processed the information, Calhoun lunged to one side. The in-stant he did so, a plaser bolt sizzled through the air and scorched the ground where he'd just been standing.
Calhoun rolled to his feet and ran. His reflexes started to take him toward the office of the Majister, but then he looked straight at Rheela and, apparently deciding that to keep heading toward them would put them at risk, he bolted in the other direction.
There was a screeching of delirious triumph, voices she didn't know, but it was obviously the men who were shooting at Cal-houn. They were shooting from cover, wherever they were, trying to pick off Calhoun without presenting themselves as targets. But Calhoun was not about to make it easy on them. He moved so in-credibly quickly that Rheela could barely track him. It was as if he had an inkling of where plaser bolts were going to hit before they struck. At one point he actually skidded to a halt and backpedaled, avoiding a blast by the narrowest of margins.
He swept the plaser through the air, firing off a steady array of blasts, not aiming so much as just trying to create some sort of cover for himself to retreat. Rheela heard screaming and realized that it was her own voice, and Moke was struggling in her grasp, trying to run to Calhoun and help him in some manner. The notion was insanity, of course. One young boy couldn't do anything.
She glanced around desperately for help, and saw more of the townspeople watching, just watching. Not saying anything, nor doing anything. Just silent spectators to a sequence of events that they were making no effort whatsoever to prevent.
He could have taken refuge in any of the buildings, but once again, his concern for the others in the town was of paramount importance to him. Obviously he was concerned about a shoot-out occurring in whatever building he sought refuge within, and he had no desire to endanger the lives of anyone else. He looked around desperately, spotted the luukab peacefully tied at the hitching post, and bolted toward it.
For a moment, she thought he was going to hide behind the great beast. That would only last for a few moments, as his attack-
ers would doubtlessly use their plasers to cut the luukab to rib-bons where it stood. She momentarily mourned the imminent demise of the creature, and then discarded any such absurd no-tions. It was Calhoun's survival, and only his, that mattered to her.
As it turned out, however, even the life of a luukab was impor-tant to Calhoun. Before his attackers could fully draw a bead on him, he leaped forward, a vault of such height and elegance as Rheela had never seen. He hit the back of the luukab, which let out a startled grunt in response, and then he was up and over, jumping to the roof of the building next to the luukab. He barely caught the edge of the roof by his fingertips, and Rheela was sure he was going to fall off. But, in an amazing display of dexterity and upper-body strength, Calhoun hauled himself up. One blast nearly tagged him, scorching his left thigh just before he hauled it up and out of the way. There was an impressive array of stone and sculpture work lining the top of the roof, and it provided him cover, as long as he kept low. He crouched behind one of the statues as plaser bolts chipped off pieces from it Wherever his assailants were, they obviously weren't able to get a clear shot at him.
Oh, Kolk'r, let him be safe, Rheela kept thinking.
Calhoun did nothing at first; merely crouched there while the plaser bolts continued to strike all around him. Rheela realized what he was doing: He wasn't wasting time, energy, or ammo. In-stead, he was studying where the bolts were originating from, so as to get a bead on his assailants.
And still no one did anything to help him.
Perhaps it was unreasonable of her to believe that someone should be helping. She knew that, intellectually. But even so, she knew that a few of the citizens were armed. They could have pitched in to help. They could have emerged from hiding, tried to sight where the attackers were, pick them off themselves. But no. They were hiding. They were afraid.
A cold fury boiled up in Rheela. She thought about all the effort she had put into trying to connect with the people, to get them to like her, to help them. Help them to prosper, to grow... and even
more, to grow up. She felt as if some mission had been imparted to her. Whether it was from Kolk'r or wherever, she had no idea. But it had been her mission just the same.
However, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that it had been entirely in her imagination. They had attacked her, they had scorned her, they had assaulted her home... and yet somehow this, this display of cowardice, rankled her like none other, and brought her flowering ire to full blossom.
"Bastards," she breathed. "Bloody bastards."
Tapinza looked at her, as did Moke, temporarily distracted from his struggles by the intensity and fury now evident in his mother. And then, suddenly, there was a scream.
Across the way, on another rooftop, there was a man stagger-ing, clutching his chest. Rheela recognized him instantly, for she had seen him not that long ago... standing trial. It was Kusack, and when last she'd seen him, he'd been walking out of the meet-inghouse with a smug expression on his face. The expression was now gone, permanently, along with his continued existence. Smoke was rising from a burn on his chest, left there by the plaser bolt that Calhoun had just fired. His screech ended with a choked, burbling noise, and then Kusack pitched forward off the roof and hit the ground. Rheela winced inwardly at the noise he made when he hit, but at the same time felt a grim sort of satisfaction.
And from across the way there was a howl of such fury that it practically marked the location of the one who vocalized it. Cal-houn didn't hesitate, but fired at the source. The screech was oddly truncated then, and Rheela looked in the general direction that it had come from. As much as she had felt a grim moment of victory before, now a wave of nausea swept over her. She saw a man in a window across the way-or, at least, she assumed it to be a man. It was actually mostly the upper torso, half slumped out the window. There was a plaser in his hand that, at that moment, was tumbling from his lifeless fingers. The head was unrecogniz-able as a head, completely ruined by the bolt that had drilled right through it. Whoever it had been, he had obviously been someone
who felt close to Kusack, and had reflexively cried out in anger even as he tried to nail Calhoun. But Calhoun had obviously dis-cerned the general area of his location, and his cry of protest had helped to bring Calhoun's attention right to him.
And then all was silent.
Calhoun stayed perched upon the roof, looking around care-fully. He was studying the area, trying to discern where any other possible threats might be.
He made it... oh, my Kolk'r, he made it, Rheela breathed, un-able to believe it. And out loud she whispered, "He made it..."
And as her heart fluttered with relief, that was the moment that Moke pulled clear of her. Crying out with relief and exultation, Moke barreled into the street, shouting, "You made it! You made it, Mac!! Woooohoooot! You made it!!"
"Moke, get back!" shouted Calhoun from above, "there's still danger-!"
The words sent alarm racing through Rheela's veins, but they were completely lost on the enthused child, who just kept repeat-ing, "You made it! You made it! Ma says you made it! You-"
He ran past the water trough, which still had the severed body part from the green man named Krut floating in it. And suddenly there was a great splashing of water, sending the precious com-modity spilling to the ground as it slopped over the sides. Moke barely had time to turn, and then a large, sopping arm was wrapped around his throat, the other around his chest, and Moke was being hoisted into the air, pressed against the chest of the man who had just emerged from the trough. A straw fell away, obvi-ously what he'd been using to enable him to breathe while he lay under the water, waiting in ambush as a last resort.
From high above, Calhoun shouted, "Put him down, Temo!"
The man called Temo clutched the struggling Moke more tightly. "Make a clear shot of yourself, Calhoun! That's all I want! Y'hear? One clear shot's all I want! S'all I need!"
"You don't want to h
urt him," Calhoun called.
And still all the people of the town were hiding, quavering in
their hidey-holes, afraid or uninvolved or just plain disinterested. With a piteous wail that might have been pulled from a dying beast, Rheela cried out, "Let him go! For Kolk'r's sake, let him go!"
"Shut up!" shouted Temo. "That bastard killed my brothers, and he's gonna die! And you, Tapinza," he continued as Tapinza opened his mouth to speak, "one word out of you, and I'll shoot you where you stand!"
Tapinza had never seemed quite so small to Rheela as he did at that moment. Small and pathetic and powerless.
But Rheela was not powerless. She was fueled by righteous in-dignation and the white-hot heat of a mother's love, and spurred by this, she started toward Temo. "Let him go!" she cried out. "You have no right to manhandle him! To hurt him! To terrorize him! If your fight's with Calhoun, then have it be man to man, but leave the child out of this!"
"Rheela, get back!" shouted Calhoun. 'Temo... all right! Here!" He stood, raising himself from behind the statue, putting his hands over his head.
But Temo wasn't looking at him. Instead, his eyes narrowed in recognition as Rheela approached. "Ahhh... the weather witch. And our Majister's beloved."
I wish I was, she thought, but all she could say, driven by the fury of the moment, was, "Let my son go!"
'Temo! Up here! Rheela, back away! Tapinza, do something!" Calhoun was shouting orders, but the people in the street were be-yond hearing, beyond caring.
"/ want my son! " howled Rheela.
"You can have him in hell," replied Temo, and he swung the plaser around and fired once.
Rheela never even saw the blast. All she knew was that, sud-denly, there was a massive pressure on her breast, like a gargan-tuan hammer blow, that lifted her clean off her feet and sent her sailing through the air. She landed hard, several feet away, flat on her back, suddenly unable to get any air into her chest. She smelled burning flesh right under her nose, but didn't yet associ-
ate it as being her own. Moke was howling, wailing at the top of his lungs. She had completely lost control of her body. It was as if she could not get her head to connect with anything below her neck. Now there were voices shouting from all around her, but she couldn't sort one from the other. Somehow-she had no idea how-she managed to flop her body over like a great, dead sack of flesh, and she found herself looking up into Moke's eyes. His voice was unrecognizable, racked with pain and terror. He was still being held by Temo, who was shouting something to Cal-houn, and Calhoun was shouting back, and Tapinza was shouting, and the noise blurred into one great roaring rush. It was only at that point that she came to the realization that she had been shot, and following that realization, she further understood that she was going to die, rather soon. She was so disconnected from the mo-ment that the prospect didn't actually bother her.
"Maaaaaaa!" Moke cried out from very far away. She looked to him, looked to her son, this great and mysterious creature who had been part of her life for such a relatively brief time... and yet it had seemed as if her life had not truly started until he had en-tered it.
She saw deep, deeply into his eyes, and noticed something there that she had never noticed before. Something fearful and ter-rifying; and as Moke's terror turned to blind fury, that which was in his eyes grew in fury as well. It was as dark and as powerful as any storm she had ever summoned, and it was in the control of a child, which meant it was not in any control at all.
And suddenly, just like that, she had a flash of insight about herself that was as pure and clear as she'd ever had in her life. She suddenly understood everything, and, in understanding, was both ashamed and terrified.
Don't, she tried to whisper, don't... hurt them...
But it was too late. The storm had come. The darkness was complete.
LEFLER'S STORY
I made a token effort to struggle against Nik, but he was simply too strong. All conversation between the three of us-not that there had been much of a conversation up until that point-had ceased.
We moved through the grand lobby, and there was water every-where, pouring in through the door, coming in from an overhead balcony. It was about knee-high at that point, getting harder to slog through, and suddenly a new wave hit us. It surged through the door and knocked us flat, jarring me loose of Nik's hold on me. I went under, thrashing about, remembering that it was possi-ble for someone to drown in even an inch of water, and this was a hell of a lot more than an inch.
Someone grabbed me by the back of the neck. I was sure that it was Nik, and I tried to shake free of him. I can only imagine how I must have looked, trying to scramble away under water like some sort of crazed frog. Whatever small bit of air I'd managed to take into my lungs was jarred loose in the struggle and, reflex-ively, I breathed in water. I started to struggle again, but this time in blind panic instead of a desire to get away. Then I was yanked to my feet, coughing water violently out of my mouth and ex-pelling it through my nose.
"You're slowing us down!" Nik shouted in my face.
"You're welcome to let me go if I'm that much of an inconve-nience to you!" I snapped back at him.
"Nik! Stop playing around!" shouted Olivan.
We hauled ourselves out through the main doors, and in the dis-tance I saw something horrific. It was, honest to God, a tidal wave, and there seemed to be another one right behind that one. I had no idea where all the water was coming from, but it sure seemed as if it was from everywhere.
Nik looked, to put it mildly, disconcerted. 'The way to the field is completely flooded!" he shouted. "We'll never be able to get to our ship in time!"
"I'll bring it to us!" Olivan called back. All around us, we could see people splashing around helplessly, not knowing what to do or where to go. "It'll need five minutes to go through its take-off cycle!"
"We may not have five minutes!"
"Higher ground! We need higher ground!"
"This way!"
Nik shoved me ahead of him. I was soaked to the skin, but he still had no trouble hauling me around as if I was weightless. Con-sidering that days before he had acted as if how much I weighed was a big deal in hauling me up from a dangerous situation, it made me wonder just what else he was capable of.
Nevertheless, even as he pushed me along, he called, "Let's leave the girl! We don't need her anymore!"
"We bring her!"
"But-"
"I said, bring her!"
It was so strange. Nik's reaction wasn't just as if he was having a disagreement with his father. He actually seemed to be trying to... to resist him somehow. If that's what he was attempting, however, it didn't work. Instead he just nodded, as if it was his idea to continue to keep me in play as a pawn.
We half-ran, half-swam through the water, and got to an area that was elevated, a mountainous area that led up to camp sites and
excavations. We splashed up and out of the water, and I drew a brief sigh of relief, even though I knew this was only a temporary respite. The dirt beneath our feet was already thick with water, co-agulating into mud. We shoved our way up the path anyway.
"How could you have done it?" I managed to say to Nik, who had stopped clamping down on my vocal cords. My voice came out raspy and unpleasant. "Why did you... how could you have-?"
"Killed people?" He shrugged. "It's not especially difficult. You don't think of them as people. Just obstacles, or things that you don't want around."
"My God... I don't know you at all... you're not..."
"The man you thought I was?" He laughed bitterly. "No man ever is. The only question is whether the woman figures it out or not. We're none of us what we appear to be."
"Si Cwan is," I said fiercely as I stumbled and slid in the mud. He caught me and pushed me up, ever up. "He's exactly what he appears to be. He's noble and true and he's going to hunt you down, no matter what it takes..."
He swung me around and stared into my eyes like he was trying to discover something there. He looke
d like he was about to say something...
Suddenly there was a loud, horrific squealing sound, like noth-ing I'd ever heard. Nik froze where he was, as did I. We looked ahead of us.
There was some sort of crazed, dripping-wet creature ahead of us. It was bristling with fur and teeth, snarling and swaying its massive head back and forth, as if daring us to go past. Even Oli-van had frozen where he was, looking properly respectful.
"It's a targ. A Klingon targ," Olivan said slowly.
"Would you mind telling me what the hell a Klingon targ is doing on Risa?" Nik asked, trying to sound calm. It wasn't easy to do. We didn't have weapons and the creature was itself a weapon.
"When our little computer program kicked in, one of the things it did was release the force barriers that kept the animals in the zoo. The targ must be an escapee."
"Great, Father. So... now what?"
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