“The wild one,” Duncan murmured. “It warns us. We have to go out now. We have to go.”
“Not all,” Niun said. “You and I. A few hands of others. I want some dusei left here, for safety.” He rose up, hastened unbidden to the machine hall, stood there an instant until Melein turned her face to him.
“I set it in your hands,” she said, “and Duncan’s. They are coming in.”
* * *
Elee watched them in their passage through the halls. The kel’ein ignored elee in their haste, hands empty of weapons; and Duncan spared them only an anxious glance, white, blue-eyed faces which stared at them forlornly and listlessly and perhaps . . . perhaps had self enough left to worry for their own brief lives and not for their treasure. He shuddered at them. They shrank away in equal terror whenever a kel’en brushed close to them.
And when it was clear they meant to go out, a frightened group of the jewel-robed citizens held up hands to stop them, hastening to show them a door that they might use, well-hidden in a trio of carved and living stones.
“They are jealous of their glass walls,” said one-eyed Desai, when they were out in the dark and free. There was a muttering of laughter, for mri hated barriers, borders, and locked doors. The way that they had come in, letting the wind into the halls . . . that was a satisfaction to them, mri humor, equally grim.
Dawn had begun; it was a logical time for meetings, and the logical place was before them, the wide expanse of sand between the city and the carved pillars: room enough there for landings. Duncan walked, and Niun stayed beside him, with the others at his back, nothing questioning. The sand ahead writhed and rippled with life which fled the ward impulse of their two dusei. And when they had come most of the distance he stopped to wait.
Niun stood close, having moved between him and the wind. Desai did so from the other side, setting a hand upon his shoulder; and the ja’anom, for they were mostly ja’anom in the company, stood as close as they might, as if to shelter him, caring for him as for a child. He was always colder than they, and they seemed to realize his tendency to chill.
Sometimes, Niun had taught him early, a kel’en might find himself regretting friendships out-of-House, caught in a tangle of obligations and debts: best never to form them. When one did, there was one clear law, one service above other services, and that was the she’pan’s will; if one was mri, one believed that: There were two lights in the sky, brightening steadily out of the north.
* * *
“Shuttle’s aboard, bay one,” the secretary reported.
Koch took note of it, impatient, more interested in the flow of data from Santiago, which had moved closer to Kutath, within the critical limit Regul visitors aboard were not to his taste; not now. They were here and they had to be welcomed. Averson would be coming up at any moment, to handle interpretation where needed. He had prepared information to satisfy regul curiosity and quiet their fears. Degas was scanning what further materials Averson planned to send the allies to be sure they were clean and clear of sensitive items. That was a hasty job, and critical. And it had to be ready; with regul on the ship, they were out of time.
He reached for the panel, coded in Degas’s office.
And suddenly alarm lights flashed red.
“Sir,” the bridge cut through. “Damage to landing bay one.”
He stabbed the reply button, ignoring other lights which began to flash on his board, an urgent pulse from Degas’s channel, the muffled babble of information from the operations contact. “The regul shuttle? Was it involved?”
“Yes, sir; we don’t know details, we don’t get com down there; the whole bay is breached. Casualties undetermined. Cause undetermined. Crash team is on its way, and med and security. The section sealed.”
“Sir,” Zahadi’s voice overrode: “Shirug is moving our way.”
Panic slammed into him. Fire, instinct advised him, xenophobic; polities was more cautious. “Get in touch with them,” he said. “Advise them keep clear. Advise them we’re doing what we can with the shuttle and they’re to stay back.”
A moment passed. He opened contact with Degas. “Take charge in-ship,” he said, and broke off. His eyes were on scan, where each sweep jumped them nearer. There was a tiny blip out of Shirug’s front, a shuttle, flea-sized between the warships.
They were not stopping.
“Bai,” said a regul voice suddenly. “This is youngling Ragh, favor, bai. What is the situation? What has happened to the shuttle? What is the extent of damage?”
“Stand off, Shirug. Stand off at once. We don’t know what has happened down there yet. We do not permit any closer approach. Stand off or expect strong action.”
“Were there deaths, bai Koch? What of casualties?”
Koch darted a glance aside to scan, stabbed in a code for Santiago. RECALL. RECALL. CODE RED. “We are determining that now, youngling. Who is in command of Shirug? Was bai Suth on that shuttle?”
There was silence from the other end. The regul were at the limits of their shield; if they came closer, Shirug itself would penetrate that critical perimeter; it was fire or permit approach. The shuttle was already inside it.
Peace or war, on a word, an act.
“Sir.” It was Degas, breaking through on red-channel. “Sir—”
“Back us off!” Koch ordered Zahadi. “Up shields!”
They hit maneuver without warning. Lights flashed everywhere on the boards.
“We don’t have full shielding,” Zahadi’s voice returned. “The damage in bay one—”
There was a shudder in Saber’s framework. Scan flicked to another image, pulsing warning. The shuttle within their perimeter was coming at the base line, at their kilometer-long midsection.
“Fire on the shuttle,” Koch ordered. “Fire!” And then a second look at rapidly altering scan.
All the instruments jumped; a shock quivered through frame and hull like the blow of a fist.
“Hit,” command relayed. “Damage—”
“Localize command!” Koch shouted into com, handing it to Zahadi entirely. He reached for the desk, for the restraint.
Scan went out.
Suddenly pressure hit, and red dissolved to white like the tearing of a film.
They were dead. He had time to know that.
* * *
The ships came in, one, and the other of them, in close sequence. The Kel regarded this with no outward show of emotion . . . this their first close sight of ships, and strangers who had struck at An-ehon, at them, and killed kin of theirs.
Two ships. They had expected one.
“Let me go out alone,” Duncan asked, received in reply a pressure of Niun’s hand on his shoulder.
“When they are in full sight,” Niun said, “then whatever you will. In this, you say what should be, sov-kela.”
The hatch of the first was opening. Men came down, with black scarves tied on their blue sleeves—strange combination to mri eyes; and masks which made them fearsome, like machines; last came a familiar woman, small and broad and wearing a gold scarf.
“Ai,” muttered the kel’ein at one breath, for none sent out sen’ein to a prospective quarrel; it was a good sign.
“She is Boaz,” Duncan said, “sen-second. I know her.”
He touched his dus, to bid it stay, walked forward on his own. The second ship had opened its hatch, and a black man stood alone in the hatchway; he did not know him, only the two: Boaz, and the man by her, whose tangled reddish hair he recognized despite the masks.
“Boz,” he said in meeting. “Galey.”
“Duncan,” Boaz said, and drew down her, mask to speak, breathing the thin air. “Do we get the meeting we came for?”
“Come with me; bring all your company with you.”
“We leave a guard,” Galey said.
“No,” Duncan said softly. “You do not. Lock no door to a mri. That is the way of things.”
“Do it,” Boaz said.
“Boz—”
“You
can’t have it by human rules,” said Duncan. “Maybe you can speak to the she’pan; I will do as much as I can in that regard, and likely you can; but an argument will diminish your chances. Come. Don’t delay here.”
“Trust them?” Galey asked.
“You might,” Duncan said, “if you could explain your meaning to them. A mri is himself; trust that. It’s all you will get. Shon’ai, they say: cast and catch. You cannot play the Game with a closed fist: And you lock no doors to them; they never will with you. It’s important to realize that. Come. Come with me.”
“It’s what we came for,” Boaz said to Galey and the two men with him. “Haven’t we taken worse chances, with less assurance?”
Galey nodded after a moment. “Do you want our guns?”
“No. Just come. Keep your hands off them. And if you know any names among them . . . be wary of using them.”
“Niun is here?” Boaz asked. “And the she’pan?”
“Expect no recognition. Likely he would not remember at all. He is not grateful for human help; and some of it was not help, Boz. You know what was done to him. Do not presume any gratitude or any grudge. Come.”
“Harris!” Galey shouted across to the other ship. “All of us out. Come on out and leave the hatch open.”
There was some hesitation at that; they came down finally, and the hatch stayed open . . . three men in that group.
Duncan turned and led them across the sand to the black line of the Kel. There was neither welcome nor threat Hands stayed visible and at sides.
“He is Niun s’Intel,” Duncan said to Boaz at that meeting. “Kel’anth of the ja’anom tribe and of the she’pan Melein. The city is elee, but you have nothing to do with them. The kel’anth understands all that you say; don’t expect him to admit to human speech: it’s enough he comes out here to meet you.”
“Offer him and the she’pan my respect and my thanks for meeting us,” Boaz said. “We appreciate his courtesy.”
Niun inclined his head, but in the same moment kel’ein moved out toward the ships. “Hey,” Galey exclaimed in outrage, and two of his men moved hands to weapons.
“No!” Duncan said sharply; and before Galey could object further, for mri hands were equally poised, and quicker: “You have lost them, Galey. Let it be. You can fight challenge: that is what they offer. Or I don’t doubt you could walk away into the desert, with your weapons and provisions. Owning things, except what one can wear . . . this is not their reckoning. If you have a point, it is much wiser to come in and talk about it.”
Galey slid a look at Boaz. She nodded, and Galey signed his companions to let be.
“The machines,” Duncan said in the hal’ari, “belong to their authorities. They feel offended, but they were sent to talk, and they agree to come and do that.”
“Is that translation?” Niun asked dryly, who had understood every word. “They are very eloquent.”
“I know these two,” Duncan said, “Boaz and Galey, and they have known you. They feel some obligation to reason on that account.”
Niun’s eyes flickered, memory, perhaps, of a long nightmare. “And these others?”
“If Galey chose them, they are sensible. And if Boaz is here, it is her choosing. The mri have no better friend among humans.”
“Ai,” Niun said, and with a darting glance toward the human company: “Walk with us,” he said in the human tongue. “We ask.”
“Sir,” Boaz murmured, glancing down in courtesy, and gestured the others to come.
There was an easier feeling as they walked along, amber eyes which acquired expression, which frankly admitted curiosity. They had not gone far before whispers began to be passed in the Kel, remarking on their varied looks and statures and their clothing and their manners, which, for all it was not courtesy, was a step toward it: mri would discuss a man long before approaching him.
Easier, Duncan thought, moved, that they have become used to me; for one said: Our Duncan knows them, as if that settled some essential question.
They neared the city, and the open doors. Then Duncan recalled the elee, and that matter, opened his mouth to explain.
Suddenly there was an impulse from the dusei, a vague disturbance. He stopped; Niun did, likewise troubled . . . looked skyward at the same instant Duncan felt the same impulse. The whole Kel had paused, looked, whether by curiosity to them or that they also felt it, the darting apprehension.
“Duncan?” Boaz asked.
“Niun,” Duncan said, a sinking feeling in his gut. “Something’s moving in. It’s not the she’pan’s alarm. It’s out there. The out-walker sees it.”
“Tsi’mri trick,” Niun exclaimed.
“What is it?” Boaz asked louder, and then stopped, for there were visible now two dots in the sky, eastward, for all eyes to see.
“Regul,” Galey breathed, which needed no translation: “O God, they’re downworld too. Duncan, the ships . . . the ships . . . caught on the ground—”
“Go!” Niun shouted suddenly, and pushed at Galey, toward the shuttles. Galey ran, nothing questioning; the black man spun about unhindered and ran too; and the others after, all but Boaz, for Duncan seized her arm. “Desai!” Niun shouted. “Run tell the kel’ein let them go at once—run, kel’en!”
He gripped Boaz’s arm too hard; he realized it and pressed her hand instead, held it for comfort. He might have gone . . . he . . . but the hal’ari was between him and such ships, hands not in practice, mind divorced from such realities. He watched; it was nightmare, the slowness with which frightened humans could run in advance of oncoming ships. The two stranger ships were distinguishable now, coming fast. Desai sped to the kel’ein by the ships in advance of the humans; and the kel’ein let them through, Galey’s to the nearest and the black man and his crew to the second, the kel’ein already running back as the hatches sealed one after another. The ships were obscured for a moment in their own dust . . . .
. . . lifted.
“Ai!” the Kel exclaimed, sensing the import of that race for the sky; the ships streaked up, aloft.
“They have made it,” Duncan said past the tautness in his throat. He realized the grip of Boaz’s hand on his cold fingers, saw the ships roll and evade, the oncoming craft veering aside.
One human ship headed for them in pursuit; the other kept climbing, up and up, and beyond sight.
“He’s going for help,” Boaz cried. “Duncan, they’re not ours, I swear they’re not; and he’s after help. Tell them that.”
“Trust?” Niun asked.
“Boaz believes it,” Duncan answered. “And she could well know.”
Niun spun about suddenly, gestured the kel’ein toward the doors of Ele’et. “Come. Quickly!”
They moved, Boaz panting into her mask; Duncan seized her arm and belt and dragged her along; kel Merin took her other arm, and they entered the city corridors, past wide-eyed elee faces, nigh running, which mri did not do.
Dus-sense enveloped them, Boaz’s fright, Niun’s pain, his own . . . it was one. They had too many enemies, and too little of time. The odds had come down on them.
Came suddenly a shriek of air and the hall beyond exploded in shards of rock and glass.
They were hit. Something had gotten through.
“Run!” Niun shouted. They plunged through wind-borne smoke and over glass and blood-soaked elee bodies, for Melein and the rest of the Kel sat trapped at the heart of it.
* * *
“She’pan!” Rhian exclaimed at the shock, but Melein stood firm within the circle of light, staring up at the screens, trying to stay with the flow of data which poured out from Ele’et, and the voice which reached out to them, as desperate as the voice about her.
“She’pan,” it said through Ele’et’s voice, sexless, magnified, human. “She’pan, are you there? Do you hear?”
“I hear,” she replied.
“. . . under fire. Requesting . . . the firing . . . .”
“Repeat,” she said steadily, for all that
the foundations of Ele’et quaked, and glass shattered. “This attack is not our doing, human sen’anth.”
“Regul,” the voice returned, audible for the moment “Do you understand that? Regul warship . . . .”
“This is Harris,” another cut in on the frequency. “I’ll get him. Galey’s gone for—”
There was abrupt silence. “Harris?” the human voice pursued.
A light vanished from the screen. Fire shook them.
“Strike at the aircraft,” Melein said. “Ele’et, strike!”
It vanished. The screen was empty.
“Regul fire,” the human voice continued, appealing to her. “Orbiting . . . if you have weapons . . . them . . . .” The voice went out in prolonged disruption.
She looked about her, at anxious faces, at ruin in the hall beyond, shattered pillars, broken glass and carvings. “Return fire!” she called to the machines. “All cities, return fire to any ship which fires at us.”
It would destroy the cities; there was no hope; she knew it.
“Not in range,” the remorseless voice of Ele’et replied. “Seeking target.”
“It is your doing,” Abotai wailed, from without the circle. “Pull us out! Pull us out of the network! Ele’et is worth a thousand of the other cities. Bate the power and hide us.”
“It is irony,” Melein said. “You are honored to become warriors in the world’s last age; and you avoided it so zealously until now.”
“Ele’et!” Abotai cried, and lunged forward into the light, at her. Melein sprang aside, startled, looked up at the flash of a firearm in an elee hand . . . moved, kel-quick.
Kel Mada sprang for it; his body took the shot; and an instant later the sweep of a path’andim sword cut the elee Illatai half asunder. Abotai screamed, and Melein spun on, her heel at the sting of something from back to arm; struck, with a shout of anger, and Abotai sprawled in her jeweled robes, neck broken.
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