At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (66 page)

“For this there is clear reason,” she told him. “Aiela’s thinking will not be predictable to an iduve, and yet there is
chanokhia
in 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 annoyed that I cannot be more specific. Something is amiss, either with Tejef or with Khasif. I cannot be sure with them.”

“They are both violent men. Their
takkhenes
is 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
nasul
live.”

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

I
sande 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.

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 cannot reason with Daniel,
said Aiela;
but he knows the choice this world has and he will remember it when he must. Humans are like that.

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 winning or when they are losing.
Isande flared back, hating that selective human blindness of his, that persistence in reckoning everyone as human;
and that Tejef you honor so has already killed millions by his actions; by iduve reckoning, his was the action that began this. He knew what would happen when he sheltered here among humans.

Tejef has given us our lives,
Daniel returned, with that reverence upon the word
life
that 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
giyre
to his asuthi and
Ashanome
to 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 the
okkitani-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!

One of Tejef’s ships is an option I’m prepared to take if all else fails.
That was the cold stubbornness that was always his, world-born kallia, ignorant and smugly self-righteous; but she recognized a touch of humanity in it too, and blamed Daniel.

Aiela did not cut off that thought in time: it flowed to his asuthe.
No,
said Daniel,
I’m afraid that trait must be kalliran, because I’ve already told him he’s insane. I can’t really blame him. He loves you. But I suppose you know that.

Daniel was not welcome in their privacy. She said so and then was sorry, for the human simply withdrew in sadness. In his way he loved her too, he sent, retreating, probably because he saw her with Aiela’s eyes, and Aiela’s was not capable of real malice, only of blindness.

Oh, blast you,
she cried at the human, and hated herself.

Stop it,
Aiela sent them both.
You’re hurting me and you know it. Behave yourselves or I’ll shut you both out. And it’s lonely without you.

“Your asuthi,” asked Tejef, coming through Daniel’s contact. He had risen from Margaret’s side, for she slept again, and now the iduve looked on Daniel with a calculating frown. “Does that look of concentration mean you are receiving?”

“Aiela comes and goes in my mind,” said Daniel.
Idiot,
Aiela sent him:
Don’t be clever with him.

“And I think that if Isande were conscious, you might know that too. Is she conscious, Daniel? She ought to be.”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel replied, feeling like a traitor. But Isande controlled the panic she felt and urged him to yield any truth he must: Daniel’s freedom and Tejef’s confidence that he would raise no hand to resist him were important. Iduve were unaccustomed to regard
m’metanei
as a threat: they were simply appropriated where found, and used.

Through Daniel’s eyes she saw Tejef leave the infirmary, his back receding down the corridor; she felt Daniel’s alarm, wishing the amaut were not watching him. Potential weapons surrounded him in the infirmary, but a human against an amaut’s strength was helpless. He dared go as far as the hall, closed the infirmary door behind him, watching Tejef.

Then came the audible give of the door lock and seal. Isande backed dizzily from the door, knocking into a table as she did so. Tejef was with her: his
harachia
filled the little room, an indigo shadow over all her hazed vision. The force of him impressed a sense of helplessness she felt even more than Aiela’s frantic pleading in her mind.

“Isande,” said Tejef, and touched her. She cringed from his hand. His tone was friendly, as when last they had spoken, before Reha’s death. Tejef had always been the most unassuming of iduve, a gentle one, who had never harmed any kameth—save only Reha. Perhaps it did not even occur to him that a kameth could carry an anger so long. She hated him, not least of all for his not realizing he was hated.

“Are you in contact with your asuthi?” he asked her. “Which is yours? Daniel? Aiela?”

Admit the truth,
Aiela sent.
Admit to anything he asks.
And when she still resisted:
I’m staying with you, and if you make him resort to the
idoikkhe,
I’ll feel it too.

“Only to Aiela,” she replied.

“This kameth is not familiar to me.”

“I will not help you find him.”

A slight smile jerked at his mouth. “Your attitude is understandable. Probably I shall not have to ask you.”

“Where is Khasif?” Aiela prompted that question. She asked it.

The room winked out, and they were projected into the room that held Khasif. The iduve was abed, half-clothed. A distraught look touched his face; he sprang from his bed and retreated. It frightened Isande, that this man she had feared so many years looked so vulnerable. She shuddered as Tejef took her hand in his, grinning at his half-brother the while.

“
Au, nasith sra-Mejakh,
” said Tejef, “the
m’metane-tak
did inquire after you. I remember your feeling for her: Chimele forbade you, but any other
nas
has come near her at his peril, so she has been left quite alone in the matter of
katasukke.
I commend your taste,
nasith.
She is of great
chanokhia.
”

Knowing Khasif’s temper, Isande trembled; but the tall iduve simply bowed his head and turned away, sinking down on the edge of his cot. Pity touched her for Khasif: she would never have expected it in herself—but this man was hurt for her sake.

The room shrank again to the dimensions of Isande’s own quarters, and she wrenched herself from Tejef a loose grip with a cry of rage. Aiela fought to tell her something: she would not hear. She only saw Tejef laughing at her, and in that moment she was willing to kill or to die. She seized the metal table by its legs and swung at him, spilling its contents.

The metal numbed her hands with the force of the blow she had struck, and Tejef staggered back in surprise and flung up an arm to shield his face. She swung it again with a force reckless of strained arms and metal-scored hands, but this time he ripped the wreckage aside and sprang at her.

The impact literally jolted her senseless, and when she could see and breathe again she was on the floor under Tejef’s crushing weight. He gathered himself back, jerked her up with him. She screamed, and he bent both her arms behind her and drew her against him with such force that she felt her spine would be crushed. Her feet were almost off the floor and she dared not struggle. His heart pounded, the hard muscles of his belly jerked in his breathing, his lips snarled to show his teeth, a weapon the iduve did not scorn to use in quarrels among themselves. His eyes dilated all the way to black, and they had a dangerous madness in them now. She cried out, recognizing it.

 

The rubble gave, repaying recklessness, and Aiela went down the full length of the slide, stripping skin from his hands as he tried to stop himself, going down in a clatter of brick that could have roused the whole street had it been occupied. He hit bottom in choking dust, coughed and stumbled to his feet again, able to take himself only as far as the shattered steps before his knees gave under him. In his other consciousness he lurched along a hallway—Isande’s contact so heavily screened by shame he could not read it: guards at the door—Daniel crashed into them with a savagery unsuspected in the human, battered them left and right and hit the door switch, unlocking it, struggling to guard it for that vital instant as the recovering guards sought to tear him away.

“Khasif!” Daniel pleaded.

One of the guards tore his hand down and hit the close-switch, and Daniel interposed his own body in the doorway. Aiela flinched and screamed, anticipating the crushing of bones and the severing of flesh—but the door jammed, reversed under Khasif’s mind-touch. The big iduve exploded through the door and the human guards scrambled up to stop him—madness. One of them hit the wall, the echo booming up and down the corridor, the other went down under a single blow, bones broken; and Daniel flung himself out of Khasif’s way, shouting at him Isande’s danger, the third door down.