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SIX

Jenoon:

When the shooting began, the sergeant went down at once. I turned and saw Piet stumble to his knees, so I dropped my corner of the box to try to help him. I didn't take more than a step, though, when I felt a bullet smash into my foot, and I fell forward onto the pavement. I scrambled the last eight or ten feet to him on my hands and knees, I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought I still could help him somehow, maybe drag him to the scout.

But by the time I reached him, he was lying on his back. I'm pretty sure that he'd been hit some more; he'd been shot almost in two at the waist. All I could do was lie there, half on top of him. I think I was crying then. The automatic projectile weapons were still making a terrible racket across the field, their bullets smacking and whining all around. It seemed impossible that I was still alive, and I expected to be killed any moment. That went on for a long time-maybe as long as a minute. The bullets only stopped when the blaster bolts started sizzling.

Scared as I was, somehow I raised my head enough to look toward the scout. The ramp was in, the door was closed, and I could see that the cabin was lit. Someone had activated the force shield, because the energy of the blaster bolts was flickering around it like some weird aurora. It seemed to me that they might actually get away-whoever had made it to the scout- and I felt jubilant. As I watched, it lifted, then almost leaped upward, the blaster fire following it, still sheathing it in flickering light until it passed out of sight half a minute later, too high to see anymore.

Then I was filled by a sense of abandonment more terrible than anything I'd ever imagined.

But that lasted only seconds, replaced by a sense of-I guess resignation is the best word for it, I closed my eyes and laid my head down on Piet's shoulder. I realized that my hands were in a pool of what had to be his blood, and also that my foot didn't hurt. There was a feeling there, but it wasn't what you'd call pain yet. I knew there'd be enough of that when the shock wore off. I also knew that someone would come out pretty soon and I'd be arrested. And executed sooner or later.

After another minute I saw a small utility floater coming out low, and I laid my head down again and closed my eyes. I heard it settle right beside me, and a man spoke in Evdashian. "I saw her move," he said. "Well put her in on bottom and the other two on top of her."

Then I felt two men grab me by the knees arid under the arms and load me into the open back of the floater.

"If we're caught…"I heard the second one say.

"We won't be. From there they don't even know how many are down out here. She was lying on top of the big guy."

Then I heard them grunt, and a moment later a heavy dead weight was put down on top of me. "Sorry," the first voice said. After another moment there was a third body. Next I heard a light thump, and opened my eyes enough to see Piet's rifle lying on the deck. The two marines got in the front and drove off, seeming to keep within a few feet of the pavement.

"Suppose someone comes out and looks?" the second voice asked.

"Then we unload the girl with the other two, like it was what we had in mind all along. But they won't. We'll unload the two dead ones and I'll get back in as if that's all, and take her away. You stay there."

The floater slowed and lowered to the pavement, and the two men came quickly around and removed first one body, then the other. I could hear another voice coming toward the vehicle.

"Are they dead?"

"They seem to be, sir. I'll take the truck over and clean out the back before the blood dries."

"All right," the new voice said, "do it. But don't take all night." It sounded as if it was right by the tailgate. He almost had to have seen me and pretended not to.

A moment later the floater lifted and moved away. I opened my eyes again; the blast rifle was gone, A minute later the truck set down. I opened my eyes and saw that we were beside a large shed. I heard the marine move away. In another minute he was back and lowered the tailgate. Under one arm he carried a dark bundle-a small plastic tarp; in the other hand was a broom. He saw that my eyes were open.

"I'm going to hide you," he told me. "In a waste bin. You'll have to tough it out the best you can until somebody comes to get you. It'll be a few hours."

He flopped the half-unfolded tarp next to me on the truck bed, then rolled me onto it with an apology, wrapped me in it, and with a grunt got me over his shoulder. He wasn't big, but he was pretty strong. Inside the tarp I couldn't see a thing. He carried me a dozen steps, then I heard a lid raise on squeaky hinges. I felt myself roll off his shoulder, and landed on a jumble of what had to be lignoplastic containers-boxes and bottles. The lid lowered again, and I wondered if I'd get enough air in there. I decided I probably would; it wouldn't be airtight. If it seemed like I was going to suffocate, I'd wiggle loose and prop the lid up a little with something. Meanwhile I'd stay the way I was.

The marine had risked his life to save me; both of them had. And maybe their officer too. And I'd thought the Evdashians were docile because they'd given up their world without fighting! I imagined an empire sprinkled with people like them, learning better and better how to undercut their masters.

Then I imagined him hosing the truck bed and scrubbing it with the broom, the blood of Piet and the marine sergeant-and maybe some of mine-mixing with the water to flow into a sump or something. Then he'd drive back as if everything was normal.

My foot was beginning to hurt. The shock was starting to wear off.

I dozed anyway, drifting in and out of sleep without knowing for how long, a sleep mixed with pain and feverish dreams. But through it all I kept thinking: I must not groan. I must not groan. Someone might hear. And that if I was discovered, the two marines who'd saved me would be executed.

I didn't come wide awake until I felt the bin being lifted. A mechanism screeched, jerked, and I felt myself being tilted, Then I was sliding, and fell into what had to be trash. Pain stabbed my foot like a knife, and I tasted blood where I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Most of the contents of the waste bin seemed to land on top of me, and I passed out.

The next thing I knew the trash was shifting again. Not very much; it was as if the trash truck had tilted, its load sliding. Then the movement stopped, and faintly, through the tarp and trash, I could hear a man talking.

"Motor pool trash, eh? You better not have anything in there that'll damage the chopper again."

"Take it easy, Frelky," another voice said. "We just haul it, we don't pick through it. If someone dumps an old electric motor in a bin and it busts up your chopper, that's no fault of ours."

Next I heard the truck's beeper as it rose and swung away. A minute later I felt someone digging the trash out around me. Two arms wrapped around me as if I were a bundle and pulled me free, then dragged me a little way, which hurt my foot. I felt my feet drag over what seemed to be a door sill, then I was laid out on a flat surface and rolled over twice. I could see.

I was on the floor of a small, unlit office shack. A heavy, older marine corporal in fatigues knelt beside me. On the other side a voice spoke, and dimly I could see a sergeant standing there in what seemed to be early dawn.

"Check her pulse," he said "See if she's still alive."

"She's alive. She's looking at me right now."

"Where are you hit?"

I realized he was speaking to me. "In the right foot," I said. My voice was so weak, I was surprised he could understand me.

"You've got blood all over the front of you."

"It's Uncle Piet's," I told him.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then: "Wrap her up again."

While the corporal in charge of the trash processor began to roll me up in the tarp, the sergeant added, "I'm taking you to a safe house. There'll be somebody there who'll take care of you."

I felt them pick me up together and carry me. They put me in what seemed to be the luggage space of a small floater-a staff car or something. A minute later I felt it take off, and I passed out again.