Страница 114 из 133
“Transmission to Weissmouth base two,” she directed, and the paredreof the lesser ship in Weissmouth came into being about her. Ashakh greeted her with a polite nod.
“Chaikhe is landing,” said Chimele, “but I forbid you to wait to meet her or to seek any contact with her.”
“Am I to know the reason?”
“In this matter, no. What is Aiela’s status?”
“Indeterminate. The amaut are searching street by street with considerable commotion. I have awaited your orders in this matter.”
“Arm yourself, locate Aiela, and go to him. Follow his advice.”
“Indeed,” Ashakh looked offended, as well he might. His arastiethehad grown troublesome in its intensity in the nasul:it had suffered considerably in her service already. She chose not to react to his recalcitrance now and his expression became instead bewildered.
“For this there is clear reason,” she told him. “Aiela’s thinking will not be predictable to an iduve, and yet there is chanokhiain that person. In what things honor permits, seek and follow this kameth’s advice.”
“I have never failed you in an order, Chimele-Orithain, even at disadvantage. But I protest Chaikhe’s being—”
She ignored him. “Can you sense whether Khasif or Mejakh is alive?”
“Regarding Mejakh, I—feel otherwise. Regarding Khasif, I think so; but I sense also a great wrongness. I am a
“They are both violent men. Their takkhenesis always perturbing. It will be strange to think of Mejakh as dead. She was always a great force in the nasul.”
“Have you regret?”
“No,” said Chimele. “But for Khasif, great regret. Hail Ashakh. May your eye be keen and your mind ours.”
“Hail Chimele. May the nasullive.”
He had given her, she knew as the projection went out, the salutation of one who might not return. A kameth would think it ill-omened. The iduve were not fatalists.
11
Isande came awake slowly, aware of aching limbs and the general disorientation caused by drugs in her system. Upon reflex she felt for Aiela, and knew at once that she did not lie upon the concrete at the port. She was concerned to know if she had all her limbs, for it had been a terrible explosion.
Isande.Aiela’s thoughts burst into hers with an outpouring of joy. Pain came, cold, darkness, and the chill of earth, but above all relief. He read her confusion and fired multilevel into her mind that she must be aboard Tejef’s ship, and that amaut treachery and human help had put her there. A shell had exploded near them. He was whole. Was she? And the others?
Under Aiela’s barrage of questions and information she brought her blurred vision to focus and acknowledged that indeed she did seem to be aboard a ship. Khasif and Mejakh—she did not know. No. Mejakh—dead, dead—a nightmare memory of the inside of an aircraft, Mejakh’s corpse a torn and bloody thing, the explosion nearest her.
Are you all right?Aiela persisted, trying to feel what she felt.
I believe so.She was numb. There was plasmic restruct on her right hand. The flesh was dark there. And hard upon that assessment came the realization that she, like Daniel, like Tejef, was trapped on the surface of Priamos. Aiela could be lifted offworld. She could not. Aiela would live. At least she had that to comfort her.
No!and with Aiela’s furious denial came a vision of sky with a horizon of jagged masonry, the cold cloudy light of stars overhead. He hurt, pain from cracking his head on the pavement, bruises and cuts beyond counting from clambering through the ruins to escape— Escape what? The ship inaccessible?Isande began to panic indeed; and he pleaded with her to stop, for her fear came to him, and he was so overwhelmingly tired.
Another presence filtered through his mind—Daniel. Although his thoughts reached to Weissmouth and back, he stood in a room not far away. A pale child—Arle, her image never before so clear—slept under sedation: he worried for her. And in that room was a woman whose name was Margaret, a poor, broken thing kept alive with tubings and life support. A dark man sat beside the woman, talking to her softly, and this was Tejef.
Rage burned through Isande, rejected instantly by Daniel: Murderer!she thought; but Daniel returned: At least this one cares for his people, and that is more than Chimele can do.
Blind!Isande cried at him, but Daniel would not believe it.
Chimele would be a target I would regret less.
And that disloyalty so upset Isande that she threw herself off the bed and staggered across the little room to try the door, cursing at the human the while in such thoughts as she did not use when her mind was whole.
I ca
Kill him,Isande raged at Daniel. You have the chance now: kill him, kill him, kill him!
Daniel foreknew defeat, weaponless as he was; and Isande grew more reasoning then and was sorry, for Daniel was as frightened as she and nearly as helpless. Yet Aiela was right: when the time came he would make one well-calculated effort. It was the reasonable thing to do, and that, he had learned of the iduve—to weigh things. But he resented it: Chimele had more power to choose alternatives than Tejef, and stubbornly refused to negotiate anything.
Iduve do not negotiate when they are wi
Tejef has given us our lives,Daniel returned, with that reverence upon the word lifethat a kallia would spend upon giyre.Tejef was fighting for his own life, and that struck a response from the human at a primal level. Still Daniel would kill him. The contradictions so shocked Isande that she withdrew from that tangle of human logic and fiercely agreed that it would certainly be his proper giyreto his asuthi and Ashanometo do so.
The thought that echoed back almost wept. For Arle’s life, for this woman Margaret’s, for yours, for Aiela’s, I will try to kill him. I am afraid that I will kill him for my own—I am ashamed of that. And it is futile anyway.
You are not going to die,Aiela cast at them both, and the stars lurched in his vision and loose brick rattled underfoot as he hurled himself to his feet. I am going to do something. I don’t know what, but I’m going to try, if I can only get back to the civilized part of town.
Through his memory she read that he had been trying to do that for most of the night, and that he had been driven to earth by human searchers armed with lights, hovercraft thundering about the ruined streets, occasional shots streaking the dark. He was exhausted. His knees were torn from falling and felt unsure of his own weight. If called upon to run again he simply could not do it.
Try the ship,she pleaded with him. Chimele will want you back. Aiela, please—as long as you can hold open any communication between Daniel and myself—the revulsion crept through even at such a moment— we are a threat to Tejef.
Forget it. I can’t reach the port. They’re between me and there right now. But even if I do get help, all I want is an airship and a few of theokkitani-as. I’m going to come after you.
Simplest of all for me to tell Tejef where you are,she sent indignantly, and I’m sure he’d send a ship especially to transport you here. Oh, you are mad, Aiela!