At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (74 page)

Aiela, Aiela,
mourned Isande,
oh, no, Aiela.

He ran, ignoring her, mentally calculating a triangle of distance to that open hatch for himself and for the amaut that struggled along with his burden. He might make it. His side was splitting and his brain was pounding from the effort, but he might possibly make it before one instant’s notice from the iduve master of that ship could kill him.

Distract Tejef,
he ordered his asuthi.
Do anything you can to get free. I’m going to need all the help possible. Keep his mind from me.

Daniel cast about for a weapon, seized up a chair from its transit braces, and slammed it into monitor panel, door, walls, shouting like a madman and trying to do the maximum damage possible.

Only let one of the human staff respond to it,
Daniel kept hoping. He meant to kill. The ease with which he slipped into that frame of mind affected Aiela and Isande with a certain queasiness, and stirred something primitive and shameful.

Isande began to pry at the switchplate, seeking some weakness that could trigger even the most minor alarm, but Aiela could not advise her. He could no longer think of anything but the amaut that was now striving to run under his burden.

Then his vision resolved what Ashakh’s
takkhenois
had told him from a much greater distance.

That bundle of green was a woman, indigo-skinned and robed as a
katasathe.

Aiela had his gun in hand: though it was not designed to kill, firing on a pregnant woman gave him pause—the shock and the fall together might kill her.

And the amaut whirled suddenly in midstep, and his hand that was under Chaikhe’s body held a weapon that was indeed lethal.

Aiela fired, reflexes quicker than choice, tumbling both amaut and iduve woman into a heap, unconscious.

There was no stopping to aid Chaikhe. He ran, holding his side, stumbled onto the glidewalk of the extended ramp, daring not activate it for fear of advising Tejef of his presence. He raced up it, the hatchway looming above. It came to him that if it started to close, it could well cut him in half.

It stayed open. He almost fell onto the level surface of the airlock, ran into the corridor, his boots echoing down the emptiness.

Then the
idoikkhe’s
pain began, slowly pulsing, unnerving in its gradual increase. Coordination failed him and he fell, reaching for his gun, trying to brace his fingers to hold that essential weapon, expecting, hoping for Tejef’s appearance, if only, if only the iduve would once make the mistake of overconfidence.

Leave me, go!
he cried at his asuthi, who tried to interfere between him and the pain.

Something was breaking. The light-dimming had ceased for a time, but now a steady crashing had begun down the hall, a thunderous booming that penetrated even Margaret’s drugged sleep. She grew more and more restless, and Arle’s soothing hand could not quiet her.

Someone cried out, thin and distant, and when Arle opened the infirmary door she could hear it more plainly.

It was Daniel’s voice, Daniel as she had heard him cry out once before in the hands of the amaut, and such crashing as Margaret’s body had made when Tejef struck her. That flashed into her mind, Margaret broken by a single unintended blow.

She cried out and began to run, hurrying down the hall to that corner room, the source of the blows and the shouting. Her knees felt undone as she reached it; almost she had not the courage to touch that switch and free it, but she did, and sprawled back with a shriek as a chair hurtled down on her.

The wreckage crashed down beside her on the floor; and then Daniel was kneeling, gathering her up and caressing her bruised head with anxious fingers, stilling her sobs by crushing her against him. He pulled her up with him in the next breath and ran, hitting another door-switch to open it.

A woman met them, of a kind that Arle had never seen, a woman whose skin was like a summer sky and whose hair was light through thistledown; and no less startling was the possessive caress she gave, assuming Arle into her affections like some unsuspected kin, taking her by the arm and compelling her attention.

“Khasif,” she said, “Arle—a man like Tejef, an iduve—have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

Her command of human language was flawless. That alone startled Arle, who had found few of the strangers capable of any human words at all; and her assumption of acquaintance utterly robbed her of her power of thought.

“Arle,” Daniel pleaded with her.

Arle pointed. “There,” she said. “The middle door in the lab. Daniel!” she cried, for they left her at a run. She went a few paces to follow them, and then did not know what to do.

The kameth no longer resisted. Tejef saw the fingers of his left hand jerk spasmodically at the pistol, but the kallia no longer had the strength to complete the action. Tejef kicked the weapon spinning down the corridor, applied his foot to the kameth’s shoulder, and heaved him over onto his back.

Life still remained in him and the
harachia
of that force worked at his nerves; but there was little enough point in killing one who could not feel, nor in committing the
e-chanokhia
of destroying a kameth. The eyelids jerked a little but Tejef much doubted there was consciousness. He abandoned him there and went down the corridor to the airlock. It lacked a little of noon. Chimele had cast her final throw. He felt greatly satisfied by the realization that she had failed any personal
vaikka
upon him, even though she would not fail to destroy him; and then he felt empty, for a moment only empty, the minds about him suddenly stilled,
takkhenes
almost gone, the air full of a hush that settled about his heart.

Then came a touch, faint and bewildered, a thing waking, female and sensitive.

Chaikhe.

He willed the monitor into life and saw the field, four forms, three of which moved—a squat amaut dragging Ashakh’s limp body in undignified fashion. Ashakh too tall a man for such a small amaut to handle; and Gerlach lying very still by the ramp, and a mound of green stirring toward consciousness, feebly trying to rise.

Katasathe.
The
harachia
of the green robes and the realization that he had fired on her, once
nas,
hit his stomach like a blow. The sight of her tangled with Gerlach’s squat body—beautiful Chaikhe tumbled in the dust of the pavement—was a painful one. Such a prisoner as she, was a great honor to a
nasul,
a prize for
katasakke
or
kataberihe
to an Orithain, the life within her for the
dhis
of her captors, great
vaikka,
if that
nasul
could bend her to its will.

So long alone, always mateless; the illusions of kamethi melted into what they were—
e-chanokhia,
emptiness.

She arose, lifted her face:
takkhenes
reached and touched, an impact that slammed unease into his belly. She seemed to know he watched. Anger grew in her, a fierceness that overwhelmed.

He must kill her. Obscene as the idea was, he must kill her. He faltered, hesitated between the hatch control and the weaponry, and knew that the indecision itself was a sickness.

Her mind-touch seized the lock control, held it, felt toward other mechanisms. Uncertain then, he gave backward, realizing she would board the ship—
dhisais, e-takkhe
with him. He could not let it happen. In cold sanity he knew it was a risk to face her, but he could not reach her with the weapons now. She was ascending the ramp in firm control of the mechanisms. He gathered himself to wrest that control from her.

Takkhenes
reached out for him, a fierceness of
we
incredibly strong, as if a multiplicity of minds turned on him—not Chaikhe’s alone, not Ashakh’s, whose mind was silent. It was as if thousands of minds bore upon him at once, focused through the lens of Chaikhe’s, like the
takkhenes-nasul
of all
Ashanome,
willing his death, declaring him
e-takkhe,
anomaly, ugliness, and alone, cosmically alone.

It acquired a new source, a muddled echo that had the essence of Khasif about it, leftward, same-level. Tejef realized that presence, felt it grow, and desperately reached his mind toward intervening door locks, knowing he must hold them.

They activated, opening, one after the other. Khasif was nearer, fully alert now, a fierceness and anger that yet lacked the force that Chaikhe sent.

Death took root in him, cold and certain, and the rage that he felt at Chimele was all that held it from him. He could not decide—Khasif or Chaikhe—he could not find strength to face either, caught between.

And Chimele, knowing: he felt it.

He turned, flight in his mind, to seize manual control of the ship and tear her aloft, self-destroying, taking the
e-takkhei
with him to oblivion.

Chaikhe’s image occupied the screens now at her own will. Her dark and lovely face stared down at him. Doors refused to open to his mind: he operated them manually and ran.

A lock sprang open before he touched it. Khasif was there, the kamethi Isande and Daniel with him—and with a reaction quicker than reason Tejef went for Khasif, Khasif yet weak from his long inactivity and his wounds—Tejef’s
takkhenois
gathered strength from that realization. The kamethi themselves attempted interference, dragging at them from behind.

He spun, swung wildly to clear them from him, and saw Isande’s face, in his mind Margaret, her look; that it was which kept the strength from his blow.

And a shout of anger beyond, from her asuthe the kallia, who had stumbled after, gun in hand. Tejef’s eyes widened, foreknowing.

Aiela fired, left-handed, saw Isande and the iduve hit the floor at once. He tried to reach her, but it was all he could do to lean against the wall and hold himself on his feet. Daniel was first to her side, gathered her up and held her, assuring him over and over again that she was alive. Above them both stood Khasif, whose sharp glance away from Isande warned Aiela even as a soft step sounded behind him.

Chaikhe.

The very act of breathing grew difficult, concentration impossible. The gun tumbled from Aiela’s fingers and crashed against the flooring, sounding distant.

“She is
dhisais,
” said Khasif. “And it was not wise for you to have interfered among iduve, kamethi. You have interfered in
vaikka.
”

Run,
Daniel thought desperately; burdened with Isande’s weight, he tensed his muscles to try.

No!
Aiela protested. He leaned against the wall, shut his eyes to remove the contact of Chaikhe’s; and hearing her move, he dared to look again.

She had turned, and walked back in the direction of controls.

Doors closed between them, and Khasif at last stirred from where he stood, looking down at Tejef with a long soft hiss.

The ship’s engines stirred to life.

“We are about to lift,” said Khasif softly, “and Tejef will give account of himself before Chimele; perhaps that is the greater
vaikka.
But it was not wise, kameth.”

“Ashakh,” Aiela exclaimed, remembering, hardly recognizing his own voice. “Ashakh—is still out there.”

“I am instructing Teysel on the base ship to take him up to
Ashanome.
For Priamos there is no longer need of haste. For us, there is. See to yourselves, kamethi.”

15

T
he
melakhis
was in session, and the entire body of the
nasul
with them, in the great hall beyond the
paredre.
The
paredre
projected itself and a hundred Chimele’s, reflection into reflection, down the long central aisle of the hall, and thousands of iduve gathered, a sea of indigo faces, same projections, some not. There were no whisperings, for the sympathic iduve when assembled used other than words.
Takkhenes
gathered thick in the room, a heaviness of the air, a possession, a power that made it difficult even to draw breath, let alone to speak. Words seemed out of place; hearing came as through some vast gulf of distance.

And for a handful of
m’metanei
summoned into the heart of the
nasul,
the silence was overwhelming. Hundreds, thousands of iduve faces were the walls of the
paredre;
and Chimele and Khasif were in the center of it. Another pair of figures materialized among those that lined the hall, Ashakh’s slim dark form and the shorter, stouter one of Rakhi—solid, both of them, who silently joined the company in the center. Ashakh’s presence surprised Aiela. The base ship had hardly more than made itself secure in the hangar deck, and here was the
nasith,
stiff with his injuries, but immaculately clean, bearing little resemblance to the dusty, bloody being that had exited the collapse of the basement. He joined Chimele, and received a nod of great respect from her, as did Rakhi.

Then Chimele looked toward the kamethi and beckoned. They moved carefully in that closeness of iduve, and Daniel kept a tight grip on Arle’s shoulder. Chimele greeted them courteously, but only Aiela and Isande responded to it: Daniel kept staring at her with ill-concealed anger. It rose in a surge of panic when he saw her take a black case and open it. The platinum band of an
idoikkhe
gleamed within.

No!
was in Daniel’s mind, frightening his asuthi. But they were by him, and Arle was there; and Daniel was prisoner of more than the iduve. He took it upon his wrist with that same helpless panic that Aiela had once felt, and was bitterly ashamed.

Is this what
takkhenes
does to
m’metanei? Aiela wondered to himself. Daniel hated
Ashanome;
indeed, he had not feared Tejef half so much as he feared Chimele. But he yielded, and Aiela himself could not imagine the degree of courage it would take for one
m’metane
to have defied the
nasul.