Darkover: First Contact by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

After a moment he put his arm around her waist, and said gently, “Like I said before, if you fall again and get hurt badly we’ll have to carry you. Don’t do that to us, Camilla.” He added, hesitatingly, “You’d have let Jenny help you, wouldn’t you?”
    She did not answer, but she let herself lean on him. He guided her stumbling steps toward the small glow of light through the tent. Somewhere above them, in the thick trees, the harsh call of a night-bird broke through the noise of the beating sleet, but there was no other sound. Even their steps sounded odd and alien here.
    Inside the tent MacAran sagged, gratefully taking the plastic cup of boiling tea MacLeod handed him, stepping carefully to where his sleeping bag had been spread beside Ewen’s. He sipped at the boiling liquid, brushing ice from his eyelids, hearing Heather and Judy making cooing sounds over Camilla’s icy face, bustling around in the cramped quarters and bringing her hot tea, a dry blanket, helping her out of her iced-over parka. Ewen asked, “What’s it doing out there—rain? Hail? Sleet?”
    “Mixture of all three, I’d guess. We seem to have lucked right into some kind of equinoctial storm, I’d imagine. It can’t be like this all year round.”
    “Did you get your readings?” At MacAran’s affirmative nod, he said, “One of us should have gone, the Lieutenant’s not really up to that kind of climb in this weather. Wonder what made her try?”
    MacAran looked across at Camilla, huddled under a blanket, with Judy drying her wet, tangled hair as she sipped the boiling tea. He said, surprising himself, “Noblesse oblige.”
    Ewen nodded. “I know what you mean. Let me get you some soup. Judy did some great things with the ration. Good to have a food expert along.”
    They were all exhausted and talked little of what they had seen; the howling of the wind and sleet outside made speech difficult in any case. Within half an hour they had downed their food and crawled into their sleeping bags. Heather snuggled close to Ewen, her head on his shoulder, and MacAran, just beyond them, looked at their joined bodies with a slow, undefined envy. There seemed a closeness there which had little to do with sexuality. It spoke in the way they shifted their weight, almost unconsciously, each to ease and comfort the other. Against his will he thought of the moment when Camilla had let herself rest against him, and smiled wryly in the dark. Of all the women in the ship she was the least likely to be interested in him, and probably the one he disliked most. But damn it, he had to admire her!
    He lay awake for a time, listening to the noise of wind in the heavy trees, to the sound of a tree cracking and crashing down somewhere in the storm— God! If one fell on the tent, we’d all be killed —to strange sounds which might be animals crashing through the underbrush. After a while, fitfully, he slept, but with one ear open, hearing MacLeod gasping in his sleep and moaning, once hearing Camilla cry out, a nightmarish cry, then fall again into exhausted sleep. Toward morning the storm quieted and the rain ceased and he slept like the dead, hearing only through his sleep the sounds of strange beasts and birds moving in the nighted forest and on the unknown hills.

CHAPTER THREE
    Some time before dawn he roused, hearing Camilla stirring, and saw across the dark tent that she was struggling into her uniform. He slid quietly from his sleeping bag, and asked softly, “What is it?”
    “The rain’s stopped and the sky’s clear; I want some sky-sightings and spectrograph readings before the fog comes in.”
    “Right. Need any help?”
    “No, Marco can help carry the instruments.”
    He started to protest, then shrugged and crawled back into his sleeping bag. It wasn’t entirely up to him. She knew her business and didn’t need his careful watchfulness. She’d made that amply clear.
    Some undefined apprehension, however, kept him from sleeping