Serpent's Reach

The beta rose, came, moved very carefully while he was at the corn board. He spoke precisely the request and retreated again among his fellows. Leo stood watching them.

Moriahand the shuttle called again, on the quarter hour; and again.

Then a light flashed at the door, and a cart arrived from the galleys, redolent with food and drink. Azi brought it, unloaded it, bent to unload the lower tray.

Suddenly a gun was in one azi hand and a bolt flew for comp, raked it. Leo fired, and the azi spun back against the doorway, slid down. Others froze in dismay, died so.

Lights flickered. Sirens started sounding, lights all over the board flaring red.

“He’s a plant,” one said, bending over the azi who had fired. He wiped with his thumb at the too-bright tattoo. “A ringer.”

The sirens multiplied. The betas rushed to the boards and worked at them frantically, and Leo hesitated from one threat to the other, null-mind pressing at him. “Get away!” he shouted at the betas. One of his men fired, and a beta died at the main board, slumped over it.

A sign began flashing in the overhead. DISENGAGE ALL SHIPS, it ordered. The ship. Sanity returned with that responsibility. Leo fired, taking out the betas who would not obey his shouted orders, and leaned over com, punched it wide-broadcast. “ Eroscrew.” His voice fed from the corridors outside and throughout the station. “This is Leo. Return to the ship at once. Return to the ship at once.”

It was necessary to hold that, above all else. Morn would expect it. “Go,” he shouted at the others with him.

And then because it occurred to him that he dared not leave betas near controls, he killed them, every one.

“They’re ru

“Don’t!” another cried, when he pushed the door open.

There were no shots, only a breath of cold air of the docks.

“Come on!” Itavvy cried at his wife, snatched Meris from her arms; and the Upcoasters sprang for the doors too, all of them starting to run, baggage left, everything left.

The floodlights on the vast docks were flickering, red lights gashing warnings, sirens braying. Itavvy sucked a lungful of the thin cold air and pelted after the artist, cast a look over his shoulder to see that Velin followed. Tears blurred the lights when he looked round again, a flickering that spelled out Phoenix. The ramp was ahead of them, through a tangle of lines. Someone fell behind him, scrambled up again. The artist took the ramp; Itavvy did, Meris wailing in his ear, and for that, for herhe did not fall, although he felt pain in his side and his chest. They ran the frozen ramp, over the plates that should have moved to help them.

And the hatch was shut.

“ Let us in!” he screamed at it. Others caught up with him, hammered at the metal with their fists. Itavvy wept, tears streaming his face, and Velin flung her arms about them both, him and Meris.

It was the oldest Upcoaster who found the intercom recessed in the ramp housing. He shouted into it. “Shut up!” he yelled back at them when they added their voices; and from the intercom: “ Stand by.”

The hatch hummed, parted. Azi crewmen, their faces sober and unamazed, stood waiting to help them aboard.

They stood inside, with trembling hands proffered tickets, evidence of passage.

The hatch sealed behind them.

“Brace where you are,” a voice grated from the intercom overhead. “We’re disengaging and getting out of here.”

ix

The shrilling was louder, front walls, back walls, on all sides of them, and what had begun in the dark of night refused to go away by day, when light streamed over the garden. It should dispel the nightmare. It instead made it real, picking out the shapes of poised Warriors, the husks and bodies of the dead piled in the corner of the garden, and the cracks in the outer wall where assault had already been made and repulsed.

Jim wiped at his face, crouching by Max’s side among the rocks. Pol was by him: they spared one young azi to keep a gun in Pol’s ribs constantly, for whatever the Kontrin was, he was a born-man and old in such manoeuvrings, able to forewarn them what the hives might do…most of all what the human mind among them might do.

He’s there,Pol had said, when the last assault had nearly carried to them, when cracks had appeared in the wall and fire from the gate had distracted them. That’s Morn behind that. The next thing is to watch our backs.

And that proved true.

“He’s delayed over-long,” Pol said after a time. “I’m surprised. He should have tried by now. That means he and his allies are up to something that takes a little time.”

Jim looked at him. The Kontrin’s accustomed ma

“What would take time?” Max wondered aloud.

“Tu

Pol lifted his head. “Azi do both,” he said, and shifted around to face forward. “Look at the cracks in that wall. They’re wider.”

It was so. Jim bit at his lips, rose and went aside, where one of the Warriors crouched…touched its offered scent-patches.

“Jim. Yess.”

“Warrior, the wall’s cracking over there. Pol Hald thinks there could be digging.”

The great head rotated, body shifted, directed toward the wall. “Human eyess…certain, Jim?”

“I can see it, Warrior. A crack in the shape of a tree, spreading and branching. It gets wider.”

Chelae brushed him; palps flicked over his cheek. “Good, good,” Warrior approved, and scuttled off. It sought and locked jaws with the next, and that one moved off into the house, while Warrior continued, touching jaws with each of the Warriors nearest, who spread in turn to pass the message further.

Jim slid back into position next Max and Pol. “It’s disturbed about it,” he panted. He shivered despite the warmth, suddenly realising that he was terrified. They had fought in the night; he had never fired his gun. Now at the prospect of their shelter breached by daylight he sat trembling.

“Easy,” Pol said, put out a thin hand and closed it on his leg until it hurt. The pain focused things. He looked at the Kontrin, suddenly aware of a vast silence, that the shrilling which had surrounded them had fallen away.

“You’re always with Morn,” Jim said hoarsely, for it did not make sense, the tapes with the behaviour of Pol Hald. “You’re out of his house. You wouldn’t go against him.”

“A long partnership.” The hand did not move, though it was gentler. “In the Family, such are rare.”

Treachery,what he had learned warned him. He stared at the Kontrin, paralysed by the touch he should never have allowed.

“Strange,” Pol said, “that at times you have even her look about you.”

The shrilling erupted again; and a portion of the garden sank away, gaping darkness aboil with earth and majat bodies. Blues sprang, engaged; shots streaked from azi weapons.

The wall went down, collapsed in a cloud of dust: through it came a horde of majat, azi among them.

Jim braced the gun and sighted, tried to pull the trigger. Beside him a body collapsed, limp.

It was Max. A shot had gone through his brain. Jim stared down at him, numb with horror.