A Thousand Deaths Read Online Free Page B

from the affairs of the community at large, but then so would be his triumphs, and Earth would be cheated of these. And Courane would be cheated of the acceptance that he needed so desperately. That was the true punishment.
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    It was just past sunset. The first brush of stars glinted in the sky like the dust of broken jewels on sable. The air was already cooling, and it was the rising wind that had roused Courane. Where am I? he thought. I'm on my way home, he told himself. I'm on my way to my parents' home in Greusching.
    Then why was he sitting alone in the middle of some voiceless desert? Where was he? He stared into the sky and watched the deep blue lose the last faint measure of light. He watched the stars increase and he watched them form patterns and shapes in the heavens. He felt fear grow in him as he searched in vain for familiar constellations. There was no Dipper, no Orion, no Cassiopeia, no Draco. The moon, low on the horizon, was half the size it ought to be and was an untrustworthy purplish color.
    Courane had the same feeling one has on waking from a particularly vivid dream, when the waking world and the dream are superimposed for a moment, when aspects of one distort images of the other, and one must make an effort to sort them and decide which shall have precedence for the remainder of the day.
    Courane knew he wasn't on Earth, and that took away the fear he had felt looking into the strange foreign sky. But then, how did he explain being alone and lost in a waterless wilderness? That would take more of an effort, he was afraid, and he was further afraid that he was not equal to it. He breathed deeply. The cool night air was spiced with the earthy smells of the sunbaked rocks and the parched sand. A more unpleasant odor made him frown, and he sought its source. He discovered the young woman's corpse and gave a cry of alarm. He did not know who she was or why she was with him. The idea of sharing the night with a corpse did not bother him so much as the notion that he appeared to be involved in a terrible drama and had no sense at all of its significance.
    He found the explanatory note before he decided to sleep, and this time he had a good idea as well. He reasoned that if he had written the note to himself, then his periods of lucidity were alternating with periods of complete forgetfulness. It was likely that he would forget her name again, as well as his mission. He decided to fasten the note to the woman's blouse, rather than stuffing it back into his pocket. Then next time he would have his explanation as soon as he discovered her again. He still did not recall what she had meant to him or why she had died, or why he was carrying her across the desert or why she had to return to the house, or where the house was or who was waiting in it for her.
    As he waited for sleep, Courane hoped that when he awoke he would not start off across the sand before he discovered the body again. It was possible that he might leave her there and go wandering off into the wastes to die himself.
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    In New York, Courane arrived at the TELETRANS Substation a quarter hour early. There were very few people wandering about. Teletrans was still a very expensive way to travel; most people still used the trains and airlines, and only the rich and the desperate made the instantaneous journeys by tect. For travel between cities on Earth, it was almost prohibitively expensive. For travel between the stars, it was the only way to go.
    Courane stood with his zipper bag and looked around. On the ceiling of the substation were depictions of the six men who had been the Representatives, done as though they were novel groups of stars in the sky of the northern hemisphere. These men had retired now one by one, and the last of them had turned over the power and the responsibility to the tireless and unerring TECT. The Representatives today were but nonexistent constellations and fading memories. TECT governed for them and few people