Throughout the long night’s march she battled the insidious voice of failure and helpless horror which she now identified as her awareness of an inward festering sore, Desdinda. Every triumph left her more confident, until finally the attacks on her will ceased. Jindigar didn’t know everything about humans.
She was concentrating on keeping her numb legs going like pistons, telling her brain to ignore damage signals from her tortured feet, lungs, and chest, when a shadow covered the moon. She looked around to see it glowing dimly behind a haze about forty degrees above the horizon. They hadn’t much time left. Shortly after that, Storm worked his way up the now-elongated column of marchers speaking encouragingly to each one. The Lehiroh reached the front, panting, and paced along to exchange a few words with Jindigar. “I took Shorwh off the sled and had him drop back to march with Frey until I get back. I gave his sled back to Terab.”
Terab, the Holot female, had been hardest hit by the heat of the day. If she collapsed, what would Jindigar do? Strap her to one of the sleds like cargo? They’d lose one of the sleds then.
“How is Viradel holding up?” asked Jindigar.
The Lehiroh drew closer to Jindigar and said, “Swearing luridly in nine languages and determined not to be shamed by Krinata. But I think she may have sustained some injury she hasn’t mentioned.”
“Who do you think will be the first to collapse?”
“Well, we’re all right, of course, and the human males aren’t in bad shape. The Holot are in the most physiological distress, but they’ve got spirit. The Cassrians have perked up since sundown. But the male, Trassle, is in difficulty.”
Jindigar clamped a hand on Storm’s near shoulder. “Not a good situation, I know.”
“If this was an Oliat expedition, there’d be no problem! It’s trying to drag a bunch of cityworms out of their lairs that’s making it hard. We’ve already got enough breeze to rig the sails and ride out of here! They couldn’t sail a dinghy in a reservoir!”
Jindigar laughed. “Don’t look down on them. The whole purpose of exploration is to build more cities, so we can breed more cityworms, so we can explore more territory. You and I are as awkward in their territory as they are in ours. And by the time they learn to cope with ours, they’ll have built a city in which we’ll be awkward.”
“Well, if they do, exploring the rest of this planet will take the rest of my life—if not yours!”
“We’ve got to win that life first, my friend. When you drop back, tell Frey I’m extremely pleased with him, but he should pay attention now to the wind. If we have to cut losses, we must save the water sled at all costs.”
“I told him that before I came up here. But I’m praying we can hang on to Sled Four as well.”
As Storm stepped out of line to wait for the end, Krinata realized their conversation had carried to her because a definite wind had arisen. At first it blew toward her, then, as they passed the end of another dune, it swirled around to come at her from behind, adding a gentle push to her sled. She had to walk faster to keep ahead of it.
Gradually the rocks became more prevalent. She had thought the footing impossible already, but now her pant legs caught in snarls of dead vegetation, adding bruises and scratches to her miseries. Her throat was on fire, and she could barely swallow, let alone speak, when Jindigar called to her, “Pass the word back, everyone should take a stimtab now, and drink well. The climb is just ahead.”
We made it? Her fingers were clumsy at the belt pouch as she got out the precious energy capsule, and she spilled some of the irreplaceable water as she gulped it. But then she was able to pass the word back to Gibson, and she heard him hollering to the other humans strung out far behind.
In moments they hit a gentle slope, and she had to pull the sled upward, at an awkward angle. Then Jindigar called, “Here we must set our sleds on tilt-climb!”
Fuzzily she remembered being shown how to do it, but not in the dark! Letting the harness go slack, she waited for the sled, then danced backward before it as she fumbled with the control cover. She ran numb fingers over the controls, and then, panicked, she called, “I can’t do it!”
Jindigar dropped back, free of his sled, risking letting the wind take it away in order to help her. Two moves and he had the cover closed again, the sled now climbing obediently. “Gibson, can you set your sled on climb?” he called.
“I got it now. I passed the word back.”
Then Jindigar was gone into the forward gloom, chasing his sled. Krinata squinted against the curtain of fine grit in the air. She had given up trying to keep it out of her mouth. Before long, her feet rolled on fist-size rocks, a dry riverbed that felt like a highway after the sand.
When it was so dark she couldn’t make Jindigar’s sled out ahead of her, his voice floated back on the whipping wind, “Tune to break out the handlights!” A tiny point of light flared to mark his place. He swung it in an arc to mark the path, and Krinata passed the signal back. He led them from side to side, over a fallen log swept down from some distant hilltop. The wind tore at them, their desert cloaks no protection. The sand abraded Krinata’s face right through her face screen. Her whole body was raw, and she was about to give up when she smashed full-tilt into Jindigar.
While she was still stunned, he stopped her sled next to his own, making it settle to the ground. “You can sit here!” he yelled over the roaring wind. Her light showed his face whitened by the sand powdering his indigo nap. His eyes were closed, the bulging eyeballs shrouded by opaque lids, but he moved as if he could see clearly as he helped Gibson stop his sled at an angle to hers, making a shelter. She rested as sleds accumulated and people huddled, exhausted. Then there was an ominous gap in the line of arrivals, and Jindigar took off into the murk, saying, “I’ll be right back.” His tone said he knew, through Frey, what had gone wrong.
Krinata forced her protesting legs to carry her after Jindigar. Walking into the wind was harder than pulling the sled with the wind. But it was downhill. Her feet slid out from under her, and she fetched up at the bottom of a slope. One of the Cassrians sprawled behind a sled which was dragging him while Frey wrestled it to a halt.
”It’s Trassle,” Frey announced to Jindigar.
Storm freed the Cassrian of the harness as Krinata joined them. Jindigar swept his light over her, then bent to examine the stiff sectioned body as Frey said, “Cassrians don’t have a central circulatory system, but he could be suffering a kind of circulatory collapse.”
“Maybe it’s just exhaustion,” suggested Storm. “If we get him onto the sled, I can pull—”
Jindigar interrupted. “I’ve got everyone stopped near a place where we can climb to a cave. It’s not the best choice, but we’ve got to try it while we have the strength.”
“And before the storm hits,” agreed Frey.
“It hasn’t?!” asked Krinata.
“Not yet,” answered Jindigar. “Frey, can you climb onto the cargo and make a place to tie Trassle securely?”
Handlight swinging from his belt, the young Dushau swarmed up the cargo heap as if he hadn’t been hiking all day. Jindigar fashioned a rope cradle for the exoskeletal body, and the three men easily hoisted the Cassrian to the top.
Surveying the situation, Jindigar said, “Krinata, would you be willing to ride on top with Trassle in case he comes to? It may be a dangerous ride.”
“I can do it,” she replied.
Frey jumped down as if it were no height at all, and Krinata took a grip to climb, wondering where she’d get the strength. Jindigar said, “Let’s pamper that arm of yours a bit. Here, I’ll give you a boost.”
He made a cradle of his two hands. She placed her boot gingerly, and his strength seemed limitless as he raised her until she could scramble aboard and secure herself beside the Cassrian. The three men maneuvered the sled up the slope, keeping it almost level. Another sled followed, and then they were all gathered in one place.
Allel, Trassle’s mate, scrambled up beside Krinata, call
ing piteously to her mate in the Cassrians’ multitoned speech, and Krinata slid off the cargo and joined Jindigar, Frey, and the four Lehiroh beneath a forbidding cliff at the side of the river wash. “I think we can get the sleds up there,” said Storm, and the three other Lehiroh agreed. “But you’ve got to get the cityworms out of our way.”
“I mink they can climb it by themselves,” said Jindigar. “What do you think, Krinata?”
“None of us are mountaineers, but do we have a choice?”
“No. We don’t have time to make it to the next possible climb. Good thing we came north.” Krinata didn’t exult in being proven right.
Gibson joined them, asking, “Strategy council?”
“Could you climb that without help?” asked Jindigar.
“In daylight, and without this wind,” allowed Gibson.
“Frey?” prompted Jindigar.
“I did something like it once, in snow. Does anybody know where we put the climbing gear?”
“Sled Four,” answered Storm.
“On the bottom,” added Jindigar. “But we’ve got enough rope loose for a few traverses of this thing.”
“I can’t make the height,” admitted Frey, flashing his light upward. It was swallowed by murk.
Jindigar pried a rock loose from the wall before them and tossed it to Frey. “Here, try this.”
Frey caught it, then held it between both hands. “Five or six times my height. Not too bad. Hey! Now I’ve got the cave! But will it be big enough for all of us?”
“We’ll leave some of the gear outside for a barricade. Notice the wind, though. Sand won’t bury that cave.”
“I thought Dushau needed bright light to see,” said Gibson, squinting up the cliff.
“We can’t see as well as you can in this,” answered Jindigar. “But Frey is learning to balance.”
Before Gibson could pursue that, Frey said, “I’ll get the rope. Give me a hand, Gibson?”
“Sure,” answered the man, and he followed Frey.
“When Frey has the rope rigged, we’ll have them climb it,” said Storm. “Then we’ll take the sleds up—a twenty-minute job. Allow an hour. Will we make it?”
“Maybe,” answered Jindigar. “Just barely.”
Moments later Frey was back, a heavy loop of rope over one shoulder and a bundle of lights slung from his waist. He tackled the cliff without hesitation, and until he was well over Krinata’s head, he didn’t even pause to consider hand– and toeholds. Every so often he stopped to plant one of the lightsticks, or to use the butt of one to dig a hold. Then he was out of sight, and they waited, Jindigar narrating Frey’s progress until the rope snaked down to dangle before them, and Jindigar said, “I think it’s time to see if anyone has the ambition to go first,”
Gibson replied, “I’ll go see.”
Krinata considered the increasing wobble in her legs. With every moment there was less chance she’d have the strength to make it. “I’ll give it a try.”
“I’m worried about that arm of yours,” said Jindigar.
“I think it’ll hold. Besides, I’m right-handed.”
She grabbed the rope, a large, padded climbing rope with knots evenly spaced along it. Jindigar secured a loop around her waist and gave her a boost. She braced her feet against the cliff, finding toeholds Frey had made, and for a few moments it was just like an exercise class. But then her general fatigue caught up to her, and next to the fifth light, she was once again caught in the down-rushing suction of flagging will. She fought back as she’d learned to fight off Desdinda’s attacks. She’d banish the ghost here and now.
Sweat ran into her eyes, stinging, and her hands became slippery. Once her feet swung free, and she clung to the rope listening to the sob of her breathing. If she let go, she’d be nearly cut in half by the safety rope around her waist. Then her foot found a crevice, and warm hands reached down to roll her onto a ledge.
“Good climb,” said Prey. “Here comes Gibson.”
Panting, she lay on the edge, looking down into occluded air. She could only see three lightsticks. The fourth was a mere blur, and there were nine or ten. “The storm’s worse.”
“It’ll hit in less than an hour. I’m going back down as soon as Gibson gets here. Can you help him with the lines?”
“I’ll do my best.”
He sprawled prone at the edge of the cliff and pulled Gibson up. A quick exchange and the Dushau was over and down the rope as if it were a staircase. She used all her weight and all her remaining strength to help belay the rope as Viradel made the climb. The human woman lay panting, limp with exhaustion, until the male Holot joined them. Krinata couldn’t imagine how the six-limbed Holot had climbed a rope, but he had. And he was strong enough to help others up and over the edge. So Krinata retreated to look for the cave. They were on a rocky slope dotted with scrub and small trees.
The bushes had stalks as thick around as her thigh, polished to a gleaming dark red surface. Picking her way beyond the bush, she confronted a solid wall of darkness. A few more strides and the dim lights and cries of the group were swallowed by the roaring dark. An irrational terror rose to a scream clogging her throat, and she turned and stumbled back through the wildly lashing branches to the edge of the cliff where the others worked.
Feeling like a silly child scared of the dark, she clung to the puddle of light where everyone leaned over the edge to watch the Lehiroh begin raising the sleds.
Krinata joined them. The four Lehiroh had stationed themselves along the rope at intervals, one foot braced against the cliff, the other wound into the rope, one hand free, With much shouting they got the first one into the air. Prey rode atop it, piloting it neatly.
He was on the edge of the sled nearest the cliff, so he could work the controls. A mooring line was looped around the taut vertical rope and passed from Lehiroh to Lehiroh as the sled rose. The ferocious wind pulled the sled this way and that, but Frey compensated while the Lehiroh played the sled like a large fish on a line. In minutes the sled landed a good distance from the edge, the only damage a loose tarp.
Fourteen times they repeated this performance, with much shouting, cheering, and congratulating, making it look easy. Frey and Jindigar took turns riding the sleds, Frey piloting the second-to-last sled with Trassle and Allel aboard. Jindigar, after some argument with Frey about risking his life and thus the Archive, had descended to bring up the sled with the malfunctioning controls, then– water sled, insisting it was vital and that he was the best at this sort of maneuver.
Krinata couldn’t tear herself from the cliff edge as the process began, even though her vantage point was downwind of the rope and she had to squint into the dense hail of sand just to make out the vague glow of the lightsticks.
The Lehiroh who had shouted confidently through the whole operation were now as calm and quiet as a medical team in the midst of the most delicate part of an operation.
The sled, with Jindigar clinging to the long side, turned to the cliff, finally rose from the murk like a marine creature surfacing into the light. It was moving much slower than the others had and had drifted to the end of its tether downwind. Clinging with one hand, Jindigar was working the controls with singular concentration. Krinata fought that battle with him, her whole will focused on bringing him and the sled safely to them. She could see it there already in her imagination. Her yearning made the vision so real, she couldn’t quite believe what she was watching.
Storm, stationed near the top of the rope, called authoritative directions to the Dushau, but his words were suddenly torn away by a roar as a wall of wind hit the river channel. As darkness engulfed them Krinata glimpsed the sled capsizing, the cargo dangling by the restraining ropes, Jindigar hanging from the side by one arm, the whole sled straining upward, pulling the mooring rope, the climbing rope, the four Lehiroh, and the tree to which the lines were secured upward and toward Krinata.
Then she was left in utter darkness, wind pressuring her like a giant wave, devouring her.
Without thinking she reached out in a way she’d never been taught, groping for wider awareness. The triune consciousness she’d learned to treasure as well as fear bloomed within her, and instantly it lit with the vividness of her imagined vision—just as Jindigar had taught her to do when they’d Inverted their triad to escape from the Emperor’s flagship—and she saw Jindigar on top of the sled, and the sled right side up on the ground.
For long-drawn moments her image was the palest ghost of the reality she sensed, and time after time, a rush of despair weakened her. But each time, she caught herself up and redoubled the effort, her whole will behind it. They couldn’t afford to lose Jindigar—they’d all die here. She was not going to let Desdinda’s ghost rob her of Jindigar, or Jindigar of the good life he’d earned.
Suddenly resistance weakened, and she commanded the triad, forcing Frey to channel her vision and make it real. Her vision etched over reality and was solidifying when her guts churned with a gloating triumph, gratified by power at last. Desdinda!
In a fit of unthinking panic she flung all her strength against the menace. To no avail. Frey, nerves afire, screaming pain, squirmed and fought the grip on him, reflexes slamming against her invasion. Krinata, determined, reached for Jindigar. Abruptly, something flipped inside out.
She tumbled into a black abyss, bright points streaming past, out of control, terror vanishing into numbness, just like the time she’d spun away from her tether in deep space. Phobic paralysis gripped her.
THREE
Scars
There was a warm weight on her chest, and a rough tongue licked her face. She smelled the odor of piol fur and felt the sharp prick of claws kneading her chest.
She was in a cool enclosure, a cave, lit only by the dancing orange flame of a camp fire. The air was pungently moist with the aroma of soup. The roof was low. There was barely room for all the people curled, huddled, or sprawled on the sandy floor amid piles of cargo. Dim beige light filtered through cracks around the cargo piled at the entrance, but fingers of dry wind pried into the cave. Gusts produced an eerie, whining howl, above the constant dull roar.
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