Cobra Strike

And glaring darkly at one of the displays was Mayor Kimmeron.

He looked up as Pyre and his escort approached, and the Cobra waited for the inevitable reaction. Kimmeron's gaze swept Pyre's matted hair and growth of beard; his borrowed jacket over camouflage survival suit; the dead mojo now hanging over his shoulder by a single thread. But his expression didn't change, and when he looked up again at Pyre's face the Cobra was struck by the brightness of the other's eyes, "You are from the ship," Kimmeron said calmly.

"You left it before our cordon was set up. How?"

"Magic," Pyre said shortly. He glanced around the room. Another fifteen or so

Qasamans were present nearly all of them staring in his direction. All had the usual sidearm and mojo, but no one looked like he was interested in making any move for his weapon. "Your underground command post?" he asked Kimmeron.

"One of them," the other nodded. "There are many more. You will gain little by destroying it."

"I'm not really interested in destroying anything," Pyre told him. "I'm here mainly to arrange our companions' release."

Kimmeron's lip curled. "You are remarkably slow to learn," he spat. "Didn't the death of your other messenger teach you a lesson?"

Pyre felt his mouth go dry. "What other messenger? You mean the contact team?"

For a moment the other frowned. Then his face cleared in understanding. "Ah. The jamming of your radio signals was effective against you, at least. I see. So you do not know the man Winward left your ship without permission and was shot."

Winward? Had Telek started her breakout attempt already? "Why did you shoot him?" he snapped. "You just said he was a messenger-

"For the unprovoked deaths of eight men in Purma and six here you are all responsible. You have spied and you have murdered, and your punishment will be that of death."

Pyre stared at him, mental wheels unable to catch. Winward... shot down like a spine leopard, probably without so much as a warning. Then why aren't they shooting at me? Simple fear?-he wouldn't be taken by surprise, after all. Or was it something more practical? With Winward gone and whatever the hell had happened in Purma-whatever that was-all over, did they want a live Cobra to study?

His gaze drifted to the particular bank of displays Kimmeron had been studying.

Rooms, corridors, outside views... three showed the Dewdrop. Must be from the airfield tower, he realized. Live picture? If so there was still a chance for some of them to escape; the ship seemed undamaged.

"We would prefer to keep you alive at present," Kimmeron broke into his thoughts. "You, and the ones named Cerenkov and Rynstadt, have no possibility of escaping. I tell you this so that you will not try and thereby force us to kill you prematurely."

"Our ship might escape," Pyre pointed out. "And it will tell our people of our imprisonment."

"Your ship, too, ca

But the Dewdrop can lift straight up. Would that make enough of a difference?

There was no way to know... but given the national paranoia, Pyre tended to doubt it. "I'd still like to talk to you about release of our companions," he told the mayor, just for something to say.

Kimmeron arched his eyebrows. "You speak foolishness," he bit out. "We have you and the body of Winward, from which your so-named 'magic' powers can surely be learned."

"Our magic ca

"You are still alive," the other said pointedly. "From Cerenkov and Rynstadt we will obtain information about your culture and technology which will prepare us for any attack your world launches against us in the future. And from your ship-intact or in pieces-we will learn even more, perhaps enough to finally regain star travel. All that is within our hands; what could you offer of greater value for allowing your departure?"

There was no answer Pyre could give to that... and it occurred to him that a method which allowed its users to learn Anglic in a week might indeed let them reconstruct the Dewdrop and its systems from whatever wreckage remained after its destruction.

Which meant that his gallant rescue attempt was now, and always had been, doomed to failure. Cerenkov and Rynstadt were beyond help, and Pyre's own last minutes would be spent right here in the mayor's underground nerve center. If he could somehow find the communications panel-and then find a way to shut off or broadcast through the jamming-and then figure out how to signal the Dewdrop to get the hell away-and all before sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed him-

And as the impossibilities of each step lined up before him like mountains the universe presented him a gift. A small gift, hardly more than a sign... but He saw it, and Kimmeron did not, and he had the satisfaction of giving the mayor a genuine smile. "What do I have to offer, Mr. Mayor?" he said calmly. "A great deal, actually... because all that was in your hands a moment ago is even now slipping through your fingers."

Kimmeron frowned... and as he started to speak Pyre heard a sharp intake of breath from the guard spokesman beside him. Kimmeron twisted to look behind him... and when he turned back his face was pale. "How-?"

"How?" Pyre shifted his eyes over Kimmeron's shoulder, to the displays that showed the airfield tower and environs.

-Or that had done so a few minutes earlier. Now, the entire bank showed a uniform gray.

How? "Very simple, Mr. Mayor," Pyre said... and suppressed the shiver of that boyhood memory. Like MacDonald before him on that awful day of vengeance against

Challinor.... "Winward, it appears, has returned from the dead."

Chapter 21

It was so unexpected-so totally unexpected-that Winward never even had a chance to react. One minute he was walking around the tower with his Qasaman escort, surreptitiously searching the building and immediate area for weapons and additional guards and trying to work out exactly what he would say when they reached whoever he was being taken to. Just walking peacefully... and then the leader muttered something and turned around... and before Winward could do more than focus on the other the night lit up with a thunderous flash and a sledgehammer slammed into the center of his chest, blowing him backwards into nothingness as the crack of the lethal shot echoed in his ears....

The blackness in his brain faded slowly, and for what seemed like hours he drifted slowly toward the reality he could faintly sense above him. The pain came first-dull, throbbing pain in his chest; sharp, stinging pain in his eyes and face-and with that breakthrough the rest of his senses began to function again. Sounds filtered in: footsteps, doors opening and closing, occasional incomprehensible voices. He discovered he was on his back, bouncing rhythmically as if being carried, and every so often he felt a trickle of something run down his ribs under his tunic.

And slowly, he realized what had happened.

He'd been shot. Deliberately and maliciously shot. And was probably dying.

The only general rule he could recall from his first-aid training was that injury victims should not be u

But it wasn't happening. On the contrary, with each passing heartbeat he felt his mind sharpening, with strength and sensation rapidly returning to his limbs.

Far from dying, he was actually coming back to life.

What the hell?

And it was only then, as his body and brain finally meshed enough to localize his wound, that he realized what had happened.