At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (72 page)

“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
idoikkhe
tingled, the barest prickling.
Arastiethe
forbade—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 tunnel opening.

“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 tunnel opening, weapons leveled.

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.
Arastiethe
forbade he should take direct account of the likes of Gerlach and Toshi.

“Gerlach knows well enough,” said Aiela, “that
karsh
Gomek 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.”

Aiela thought that was for Ashakh to answer; but the iduve simply stared at the little fellow, and of course it was unproductive to argue.
Elethia
insisted upon silence where no proof would convince; and Gerlach was left to sweat in the interval, faced with the necessity of moving a starlord who was not in a mood to reason.

“Guard them,” he said suddenly to Toshi. “I have other matters to attend.” And he scurried up the steps to daylight, not without a snarl at Kleph. “Shoot this one on the least excuse,” he told Toshi, looking back. Then he was gone.

“What good do you get from this?” Aiela asked then in human speech, addressing himself to the mercenaries with Toshi. “What’s your gain, except a burned world?”

“We know you,” said the dark-faced one. “You and your companions cost us three good friends the last trip into this city.”

“But what,” asked Aiela, “do you have to gain from Tejef?”

The man shrugged, a lift of one shoulder, as humans did. “We aren’t going to listen to you.”

How do I reason with that?
Aiela asked of Daniel.

Forget it,
Daniel sent.
Tejef’s kamethi chose to be with him.

They have
giyre.

Believe this,
sent Daniel.
They’ll kill you where you stand. If Ashakh drops, that little devil of an amaut will send them for your throat, and you’ll have no more mercy out of them than from her.

Aiela looked uneasily at Ashakh, who with great dignity had withdrawn to the brick wall and leaned there in the corner, arms folded, one foot resting on a bit of pipe. The iduve merely stared at the humans and at Toshi, looking capable of going for their throats, but a moment ago he had been in a state of complete collapse, and Aiela had the uncomfortable feeling that
arastiethe
alone was keeping the man on his feet, pure iduve arrogance. It would not hold him there forever.

 

Something was mightily amiss in the ship. Amaut bustled up and down the corridor, and the lights had been dimming periodically. Arle watched from the security of the glass-fronted infirmary and saw the hurrying outside become frantic. The lights dimmed again. She scurried back to the banks of instruments at Margaret’s bedside and wondered anxiously whether they varied because the power was going out or because there was something wrong with Margaret.

She slept so long.

(“You stay, watch,” Tejef had told her personally, setting her at this post and making her secure before the sickening lunge the ship had made aloft and down again; and Dlechish, the awful little amaut surgeon, had been there through that, making sure all went well with Margaret.)

Dlechish was gone now, Arle had had the infirmary to herself ever since this insanity with the lights had begun, and she was glad at least not to have to share the room with amaut.

But Margaret was so pale, and breathed with such difficulty. When the instruments faltered, Arle would clench her hands on the edge of her hard seat and hold her own breath until the lines resumed their regular pattern. Of the machines themselves she understood nothing but that these lines were Margaret’s life, and when they ceased, Margaret’s existence would have ceased also.

The lights dimmed again and flickered lower. Margaret stirred in her sleep, tossing, struggling to move against the restraints and the frames and the tubing. When Arle attempted to hold her still, Margaret tried the harder to rid herself of the encumbrances, and began to work her hand free. Arle pleaded. Margaret’s movements were out of delirium and nightmare. She began to cry out in her pain.

“Tejef!” Arle cried at the intercom. And when no answer came she went out and tried to find someone, one of the guards, anyone at all. She began to run, hard-breathing, to one and another of the compartments off the infirmary, trying to find at least one of the amaut attendants.

The fourth door yielded an amaut who gibbered at her and thrust an ugly black gun at her. She screamed in fright, and her eyes widened as she saw the dark man who lay inside the room, unconscious or dead, in the embrace of restraints and strange instruments.

She tried to dart under the amaut’s reach. He seized her arm in one strong amautish hand and twisted it cruelly. Of a sudden he let her go.

She kicked him and fled, and met a black-clad man chest-on. She looked up and was only realizing it was Tejef when his hand cracked across her face.

It threw her down, hurt her jaw, and made her deaf for a moment; but dazed and hurt as she was she knew that he had slapped, not hit, and that the tempers which gripped him would pass. She gave a desperate sob of effort, scrambled to her feet, and raced for the infirmary, for Margaret, and safety.

He had followed her, coming around the corner not long after she had shut and locked the door; and to her horror she saw the door open despite the lock, without his touching it. She fled back to Margaret’s bedside and sank down there hard-breathing. She sought to ignore him by way of defense, and did not look at him.

“You’re not hurt?” Tejef demanded of her. Arle shook her head. One did not talk to Tejef when he was angry. Margaret had advised her so. She was sick with fear.

“I say stay with Margaret,
m’metane-tak.
Am I mistaking meaning—
stay?
”

“Margaret got worse. And I thought it was you in there. I’m sorry, sir.”

“I?” Tejef seemed greatly surprised, even upset, and fingered gently the hot place his blow had left on her cheek. “You are a child, Arle. A child must obey.”

“Yes, sir.”

“
Niseth.
I regret the blow.”

She looked up at him, perceiving that he was indeed sorry. And she knew that it embarrassed him terribly to admit that he was wrong. That was to be a man—not being wrong. Her father had been like that.

“Tejef,” said Margaret. Her eyes had opened. “Tejef, where are we?”

“Still on Priamos.” As if it were a very difficult thing he offered his hand to her reaching fingers.

“I thought I felt us move.”

“Yes.”

The confusion seemed to overwhelm her. She moaned a tiny sound and clenched her fingers the more tightly upon his; but he disengaged himself gently and quietly went about preparing Margaret’s medicines himself. The lights dimmed. Things shook in his hands.

“Sir?” Arle exclaimed, half-rising.

The lights came on again and he continued his work. He returned to Margaret’s side, ignoring Arle’s questions of lights and machines, administered another injection and waited for it to take effect.

“Tejef,” Margaret pleaded sleepily.

His lips tightened and he kept his eyes fixed upon the machines for a moment; but then he bent down and let her lips brush his cheek. Gently he returned the gesture, straightened, hissed very softly, and walked out, his long strides echoing down the hall.

When Arle looked at Margaret again, she was quiet, and slept.

“Priamos-time,” said Rakhi, “one hour remains.”

Then let me use it unhindered,
Chaikhe retorted, not caring to voice or to screen. Rakhi’s periodic reminders of the time disrupted her concentration and lessened her efficiency. She had her own internal clock; cross-checking with Rakhi’s was a nuisance.

Exhaustion is lowering your efficiency, dimming your perceptions, and rendering you most difficult, Chaikhe.
His mind seemed a little strained also. Chimele hovered near him like a foreboding of ruin to come.
I know you are tired and short of temper. So am I. It is senseless to work against me.

Go away.
Chaikhe flung herself back from the console, abandoning manual and mental controls. It was rashness. Tejef’s attacks were fewer during the last half-hour, but no less fierce. Tejef also knew the time. He was surely saving what he could for some last-moment effort.

“Do you think this man who has run us so long a chase will be predictable at the last?” Rakhi restrained his impatience; he fought against the vagaries of her hormone-heightened temper with a precise, orderly process quite foreign to his own tastes, but he could use it when he chose.

Rakhi,
thought Chaikhe distractedly,
there is a bit of Chaxal in your blood after all. You sound like Ashakh, or Chimele.

Sit down,
he ordered rudely,
and remember that Tejef has
arastiethe
enough to choose his own moment. What chance has he of outlasting us, with
Ashanome
overhead? He knows that he must die, but he will try to make the terms not to our liking. This is not the moment for tempers,
nasith-tak.

She flared for a moment, but acknowledged reason when she heard it, and scanned the instruments for him, feeding him knowledge of fading power levels, blown systems.
I have done as much for this little ship as reasonably possible,
she told him,
and being of the order of Artists, I consider I have exceeded expectations.

“Quite true,
nasith-tak.
”

And at this point even Ashakh could not keep this ship functioning,
she continued bitterly.
Chimele knew my power on this world and she knew Tejef’s, and she drew back one ship that we might have had down here. She might have made me capable of attack, not only of defense. Am I only bait,
nasith?
Was I only a lure, and did she deceive me with half-truths as she did Khasif and Ashakh?

“‘Impertinence!’” Chimele judged, when Rakhi conveyed that to her; and the impact of her anger was unsettling.

“ ‘Your question was not heard and your attitude was not perceived,
nasith.
However I use you, I will not be challenged. Follow my orders.’ ”

“ ‘Continue in my orders.’ ”

Hail Chimele,
she said bitterly, but Rakhi did not translate the bitterness.
Tell me I am honored by her difficulty with me. But of course I am going to comply. Honor to
Ashanome,
and to the last of us. Walk warily, Rakhi. May the
nasul
live.