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She ceased, and listened in satisfaction as amaut communications went chaotic with incoming and outgoing calls, amaut asking orders, officers reacting in harried outbursts of emotion, sometimes a human’s different voice calling in, incomprehensible and distraught.
The panic had begun. It would run through the city, into the tu
Attack resumed, ineffectual vaikkafrom Tejef for the damage done him among the amaut who trusted him for protection. Aiela had taken Ashakh beyond the range of weapons fire, and there was the grateful feel of returning consciousness from Ashakh. Her heart swelled with gladness.
No!cried Rakhi. “Chimele will not permit contact, Chaikhe.”
The attack increased. Systems faltered. There was no time to dispute.
The spate of fire was a brief one; the glow about the iduve ships dimmed and the humans dared come from cover again. Aiela saw them moving far across the field and fired his own pistol to put a temporary stop to it. The humans were not yet aware that the weapon could not kill. He feared they would not be long in learning, about as long as it took for the first that he had fired on to recover; and as for the iduve weapon, that black thing like an elongate egg, there was indeed no way to operate it save by mind-touch.
“Let us go back, please, let us go back,” Kleph pleaded. “Let us get off this awful field, into the safe dark, o please, sir.”
A small projectile exploded not far away, and Kleph winced into a tighter crouch, almost a single ball of knees and arms, moaning.
It was indeed too close. Aiela seized Ashakh’s limp arm and snapped at Kleph in order to take the other. It was the first order Kleph had obeyed with any enthusiasm, and they hurried, pulling the iduve back into the cover of the basement from which they had emerged onto the field. There they had only the light of Kleph’s lamp and what came from the open door; and the very foundations shook with the pounding of fire out on the field. The wailing of sirens went on and on.
Ashakh stirred at last. He had been conscious from time to time, but only barely so. The shot that had struck him in the back would have likely been a mortal wound had he been kallia; but Ashakh’s heart, which beat to right center of his chest, had kept a strong rhythm. This time when he opened his eyes they were clear and aware.
“A human weapon?” Ashakh asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“ Niseth,” murmured the proud iduve for the second time. “ Au, kameth, Tejefu-prha-idoikkhe—”
“He has not used it.”
That much puzzled Ashakh. Aiela could see the perplexity go through his eyes. Then he struggled to get his hands under him, Aiela’s protests notwithstanding. “Either Tejef is too busy to divert his attention to you or Chaikhe has been taking care of you, kameth. I think the latter. This would be a serious error on his part.”
“Chaikhe gave him something to worry about,” said Aiela. “It was over the loudspeakers all over the field. She advised Priamos what it could expect—I don’t doubt it went to the city too. The field emptied quickly after that a
“It hit the shields,” burst out Kleph, his saucer eyes wide. “O great lord, it went in a puff of fire.”
“ Tekasuphre,” judged Ashakh. He struggled to sit upright, and it was probable that he was in great pain, although he gave no demonstration of it. He suffered in silence while Aiela made a bandage of Kleph’s folded handkerchief and attempted to wedge it into position within Ashakh’s belt. There was surprisingly little bleeding, but the iduve’s normally hot skin was cold to the touch, and the iduve seemed distracted, mentally elsewhere. So much of the iduve’s life was mind: Aiela wondered now if mind were not being diverted toward other purposes, sustaining body.
“Sir,” he said, “Ashakh—you have to have help, and we don’t know what to do. How bad is it?”
It was badly asked: Aiela realized it at once, for Ashakh’s face clouded and the idoikkhetingled, the barest prickling. Arastietheforbade—and yet Ashakh forebore temper.
“I meant,” Aiela amended gently, “that I can’t tell what it hit, or how to deal with it. In a kallia, it would be serious. I have no knowledge of iduve anatomy.”
“It is painful,” Ashakh conceded, “and my concentration is necessarily impaired. I regret, kameth, but I advise you to seek Chaikhe at your earliest opportunity. I remind you I predicted this.”
“I have long since found it is futile to expect explanations between iduve and kallia to make sense,” said Aiela, all the while his asuthi heard and pleaded with him to take Ashakh’s offer. “My interests lie with my asuthi and with you, and once with Chaikhe I can’t do much for either.”
Ashakh frowned. “You are kameth, not nas.”
Aiela shrugged. It was not productive to become involved in an argument with an iduve. Silence was the one thing they could not fight. He simply did not go, and looked up toward Kleph, who, ignored, had begun to creep toward the dark of the tu
“Stay where you are,” Aiela warned him.
“Ai, sir,” said Kleph, “I did not—” And suddenly the amaut’s mouth made one quick open and shut and he scrambled backward, while Ashakh reached wildly for the weapon that was no longer in his belt but in Aiela’s, rescued from the outside pavement.
Toshi and Gerlach and two humans were in the tu
Fire!Daniel screamed at Aiela; and Isande sent a negative.
Aiela, cursing his own lack of foresight, simply gathered himself up in leisurely dignity, dropped Ashakh’s weapon and his own from his belt, and bent again to assist Ashakh, who was determined to get to his feet. Kleph shrugged and dusted himself off busily as if his presence there were the most natural thing in the world.
“Sir,” exclaimed Kleph to Gerlach, “I am relieved. May I assist you with these persons?”
Never had Aiela seen an amaut truly overcome with anger, but Gerlach fairly snarled at Kleph, a spitting sound; and Kleph scampered back out of his reach, forgetting to bow on the retreat, his face twisted in a grimace of fright and rage.
“Kleph double-heart, Kleph glib of speech,” exclaimed Gerlach, “you are to blame for this disaster.” He seemed likely to rush at Kleph in his fury; but then he fell silent and seemed for the first time to realize the enormity of his situation, for Ashakh drew himself up to his slim towering height, folded his arms placidly, and looked down at their diminutive captor.
“ Prha,kameth?” Ashakh asked of Aiela. Arastietheforbade he should take direct account of the likes of Gerlach and Toshi.
“Gerlach knows well enough,” said Aiela, “that karshGomek would pay dearly should he kill you, sir; they would pay with every Gomek ship in the Esliph and the metrosi.If he were wise at all, he would leave iduve business to the iduve.”
“We want Priamos,” Gerlach protested, “Priamos with its fields undamaged.”
“That will not be,” said Aiela, “unless you stand aside.”
“If my lords will yield gracefully, I shall see that this matter is indeed settled by iduve, by the lord-on-Priamos.”
“You have chosen the wrong loyalty,” said Aiela.
“We had only one knowable choice,” said Gerlach. “We know that the lord-on-Priamos wants this world intact and the lord-above-Priamos wants to destroy us. Perhaps our choice was wrong; but it is made. We know what the lord-above-Priamos will do to us if we lose the lord-on-Priamos to protect us. We are little people. We shelter in what shade is offered us, and only the lord-on-Priamos casts a shadow on this world.”