The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

“Come, wife,” he said, reaching out to catch her wrist until she allowed him to unmask her. “I don’t pretend to understand what’s upsetting you, but I’m willing to thrash it out if you are. Tell me plainly what you are thinking.”

“Looks like your hair first thing in the morning,” he replied. “Only it’s everywhere instead of just in my face.”

He cupped his mouth and howled for her. Not with words, but just a cry, a dumb animal baying that he had never before imagined any dumaq could make.

“Say something to him.” “Gee,” she said, in her most neutral voice. “I didn’t have a speech prepared, but choke on piss and die.”

“I don’t care!” Meoraq exploded. “I want what they took from me, Gann damn you! I forgive you all your past! All of it! I don’t care if you rubbed your cock on the Prophet’s burnt bones, take me to their fucking nest!” “Now?” “Now!”

And when you speak to her—” Meoraq pointed at Amber without looking at her, shoving his snout kissing-close to Scott’s face. “—I cut your fucking head off.”

“You were never a slave. You were always mine! You are still mine!” He caught her wrists and forced them down, forced her to look at him through the wet shine of her tears. “Sheul Himself gave you to me and what He has bound, nothing breaks! How do you mark me, woman?”

As he passed Crandall, he glanced back and, seeing Amber’s eyes shut tight against the taste of the tea, delivered a swift slap to the back of the human’s hairy head.

“You’re in such a cheerful mood,” Amber remarked. “Lies.” “All right, you’re being a bitch.” “I told you to hush.”

It was Amber’s voice that rang out next, slurred but strong and filled with fire: “You want to thank your God and his that I am a girl, Crandall, because it’s my girlie squeamishness at seeing a man sliced up the middle that’s keeping you alive right now. You don’t like it? Feel free to go back where we found you! Otherwise, shut the fiddling fuck up, and if you say one more word about my sex life, I will knock every tooth out of your ungrateful mouth, so help me, God. There’s only one person who calls me ‘woman’ and gets away with it and buddy, you aren’t it.”

“He? What, you mean God?” Momentarily unpinned, Amber erupted into giggles just as fantastically inappropriate as her hysterics had been. “He tells me I’m going to need saving for the rest of my stupid life, that’s what He tells me!” And Meoraq nodded, either oblivious to her sarcasm or pretending to be. “Then I will always be there to save you.”

“You said you’d always take care of me.” “I am.” “Not like you used to.” Amber nodded, accepting this, then shook her head, and then just sat there and stared at the cupboard ceiling. “I don’t think I did either of us any favors hovering over you like that back home,” she said at last. “Mama wasn’t much of a mother…and neither was I. I love you, Nicci, I do…” She sighed and rubbed her eyes, then made herself turn around and face her expressionless sister without flinching. “…but I’m not going to carry you for the rest of your life. The ship crashed and I’m sorry…but it’s time to move on.”

She was sleeping soundly when he woke her to tend her wound. The maggots had done their work well; the flesh looked pink and had a strong knit going where the beetle heads had been placed. He washed the wound twice with tea and licked it thoroughly, ignoring Amber’s informative mutterings as to how ‘gross’ he was.

When he overheard Amber telling his children the tale of this pilgrimage, he did not want to hear the words, “…and your father acted like a bitch the whole way back.”

“It’s so nice to know that no matter what else happens, I’ll always have moments like this…when you don’t have the slightest idea what I’m saying.” “This makes you happy?” “Yeah, a bit.” Meoraq thought that over and shrugged his spines. “If it makes you any happier, I have at least one of those moments nearly every day.” Her smile widened. “Guess that means we’re married, huh?”

“Will you stand with me, wife? One more hour?” “Meoraq…what if—” He pushed his mouthparts against hers and rubbed them lightly together until she pushed him away, laughing. “Will you stand with me?” he asked again. “I think my lips are bleeding.” “Will you?” “Oh for Christ’s sake, I have to say it?” She sighed, wiped her mouth, then suddenly raised both arms and dropped them loudly to her side. “I’m with you,” she said. “I’m always with you. So…open up that door, Meoraq. Let’s do this.” He smiled, nuzzling her one more time, and put his palm to the lock-plate.

“You told me once that I was good at seeing evidence and, boy, did it piss me off because this is something that I really did not want to see. But men can only push themselves so far, Meoraq, and men with faith can only push so much further. All the evidence is telling me…there’s something else out there, pulling from the other side. I don’t like it,” said Amber bluntly. “I’m not at peace with it. I sure as hell don’t take comfort in it…but I’m glad you do.” He frowned, tried to look away, but Amber caught his snout and turned him back. “Because all the things God isn’t for me,” she said, “you are. Because of you, I see Him every day. So start talking, lizardman, but I warn you, you’ve got a hard talk ahead of you if you’re going to convince me there’s no God after He gave you to me.”

and I was holding her kind of like this. Waiting for the world to end.” He grunted. “But it didn’t. End, I mean. Life went on.” She heard herself utter a surprisingly sincere little laugh without knowing she was going to. “Look how far it went on.”

Want to know why I called it Gann? Would that prove something to you?” “It’s the name of this planet, isn’t it?” “Before the Fall, we called the planet I’az. It’s an old, old word that means, eh, foundation. The stuff beneath your feet.” “Earth,” whispered Amber.

“Who are you?” she whispered. “Who are you, really?” “Me?” Lashraq shrugged his spines and shoulders at the same time. “I’m the warning.” And as she tried to wrap her head around that, he reached out and clasped her shoulder. His grip was strong; his eyes were kind. “But there will be a boat,” he told her. “And a helicopter. So hold on, Amber. Watch for them. And take the chance when you see it, because I can only give you one.”

but he thought she was beautiful. There in the open doorway with the light of day behind her, turning her hair to a haze of white and gold, wearing one of his tunics and the green girdle given by the lady of House Uyane. Frightened, but standing, because she would know no other way than to survive for as long as she had breath. He looked at her and from where he lay with all this empty room between them, he could still feel her arms around him.

“Do it right this time, you murdering cunt,” he said dully. She stabbed him in the neck and cut, stopped to spit out his blood and rest her watery

“We’ll wait for you,” his father said. “Remember that and let go.” Let go. He’d said that to Amber once, in the ruins the night of the storm, and although he couldn’t bring that night fully into focus through this terrible pain, he thought she’d done it. Because she’d trusted him to hold her.

I want to go home, Amber, and I want to stay home when I get there.” She leaned against his side in sympathy, then startled and gave him a sharp, wondering stare. He noticed and shrugged his spines. “If there is no God, it doesn’t matter. If there is, surely He would want me to call my wife by her beautiful name. Amber.” He pinched her chin and leaned in to nuzzle at her. “My Amber. Come home with me.” She cupped his face and kissed him back. “You know I will.” “Do I?” “Meoraq, if there had been a starship waiting there all fueled up and freshly-waxed just the way Scott wanted, I’d still be going home with you. Didn’t you know that by now?” “Yes,” he said and nipped at her shoulder. “But I like to hear you say it.”