Heinlein, Robert A - Time Enough for Love, page 72
“All right. Not a word from here on. Pat my foot and point if you have to—and stay that close. Remember what I said about star shells. See any Boche, don’t breathe. If they surprise us—surrender at once.”
“‘Surrender’?”
“If you want to be a grandfather. You can’t kill a German patrol all by your lonesome. Even if you could, it would make so much racket that their machine guns would chop you in two. Stick close and stay down.”
Lazarus could almost touch the first German wire when a star shell burst and the private panicked—tried for a shell hole they had just come through and was bit as he fell into it.
Lazarus lay still and listened to screams as the dazzling star burned above him. One of our own, he mused; a German shell would burst to backlight the American trenches. If that poor little dope doesn’t shut up, the air around here is going to be thick with merry greetings. Can’t cut wire with all that advertising. And—oh, hell, he’s my boy; I’ve got to take care of him. Probably be a favor to Dinky to finish him off—but Maureen wouldn’t like that. Okay, let’s get him back—then come back and finish this crummy detail. No sleep tonight and over the top about oh-four-hundred. Next time join the Navy.
The flare died out and Lazarus was up fast and moving— as another star shell flared. Machine-gun bullets stitched his side and knocked him into the shell hole. One struck a hard implant in the right side of his belly, tumbled, and chewed its way out just above his left hip. Others did other damage— nothing too difficult to repair in 4291 A.D., but, this being the Dark Ages, any one of them was enough.
Lazarus felt it only as a mighty blow that knocked him off his feet and into the shell hole. He did not become unconscious at once; he had time to realize that he was mortally wounded. He lay as he had fallen and looked up at his stars, realizing that he had come to his ending place.
Every animal finds its ending place. Some find it in a trap, another in a fight it cannot win, some happy few in a quiet place to wait for the end. Whatever it is, it is the ending place and most of us know when we reach it. This is mine.
Did Dinky know? I think so, he’s stopped screaming—I think he looked for his. Odd that it doesn’t hurt. Thanks for making it worthwhile, Maureen…Llita…Dorable…Tamara…Minerva…Laz…Lor…Ira…Maureen—
He heard wild geese honking high overhead, looked up at his stars again as they blacked out.
CODA
II
“You still don’t understand,” the Gray Voice droned on. “There is no time, there is no space. What was, is, and ever shall be. You are you, playing chess with yourself, and again you have checkmated yourself. You are the referee. Morals are your agreement with yourself to abide by your own rules. To thine own self be true or you spoil the game.”
“Crazy.”
“Then vary the rules and play a different game. You cannot exhaust her infinite variety.”
“If you would just let me look at your face,” Lazarus muttered pettishly.
“Try a mirror.”
CODA
III
From the Kansas City Post November 7, 1918:
CODA
IV
Ira! Galahad! Got him?”
Yes! Hoist us in! Oh, what a mess! Ish, about two liters and lots of jelly.”
Get him inside and let me see him. Lor, you can get us out of here now.”
Seal up, Dora, and bounce it!”
“Sealed and zooming! Screens down! What the goddamn hell have they done to Boss?”
“I’m trying to find out, Dora. Be ready with the tank; I may freeze him.”
“Ready now, Ish. Laz-Lor, I told you we should pick him up sooner. I told you.”
“Pipe down, Dora. We told him he’d get his ass shot off. But he was having more fun than kittens—”
“—and wouldn’t have thanked us—”
“—and wouldn’t have come—”
“—you know how stubborn he is.”
“Tamara,” said Ishtar, “cuddle his head and talk to him. Keep him alive. I don’t want to freeze him—if at all—until I’ve made temporary repairs. Hamadryad, clamp there! Mm
Galahad, one slug hit. the Finder. That’s how his intestines got so chopped up.”
“Clone-trans?”
“Perhaps. The way he regenerates, repair and support may be enough. Justin, you were right; the dates on his letters did prove that he didn’t last through it; losing the Finder’s signal pinpointed when and where. Galahad, are you finding more fragments? I want to close him. Tamara, rouse him, make him talk! I don’t want to have to freeze him. The rest of you shut up and get out! Go help Minerva with the children.”
“Glad to,” Justin said hoarsely. “I’m about to throw up.”
“Maureen?” Lazarus murmured.
“I’m here, darling,” Tamara answered, cradling his head against her breasts.
“Bad…dream. Thought…I was…dead.”
“Just a dream, Beloved. You cannot die.”
Time Enough for Love (lit), Heinlein, Robert A - Time Enough for Love
