A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin Read Free Book Online

have so much more."
    “We're luckier,” I echoed. And I reached out to read her too. Her mind was a haze of satisfaction, with a gentle scent of wistful, lonely longing. But there was something else, way down, almost gone now, but still faintly detectable.
    I sat up slowly. “Hey,” I said. “You're worried about something. And before, when we came in, you were scared. What's the matter?"
    “I don't know, really,” she said. She sounded puzzled and she was puzzled; I read it there. “I was scared, but I don't know why. The Joined, I think. I kept thinking about how much they loved me. They didn't even know me, but they loved me so much, and they understood—it was almost like what we have. It—I don't know. It bothered me. I mean, I didn't think I could ever be loved that way, except by you. And they were so close , so together. I felt kind of lonely, just holding hands and talking. I wanted to be close to you that way. After the way they were all sharing and everything, being alone just seemed empty. And frightening. You know?"
    “I know,” I said, touching her lightly again, with hand and mind. “I understand. We do understand each other. We're together almost as they are, as Normals can't ever be."
    Lya nodded, and smiled, and hugged me. We went to sleep in each other's arms.
    * * * *
    Dreams again. But again, at dawn, the memory stole away from me. It was all very annoying. The dream had been pleasant, comfortable. I wanted it back, and I couldn't even remember what it was. Our bedroom, washed by harsh daylight, seemed drab compared to the splendors of my lost vision.
    Lya woke after me, with another headache. This time she had the pills on hand, by the bedstand. She grimaced and took one.
    “It must be the Shkeen wine,” I told her. “Something about it takes a dim view of your metabolism."
    She pulled on a fresh coverall and scowled at me. “Ha. We were drinking Veltaar last night, remember? My father gave me my first glass of Veltaar when I was nine. It never gave me headaches before."
    “A first!” I said, smiling.
    “It's not funny,” she said. “It hurts."
    I quit kidding, and tried to read her. She was right. It did hurt. Her whole forehead throbbed with pain. I withdrew quickly before I caught it too.
    “All right,” I said. “I'm sorry. The pills will take care of it, though. Meanwhile, we've got work to do."
    Lya nodded. She'd never let anything interfere with work yet.
    The second day was a day of manhunt. We got off to a much earlier start, had a quick breakfast with Gourlay, then picked up our aircar outside the tower. This time we didn't drop down when we hit Shkeentown. We wanted a human Joined, which meant we had to cover a lot of ground. The city was the biggest I'd ever seen, in area at any rate, and the thousand-odd human cultists were lost among millions of Shkeen. And, of those humans, only about half were actually Joined yet.
    So we kept the aircar low, and buzzed up and down the dome-dotted hills like a floating rollercoaster, causing quite a stir in the streets below us. The Shkeen had seen aircars be-fore, of course, but it still had some novelty value, particularly to the kids, who tried to run after us whenever we flashed by. We also panicked a whiner, causing him to upset the cart full of fruit he was dragging. I felt guilty about that, so I kept the car higher afterwards.
    We spotted Joined all over the city, singing, eating, walking—and ringing those bells, those eternal bronze bells. But for the first three hours, all we found were Shkeen Joined. Lya and I took turns driving and watching. After the excitement of the previous day, the search was tedious and tiring.
    Finally, however, we found something: a large group of Joined, ten of them, clustered around a bread cart behind one of the steeper hills. Two were taller than the rest.
    We landed on the other side of the hill and walked around to meet them, leaving our aircar surrounded by a crowd of Shkeen children.