At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (73 page)

Rakhi stopped translating.
A
katasthe
ought to show more respect for one who can destroy her or exile her forever. Be sensible. The Orithain’s honor is
Ashanome’s.
Are you
takkhe? Au,
Chaikhe, are you?

I am
dhisais! she raged at him.
I am
akita!
Not even Chimele has power over me.
And Rakhi fled for a moment, struggling with the impulses of his own body. His blood raced faster, his borrowed fierceness tore at his nerves, tormented by Chimele’s
harachia.

“We shall both be fit for the red robes,” came Rakhi’s slight mind-touch, his wonted humor a timorous thing now, and soft. “Chaikhe, do not press me further, do not.”

About the ship the shields flared once more under attack, shimmering in and out of the visible spectrum as they died, an eerie aurora effect in the late morning sun. Chaikhe shuddered, feeling the dying of the ship, wild impulses in
serach
and to death at war with the life in her.

Think!
Rakhi’s male sanity urged.

Tesyel:
her mind reached for the
idoikkhe
of the kameth of the base ship, a last message.
I shall leave you power enough to safeguard yourself and get offworld. I do not require you for
serach.
A world will be quite enough. See to your own survival.

“Are you hurt?” His kalliran voice came through with anxious stress. Tesyel was a good man, but he had his people’s tendency to become personally involved in others’ crises. Perhaps in the labyrinthine kalliran ethic he conceived that he had suffered some sort of
niseth
in being shown inadequate to ward off the misfortune of
Ashanome, m’metane
though he was. In some situations a kallia had a fierce
m’melakhia
of responsibility.

I am not injured,
said Chaikhe,
and you are without further responsibility, kameth. You have shown great
elethia
in my service. Now I return you to the
nasul.
Do nothing without directly consulting
Ashanome.

“I am honored to have served you,” murmured the kameth sadly. His voice was almost lost in static. “But if I—”

The static drowned him out. In the next moment the shields collapsed. The control room went black for a few seconds. Chaikhe sought desperately to restructure the failed mechanisms, bypassing safety devices.

The attack resumed. Overheated metal stank. Light went out and dimly returned. A whining of almost harmonic sound pulsed through the ship’s structure. Power was dying altogether.

Chaikhe mind-touched the doors through to the airlock, desperately seeking air. Reserve batteries were fading too, and she fought to reach the door in the dark and the roiling smoke, choking. She fell.

Long before she knew anything else she was aware of Rakhi’s frantic pleading, trying with his own will to animate her exhausted body.

And then she knew another thing, that someone trod the inner corridor of the ship, and
m’melakhia
drove her to her feet, graceless and stumbling as she sought a weapon in the dark.

“Chimele forbids,” Rakhi told her, and that stunned her into angry indecision.

Her senses reeled. Her eyes poured water, stung by the smoke, and she hurled herself blindly down the corridor.

A squat amaut shadow stood outlined against the smoke-filled light from the airlock. Chaikhe had never felt real menace in a non-iduve before: this being radiated it, a cold sickly
m’melakhia
that came over her crisis-heightened sensitivity. It was repugnant. She had received from kalliran minds before, particularly in
katasukke;
it was a talent suspect and embarrassedly hidden,
e-chanokhia.
Kallia held a cleanly muddle of stresses and inhibitions, cramped but intensely orderly. This creature was venomous.

“My lady,” it said with a bow, “
Bnesych
Gerlach at your service, my lady.”

Chaikhe felt the almost-
takkhenes
of the child in her. Her lips quivered. Her vision blurred at the edges and became preternaturally clear upon Gerlach’s vulnerable self. She could crack his brute neck so easy, so satisfyingly. He would know it was coming; his terror would be delightful.

No!
Rakhi cried.
Chaikhe, rule yourself. Control. Calm.

M’melakhia
focused briefly upon her asuthe, sweet and satisfying, full of the scent of blood.

I am you,
he protested, horrified.
It is not reasonable.

He suffered; their
arastiethe
was one, and to live they each must yield. The situation defied reason.

Leave me,
she pleaded, aware of Gerlach’s eyes on her, a shame that Chimele’s orders left her powerless to remedy.

He lacked the control to break away. Their joined
arastiethe
made him fear her fear, suffer shame with her, dread injury to the child, feel its
takkhenois
within his own body—things rationally impossible.

Is this what
m’metanei
mean by
m’melakhia
one for the other?
Rakhi wondered out of the chaos of his own thoughts. Au,
I am drowning, I am suffocating, Chaikhe, and I am too weary to let go. If he touches you, I think I shall be ill.

Gerlach was beside her. Fire had leapt up in the corridor, control room systems too damaged to prevent it, smoke choking them as the ship deteriorated further. Gerlach seized her arm and drew her on. The collapse of systems with which her mind was in contact dazed and confused her.

Let go,
Rakhi urged her,
let go, let go.

Her mind went inward, self-seeking, dead to the outside. She saw the
paredre
of
Ashanome
briefly; and then Rakhi performed the same inwardness and that vision went. She knew her limbs had lost their strength. She knew Gerlach’s coarse broad hands taking her, a loss of breath as she was slung across his shoulder. For a moment she was in complete withdrawal; then the pain of his jolting last step to the pavement jarred her free again.

Kill him!
Rakhi’s voice in her mind was a shuddering echo and re-echo, down vast corridors of distance. Chimele’s strong nails bit into his/her shoulder, reminding them of calm. Other minds began to gather: Raxomeqh’s cold brilliance, Achiqh, Najadh, Tahjekh, like tiny points of light in a vast darkness. But Chaikhe concentrated deliberately on the horror of Gerlach, his oiliness, the grotesqueries of his waddling gait and panting wheezes for breath, learning what
m’metanei
called hate, a disunity beyond
e-takkhe,
a desire beyond
vaikka-nasul,
a lust beyond reason.

Dhisais, dhisais,
Rakhi reminded her, Chimele’s incomprehensible orders twisted through his hearing and his mind.
Be Chaikhe yet for a little time more. Restraint!

She had never been so treated in her life. Not even in the fierceness of
katasakke
had she been compelled to be touched against her will. Did
m’metanei
suffer such self-lessening in being kameth, in taking part in
katasukke?
The thought appalled her.

Stop it,
Rakhi shuddered. Au,
Chaikhe, this is obscene.

Male, he, it, this—
dhisais, dhisais, akita,
I—kill him. My honor, mine, male, mate, male,
e-takkhe,
I—

Rakhi’s fists slammed into the desk top, pain, pain, shattered plastics, bleeding, his wrists lacerated. The physical shock shuddered through Chaikhe’s body. She felt the wounds on her own wrists, the flow of the warm blood over her hands, tension ebbing.

We,
he kept repeating into her mind,
we, together, we.

For the last few moments, Ashakh had not moved. Aiela stared at him tensely, wondering how much longer the iduve could manage to stand. He rested still with his back against the corner, his arms folded tightly across his chest, eyes closed; and whether the bleeding had started again the cellar was too dark to show. From time to time his eyes would still open and glimmer roseate fire in the light of Toshi’s wrist-globe. The little amaut never varied the angle of the gun she trained upon the both of them. Aiela began to fear that it would come soon, that Ashakh’s growing weakness would end the stalemate and render them both helpless.

Dive for an exit,
Daniel advised him.
The second Ashakh falls, they’ll see only him. Dive for any way out you can take. Isande, Isande, you reason with him.

Peace,
Aiela pleaded. He had another thing in mind, an attack before necessity came upon them. Toshi had one hand bandaged, thanks, no doubt, to Kleph’s hirelings outside the headquarters; and if Kleph, who huddled near Ashakh, had the will to fight, Kleph could handle Toshi—the only one of them now who had the strength for that. Aiela began instead to size up the two humans, wondering what chance he would have against the two of them.

Precious little,
Daniel estimated.
You’ve no instinct for it. Get yourself out of there. Get to Chaikhe. If you can’t send any more, Isande and I are cut apart, as good as dead too. We have nothing left without you.

Isande had no words: what she sent was yet more unfairly effective, and it took the heart from him. He hesitated.

Ashakh’s eyes opened slightly. “You still have the option,” he told Toshi, “to cast down your weapons and rescue yourselves.”

Toshi gave a nervous bubbling of laughter, to which the humans did not respond, not understanding.

“He said get out of here,” said Aiela, and the men looked at Ashakh as if they thought of laughing and then changed their minds. Iduve humor was something outsiders would not recognize, nor appreciate when they saw it in action. Ashakh was indulging in a bit of
vaikka,
he realized in chill fear, absolutely straight-faced and far from bluffing; likely as his own death was at the moment,
arastiethe
forbade any unseemly behavior.

One human fled. Toshi did not let herself be distracted.

The cellar went to eye-wrenching light and dark and rumbled in collapse. Aiela and Kleph clenched themselves into a unified ball, seeking protection from the cascading cement and brick, and for a moment Aiela gave himself up to die, uncertain how much weight of concrete there was above. A large piece of it crashed into his head, bruising his protecting fingers, and at that he thought of Ashakh and scrambled the few feet to try to protect him.

In the next breath it was over, and Aiela found daylight flooding in through a gap where the door had been, and the side of the room where Toshi and the human had been was a solid mound of rubble.

A dusty and bloodied Ashakh dragged himself to his feet and leaned unsteadily on the edge of the basement steps. “
Niseth,
” he proclaimed. “The effect considerably exceeded calculations.”

And upon that he nearly fainted, and would have fallen, but Kleph and Aiela held him on his feet and helped him up to daylight, where the air was free of dust.

“What was it, great lord?” Kleph bubbled nervously. “What happened?”

“Aiela,” said Ashakh, catching his breath, “Aiela, go down, see if you can locate our weapons.”

Aiela hurried, searching amid the grisly rubble, pulling brick aside and fearing further collapse. He knew by now what Ashakh had done, delicately mind-touching the weapon he had so casually dropped, and negating a considerable portion of the cellar.

His own gun lay accessible. When he found Ashakh’s, it looked unscathed too, and he brought it up into the daylight and put it into the iduve’s hand.

“Damaged,” Ashakh judged regretfully. His indigo face had acquired a certain grayish cast, and his hand seemed to have difficulty returning the weapon to his belt.

“Chaikhe,” he said, and could tell them little more than that. He shook off Kleph’s hand with a violence that left the little amaut nursing a sore wrist, and stumbled forward, unreasoning, heedless of their protests. There was nothing before them but open ground, the wide expanse of the port, Chaikhe’s ship with its ramp down and the base ship beyond: closest was Tejef’s ship, hatch opened, and a smallish figure toiling toward its ramp.

“Come back,” Kleph cried after Ashakh. “O great lord, come back, come back, let this small person help you.”

But Aiela hesitated only a moment: mad as the iduve was, that ramp was indeed down and access was possible. There would not be another chance, not with the sun inching its way toward zenith. He ran to catch up, and Kleph, with a squeal of dismay, suddenly began to run too, seizing the iduve’s other arm as Aiela sought to keep him from wasting his strength in haste.

Ashakh struck at Aiela, half-hearted, his violet eyes dilated and wild; but when he realized that Aiela meant only to keep him on his feet, he cooperated and leaned on him.

And after a few
meis
more, it was clear that Ashakh could summon no more strength:
arastiethe
insisted, but the iduve’s slender body was failing him. His knees buckled, and only Kleph’s strength saved him from a headlong collapse.

“We must get off this field,” cried Kleph in panic. “O lord nas kame, let us take him to the other ship and beg them to let us in.”

Ashakh pushed away from the amaut. His effort carried him a few steps to a fall from which he could not rise.

“Let us go,” cried Kleph.

Self-preservation insisted go. The base ship would lift off before
Ashanome
struck. Daniel and Isande insisted so; but before them was Ashakh’s objective, and an open hatch that was the best chance and the last one.

“Get him to the greater ship,” Aiela shouted at Kleph, and began to run. “He can mind-touch the lock for you, get you in—move!”

He thought then that he had saved Ashakh’s life at least, for Kleph would not abandon him, thinking Ashakh his key to safety; and the bandy-legged fellow had the strength to manage that muscle-heavy body across the wide field.