Gods and Pawns Read Online Free PDF

just sort of become one with the landscape and blend in. Have you ever done that?”
    Lewis shook his head. “Though I’ve known a few who did. People who have stayed out in the field too long. They’re certainly the best at what they do, and some of them can do some remarkable things…one fellow I knew called it stripping down to the machine. Cutting away the inessentials. They’re not bothered by rain or snow or heat.”
    “See, I think that would be marvelous. You’d be sort of this super Zen master ninja cyborg,” said Mendoza. “You wouldn’t need anything. What stories they must have to tell!”
    “Except that they don’t tell them,” said Lewis.
    “What?”
    “They’re not great talkers. I suppose that becomes inessential, too. They don’t work well with other operatives, much, and they can’t work around mortals at all.”
    “Oh.” She lowered her gaze to the little fire. “Well, it’s still an interesting idea.”
     
    They retired early, Mendoza crawling into the sole remaining bivvy and Lewis wrapping himself up in his poncho in one of the crates. He lay there a while, cold and uncomfortable, listening to distant thunder. Gradually the thunder moved closer, and the lightning became more frequent. He opened his eyes and looked up just as a blue-white flash revealed dozens of insects, including a tarantula, making their determined way over the edge of the crate, all of them looking for a warm place to spend the night.
    “Yikes!” Lewis nearly levitated up and out of the crate, landing with a squelch in the long grass.
    “What?” Mendoza leaned up on her elbows.
    “Just, er, a few bugs,” said Lewis, leaping to his feet and smacking at something crawling up his arm. “It’s all right—”
    “Look—” Mendoza unzipped the flap. “This is dumb. Crawl in here with me. There’s room enough and we can lie back to back, okay? Chaste as anything.”
    “Okay,” said Lewis, and scrambled into the bivvy. Mendoza zipped it shut again.
    They slept, chaste as anything. The rain began to fall again. The night filled with the scent of green leaves.
     
    Lewis opened his eyes. Sunlight, above his face, sparkling on water drops. Early early sunlight, just after a gentle misty dawn. He could glimpse blue sky through the canopy, and a flash of color as a macaw streaked by overhead. The storm had rolled through.
    None of which made any impression on him, however, because he was lying on his back and Mendoza was resting her head on his chest, and had thrown one arm over him, and was holding him close.
    He lay there, scarcely daring to breathe.
    Lord God Apollo, this is Lewis. Remember me? I don’t suppose you’d remember, actually, I’m not the sort of fellow people remember much, but anyway here I am, and I still pray to you occasionally even though I’m a cyborg now, and I was just wondering: I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stop time, right this minute? Right here, in this moment, for the rest of Eternity?
    She was warm. Her hair was fragrant with something. Roses? Her arm was bare. She was breathing quietly as a child.
    He could almost—
    “Mh… Nicholas? ”
    He felt her come awake, utterly relaxed one moment and utterly alert the next. He squeezed his eyes shut.
    She started violently, and he heard her draw a sharp breath. A frozen moment of immobility; then, with great care, she drew away from Lewis and turned on her side, with her back to him.
    She made no sound, but he felt the slight trembling as she wept.
     
    Lewis waited an hour before stretching and yawning loudly.
    “My gosh, the sun is shining!” he announced.
    “And we made it through the night without being washed down the hill,” said Mendoza in a bright voice. She turned to face him, red-eyed but calm and collected.
    “What shall we do today?” said Lewis. “Other than pay a heck of a lot of attention to barometrical readings?”
    “Hang things out to dry,” she said, leaning up on one elbow to peer out