The Shores of Death (13 page)

He sat there, slumped, staring at the clear sky. Beyond it, Barre Calax’s fleet waited. Perhaps it was moving in already. Perhaps Calax would win and establish a firm, if dictatorial, government, get the project going again. He didn’t really care, though he felt he should.

Then he thought of Alodios, suffering perhaps even more than he was, and he said: “Even if we fail, at least someone will benefit. Perhaps we should fail—for his sake.”

But she had fallen asleep.

He got up and looked down at her. He could feel very little towards her except regret—and regret consumed him.

Passionless, yet remembering passion; corrupt, yet with a memory of innocence; imprisoned in his terrible casing, his fraud of a body, that invulnerable armour locking out his humanity, Clovis Marca walked away from her, into the desert.