The circuit.
What goes out must come back.
What goes out must come back.
Susannah prevaricated. “I’m afraid to break him out of it too suddenly. I don’t know what it’ll do to him.”
“It’ll keep him alive,” Clausen returned tartly. “Fifty-six minutes, Susannah.”
She slipped into the conical room and knelt on the blood-warm floor at Liphar’s side. The young Sawl seemed as oblivious as his charge, his eyes intent on Stavros’ upturned face, his hand steady on Stavros’ knee. Susannah searched for sense or tone appropriate to this alien ritual, but Liphar spoke first.
“Clauzen,” he murmured, so low she must lean closer to hear.
“He’s set another bomb. We have to leave.”
He has no idea what a bomb is, she worried, but Liphar heard the tightly reined fear behind her quiet words.
“His Dance is not finish,” he whispered.
“We’ll die in here if we don’t leave now.”
“Ibi is talk this angry Sister,” Liphar insisted. “Talk now, make life for all Sawl. You go okay. We stay finish this Dance.”
“Liphar, you can’t make that decision for him.”
“Ibi know this already to be Kav.”
Susannah’s whisper strained to keep back tears. “He’s not a kav, damn it! He’s a man, a Terran man and you can’t just let him die because…”
“He is raellil,” declared Liphar with fervent pride.
“I don’t care!” She reached for Stavros and as he had before, Liphar snatched her hand in an iron grip before it could make contact.
“Fifty-five,” Clausen intoned from the doorway.
The Dancer was tiring.
Burning through him, the signal energies consumed his own.
Awareness intervened now in flashes, like sun through deep water as the swimmer strokes surfaceward, running out of air.
Awareness of a hand upon his knee.
Awareness and memory. Other sensors reawakening.
He remembered an old man, a Dancer himself.
Songs he remembered, and language. A ritual of burning.
Language.
What goes out must come back.
Language…
Identity.
Ahhh…
“Liphar! You’ve got to bring him out of it!” Susannah stared fiercely at the young Sawl, preparing to shake off his restraining hand with all the desperate strength she could muster. Liphar stared back implacably.
“For Christ’s sake, get on with it!” growled Clausen, crowding into the doorway.
Identity!
The swimmer surfaced.
Bright light and air and sound.
CRI! Stavros called through the circuit. Pain seared his palms. A woman and a young man knelt before him in a hot amber room. He knew where he was and remembered where he’d been.
The circuit. He was the Dancer and himself, could be both. Could both live and Dance.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT, sent CRI.
The Dance was not dying. It was a part of life, had been for all, so long ago. Until the meaning of the connection it forged was forgotten, submerged in ritual, lost to all but a few with an instinct for…
Connection. There was no guar. There never was. The miracle was Their fire burning through me. The me willing to believe that a man could speak to a Goddess.
Connection. Language.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
No, I must talk to Her.
NO USE. SYSTEM IN FAILURE. GET OUT. YOU ARE IN DANGER.
What goes out must return…
She must be told of her danger.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
Complete the circuit, CRI. Send the signal back. Send it back, CRI. I am the conduit, CRI. Send it back through me. NOW!
Awareness showed the bullet-headed man swooping down on him, hand outstretched to grapple. But Stavros was the Dancer, and Time only a rhythm that he could move within or without.
Send it, CRI!
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT OF THIS REQUEST.
His mind recalled the machine’s man-made parameters, and a way that human will, his own, might be imposed on her circuitry. He, Stavros, framed the demand in human numbers and he the Dancer sang it into signal, weaving it into the siren pulse as it streamed through him, palm to burning palm, on its way to the source called CRI.
Raellil.
Transmitter.
Translator.
The grappling hand soared timelessly toward his shoulder.
Stavros waited.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
and then…
What went out, returned.
The siren signal was answered by its returning self.
The Dance revolved in perfect harmony.
The circuit was complete.
Clausen’s fist closed hard on his arm.
In your hands now, Sister-Goddess, Stavros prayed.
He was jerked upward to his knees, head flung back, arms flailing, ripped from the living walls as if from a socket.
Liphar screeched and launched himself at the prospector like a demon, then gasped and fell back wheezing as Susannah’s arm swung hard against his chest to keep him from the laser’s hungry beam.
“OUT!” Clausen roared. “Or I’ll drill him and leave him!”
With a vicious wrench, he slammed Stavros against the doorway, then grabbed him up again and flung him out into the hall.
Stavros crashed unresisting to the floor and lay still. Susannah wrapped the hysterical, raging Liphar in a desperate bear hug.
At the door, Clausen threw them a look of disgust. “And shut that kid off!” He moved out into the hall, ordering Ghirra and Aguidran toward the crumpled body on the floor. “Get him up!”
The two Sawls heaved Stavros to his feet with effort. He was not quite dead weight but his knees buckled and his head lolled forward limply. Blood from his fall smeared his mouth and jaw. His lips fluttered soundlessly.
“Move!” said Clausen into the conical room.
Susannah wrestled Liphar past the prospector and his ready laser, then released him. They rushed to help with Stavros. Sticky red seeped from beneath the open collar of his therm-suit.
“The wound’s opened up. At least give me a chance to look at him.”
“Later,” snapped Clausen. “He’ll survive.”
Aguidran hooked Stavros’ left arm behind her back as gently as she could. From the other side, Ghirra grasped him firmly around the waist. Liphar hovered, patting at Stavros with feathery helpless hands and weeping.
Stavros began to mutter faint incoherence.
As Aguidran and her brother started down the hall, the Ranger flashed the prospector a look of hatred that washed past Susannah like ice water. She stepped hastily aside to gather up her pack and equipment. Clausen had robbed them of the chance to know if there were or had ever been machines within this strange complex, but she was determined not to lose her samples.
Catching up with her, Clausen complained, “You might show a little gratitude. I’m saving their goddamn miserable lives!”
“Oh, we’re grateful. Emil,” Susannah hissed. “Real grateful.”
“My dear Susannah.” He traced the profile of the slanting glowing walls with the laser’s stubby nose. “When you’re away from here and home again, all this will seem like a silly dream. You’ll wonder what you got so worked up about.”
Susannah stared at him with dull incredulity, then moved ahead to comfort Liphar as he stumbled along behind his battered, muttering hero, sobbing uncontrollably.
Danforth’s chronometer felt like a lead weight on his wrist, one he did not want to keep staring at. He stared at the monitor instead.
RELAYING ALARM SIGNAL BACK TO SOURCE AS PER MR. IBIÁ’S ORDER.
McPherson chewed the tip of a thumbnail. “I’ve heard of that done in First Contact procedures, you know? When nothing else is working.”
Is that really what this is? Danfo
rth wondered. Are we talking about machines here or the men behind them?
He did not notice CRI’s next message until the computer flashed it impatiently.
THE ALARM HAS CEASED.
Hurriedly, he typed: Clarify.
ALARM LOOP CEASED TRANSMISSION FORTY SECONDS AGO. MR. IBIÁ HAS CEASED TRANSMISSION. SILENCE ON ALL FREQUENCIES BUT OUR OWN.
To Danforth, this did not sound like positive news. He caught himself listening to the vast rock-lined hush of the rift, musing that silence too is a relative quantity, able to become quite suddenly more profound than it was a moment before.
CRI, he typed. Time to detonation?
52 MINUTES, 21 SECONDS.
43
The sun balanced on the western rim like a fat salmon melon. Hard-edged shadow crawled out of the lower rift and advanced across the ledge. At eight minutes until detonation, Danforth slid heavily into the pilot’s seat.
“Ron, strap in. Might as well be tied down to something when she blows.”
“Wait!” she called out eagerly, “Here they come!”
Danforth stared across the ledge. The gaunt Master Ranger and her brother struggled out of the tunnels supporting Ibiá between them. Danforth saw blood on his therm-suit.
What’s the sonofabitch done to him this time?
Liphar followed close behind with Susannah. Clausen appeared last of all. He paused in the giant opening, unseen by the others, looked upward toward the high perfect arch and touched the nose of his pistol to his brow in grim, smiling salute.
McPherson dropped through the hatch and took off across the ledge to help the exhausted Sawls with their burden. “Come on, we gotta take cover!”
Clausen caught her arm, pulled her away. He flipped her a small bit of metal and plastic. “Go bring up A-Sled.”
McPherson gripped the encased ignition sequence. “I might just take off without you.”
“Sacrifice Taylor to get at me? You don’t hate me that much, McP. Now get on it, eh?”
McPherson glared, as if she might leap for his throat, then whirled and raced off toward the edge of the ledge. She glanced back once, then disappeared down a hidden trail over the side.
Clausen strode toward the Sled. “On your feet, Tay. I want you down here on the ground where I can see you!”
Danforth did not move. The others dragged Stavros to the Sled and laid him on the ground beside the wing. Ghirra knelt immediately, unstoppering a canteen. Susannah went to the hatch for a blanket to use as a stretcher. Aguidran crouched with her back to Clausen as he shouldered past the whimpering Liphar.
“Taylor, get your ass moving!”
Danforth watched him approach the cockpit. Some instinct for rebellion kept him still, and over the prospector’s shoulder, he saw Aguidran slide a hand down her leather-wrapped leg to her boot, her eyes steely on Clausen’s back. Danforth felt the moment of decision come and go without surprise, understanding that this decision had been made weeks ago, as he lay on another wilderness ledge, wet, shivering, every breath an agony, praying for delirium to wrap him in its merciful cocoon, to end the humiliation of having to beg medicine against the pain, of having to suffer his grinning companion’s lash of mockery.
He kept himself as still as he could. He forced his eyes not to glide past Clausen to the lithe brown hand grasping the handle of the knife, nor to seek out Susannah, who rustled around beneath the hatch, unawares.
His eyes locked with Clausen’s instead, and too late he knew this to be an equal giveaway.
Clausen’s blue eyes narrowed warily.
As the blade slipped out of its sheath, he spun, ducking, whipping the laser up and around. Aguidran lunged for him over Stavros’ legs. Clausen sighted by instinct as he dropped to one knee and fired, twice.
Aguidran shuddered mid-flight but kept coming, her blood spattering Stavros and the grainy ledge and the white skin of the Sled. She fell to meet Clausen’s sidelong dodge. Her strong arm arced and thrust in a fierce underhand jab that caught the prospector in the groin. The eight-inch blade rammed into his gut and he swore in pain and surprise, twisting away from the Ranger as she tumbled and collapsed, her momentum spent.
Liphar threw himself down to shield Stavros’ blood-stained body, but the laser clattered loose as Clausen staggered against the wing. He slipped to his knees, hands wrapped around the protruding knife hilt, shiny hot red leaking between his clutching fingers.
Liphar screamed. Danforth struggled out of his seat. Susannah turned, wide-eyed, and ran to Clausen as he struggled to pull the blade himself. Ghirra stumbled to his fallen sister’s side, calling for Susannah’s help.
“A real deep breath, Emil.” Gritting her teeth, Susannah grasped the knife and yanked it free, more roughly than she needed to. Ghirra’s pleas for help pulled at her. She pressed Clausen’s own hands to the wound. “She got you low. You’re lucky this time.”
He swore again, his breathing tight, but worked at staunching his bleeding knowledgeably. “I’ve been gut-cut before,” he offered grimly. “Always hurts like a sonofabitch.”
“But you were probably somewhere near a hospital that time. Don’t move!” Susannah scrambled up and met Danforth on his crutches at the hatch, already holding out her medikit.
“The gun…” he reminded her urgently.
Hurrying to Aguidran, she bent and scooped up the little pistol, still lying within Clausen’s reach. She tossed it into her kit with a grunt of loathing.
Clausen eyed her darkly. “Don’t let this go too long, doc. We’re losing minutes and I’m losing blood.”
Susannah ignored him. Aguidran had fallen face down, arms splayed, Susannah helped Ghirra turn her over. The dark ranger leathers were slick with blood that welled up too fast from tiny double holes in the precise area of her heart. Susannah fumbled for one wrist, Ghirra for the other, their heads bent at the same intent listening angle. Leaning over the side of the open hold, Danforth watched their heads lift, their eyes meet with the kind of awful knowing that doctors share. He watched them put that knowing immediately aside and go diligently to work to save a life that had already slipped from their grasp.
He remembered the priority of the clock. “Susannah, we’ve got to scram the minute Ronnie brings up A-Sled!”
Susannah nodded distractedly, helping Ghirra to slice away thin layers of resilient leather, exposing Aguidran’s wounds. “Tell Emil to disarm the charge.”
Danforth went to the hatch. “Give me the release code,” he called down to the prospector.
Propped against the left wing wheel, Clausen stared up at him, pale and sweating. “You sat there while she pulled a fucking knife on me…!” His pain-narrowed eyes flicked away from Danforth’s unremorseful gaze to search the ledge. “Jesus, where’s McPherson?”
“Let me disarm the charge, Emil.”
“Can’t. It’s a no-interrupt sequence.”
“Will it take us out for sure when it blows?”
Clausen closed his eyes wearily. “I set it at full power.”
“So even if we did get out alive, we’d never know what was in there.” Danforth shook his head. “You really are unhinged.”
He thought he heard the hum of A-Sled approaching. He reset the access ladder and lowered himself and his crutches clumsily through the hatch. He limped over to Clausen. “Can you walk?”
“He’d better not,” Susannah warned over her shoulder.
“Let him work on me, then,” said Clausen caustically. “Even untrained help is better than none.”
“We’ll get to you,” she snapped.
“Susannah, we’ve got six minutes…!” Danforth protested.
She continued working on Aguidran. “See how Stav is doing.”
“Give it up,” Clausen rasped. “She was dead when she went down.”
Danforth moved over to check on Stavros.
Still weeping, Liphar was hunched over his knees, palming blood from Stavros’ face with bare hands and water from a canteen. Apart from superfici
al facial cuts and ugly leakage from the shoulder wound, the linguist seemed physically unharmed. But his hands clenched and unclenched. His lips moved purposefully. Occasional random syllables escaped as voice.
Danforth stood over them, his cast-bound legs preventing him from offering real help. “Liphar, can you get him on his feet?”
Liphar did not respond. He rocked gently and wept, continuing to bathe Stavros’ face even after it was clean.
Four minutes. Danforth heard the whine of A-Sled’s fans. Across the ledge, the white craft rose gracefully above the edge and swooped toward them.
Clausen coughed and winced. “Phew. Jesus. Damn, Susannah, get over here! A doctor’s duty is to the living!”
Susannah gathered herself and her medikit. Her eyes begged Ghirra’s understanding. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Ghirra’s urgent efforts slowed.
“We won’t leave her,” Susannah assured him. “We’ll put her in the other Sled as soon as it lands.”
He nodded dully.
Susannah laid a gentle finger on his wrist, wet with his twin’s blood, then turned away as the gusts from the descending craft whipped loose hair against her tear-streaked cheeks. She dragged her medikit over to Clausen and went to work sewing him up.
McPherson landed the Sled and left the fans cycling. She raced across the ledge, then pulled up in shock at the sight of bodies and spattered red. She stared down at Aguidran. “What the…?”
“Later,” Danforth ordered. “Get Ibiá into the hold. We’ve got three minutes and about zero chance of being airborne in time!”
They dragged Stavros to A-Sled. McPherson left Danforth and Liphar to struggle him up the ladder. She ran back to help Susannah maneuver Clausen onto the makeshift blanket stretcher.
“You don’t deserve it but you’re going to make it,” Susannah told the prospector.
He attempted a grin, but McPherson’s ungentle handling froze it into a grimace.
“Killing people’s a real habit with you, eh?” she spat.
“Self-defense,” he replied predictably.
Danforth stumped up, breathing hard. “Got him in. All ready here?”
“Ask Taylor. He saw all of it,” Clausen insisted. “All of it.”
“Easy does it,” Susannah advised, gathering up her equipment. “The internal bleeding’s controlled for now, but he’s only stapled together.”
Reign of Fire Page 43
