husband who could see me only, and children, and evenings together in the flower garden, and ... well, all the silly, sentimental little things that mean so much to a woman."
He thought, Even with its heart half cut out, it still wanted to live ... Coat for Janalee ... the strip-tease queen....
They passed through the last of the tiger trees and she said, "We're safe, now. The tigers never attack anyone outside their forest."
She was walking slowly and he said, "We should get on back before you're missed, shouldn't we?"
"Who would miss me?" she asked. "So long as I remain physically intact for the marriage night, who cares where or why I went away?"
There was the cold bleakness of winter in her eyes as she spoke, and in her voice the first undertone of brass. He saw that this was already the beginning of the change that Narf would make in her; the transformation of a girl young and wanting to love and be loved into a hard and cynical woman.
He put his arm around her shoulder, thinking that he should tell her that he cared and that she must never let Narf change her.
"Lyla, I--"
He realized how futile and foolish the words would