Atvar H'sial unfurled her antennae in frustration as she sought to frame the first question.
YOU SPENT MANY HOURS IN YOUR QUARTERS WITH LOUIS NENDA, WHILE THE SHIP WAS TRAPPED IN THE HIATUS. CAN YOU DESCRIBE TO ME YOUR EXPERIENCE DURING THAT TIME?
Glenna had talked with the Cecropian a dozen times since the Gravitas left the region of Sentinel Gate. Repeated experience had not made Glenna feel fully comfortable. You had to face facts. Chatting about your sex life with what was, when you got right down to it, no more than a smart monster bug was never going to equate to drawing-room conversation.
"I'll talk about my feelings, if you like, so long as you don't want physical details. A lady has a right to privacy. You want me to describe what sort of time I had?" Glenna thought for a moment. "It was a total blast."
Not a promising beginning. Blast = explosion, discharge, detonation, fulmination.
WAS THERE AN EXPLOSION WHILE YOU WERE WITH LOUIS NENDA?
"An explosion! There were half-a-dozen of them—on both sides. I know that off-worlders are supposed to be something special, compared with the men on Sentinel Gate. But nobody ever told me to expect anyone like Louis." Glenna smiled, arched her back, and stretched tired arm and leg muscles. Her worries about privacy were disappearing. After all, the Cecropian was Louis's partner. She must already know what the man was like. A maniac. "It was awesome."
Awesome. The word was not even given; was it the same as awful = dreadful, terrifying, appalling?
"He was amazing," Glenna went on. "An absolute animal."
Animal = wild beast, brute, less than human, lower life form.
LOUIS NENDA WAS LIKE A WILD BEAST WITH YOU?
"He certainly was. Over and over. Want to see the tooth marks? I'd think we were all done, but then something would get him going again."
Going = leaving, departing, exiting.
And tooth marks. That needed no dictionary. Louis Nenda had attacked Glenna Omar, and departed.
As Atvar H'sial ought to depart. But it was not the Cecropian way to give up unless there was no other alternative. She needed Glenna Omar, to immunize Nenda from the Lang female. She dug in, ready for a long effort at persuasion.
YOUR EFFORTS ON MY BEHALF, NO MATTER HOW FRUITLESS, ARE TO BE COMMENDED . . .
Louis Nenda, monitoring everything on the damaged ship, was listening to Glenna and Atvar H'sial with six different kinds of satisfaction. He could have given the Cecropian the use of a decent dictionary, but why spoil the fun? It would make no difference to the final result. Atvar H'sial was persistent. She and Glenna would sort out their misunderstanding eventually, provided they kept talking.
As for Glenna's comments . . .
It was no surprise that Louis had had the time of his life. It had left him drained and half-dead, of course, but that was the way a fantasy ought to leave you. A native Karelian like Louis Nenda might, in his dreams, meet and take to bed a woman from one of the richest worlds of the Fourth Alliance, a beautiful woman with long, supple limbs and skin so soft and creamy that you felt it would bruise at a touch. In your dream world the lady might even fake pleasure. But for her ecstasy to be genuine, for her to say afterwards to a third party that it had been wonderful—that went beyond fantasy. It was so improbable, it must really have happened.
Quintus Bloom's intrusion, coming when it did, made Louis want to turn around and strangle him.
"I have been monitoring the damage reports." The beaked nose came pushing over Nenda's left shoulder. Bloom was staring at the status flags. "Are we in a position to continue my mission?"
Nenda turned his head. No sign of fear or concern was visible on Bloom's face. He was plenty tough, in his own way. My mission, eh? They would see about that.
"We can continue." Louis nodded to the screen. "See that star? We'll soon be in orbit around Genizee."
"Excellent. Any sign of Darya Lang?"
Bloom was not so much tough, Louis decided, as protected from all outside worries by the strength of his own obsession.
"Not a hint. We beat her to it, or more likely she went someplace else."
"Either is satisfactory." Bloom considered for a moment. "The records I made during our entry to the Anfract remain intact, but I would prefer more tangible evidence to take back with us to Sentinel Gate. As one who knows this region well, do you have suggestions?"
No doubt in Bloom's mind that they would get back. Nature—and now Louis Nenda—looked after drunks, idiots, babies, and Quintus Bloom.
"Certainly." It was time to improvise. Louis had his own agenda. "The planet Genizee contained structures that could only have come from the Builders." A perfectly true statement, even if those structures had been fast disappearing when Nenda and Atvar H'sial made their hasty departure. "So a landing on Genizee might serve a double purpose. First, it will allow you to obtain the evidence you need. And second, I can take a good look at the external damage to the ship."
"Very well. Proceed." Bloom was already leaving.
"One other thing." Nenda's call halted him at the door. "Genizee is the home of the Zardalu."
"I have no interest in Zardalu."
"Maybe not." Louis throttled back his irritation. "But they'll have plenty of interest in you—and in tearing you to bits. When we land, let me deal with 'em. I can talk to them."
"Such was already my intention. I consider it part of your duties."
That, and everything else that comes to your mind. Louis turned to monitor once more the conversation between Glenna Omar and Atvar H'sial. He cursed. Too late. The Cecropian had gone, and Glenna was relaxed on the divan, her face as unlined and innocent as a small child's.
Louis stared at the scene, and felt dizziness and a surge of intense desire. His blood sugar must be very low. He would give anything right now for one of those sticky, sugary confections sitting on the low table next to Glenna.
Nenda had left Genizee, swearing never to make another landing there. Here was the landing he would never make. The Gravitas came wobbling down toward the familiar sandy shore. Zardalu were emerging from the sea and the tall, sandstone towers at the water's edge, long before the ship made its touch-down.
Aware of the poor condition of the ship's equipment, Nenda worried that they would plummet the final fifty meters and squash a batch of the welcoming committee. It wouldn't help the subsequent conversation. Or maybe, knowing the Zardalu, it might help a great deal.
The Gravitas flopped in sideways, dropping like a wounded duck at the very edge of the beach. Zardalu slid out of the way at the last moment, and returned at once to form a crouching ring around the ship on land and in the water.
There was no point in putting off the critical moment. Nenda, with Atvar H'sial right behind him, opened the one working hatch on the side of the ship and stepped out onto the sand. He was aware of Glenna Omar and Quintus Bloom, curious and unafraid, standing behind him at the hatch. He was strangely calm himself. Maybe constant exposure to horrors was making him blasé. Unfortunately that was one very easy way to get yourself killed.
Louis beckoned to the biggest Zardalu. It lifted its monstrous body and slipped noiselessly forward like a gigantic blue ghost. Right in front of Nenda it subsided in a sprawl of thick tentacles.
"Just as we promised, we have returned." The clicks and whistles Louis used were in the master form of the old Zardalu slave language, but that hardly mattered. What counted was going to be the reply. How had things been going here, in the months since he and Atvar H'sial left?
"We have dreamed of your return."
In slave talk! Nenda waited, until the broad head bowed and a long tongue of royal purple stretched four feet along the beach. He placed his boot firmly on it for five seconds, easily long enough to satisfy the ritual requirement, and then stepped back. He resisted the urge to scuff the slime from his boot. What Bloom and Glenna Omar thought of all this nonsense was anyone's guess. They certainly didn't realize the possible danger.
"It is time for our other pledge
to be fulfilled. We have proved that we are able to come and go from Genizee as we choose. Now it is time for us to prove that we are able to take you with us."
The head of midnight-blue rose and turned, to scan the waiting circle. "We are ready. We await only your permission."
Now for the tricky bit. "Not all can go at once. We will begin by taking with us a single individual, as a demonstration. After that we will organize for the departure of larger groups."
There was a long, long silence, while all Nenda's worries about growing too blasé slipped silently away.
"That will be satisfactory. If the Masters will wait for a few moments and permit a turning of the back."
"It is permitted."
The big Zardalu swiveled its body around without moving its tentacles. It made a short speech in a language that Nenda did not understand at all.
A very short speech. Surely those few clicks were not enough to explain what Nenda had said. But all the other Zardalu were backing away. Thirty meters. Fifty meters.
The Zardalu in front of Louis turned back to face him. "It is done. I am the chosen Zardalu, and I am ready to go at once. It will be desirable to move with speed, once we begin."
"No point in waiting." Louis turned, and was gesturing Atvar H'sial back into the hatch when the noise began. It came from everywhere in the ring of waiting Zardalu, a high-pitched buzz that rose rapidly in volume.
He took one look, and knew exactly what had happened. Zardalu never changed. The big one hadn't explained anything at all to the rest. It had decided who was going, and just commanded the others to stand back—giving Louis, for a bet, as the source of the order.
The thought wasn't complete before he was at the hatch. Atvar H'sial, even quicker on the uptake, was already through and had swept Quintus Bloom and Glenna Omar along in front of her. Louis took a swift look behind. The self-appointed Zardalu representative was at his heels, while a hundred furious others were gliding in hot pursuit.
Nothing ever went the way you planned! Louis threw himself through the hatch. It was anybody's guess whether the big Zardalu would be able to squeeze in after him, but if that one could, so could others.
Louis didn't wait to find out. He bee-lined for the controls and slapped in the lift-off sequence. The Gravitas started its rise, tilting far to the left. Nenda knew why. The big Zardalu was wedged halfway through the hatch on the side of the ship and was struggling to wriggle in farther. A dozen others had grabbed the tentacles that were still dangling outside. The ship was lifting with twenty tons of excess and unbalanced mass. But it was lifting. And the Zardalu in the hatch was flailing with one free tentacle at the hangers-on.
Louis watched, with no regret at all, as the first of the hanging Zardalu lost its grip, dropped a couple of hundred feet, and splattered on a line of jutting rocks that bordered the beach.
After that it was just a matter of time. The ship was still rising. The Zardalu outside were shaken off, one by one. It no longer mattered whether they fell on land or water. At this height both were equally fatal. The last one to go had managed to attach its suckers to the underside of the Gravitas. It clung on until the ship was almost at the edge of Genizee's atmosphere. But even a Zardalu had to breathe. Nenda watched it drop at last, a near-unconscious ball of defiantly thrashing tentacles. He even felt faint sympathy as it vanished from sight. You had to admire anything, human or alien, that just didn't know when to quit. The big Zardalu, after enormous effort, had squeezed its bulk all the way on board. Not before time, either, because the ship was losing air through the hatch. Nenda slammed it closed, nipping off the ends of a couple of tentacles that were slow to pull out of the way.
The Zardalu did not seem to mind. It lay on the deck for a few seconds, breathing hard, then lifted its head and stared around. Glenna took one look at the vicious beak and ran to stand behind Louis. She put her arms around him and clung to him, hard enough to make his rib cage creak.
Nenda ignored that. He stepped closer to the Zardalu and waited until the great cerulean eyes turned in his direction.
"I hope you have not caused me a problem." He used the crudest form of master-slave talk.
"Problem?" The Zardalu sounded terrified. "Master, why are you unhappy?"
"I'm not unhappy. But others may be. What about the ones who just got killed? What about all the ones who were left behind?"
"The dead do not feel happy or unhappy." Now the Zardalu sounded more puzzled than afraid. "As for the rest, why would they have reason to complain? I acted as any one of them would have acted. What other behavior is possible?"
Which was probably, to a Zardalu, a wholly reasonable position.
Louis gave up any attempt to understand aliens.
Or humans. Quintus Bloom had narrowly escaped death. He was standing within six feet of a creature who at Nenda's command would tear him into small pieces and swallow the fragments. And he was scowling at Louis.
"I did not authorize lift-off from Genizee. What about my evidence of Builder activities there? Return me to the surface at once."
The temptation was very great. Pop the hatch open for a second, and say the right word to the Zardalu. Then Nenda would have revenge for all Bloom's put-downs and insults. Bloom would have his own put-down, one that went a long, long way. He would be returned to the surface all right—just as he had ordered.
It was Glenna Omar who saved Bloom. But not by siding with him. She released her hold on Nenda and turned angrily.
"How dare you talk to Louis like that! I'm sure he did what was best for us. He took off because he had to. Didn't you see them? Hundreds of things like—like that thing"—she waved at the Zardalu, but averted her eyes from it—"waiting down there for us."
Louis was beyond confusion. In his experience—and he had plenty—no one had ever jumped forward to defend him, as Glenna was defending him. And Quintus Bloom seemed equally amazed. Glenna Omar had been allowed on the expedition specifically to admire and report back in glowing terms everything that Bloom did. But now she was criticizing him—and approving the unauthorized actions of some squat, swarthy barbarian from the middle of nowhere.
It was at this tense, intense, and incomprehensible moment that the alarm system of the Gravitas sounded. The ship's remaining sensors were warning of a major emergency.
* * *
Too many crises, all different, and one right after another. Louis was fairly sure that he was in the middle of a long sequence of alternating dreams and nightmares. He had reached another piece of the dark side. Close your eyes, relax. Unfortunately he dared not take the risk.
The first information came from the viewing screens that showed what lay ahead of the ship. They once more displayed the pattern of singularities that had prevented escape from Genizee during Nenda and Atvar H'sial's last visit. Now, however, the singularities looked a good deal more ominous, dark bands with sudden lightning flashes across them mixed in with the pale wash of a gently wavering aurora. There were other differences, too. No saffron beam of light was stabbing out from the artificial hollow moon of Genizee, ready to return the ship to the planet's surface.
Good news. Except that a beam of vivid purple from the same source had locked on to the Gravitas. It was pulling them directly toward the hollow moon, at a steadily accelerating pace.
Nenda inventoried the ship's interior. The big Zardalu was lying quietly on the floor, inspecting the ends of its two clipped tentacles.
Fair enough. Louis couldn't think of one useful thing to tell it to do in an emergency. No allowance had been made in the Gravitas's design for strapping in a body that size. If it didn't move, that was a blessing.
Atvar H'sial, who couldn't see the screens, presumably had no idea what was happening unless she could smell it from Louis's natural pheromones—he had found no time to send a message to her, but he must stink of fear. Anyway, no help there.
Quintus Bloom was turning accusingly toward Louis, but his mouth was still only half-open when the lights went out
. All the screens turned dark. A moment later, Glenna's arms went round Nenda from behind and ran like starved animals down his body. "Louis!" Her whisper was right in his ear. "It's another hiatus!"
It wasn't, though. It was more serious than that, and Louis knew it even if no one else did. He jerked forward, away from Glenna's embrace. As he did so the lights came back on and the screens flickered again to life.
He reached for the controls, guessing that anything he did would make little difference. In the couple of seconds that the lights had been off, the hollow satellite of Genizee had vanished. In its place stood a spinning ball of darkness.
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