Nightmare journey

was you had, you might as well be made useful.”
    Jask tried to pull free, couldn't manage it.
    “Starting tomorrow,” the mutant said, “we're going to take that scrawny, underfed, undermotivated body of yours, and we're going to turn it and you into a valuable part of this expedition. We're going to get you up and moving. We're going to start you on an exercise program-push-ups, sit-ups, knee-bends, the whole works. We're going to put muscle where there isn't any, whether you think it makes you primitive or not. You're going to start eating well. If you can keep breakfast down, you'll take a full stick of meat, half a loaf of bread and canned fruit for lunch. You'll have two sticks of meat and a quarter pound of cheese for supper. Protein and more protein-”
    “I don't like that meat,” Jask said.
    “Tough luck,” the bruin said, letting him fall back to the ground. “Starting tomorrow, you're going to do a lot of things you don't like.”
    “You're just wasting your time,” Jask said. “You could go on by yourself and cover more ground then-”
    “No.”
    “I'm only a hindrance.”
    “You're coming along.”
    Angry, Jask recovered more of his strength than he had possessed ever since he'd come out of his fever dreams. He sat up, swaying, his lips tight and his hands fisted. “There's no good reason for me to go!” he screamed, his voice not unlike that of a petulant child. “I'll be in your way. I don't want to go deeper into the Wildlands, away from Lady Nature. I don't want to go through any rigorous exercise program. You see? There simply isn't any reason for you to make me do all this.”
    “There is,” Tedesco said, savagely, furious for being forced to reveal his reasons but left with no other response. “I don't want to have to go all that way alone.” He turned away from Jask and stalked to the other side of the clearing where he stood for a long while, watching the colored lights in the jewels.
    15
    FOR the following twenty days they lived by strict routine. They rose early and breakfasted in whatever clearing they had spent the night, then set out on their trek into the jeweled sea. Each day they walked not fewer than ten kilometers and not more than fifteen, choosing another campsite-with larger-than- average trees-by noon or shortly thereafter. They ate lunch. They rested to permit proper digestion. Then, Tedesco became a taskmaster without equal, daily increasing the number of exercises Jask was to do, stretching his pupil's endurance, building his strength. At supper they talked about what they had seen during the day's walk, about what they might expect ahead of them. After an hour's rest the evening was passed in weaponry instruction. In just two weeks Jask had become quick enough and sure enough to rate Tedesco's approval as a knife fighter-and in another week he was fairly accomplished with the throwing knife as well, striking the trunks of the trees eight times out of every ten tosses. They went to bed early and slept soundly and began the routine all over again. And again.
    Water was no problem, for rain had fallen seven times in those twenty days; the channels in the jeweled sea acted as drainage spouts for the storm, gushing white water up to their ankles. They found it a simple enough matter to fill their containers whenever this happened.
    Food was a knottier problem, for they rapidly depleted what Tedesco had packed and what Jask had crammed into the gray cloth sack in the warehouse. Tedesco used the power rifles to shoot at some of the larger birds that nested in the jewels and that sometimes flew low over the roof of a clearing. Now and then he bagged one of them, though the power bolt often tore them or charred them so badly that they were not fit to eat. The bruin eventually rationed his own food and cut back on his intake, but continued to force Jask to consume his limit and then some.
    One night, when he had eaten more than Tedesco and thought he saw a glint of hunger in the mutant's dark eyes, Jask said, “This isn't right. It's plain that you've lost twenty pounds during the last two weeks, while I've been gorging myself.”
    “Don't forget,'' Tedesco said, “that you're the one doing all the exercises; you need to eat more than I do.”
    “That doesn't alter the fact that you're beginning to look positively emaciated.”
    “I can stand the loss,'' Tedesco growled, though his coat of fur was hanging loosely on him, as if he had purchased it two sizes too large in some odd clothing