Hunter Of Worlds

Chapter 14

RAKHI SWEATED. Great beads of perspiration rolled down the sides of his face, and the serenity of the paredre of Ashanome flashed in and out with the nervous flicker of a half-hearted mind-touch at the projection apparatus. But it was not projection. Between pulses the air was close and stank of burning; he occupied a woman’s body, felt the urge to takkenes with the life within it, a strangeness of yearning where there was yet neither movement nor fully mind—only the most primitive sort of life, but selfed, and precious. Rage surged coldly over his nerves: lights dimmed, lights flashed, screens flared and went dark. He dared do nothing but ride it out, joined, aware, occasionally guiding Chaikhe’s tired mind when she faltered in reaction. His body had limbs of vast size, his mind extended into a hundred circuits; he felt with her as her mind touched and manipulated contacts, shunted power from one system to another with a coordination as smooth as that of a living body.

And he perceived the hammering of Tejef’s weapons against the ship/body, the flow of energies on the shields, a debilitating drainage of power that required a great effort to balance defense between weakness and waste and destruction to the city. It began to be evident: Tejef’s ship, a small akites, had Chaikhe’s power supply from two lesser ships at a disadvantage. Chaikhe could, by skill and efficient management, prolong the struggle, but she was incapable of offensive action. Tejef could not down her shields, for probe and transfer ships such as Chaikhe commanded were heavily shielded, but their combined weaponry, while adequate to level a city, had no effect against an akites. The chronometer continued its relentless progress, ticking off the moments as Ashanome-time proceeded toward main-dark, and Kej, light-years away, had fled the ambered sea of Thiphrel: shadow flooded the coastal plain to the east of Mount Im, advancing toward ancient Cheltaris. Priamos-time, on the inner track, went more slowly, but had less time to run. Nine hours had passed since midnight. When three more had gone, Priamos would blaze like a novaed star and die.

Life-support/cooling had shut down entirely save for the control room. Lights were out everywhere but the panel even there. In the base ship Tesyel and the remaining crew huddled on the bridge, five degrees cooler than Chaikhe’s command center. The amaut with Tesyel suffered cruelly in the heat, mopping dry skin with moistened cloths, lying still, listless. Communications were almost out. Only the sensors that maintained the field and the shields were still fully operative.

The attack slacked off. It did so at irregular intervals, and Chaikhe allowed the automatic cutback to the secondary shields. But groundscan was picking up movement in what had been a dead zone; Chaikhe mentally reached for the image and the dark silhouette of an iduve appeared on the screen—no human, that lean quick shadow. Takkhenes reached and confirmed it: she saw the image hesitate at the touch, felt the ferocity that was Ashakh.

Chimele’s orders! Rakhi sent. Break, break contact, now! And Chimele in the paredre was on her feet, her face dark with anger. Chaikhe flinched from the wrath Rakhi transmitted; but her attack reflexes had reacted before Rakhi’s cooler counsel prevailed, shunted power to the attack and expended heavily against Tejef’s shields.

Think! Rakhi sent. Nothing can live amid those energies. Hold back before you kill Ashakh.

She cut back suddenly—return fire damaged systems. She began to replot. But in another part of her mind she knew Ashakh still alive, about to die if she kept her shields extended as she must. Warn him, warn him, she thought. Does he expect me to lower defenses for him and die? What is he doing?

Calm! Rakhi insisted, and winced from the fury of her mind, m’melakhia for Ashakh in deadly conflict with that for the child in her, fury washing out reason. Kill! The impulse surged through her being, but Rakhi’s singleminded negative imposed control and she extended her mind to watch Ashakh’s progress.

More of the witless humans were creeping out from cover, as if the lesson of scores of human and amaut dead were not enough to teach them the peril of the field about the embattled ships; and like the stubborn creatures they were they moved out, stalking Ashakh and his two companions.

Aiela, Chaikhe recognized the azure-skinned being that moved beside Ashakh, but the small person with them, an amaut—

Tesyel, she sent by the idoikkhe: Have you dispatched any okkitan-as to Weissmouth?

“Negative,” came the nas kame’s voice. “We had no time. I scan that one, but I do not know him.”

A Priamid amaut. Ashakh’s witlessness appalled her, his lack of m’melakhia for Ashanome in taking on such a servant sent waves of heat to her face. Ashakh! she hurled an impact of mind at him that he had no means to receive, but perhaps takkhenes itself carried her anger. Ashakh hesitated, looked full toward the ship.

And arched his back and fell, trying even in the motion to bring his weapon to bear. Chaikhe gave a shrill hiss of rage, seeing the humans that had done it, a shot from beyond him. Ashakh fired: a hundred ehsim of port landscape became a hemisphere of light and a handful of humans and an amaut aircraft were not there when it imploded into darkness, nor again when normal light returned, Tejef’s shields tightened and flared at the rippling of that energy, sucked outward toward Ashakh. Chaikhe reacted instantly, aware of the distant figures of the nas kame and the amaut trying to drag Ashakh back out of the exposed area. She hit at Tejef’s shields, and as her searching mind found no consciousness in Ashakh a rage grew in her, a determination to destroy everything, to force Ashanome to wipe out akites and port and population entire. If her sra was to die, it deserved that for serach, she and Ashakh and her child.

“No!” Rakhi shouted into her mind. “Chimele forbids! Chimele forbids, Chaikhe!”

She gave a moan, a keening of rage, and desisted. But another impulse seized her, a fierceness to vaikka upon the power against whom she and Ashakh struggled, be it Chimele, be it Tejef.

Chaikhe! Rakhi cried. Through his mind Chimele radiated terrible anger. But Chaikhe wrapped herself in the chill of her own arastiethe, suddenly diverted power from the shields to communications, playing mental havoc with the circuitry of the ship until she patched into amaut communications citywide. The whole process took a few blinks of an eye. The frightened chatter of amaut voices came back to her.

Be sure what you do, Rakhi advised her, Chimele’s order; but Chimele’s takkhenois lost some of its fierceness and flowed into alignment, feeding her will, supporting her now that her mind was clear.

“Open citywide address channels,” Chaikhe ordered, and received the acknowledgment of the terrified amaut in command of their communications.

“I am the emissary of the Orithain,” Chaikhe began softly, the phrase that had heralded the terror of iduve decrees since the dawn of civilization in the metrosi. “Hail Priamos. We pose you now alternatives. If this rebel iduve is not ours before midday, we shall destroy as much of Weissmouth and of Priamos as is necessary to take or destroy him; if this colony seems to side with him, we shall eliminate it. Evacuation is logistically impossible and the use of this field is extremely hazardous. I counsel you against it. I have said.”

She ceased, and listened in satisfaction as amaut communications went chaotic with incoming and outgoing calls, amaut asking orders, officers reacting in harried outbursts of emotion, sometimes a human’s different voice calling in, incomprehensible and distraught.

The panic had begun. It would run through the city, into the tunnels, and into every command station in the amaut colony. Vaikka, Chaikhe told herself with satisfaction. They are sure we are among them now. And the knowledge that these pathetic beings scattered before her attack filled her with a shuddering desire to pursue the vaikka further; but other duties called. Tejef. Tejef was the objective.

Attack resumed, ineffectual vaikka from Tejef for the damage done him among the amaut who trusted him for protection. Aiela had taken Ashakh beyond the range of weapons fire, and there was the grateful feel of returning consciousness from Ashakh. Her heart swelled with gladness.

No! cried Rakhi. “Chimele will not permit contact, Chaikhe.”

The attack increased. Systems faltered. There was no time to dispute.

The spate of fire was a brief one; the glow about the iduve ships dimmed and the humans dared come from cover again. Aiela saw them moving far across the field and fired his own pistol to put a temporary stop to it. The humans were not yet aware that the weapon could not kill. He feared they would not be long in learning, about as long as it took for the first that he had fired on to recover; and as for the iduve weapon, that black thing like an elongate egg, there was indeed no way to operate it save by mind-touch.

“Let us go back, please, let us go back,” Kleph pleaded. “Let us get off this awful field, into the safe dark, o please, sir.”

A small projectile exploded not far away, and Kleph winced into a tighter crouch, almost a single ball of knees and arms, moaning.

It was indeed too close. Aiela seized Ashakh’s limp arm and snapped at Kleph an order to take the other. It was the first order Kleph had obeyed with any enthusiasm, and they hurried, pulling the iduve back into the cover of the basement from which they had emerged onto the field. There they had only the light of Kleph’s lamp and what came from the open door; and the very foundations shook with the pounding of fire out on the field. The wailing of sirens went on and on.

Ashakh stirred at last. He had been conscious from time to time, but only barely so. The shot that had struck him in the back would have likely been a mortal wound had he been kallia; but Ashakh’s heart, which beat to right center of his chest, had kept a strong rhythm. This time when he opened his eyes they were clear and aware. “A human weapon?” Ashakh asked. “Yes, sir.”

“Niseth,” murmured the proud iduve for the second time. “Au, kameth, Tejefu-prha-idoikkhe—“

“He has not used it.”

That much puzzled Ashakh. Aiela could see the perplexity go through his eyes. Then he struggled to get his hands under him, Aiela’s protests notwithstanding. “Either Tejef is too busy to divert his attention to you or Chaikhe has been taking care of you, kameth. I think the latter. This would be a serious error on his part.”

“Chaikhe gave him something to worry about,” said Aiela. “It was over the loudspeakers all over the field. She advised Priamos what it could expect—I don’t doubt it went to the city too. The field emptied quickly after that announcement, except for a determined few. We saw one aircraft try to take off.”

“It hit the shields,” burst out Kleph, his saucer eyes wide. “O great lord, it went in a puff of fire.”

“Tekasuphre,” judged Ashakh. He struggled to sit upright, and it was probable that he was in great pain, although he gave no demonstration of it. He suffered in silence while Aiela made a bandage of Kleph’s folded handkerchief and attempted to wedge it into position within Ashakh’s belt. There was surprisingly little bleeding, but the iduve’s normally hot skin was cold to the touch, and the iduve seemed distracted, mentally elsewhere. So much of the iduve’s life was mind: Aiela wondered now if mind were not being diverted toward other purposes, sustaining body.

“Sir,” he said, “Ashakh—you have to have help, and we don’t know what to do. How bad is it?”

It was badly asked: Aiela realized it at once, for Ashakh’s face clouded and the idoikkhe tingled, the barest prickling. Arastiethe forbade—and yet Ashakh forebore temper.

“I meant,” Aiela amended gently, “that I can’t tell what it hit, or how to deal with it. In a kallia, it would be serious. I have no knowledge of iduve anatomy.”

“It is painful,” Ashakh conceded, “and my concentration is necessarily impaired. I regret, kameth, but I advise you to seek Chaikhe at your earliest opportunity. I remind you I predicted this.”

“I have long since found it is futile to expect explanations between iduve and kallia to make sense,” said Aiela, all the while his asuthi heard and pleaded with him to take Ashakh’s offer. “My interests lie with my asuthi and with you, and once with Chaikhe I can’t do much for either.”

Ashakh frowned. “You are kameth, not nas.”

Aiela shrugged. It was not productive to become involved in an argument with an iduve. Silence was the one thing they could not fight. He simply did not go, and looked up toward Kleph, who, ignored, had begun to creep toward the dark of the tunnel opening.

“Stay where you are,” Aiela warned him.

“Ai, sir,” said Kleph, “I did not—“ And suddenly the amaut’s mouth made one quick open and shut and he scrambled backward, while Ashakh reached wildly for the weapon that was no longer in his belt but in Aiela’s, rescued from the outside pavement.

Toshi and Gerlach and two humans were in the tunnel opening, weapons leveled.

Fire! Daniel screamed at Aiela; and Isande sent a negative.

Aiela, cursing his own lack of foresight, simply gathered himself up in leisurely dignity, dropped Ashakh’s weapon and his own from his belt, and bent again to assist Ashakh, who was determined to get to his feet. Kleph shrugged and dusted himself off busily as if his presence there were the most natural thing in the world.

“Sir,” exclaimed Kleph to Gerlach, “I am relieved. May I assist you with these persons?”

Never had Aiela seen an amaut truly overcome with anger, but Gerlach fairly snarled at Kleph, a spitting sound; and Kleph scampered back out of his reach, forgetting to bow on the retreat, his face twisted in a grimace of fright and rage.

“Kleph double-heart, Kleph glib of speech,” exclaimed Gerlach, “you are to blame for this disaster.” He seemed likely to rush at Kleph in his fury; but then he fell silent and seemed for the first time to realize the enormity of his situation, for Ashakh drew himself up to his slim towering height, folded his arms placidly, and looked down at their diminutive captor.

“Prha, kameth?” Ashakh asked of Aiela. Arastiethe forbade he should take direct account of the likes of Gerlach and Toshi.

“Gerlach knows well enough,” said Aiela, “that karsh Gomek would pay dearly should he kill you, sir; they would pay with every Gomek ship in the Esliph and the metrosi. If he were wise at all, he would leave iduve business to the iduve.”

“We want Priamos,” Gerlach protested, “Priamos with its fields undamaged.”

‘”That will not be,” said Aiela, “unless you stand aside.”

“If my lords will yield gracefully, I shall see that this matter is indeed settled by iduve, by the lord-on-Priamos.”

“You have chosen the wrong loyalty,” said Aiela.

“We had only one knowable choice,” said Gerlach. “We know that the lord-on-Priamos wants this world intact and the lord-above-Priamos wants to destroy us. Perhaps our choice was wrong; but it is made. We know what the lord-above-Priamos will do to us if we lose the lord-on-Priamos to protect us. We are little people. We shelter in what shade is offered us, and only the lord-on-Priamos casts a shadow on this world.”

Aiela thought that was for Ashakh to answer; but the iduve simply stared at the little fellow, and of course it was unproductive to argue. Elethia insisted upon silence where no proof would convince; and Gerlach was left to sweat in the interval, faced with the necessity of moving a starlord who was not in a mood to reason.

“Guard them,” he said suddenly to Toshi. “I have other matters to attend.” And he scurried up the steps to daylight, not without a snarl at Kleph. “Shoot this one on the least excuse,” he told Toshi, looking back. Then he was gone.

“What good do you get from this?” Aiela asked then in human speech, addressing himself to the mercenaries with Toshi. “What’s your gain, except a burned world?”

“We know you,” said the dark-faced one. “You and your companions cost us three good friends the last trip into this city.”

“But what,” asked Aiela, “do you have to gain from Tejef?”

The man shrugged, a lift of one shoulder, as humans did. “We aren’t going to listen to you.”

How do I reason with that? Aiela asked of Daniel.

Forget it, Daniel sent. Tejef’s kamethi chose to be with him.

They have giyre.

Believe this, sent Daniel. They’ll kill you where you stand. If Ashakh drops, that little devil of an amaut will send them for your throat, and you’ll have no more mercy out of them than from her.

Aiela looked uneasily at Ashakh, who with great dignity had withdrawn to the brick wall and leaned there in the corner, arms folded, one foot resting on a bit of pipe. The iduve merely stared at the humans and at Toshi, looking capable of going for their throats, but a moment ago he had been in a state of complete collapse, and Aiela had the uncomfortable feeling that arastiethe alone was keeping the man on his feet, pure iduve arrogance. It would not hold him there forever.

Something was mightily amiss in the ship. Amaut bustled up and down the corridor, and the lights had been dimming periodically. Arle watched from the security of the glass-fronted infirmary and saw the hurrying outside become frantic. The lights dimmed again. She scurried back to the banks of instruments at Margaret’s bedside and wondered anxiously whether they varied because the power was going out or because there was something wrong with Margaret.

She slept so long.

(“You stay, watch,” Tejef had told her personally, setting her at this post and making her secure before the sickening lunge the ship had made aloft and down again; and Dlechish, the awful little amaut surgeon, had been there through that, making sure all went well with Margaret.)

Dlechish was gone now, Arle had had the infirmary to herself ever since this insanity with the lights had begun, and she was glad at least not to have to share the room with amaut.

But Margaret was so pale, and breathed with such difficulty. When the instruments faltered, Arle would clench her hands on the edge of her hard seat and hold her own breath until the lines resumed their regular pattern. Of the machines themselves she understood nothing but that these lines were Margaret’s life, and when they ceased, Margaret’s existence would have ceased also.

The lights dimmed again and flickered lower. Margaret stirred in her sleep, tossing, struggling to move against the restraints and the frames and the tubing. When Arle attempted to hold her still, Margaret tried the harder to rid herself of the encumbrances, and began to work her hand free. Arle pleaded. Margaret’s movements were out of delirium and nightmare. She began to cry out in her pain.

“Tejef!” Arle cried at the intercom. And when no answer came she went out and tried to find someone, one of the guards, anyone at all. She began to run, hard-breathing, to one and another of the compartments off the infirmary, trying to find at least one of the amaut attendants.

The fourth door yielded an amaut who gibbered at her and thrust an ugly black gun at her. She screamed in fright, and her eyes widened as she saw the dark man who lay inside the room, unconscious or dead, in the embrace of restraints and strange instruments.

She tried to dart under the amaut’s reach. He seized her arm in one strong amautish hand and twisted it cruelly. Of a sudden he let her go.

She kicked him and fled, and met a black-clad man chest-on. She looked up and was only realizing it was Tejef when his hand cracked across her face.

It threw her down, hurt her jaw, and made her deaf for a moment; but dazed and hurt as she was she knew that he had slapped, not hit, and that the tempers which gripped him would pass. She gave a desperate sob of effort, scrambled to her feet, and raced for the infirmary, for Margaret, and safety.

He had followed her, coming around the corner not long after she had shut and locked the door; and to her horror she saw the door open despite the lock, without his touching it. She fled back to Margaret’s bedside and sank down there hard-breathing. She sought to ignore him by way of defense, and did not look at him.

“You’re not hurt?” Tejef demanded of her. Arle shook her head. One did not talk to Tejef when he was angry. Margaret had advised her so. She was sick with fear.

“I say stay with Margaret, m’metane-tak. Am I mistaking meaning—stay?”

“Margaret got worse. And I thought it was you in there. I’m sorry, sir.”

“I?” Tejef seemed greatly surprised, even upset, and fingered gently the hot place his blow had left on her cheek. “You are a child, Arle. A child must obey.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Niseth. I regret the blow.”

She looked up at him, perceiving that he was indeed sorry. And she knew that it embarrassed him terribly to admit that he was wrong. That was to be a man—not being wrong. Her father had been like that.

“Tejef,” said Margaret. Her eyes had opened. “Tejef, where are we?”

“Still on Priamos.” As if it were a very difficult thing he offered his hand to her reaching fingers.

“I thought I felt us move.”

“Yes.”

The confusion seemed to overwhelm her. She moaned a tiny sound and clenched her fingers the more tightly upon his; but he disengaged himself gently and quietly went about preparing Margaret’s medicines himself. The lights dimmed. Things shook in his hands.

“Sir?” Arle exclaimed, half-rising.

The lights came on again and he continued his work. He returned to Margaret’s side, ignoring Arle’s questions of lights and machines, administered another injection and waited for it to take effect.

“Tejef,” Margaret pleaded sleepily.

His lips tightened and he kept his eyes fixed upon the machines for a moment; but then he bent down and let her lips brush his cheek. Gently he returned the gesture, straightened, hissed very softly, and walked out, his long strides echoing down the hall.

When Arle looked at Margaret again, she was quiet, and slept.

“Priamos-time,” said Rakhi, “one hour remains.”

Then let me use it unhindered, Chaikhe retorted, not caring to voice or to screen. Rakhi’s periodic reminders of the time disrupted her concentration and lessened her efficiency. She had her own internal clock; cross-checking with Rakhi’s was a nuisance.

Exhaustion is lowering your efficiency, dimming your perceptions, and rendering you most difficult, Chaikhe. His mind seemed a little strained also. Chimele hovered near him like a foreboding of ruin to come. I know you are tired and short of temper. So am I. It is senseless to work against me.

Go away. Chaikhe flung herself back from the console, abandoning manual and mental controls. It was rashness. Tejef’s attacks were fewer during the last half-hour, but no less fierce. Tejef also knew the time. He was surely saving what he could for some last-moment effort.

“Do you think this man who has run us so long a chase will be predictable at the last?” Rakhi restrained his impatience; he fought against the vagaries of her hormone-heightened temper with a precise, orderly process quite foreign to his own tastes, but he could, use it when he chose.

Rakhi, thought Chaikhe distractedly, there is a bit of Chaxal in your blood after all. You sound like Ashakh, or Chimele.

Sit down, he ordered rudely, and remember that Tejef has arastiethe enough to choose his own moment. What chance has he of outlasting us, with Ashanome overhead? He knows that he must die, but he will try to make the terms not to our liking. This is not the moment for tempers, nasith-tak.

She flared for a moment, but acknowledged reason when she heard it, and scanned the instruments for him, feeding him knowledge of fading power levels, blown systems. I have done as much for this little ship as reasonably possible, she told him, and being of the order of Artists, I consider I have exceeded expectations.

“Quite true, nasith-tak.”

And at this point even Ashakh could not keep this ship functioning, she continued bitterly. Chimele knew my power on this world and she knew Tejef’s, and she drew back one ship that we might have had down here. She might have made me capable of attack, not only of defense. Am I only bait, nasith? Was I only a lure, and did she deceive me with half-truths as she did Khasif and Ashakh?

“’Impertinence!’” Chimele judged, when Rakhi conveyed that to her; and the impact of her anger was unsettling.

Did you deceive me?

“’Your question was not heard and your attitude was not perceived, nasith. However I use you, I will not be challenged. Follow my orders.’”

Tell her my shields are failing.

“’Continue in my orders.’”

Hail Chimele, she said bitterly, but Rakhi did not translate the bitterness. Tell me I am honored by her difficulty with me. But of course I am going to comply. Honor to Ashanome, and to the last of us. Walk warily, Rakhi. May the nasul live.

Rakhi stopped translating. A katasthe ought to show more respect for one who can destroy her or exile her forever. Be sensible. The Orithain’s honor is Ashanome’s. Are you takkhe? Au, Chaikhe, are you?

I am dhisais! she raged at him. I am akita! Not even Chimele has power over me. And Rakhi fled for a moment, struggling with the impulses of his own body. His blood raced faster, his borrowed fierceness tore at his nerves, tormented by Chimele’s harachia.

“We shall both be fit for the red robes,” came Rakhi’s slight mindtouch, his wonted humor a timorous thing now, and soft. “Chaikhe, do not press me further, do not.”

About the ship the shields flared once more under attack, shimmering in and out of the visible spectrum as they died, an eerie aurora effect in the late morning sun. Chaikhe shuddered, feeling the dying of the ship, wild impulses in serach and to death at war with the life in her.

Think! Rakhi’s male sanity urged.

Tesyel: her mind reached for the idoikkhe of the kameth of the base ship, a last message. I shall leave you power enough to safeguard yourself and get offworld. I do not require you for serach. A •world will be quite enough. See to your own survival.

“Are you hurt?” His kalliran voice came through with anxious stress. Tesyel was a good man, but he had his people’s tendency to become personally involved in others’ crises. Perhaps in the labyrinthine kalliran ethic he conceived that he had suffered some sort of niseth in being shown inadequate to ward off the misfortune of Ashanome, m’metane though he was. In some situations a kallia had a fierce m’melakhia of responsibility.

I am not injured, said Chaikhe, and you are without further responsibility, kameth. You have shown great elethia in my service. Now I return you to the nasul. Do nothing without directly consulting Ashanome.

“I am honored to have served you,” murmured the kameth sadly. His voice was almost lost in static. “But if I—“

The static drowned him out. In the next moment the shields collapsed. The control room went black for a few seconds. Chaikhe sought desperately to restructure the failed mechanisms, bypassing safety devices.

The attack resumed. Overheated metal stank. Light went out and dimly returned. A whining of almost harmonic sound pulsed through the ship’s structure. Power was dying altogether.

Chaikhe mind-touched the doors through to the airlock, desperately seeking air. Reserve batteries were fading too, and she fought to reach the door in the dark and the roiling smoke, choking. She fell.

Long before she knew anything else she was aware of Rakhi’s frantic pleading, trying with his own will to animate her exhausted body.

And then she knew another thing, that someone trod the inner corridor of the ship, and m’melakhia drove her to her feet, graceless and stumbling as she sought a weapon in the dark.

“Chimele forbids,” Rakhi told her, and that stunned her into angry indecision.

Forbids? What is she about to do?

Her senses reeled. Her eyes poured water, stung by the smoke, and she hurled herself blindly down the corridor.

A squat amaut shadow stood outlined against the smoke-filled light from the airlock. Chaikhe had never felt real menace in a non-iduve before: this being radiated it, a cold sickly m’melakhia that came over her crisis-heightened sensitivity. It was repugnant. She had received from kalliran minds before, particularly in katasukke; it was a talent suspect and embarrassedly hidden, e-chanokhia. Kallia held a cleanly muddle of stresses and inhibitions, cramped but intensely orderly. This creature was venomous.

“My lady,” it said with a bow, “Bnesych Gerlach at your service, my lady.”

Chaikhe felt the almost-takkenes of the child in her. Her lips quivered. Her vision blurred at the edges and became preternaturally clear upon Gerlach’s vulnerable self. She could crack his brute neck so easily, so satisfyingly. He would know it was coming; his terror would be delightful.

No! Rakhi cried. Chaikhe, rule yourself. Control. Calm.

M’melakhia focused briefly upon her asuthe, sweet and satisfying, full of the scent of blood.

I am you, he protested, horrified. It is not reasonable.

He suffered; then- arastiethe was one, and to live they each must yield. The situation defied reason.

Leave me, she pleaded, aware of Gerlach’s eyes on her, a shame that Chimele’s orders left her powerless to remedy.

He lacked the control to break away. Their joined arastiethe made him fear her fear, suffer shame with her, dread injury to the child, feel its takkhenois within his own body— things rationally impossible.

Is this what m’metanei mean by m’melakhia one for the other? Rakhi wondered out of the chaos of his own thoughts. Au, I am drowning, I am suffocating, Chaikhe, and I am too weary to let go. If he touches you, I think I shall be ill.

Gerlach was beside her. Fire had leapt up in the corridor, control room systems too damaged to prevent it, smoke choking them as the ship deteriorated further. Gerlach seized her arm and drew her on. The collapse of systems with which her mind was in contact dazed and confused her.

Let go, Rakhi urged her, let go, let go.

Her mind went inward, self-seeking, dead to the outside. She saw the paredre of Ashanome briefly; and then Rakhi performed the same inwardness and that vision went. She knew her limbs had lost their strength. She knew Gerlach’s coarse broad hands taking her, a loss of breath as she was slung across his shoulder. For a moment she was in complete withdrawal; then the pain of his jolting last step to the pavement jarred her free again.

Kill him! Rakhi’s voice in her mind was a shuddering echo and reecho, down vast corridors of distance. Chimele’s strong nails bit into his/her shoulder, reminding them of calm. Other minds began to gather: Raxomeqh’s cold brilliance, Achiqh, Najadh, Tahjekh, like tiny points of light in a vast darkness. But Chaikhe concentrated deliberately on the horror of Gerlach, his oiliness, the grotesqueries of his waddling gait and panting wheezes for breath, learning what m’metanei called hate, a disunity beyond e-takkhe, a desire beyond vaikka-nasul, a lust beyond reason.

Dhisais, dhisais, Rakhi reminded her, Chimele’s incomprehensible orders twisted through his hearing and his mind. Be Chaikhe yet for a little time more. Restraint!

She had never been so treated in her life. Not even in the fierceness of katasakke had she been compelled to be touched against her will. Did m’metanei suffer such self-lessening in being kameth, in taking part in katasukke? The thought appalled her.

Stop it, Rakhi shuddered. Au, Chaikhe, this is obscene.

Male, he, it, this—dhisais, dhisais, akita, I—kill him. My honor, mine, male, male, male, e-takkhe, I—

Rakhi’s fists slammed into the desk top, pain, pain, shattered plastics, bleeding, his wrists lacerated. The physical shock shuddered through Chaikhe’s body. She felt the wounds on her own wrists, the flow of the warm blood over her hands, tension ebbing.

We, he kept repeating into her mind, -we, together, we.

For the last few moments, Ashakh had not moved. Aiela stared at him tensely, wondering how much longer the iduve could manage to stand. He rested still with his back against the corner, his arms folded tightly across his chest, eyes closed; and whether the bleeding had started again the cellar was too dark to show. From time to time his eyes would still open and glimmer roseate fire in the light of Toshi’s wrist-globe. The little amaut never varied the angle of the gun she trained upon the both of them. Aiela began to fear that it would come soon, that Ashakh’s growing weakness would end the stalemate and render them both helpless.

Dive for an exit, Daniel advised him. The second Ashakh falls, they’ll see only him. Dive for any way out you can take. Isande, Isande, you.reason with him.

Peace, Aiela pleaded. He had another thing in mind, an attack before necessity came upon them. Toshi had one hand bandaged, thanks, no doubt, to Kleph’s hirelings outside the headquarters; and if Kleph, who huddled near Ashakh, had the will to fight, Kleph could handle Toshi—the only one of them now who had the strength for that. Aiela began instead to size up the two humans, wondering what chance he would have against the two of them.

Precious little, Daniel estimated. You’ve no instinct for it. Get yourself out of there. Get to Chaikhe. If you can’t send any more, Isande and I are cut apart, as good as dead too. We have nothing left without you.

Isande had no words: what she sent was yet more unfairly effective, and it took the heart from him. He hesitated.

Ashakh’s eyes opened slightly. “You still have the option,” he told Toshi, “to cast down your weapons and rescue yourselves.”

Toshi gave a nervous bubbling of laughter, to which the humans did not respond, not understanding.

“He said get out of here,” said Aiela, and the men looked at Ashakh as if they thought of laughing and then changed then” minds. Iduve humor was something outsiders would not recognize, nor appreciate when they saw it in action. Ashakh was indulging in a bit of vaikka, he realized in chill fear, absolutely straight-faced and far from bluffing; likely as his own death was at the moment, arastiethe forbade any unseemly behavior.

One human fled. Toshi did not let herself be distracted.

The cellar went to eye-wrenching light and dark and rumbled in collapse. Aiela and Kleph clenched themselves into a unified ball, seeking protection from the cascading cement and brick, and for a moment Aiela gave himself up to die, uncertain how much weight of concrete there was above. A large piece of it crashed into his head, bruising his protecting fingers, and at that he thought of Ashakh and scrambled the few feet to try to protect him.

In the next breath it was over, and Aiela found daylight flooding in through a gap where the door had been, and the side of the room where Toshi and the human had been was a solid mound of rubble.

A dusty and bloodied Ashakh dragged himself to his feet and leaned unsteadily on the edge of the basement steps. “Niseth,” he proclaimed. “The effect considerably exceeded calculations.”

And upon that he nearly fainted, and would have fallen, but Kleph and Aiela held him on his feet and helped him up to daylight, where the air was free of dust.

“What was it, great lord?” Kleph bubbled nervously. “What happened?”

“Aiela,” said Ashakh, catching his breath, “Aiela, go down, see if you can locate our weapons.”

Aiela hurried, searching amid the grisly rubble, pulling brick aside and fearing further collapse. He knew by now what Ashakh had done, delicately mind-touching the weapon he had so casually dropped, and negating a considerable portion of the cellar.

His own gun lay accessible. When he found Ashakh’s, it looked unscathed too, and he brought it up into the daylight and put it into the iduve’s hand.

“Damaged,” Ashakh judged regretfully. His indigo face had acquired a certain grayish cast, and his hand seemed to have difficulty returning the weapon to his belt.

“Chaikhe,” he said, and could tell them little more than that. He shook off Kleph’s hand with a violence that left the little amaut nursing a sore wrist, and stumbled forward, unreasoning, heedless of their protests. There was nothing before them but open ground, the wide expanse of the port, Chaikhe’s ship with its ramp down and the base ship beyond: closest was Tejef’s ship, hatch opened, and a smallish figure toiling toward its ramp.

“Come back,” Kleph cried after Ashakh. “O great lord, come back, come back, let this small person help you.”

But Aiela hesitated only a moment: mad as the iduve was, that ramp was indeed down and access was possible. There would not be another chance, not with the sun inching its way toward zenith. He ran to catch up, and Kleph, with a squeal of dismay, suddenly began to run too, seizing the iduve’s other arm as Aiela sought to keep him from wasting his strength in haste.

Ashakh struck at Aiela, half-hearted, his violet eyes dilated and wild; but when he realized that Aiela meant only to keep him on his feet, he cooperated and leaned on him.

And after a few meis more, it was clear that Ashakh could summon no more strength: arastiethe insisted, but the iduve’s slender body was failing him. His knees buckled, and only Kleph’s strength saved him from a headlong collapse.

“We must get off this field,” cried Kleph in panic. “O lord nas kame, let us take him to the other ship and beg them to let us in.”

Ashakh pushed away from the amaut. His effort carried him a few steps to a fall from which he could not rise.

“Let us go,” cried Kleph.

Self-preservation insisted go. The base ship would lift off before Ashanome struck. Daniel and Isande insisted so; but before them was Ashakh’s objective, and an open hatch that was the best chance and the last one.

“Get him to the greater ship,” Aiela shouted at Kleph, and began to run. “He can mind-touch the lock for you, get you in—move!”

He thought then that he had saved Ashakh’s life at least, for Kleph would not abandon him, thinking Ashakh his key to safety; and the bandy-legged fellow had the strength to manage that muscle-heavy body across the wide field.

Aiela, Aiela, mourned Isande, oh, no, Aiela.

He ran, ignoring her, mentally calculating a triangle of distance to that open hatch for himself and for the amaut that struggled along with his burden. He might make it. His side was splitting and his brain was pounding from the effort, but he might possibly make it before one instant’s notice from the iduve master of that ship could kill him.

Distract Tejef, he ordered his asuthi. Do anything you can to get free. I’m going to need all the help possible. Keep his mind from me.

Daniel cast about for a weapon, seized up a chair from its transit braces, and slammed it into monitor panel, door, walls, shouting like a madman and trying to do the maximum damage possible.

Only let one of the human staff respond to it, Daniel kept hoping. He meant to kill. The ease with which he slipped into that frame of mind affected Aiela and Isande with a certain queasiness, and stirred something primitive and shameful.

Isande began to pry at the switchplate, seeking some weakness that could trigger even the most minor alarm, but Aiela could not advise her. He could no longer think of anything but the amaut that was now striving to run under his burden.

Then his vision resolved what Ashakh’s takkhenois had told him from a much greater distance.

That bundle of green was a woman, indigo-skinned and robed as a katasathe.

Aiela had his gun in hand: though it was not designed to kill, firing on a pregnant woman gave him pause—the shock and the fall together might kill her.

And the amaut whirled suddenly in midstep, and his hand that was under Chaikhe’s body held a weapon that was indeed lethal.

Aiela fired, reflexes quicker than choice, tumbling both amaut and iduve woman into a heap, unconscious.

There was no stopping to aid Chaikhe. He ran, holding his side, stumbled onto the glidewalk of the extended ramp, daring not activate it for fear of advising Tejef of his presence. He raced up it, the hatchway looming above. It came to him that if it started to close, it could well cut him in half.

It stayed open. He almost fell onto the level surface of the airlock, ran into the corridor, his boots echoing down the emptiness.

Then the idoikkhe’s pain began, slowly pulsing, unnerving in its gradual increase. Coordination failed him and he fell, reaching for his gun, trying to brace his fingers to hold that essential weapon, expecting, hoping for Tejef s appearance, if only, if only the iduve would once make the mistake of over-confidence.

Leave me, go! he cried at his asuthi, who tried to interfere between him and the pain.

Something was breaking. The light-dimming had ceased for a time, but now a steady crashing had begun down the hall, a thunderous booming that penetrated even Margaret’s drugged sleep. She grew more and more restless, and Arle’s soothing hand could not quiet her.

Someone cried out, thin and distant, and when Arle opened the infirmary door she could hear it more plainly.

It was Daniel’s voice, Daniel as she had heard him cry out once before in the hands of the amaut, and such crashing as Margaret’s body had made when Tejef struck her. That flashed into her mind, Margaret broken by a single unintended blow.

She cried out and began to run, hurrying down the hall to that corner room, the source of the blows and the shouting. Her knees felt undone as she reached it; almost she had not the courage to touch that switch and free it, but she did, and sprawled back with a shriek as a chair hurtled down on her.

The wreckage crashed down beside her on the floor; and then Daniel was kneeling, gathering her up and caressing her bruised head with anxious fingers, stilling her sobs by crushing her against him. He pulled her up with him in the next breath and ran, hitting another door-switch to open it.

A woman met them, of a kind that Arle had never seen, a woman whose skin was like a summer sky and whose hair was light through thistledown; and no less startling was the possessive caress she gave, assuming Arle into her affections like some unsuspected kin, taking her by the arm and compelling her attention.

“Khasif,” she said, “Arle—a man like Tejef, an iduve— have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

Her command of human language was flawless. That alone startled Arle, who had found few of the strangers capable of any human words at all; and her assumption of acquaintance utterly robbed her of her power of thought.

“Arle,” Daniel pleaded with her.

Arle pointed. “There,” she said. “The middle door in the lab. Daniel!” she cried, for they left her at a run. She went a few paces to follow them, and then did not know what to do.

The kameth no longer resisted. Tejef saw the fingers of his left hand jerk spasmodically at the pistol, but the kallia no longer had the strength to complete the action. Tejef kicked the weapon spinning down the corridor, applied his foot to the kameth’s shoulder, and heaved him over onto his back.

Life still remained in him and the harachia of that force worked at his nerves; but there was little enough point in killing one who could not feel, nor in committing the e-chanokhia of destroying a kameth. The eyelids jerked a little but Tejef much doubted there was consciousness. He abandoned him there and went down the corridor to the airlock. It lacked a little of noon. Chimele had cast her final throw. He felt greatly satisfied by the realization that she had failed any personal vaikka upon him, even though she would not fail to destroy him; and then he felt empty, for a moment only empty, the minds about him suddenly stilled, takkhenes almost gone, the air full of a hush that settled about bis heart.

Then came a touch, faint and bewildered, a thing waking, female and sensitive.

Chaikhe.

He willed the monitor into life and saw the field, four forms, three of which moved—a squat amaut dragging Ashakh’s limp body in undignified fashion. Ashakh too tall a man for such a small amaut to handle; and Gerlach lying very still by the ramp, and a mound of green stirring toward consciousness, feebly trying to rise.

Katasathe. The harachia of the green robes and the realization that he had fired on her, once nas, hit his stomach like a blow. The sight of her tangled with Gerlach’s squat body— beautiful Chaikhe tumbled in the dust of the pavement—was a painful one. Such a prisoner as she, was a great honor to a nasul, a prize for katasakke or kataberihe to an Orithain, the life within her for the dhis of her captors, great vaikka, if that nasul could bend her to its will.

So long alone, always mateless; the illusions of kamethi melted into what they were—e-chanokhia, emptiness.

She arose, lifted her face: takkhenes reached and touched, an impact that slammed unease into his belly. She seemed to know he watched. Anger grew in her, a fierceness that overwhelmed.

He must kill her. Obscene as the idea was, he must kill her. He faltered, hesitated between the hatch control and the weaponry, and knew that the indecision itself was a sickness.

Her mind-touch seized the lock control, held it, felt toward other mechanisms. Uncertain then, he gave backward, realizing she would board the ship—dhisais, e-takkhe with him. He could not let it happen. In cold sanity he knew it was a risk to face her, but he could not reach her with the weapons now. She was ascending the ramp in firm control of the mechanisms. He gathered himself to wrest that control from her.

Takkhenes reached out for him, a fierceness of we incredibly strong, as if a multiplicity of minds turned on him—not Chaikhe’s alone, not Ashakh’s, whose mind was silent. It was as if thousands of minds bore upon him at once, focused through the lens of Chaikhe’s, like the takkhenes-nasul of all Ashanome, willing his death, declaring him e-takkhe, anomaly, ugliness, and alone, cosmically alone.

It acquired a new source, a muddled echo that had the essence of Khasif about it, leftward, same-level. Tejef realized that presence, felt it grow, and desperately reached his mind toward intervening door locks, knowing he must hold them.

They activated, opening, one after the other. Khasif was nearer, fully alert now, a fierceness and anger that yet lacked the force that Chaikhe sent.

Death took root in him, cold and certain, and the rage that he felt at Chimele was all that held it from him. He could not decide—Khasif or Chaikhe—he could not find strength to face either, caught between.

And Chimele, knowing: he felt it.

He turned, flight in his mind, to seize manual control of the ship and tear her aloft, self-destroying, taking the e-takkhei with him to oblivion.

“Nasith.”

Chaikhe’s image occupied the screens now at her own will. Her dark and lovely face stared down at him. Doors refused to open to his mind: he operated them manually and ran.

A last sprang open before he touched it. Khasif was there, the kamethi Isande and Daniel with him—and with a reaction quicker than reason Tejef went for Khasif, Khasif yet weak from his long inactivity and his wounds—Tejef’s takkhenois gathered strength from that realization. The kamethi themselves attempted interference, dragging at them from behind.

He spun, swung wildly to clear them from him, and saw Isande’s face, in his mind Margaret, her look; that it was which kept the strength from his blow.

And a shout of anger beyond, from her asuthe the kallia, who had stumbled after, gun in hand. Tejef’s eyes widened, foreknowing.

Aiela fired, left-handed, saw Isande and the iduve hit the floor at once. He tried to reach her, but it was all he could do to lean against the wall and hold himself on his feet. Daniel was first to her side, gathered her up and held her, assuring him over and over again that she was alive. Above them both stood Khasif, whose sharp glance away from Isande warned Aiela even as a soft step sounded behind him.

Chaikhe.

The very act of breathing grew difficult, concentration impossible. The gun tumbled from Aiela’s fingers and crashed against the flooring, sounding distant.

“She is dhisais,” said Khasif. “And it was not wise for you to have interfered among iduve, kamethi. You have interfered in vaikka.”

Run, Daniel thought desperately; burdened with Isande’s weight, he tensed his muscles to try.

No! Aiela protested. He leaned against the wall, shut his eyes to remove the contact of Chaikhe’s; and hearing her move, he dared to look again.

She had turned, and walked back in the direction of controls.

Doors closed between them, and Khasif at last stirred from where he stood, looking down at Tejef with a long soft hiss.

The ship’s engines stirred to life.

“We are about to lift,” said Khasif softly, “and Tejef will give account of himself before Chimele; perhaps that is the greater vaikka. But it was not wise, kameth.”

“Ashakh,” Aiela exclaimed, remembering, hardly recognizing his own voice. “Ashakh—is still out there.”

“I am instructing Teysel on the base ship to take him up to Ashanome. For Priamos there is no longer need of haste. For us, there is. See to yourselves, kamethi.”