Fire in the Sky

10

“… so the attack is over now, the Kushayt cleaned out.”

Marrin was sitting in the wrack of branches and leaves at the base of the tree where the flikit was still balanced precariously overhead, talking into the com. He looked up when he saw Shadith coming through the trees, nodded somberly and continued with his report. “How many dead? Maybe in the thousands for the Eolt, as to the others…”

Shadith said, “Fifty-nine.”

“Shadow says fifty-nine Keteng and Fior dead from the cleanup.”

Shadith dug into the branches and lifted the harp-case she’d hidden there, slung the strap over her shoulder. Then stopped, appalled at what she heard coming over the com.

“… too bad. All those deaths really weren’t necessary.”

Marrin’s face paled. “What! What do you mean, Goлs Koraka?”

Shadith came to kneel beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

The small voice spoke again, calm and musing in a way that brought the hairs up on her spine. She closed her fingers tighter, felt Marrin wince, took her hand away.

“I tried to get hold of you, but I couldn’t get an answer. We got a call here about an hour and a half ago. From the Chave docking station. It was the Highborn Genree ni Jilet in a panic. The docking station’s kephalos was going insane, the argrav was turning lethal, they didn’t know when or where it would dip to nothing or max out on them, crushing whoever happened to be standing in the wrong place. And the life support systems were shutting down. He wanted us to come get him and the others.” The Goлs’s voice vibrated with malicious glee. “He didn’t want to tell me why all this was happening, but I wasn’t about to put my people in harm’s way so he had to convince me it wasn’t a trap.” He started talking faster, the words pouring out of him as he relished the telling of his enemy’s humiliation.

“The Ykkuval made a pet out of one of the locals, one of those harp players like the one we dealt with. Thought he was tame and harmless. Well, the harmless pet picked the moment when the Ykkuval was linked to the kephalos to shove a poison dart in his neck and toss some sort of spores to contaminate the circuits. Even the fuel cells were corrupted. Everything went blam. The techs cleaned the kephalos up and got it running again, Genree took over and had the Security chief shot for negligence. Then things started breaking down again, so he and the other highborn took off to the Docking Station where they could be comfortable, forgetting, I suppose, if they ever knew it, that it was Chave policy to keep the station slaved to the downside kephalos.

“They’re down here now, not liking it much, but alive. All the locals had to do was starve the Chave out, they wouldn’t last long with no power and not much food. It’s too bad we missed connections. You’re hard on flikits, Aide.” He was almost giggling now, he was enjoying this so much. “I’ll send another for you and the Harper. I hope you don’t mind if I insist my pilot do the flying.”

In the blaze from Bйluchad’s starfield the ceremony for the dead began.

Marrin sat on the crumbling Kushayt wall with a Ridaar remote flaking the scene, while Shadith moved into the middle of the white ceramic landing pad, stood with head back, her harp at her feet, the case transformed, her sleeves ripped off, and her arms held out from her body.

Singing in muted mode the Eolt swarmed overhead, dipping to brush her with their speaking tentacles, sending shudders of pain/joy through her body at the touch, sharing with her infinitesimal bits of Eolt energy.

She settled herself on the transformed case, took up the harp and touched the strings, searching for the song that would gather the grief and say it for all of them. There were no Ards here, bonded in sioll; she was all they had.

This great death by fire became for her the death of her homeworld which was also a death by fire when Shayalin’s sun went nova. It was real for her for the first time in the twenty millennia since she’d got word her home was gone. Her eyes filled with tears and she wept, grief for Shayalin mingled with grief for the death of the Eolt. For them and for herself, she played the Death Song the Weavers of Shayalin made for their own.

The Eolt sang, blending their great voices around her small one.

The Fior and Keteng knelt beside the bundles of their dead and listened to the Requiem.

And Marrin recorded it, his face grim with anger, grief and regret.