Divergence

Maybe they were. The sounds of the fight above and about him continued. He heard the sizzle of flashburn units on Zardalu flesh, whistles and clicks of pain, the pounding of enraged tentacles against walls and floor. Powerful tentacles slapped against Holder’s body.

And then he heard a new sound. It was a human being in final agony.

He risked pressing his face to the space between two tentacles and peered out.

E. C. Tally’s failing body had been too slow. A Zardalu had him in four of its python arms. Hans Rebka and Darya were there, ru

To no effect. The Zardalu was filled with its own rage and blood lust. It was slowly pulling Tally apart. As Nenda watched both arms were plucked free, then the legs, one by one. They went into the body pouch — even in the middle of battle, food for ravenous Zardalu young would not be wasted. Finally the bloody stump of torso was hurled away, to smash against the corridor wall. The top of the skull flew loose, to be cracked like an eggshell a moment later by a threshing Zardalu tentacle.

Nenda pulled his head back. There was nothing to be done for Tally. At least Atvar H’sial and the others must have made it across the ceiling to the relative safety of the higher corridor level, for there was no sign of them. He had to lie low a while longer, as Lang and Rebka tried to push the disoriented Zardalu the final few meters. He looked out along the line of Holder’s tentacles. Just three steps more, and they would be on the ramp to the vortex, right on the point of no return.

The stab of agony in his right thumb was so unexpected that for a moment Nenda had no idea what was happening. The half-muffled cry squeezed out of him was shock more than pain.

He lifted his hand. Clinging to it, its beak firmly set in the bleeding flesh, was a young Zardalu. As Nenda watched it swallowed a piece from the base of his thumb. In the same motion it snapped for another bite.

He smacked the creature away with his other hand and stared around him. Now that he could see better in the shade of the sheltering tentacles, he could make out four small rounded shapes, pale apricot against the blue of the unconscious parent.

The Starburst had been enough to knock out Holder, but the offspring were far from quiet. All the other infants were crawling single-mindedly toward him.

“Not today, Junior. Try a bit of this.” Nenda grabbed them as they came and held them one after another to the underside of the adult Zardalu’s tentacles. After a moment’s hesitation they attacked the tough flesh with their sharp beaks. Holder’s body began to twitch.

Nenda cursed his own stupidity. How dumb could you get? He ought to have let them keep on at him, rather than risk waking the unconscious adult.

He groped for the black satchel at his side, opened it, and pulled out random bits of food. It was his reserve supply, but if Holder woke up now Louis Nenda would never need food again.

The young Zardalu grabbed the fragments eagerly. Ca

Holder’s body rolled suddenly to the left. Nenda froze in horror. Then he realized that none of the tentacles was moving. Something was rolling the great body from outside, pushing it closer to the ramp. The sizzle of flashburn units was louder.

He took another look along the line of Holder’s tentacles. The Zardalu were past him! He could see a confusion of stumbling bodies. While he had been preoccupied with the young ones, the adults had been herded forward. He watched them stagger one by one onto the begi

Going, going… gone.

The last Zardalu vanished, to cries of triumph from Rebka and the others. Nenda joined in, then realized that Holder’s body was still moving toward the tu

“Hey!” He forced himself up from the sheltering tentacles, pushing with his legs and not worrying about arousing Holder. As his head poked free he found he was staring at the startled face of Darya Lang. She was leaning her weight against Holder’s body. Birdie Kelly was by her side.

“Nenda!” she said. “You’re alive.”

“You’ve got a talent for the obvious, Professor.”

“You disappeared. We felt sure they’d got you — torn you to bits, or one of them took you in whole.”

“Yeah. Ass first. I just took a rest in there.”

“No time to chat, Nenda.” That was Hans Rebka, straining on the upper part of Holder’s torso. “It’s starting to come round — eyes opening. Get out here and help.”

Nenda forced his way free to add his weight to the others. Everyone was there except Julius Graves and E. C. Tally. Nenda put his shoulder to the Zardalu body, standing between Atvar H’sial and Birdie Kelly. Kelly nodded at him in an embarrassed way. Nenda nodded back and put his weight into the effort to move Holder.

Four strong pushes from everyone, then Rebka was shouting: “Stand back! She’s going.”

Nenda had one glimpse of a bleary eye, huge and heavy-lidded, opening less than a foot from his face. Then the last Zardalu was rolling and sliding and skidding its way faster and faster toward the dark whirlpool of the vortex. Holder vanished, the great body twisting around on itself as it entered the spi

“It is done.” That was a jubilant pheromonal comment from Atvar H’sial, straightening up. “Exactly as we pla

Nenda bent over, rubbing his sore hand at his sore legs, his sore back, sore midriff — sore everything. “We did all right. But I promised myself Holder’s guts — personally. Didn’t get the chance.”

“I think perhaps you saw as much of Holder as a wise being would wish to.” The Cecropian version of humor came flooding in on Nenda. Atvar H’sial was feeling extra good. “Upon consideration, we were very lucky. My respect for the Zardalu as fighting machines is considerable. If we had met them under other circumstances, when they were not disoriented by their stay in the stasis tanks and confused as to their location… I confess, I am happy to see the last of them. The tearing power of those tentacles is close to unbelievable.”

“Tearing power! They got Tally! Where is he?”

Atvar H’sial gestured. What was left of the body of E. C. Tally was slumped against a wall, twenty meters away. Darya Lang and Hans Rebka were hurrying back along the corridor toward it. Birdie Kelly was already there.

“He’s gone,” Kelly said.

But Darya Lang went down on her knees, lifting Tally’s shattered skull gently in her hands and saying, “Tally. Tally, can you hear me?”

The limbless torso shivered. The head nodded a millimeter, and one bruised eye slitted open to reveal a blue iris.

“I hear.” The words were a whisper from purple lips. “May I speak?”

“For God’s sake, yes.” Darya leaned close. “But Tally, listen. We did it. The Zardalu have gone, all of them, down the vortex. But we can’t help you. I’m sorry. We don’t have medical equipment.”