Kutath fs-3

by C. J. Cherryh

  A moment passed. He opened contact with Degas. "Take charge in-ship," he said, and broke off. His eyes were on scan, where each sweep jumped them nearer. There was a tiny blip out to Shirug's front, a shuttle, flea-sized between the warships.

  They were not stopping.

  "Bai," said a regid voice suddenly. "This is youngling Ragh, favor, bai. What is the situation? What has happened to the shuttle? What is the extent of damage?”

  "Stand off, Shirug. Stand off at once. We don't know what has happened down there yet We do not permit any closer approach. Stand off or expect strong action.”

  "Were there deaths, bai Koch? What of casualties?”

  Koch darted a glance aside to scan, stabbed in a code for Santiago. recall. recall. code red. "We are determining that now, youngling. Who is in command of Shirug? Was bai Suth on that shuttle?”

  There was silence from the other end. The regul were at the limits of their shield; if they came closer, Shirug itself would penetrate that critical perimeter; it was fire or permit approach. The shuttle was already inside it.

  Peace or war, on a word, an act.

  "Sir." It was Degas, breaking through on red-channel. "Sir “

  "Back us offr Koch ordered Zahadi. "Up shieldsr

  They hit maneuver without warning. Lights flashed everywhere on the boards.

  "We don't have full shielding," Zahadi's voice returned. "The damage in bay one “

  There was a shudder in Saber's framework. Scan flicked to another image, pulsing warning. The shuttle within their perimeter was coming at the base line, at their kilometer-long midsection.

  "Fire on the shuttle," Koch ordered. "Fire!" And then a second look at rapidly altering scan.

  All the instruments jumped; a shock quivered through frame and hull like the blow of a fist.

  "Hit," command relayed. "Damage "

  "Localize commandl" Koch shouted into com, handing it to Zahadi entirely. He reached for the desk, for the restraint.

  Scan went out.

  Suddenly pressure hit, and red discovered to white like the tearing of a film.

  They were dead. He had time to know that.

  The ships came in, one, and the other of them, in close sequence. The Kel regarded this with no outward show of emotion… this their first close sight of ships, and strangers who had struck at An-ehon, at them, and killed kin of theirs.

  Two ships. They had expected one.

  "Let me go out alone," Duncan asked, received in reply a pressure of Niun's hand on his shoulder.

  "When they are in full sight," Niun said, "then whatever you will. In this, you say what should be, sov-kela.”

  The hatch of the first was opening. Men came down, with black scarves tied on their blue sleeves strange combination to mri eyes; and masks which made them fearsome, like machines; last came a familiar woman, small and broad and wearing a gold scarf.

  "Ai," muttered the kel'ein at one breath, for none sent out sen'ein to a prospective quarrel; it was a good sign.

  "She is Boaz," Duncan said, "sen-second. I know her.”

  He touched his dus, to bid it stay, walked forward on his own. The second ship had opened its hatch, and a black man stood alone in the hatchway; he did not know him, only the two; Boaz, and the man by her, whose tangled reddish hair he recognized despite the masks.

  "Boz," he said in meeting, "Galey.”

  "Duncan," Boaz said, and drew down her mask to speak, breathing the thin air. "Do we get the meeting we came for?”

  "Come with me; bring all your company with you.”

  "We leave a guard," Galey said.

  "No," Duncan said softly. "You do not. Lock no door to a mri. That is the way of things.”

  "Do it," Boaz said.

  "Boz-"

  "You can't have it by human rules," said Duncan. "Maybe you can speak to the she'pan; I will do as much as I can in that regard, and likely you can; but an argument will diminish your chances. Come. Don't delay here.”

  "Trust them?" Galey asked.

  "You might," Duncan said, "if you could explain your meaning to them. A mri is himself; trust that. It's all you will get Shon'ai, they say; cast and catch. You cannot play the Game with a closed fist. And you lock no doors to them; they never will with you. It's important to realize that. Come. Come with me.”

  "It's what we came for," Boaz said to Galey and the two men with him. "Haven't we taken worse chances, with less assurance?”

  Galey nodded after a moment. "Do you want our guns?”

  "No. Just come. Keep your hands off them. And if you know any names among them ... be wary of using them.”

  "Niun is here?" Boaz asked. "And the she'pan?”

  "Expect no recognition. Likely he would not remember at all. He is not grateful for human help; and some of it was not help, Boz. You know what was done to him. Do not presume any gratitude or any grudge. Come.”

  "Harris!" Galey shouted across to the other ship. "All of us out Come on out and leave the hatch open.”

  There was some hesitation at that; they came down finally, and the hatch stayed open… three men in that group.

  Duncan turned and led them across the sand to the black line of the KeL There was neither welcome nor threat Hands stayed visible and at sides.

  "He is Niun s'lntel," Duncan said to Boaz at that meeting. "Kel'anth of the ja'anom tribe and of the she'pan Melein. The city is elee, but you have nothing to do with them. The kel'anth understands all that you say; don't expect him to admit to human speech; it's enough he comes out here to meet you.”

  "Offer him and the she'pan my respect and my thanks for meeting us," Boaz said. "We appreciate his courtesy.”

  Niun inclined his head, but in the same moment kel'ein moved out toward the ships. "Hey," Galey exclaimed in outrage, and two of his men moved hands to weapons.

  "No!" Duncan said sharply; and before Galey could object further, for mri hands were equally poised, and quicker; "You have lost them, Galey. Let it be. You can fight challenge; that is what they offer. Or I don't doubt you could walk away into the desert, with your weapons and provisions. Ouming things, except what one can wear… this is not in their reckoning. If you have a point, it is much wiser to come in and talk about it.”

  Galey slid a look at Boaz. She nodded, and Galey signed his companions to let be.

  "The machines," Duncan said in the hal'ari, "belong to their authorities. They feel offended, but they were sent to talk, and they agree to come and do that.”

  "Is that translation?" Niun asked dryly, who had understood every word. "They are very eloquent.”

  "I know these two," Duncan said, "Boaz and Galey, and they have known you. They feel some obligation to reason on that account.”

  Niun's eyes flickered, memory, perhaps, of a long nightmare. "And these others?”

  "If Galey chose them, they are sensible. And if Boaz is here, it is her choosing. The mri have no better friend among humans.”

  "Ai," Niun said, and with a darting glance toward the human company; "Walk with us," he said in the human tongue. "We ask.”

  "Sir," Boaz murmured, glancing down in courtesy, and gestured the others to come.

  There was an easier feeling as they walked along, amber eyes which acquired expression, which frankly admitted curiosity. They had not gone far before whispers began to be passed in the Kel, remarking on their varied looks and statures and their clothing and their manners, which, for all it was not courtesy, was a step toward it; mri would discuss a man long before approaching him.

  Easier, Duncan thought, moved, that they have become used to me; for one said; Our Duncan knows them, as if that settled some essential question.

  They neared the city, and the open doors. Then Duncan recalled the elee, and that matter, opened his mouth to explain. Suddenly there was an impulse from the dusei, a vague disturbance. He stopped; Niun did, likewise troubled… looked skyward at the same instant Duncan felt the same impulse. The whole Kel had paused, looked, whether by curiosity of them
or that they also felt it, the darting apprehension.

  "Duncan?" Boaz asked.

  "Niun," Duncan said, a sinking feeling in his gut "Something's moving in. It's not the she-pan's alarm. It's out there. The outwalker sees it.”

  "Tsi'mri trick," Niun exclaimed.

  "What is it?" Boaz asked louder, and then stopped, for there were visible now two dots in the sky, eastward, for all eyes to see.

  "Regul," Galey breathed, which needed no translation. "O God, they're downworld too. Duncan, the ships ... the ships… caught on the ground “

  "Go!" Niun shouted suddenly, and pushed at Galey, toward the shuttles. Galey ran, nothing questioning; the black man spun about unhindered and ran too; and the others after, all but Boaz, for Duncan seized her arm. "Desai!" Niun shouted. "Run tell the kel'ein let them go at once run, keren!”

  He gripped Boaz's arm too hard; he realized it and pressed her hand instead, held it for comfort. He might have gone… he… but the hal'ari was between him and such ships, hands not in practice, mind divorced from such realities. He watched; it was nightmare, the slowness with which frightened humans could run in advance of oncoming ships. The two stranger ships were distinguishable now, coming fast. Desai sped to the kel'ein by the ships in advance of the humans; and the kel'ein let them through, Galey's to the nearest and the black man and his crew to the second, the kel'ein already running back as the hatches sealed one after another. The ships were obscured for a moment in their own dust. . .

  . . . lifted.

  "Ail" the Kel exclaimed, sensing the import of that race for the sky; the ships streaked up, aloft

  "They have made it," Duncan said past the tautness in his throat. He realized the grip of Boaz's hand on his cold fingers, saw the ships roll and evade, the oncoming craft veering aside.

  One human ship headed for them in pursuit; the other kept climbing, up and up, and beyond sight.

  "He's going for help," Boaz cried. "Duncan, they're not ours, I swear they're not; and he's after help. Tell them that.”

  "Truth?" Niun asked.

  "Boaz believes it," Duncan answered. "And she could well know.”

  Niun spun about suddenly, gestured the keFein toward the doors of Ele'et. "Come. Quicklyl”

  They moved, Boaz panting into her mask; Duncan seized her arm and belt and dragged her along; kel Merin took her other arm, and they entered the city corridors, past wide-eyed elee faces, nigh running, which mri did not do.

  Dus-sense enveloped them, Boaz's fright, Niun's pain, his own ... it was one. They had too many enemies, and too little of time. The odds had come down on them.

  Came suddenly a shriek of air and the hall beyond exploded in shards of rock and glass.

  They were hit. Something had gotten through.

  "Run!" Niun shouted. They plunged through wind-borne smoke and over glass and blood-soaked elee bodies, for Melein and the rest of the Kel sat trapped at the heart of it.

  "She'panP Rhian exclaimed at the shock, but Melein stood firm within the circle of light, staring up at the screens, trying to stay with the flow of data which poured out from Ele'et, and the voice which reached out to them, as desperate as the voices about her.

  "She'pan," it said through Ele'et's voice, sexless, magnified, human. "She'pan, are you there? Do you hear?”

  "I hear," she replied.

  ". . . under fire. Requesting… the firing.…”

  "Repeat," she said steadily, for all that the foundations of Ele'et quaked, and glass shattered. "This attack is not our doing, human sen'anth."

  "Regul," the voice returned, audible for the moment. "Do you understand that? Regul warship.…”

  "This is Harris," another cut in on the frequency. "I'll get him. Galey's gone for “

  There was abrupt silence. "Harris?" the human voice pursued.

  A light vanished from the screen. Fire shook them.

  "Strike at the aircraft," Melein said. "Ele'et, strikel”

  It vanished. The screen was empty.

  "Regul fire," the human voice continued, appealing to her. "Orbiting ... if you have weapons… them.…" The voice went out in prolonged disruption.

  She looked about her, at anxious faces, at ruin in the hall beyond, shattered pillars, broken glass and carvings. "Return fire!" she called to the machines. "All cities, return fire to any ship which fires at us.”

  It would destroy the cities; there was no hope; she knew it.

  "Not in range," the remorseless voice of Ele'et replied. "Seeking target.”

  "It is your doing," Abotai wailed, from without the circle. "Pull us outl Pull us out of the network! Ele'et is worth a thousand of the other cities. Bate the power and hide us.”

  "It is irony," Melein said. "You are honored to become warriors in the world's last age; and you avoided it so zealously until now.”

  "Ele'etl" Abotai cried, and lunged forward into the light, at her. Melein sprang aside, startled, looked up at the flash of a firearm in an elee hand… moved, kel-quick.

  Kel Mada sprang for it; his body took the shot; and an instant later the sweep of a path'andim sword cut the elee Illatai half asunder. Abotai screamed, and Melein spun on her heel at the sting of something from back to arm, struck, with a shout of anger, and Abotai sprawled in her jeweled robes, neck broken.

  Elee screamed in anguish; some fled; some struck blows with glass shards. And Hlil and Ras and Bias were instant with a fence of blades. Dusei launched themselves. What elee were within reach of those paws died worse than the others.

  A section of the board went out, a city dead. And by that dead panel, the Husband and the she'pan-second died. Kalis of the ka'anomin killed them, and the several elee who had fled, armed, into that corner.

  "Coming up on target," the city Ele'et droned. "Priorities; shields or fire?”

  "Shields," Melein said at once. She had lolled; white-robed, she had struck in anger; she was dazed by that enormity at the touch of sen'ein, who seized up her arm and tried to stanch her wound she realized that blood was running freely off her fingers. And beyond the hedge of kel'ein were others… Niun was back; and Duncan; and with them a strange small woman. Melein stared at her, at success and failure at once, while the city rocked with fire which sent the sound of breaking glass everywhere at once. She flinched, as they all did, despite dignity, stood still again as a sen'en bound her arm.

  "Your ship is under fire," Melein said to the human who wore sen-color. "I have spoken with your sen'anth. They accuse regul; two ships lifted from here; I permitted. But one was destroyed.”

  "We are holding the way open," Niun said, came to her, took her good hand. "Come. Please, let us get you out of this place, while there is time.”

  She hesitated, reason persuading her that he was right; and if there was Sight, he was wrong. She leaned upon it, that inward turning which she had constantly distrusted.

  Intel's kind of madness, she thought; it had launched them in the beginning, a she'pan's vision.

  "Cornel" Niun pleaded with her. "If this can be fought, humans are fighting it For once, we cannot”

  "We can," she insisted, but reckoning the cost She turned from him, and from the sen'ein, looked up at the machine. "Ele'et Location of the enemy. Show me.”

  Screens leapt to Me. She saw the world, and a point above it which flashed in alarm, another point, stationary, a third, indistinct

  "Fire on ships which fire at Kutath.”

  "They have passed this range," Ele'et said. "Coming up over Le'aliaen. LeVhaen priorities; shields or fire?"

  "Fire," Melein said. The membrane hazed her eyes a moment, cleared again. She watched the steady advance of the enemy. In time another set of lights began to flicker on the boards.

  There was nothing for the moment, only the dark and the stars, and change-over. Galey struggled with suit-fastenings, locked on his helmet; it was an exhausting exercise in the tight space of the shuttle, trying the while to keep an eye to scan.

  "Not getting anything," Shibo muttered, fuss
ing with com with one hand and working at his helmet with the other.

  There was, ominously, something on scan.

  It was Santiago, by its size; and it gave no answer to hailing.

  "Where's Sober?" Kadarin asked. "What's going on, that Saber's not up here doing something? They wouldn't have let regul through to us.”

  "Didn't let them, I'm thinking." Galey freed both hands, kicked in full toward the silent object in scan. Computer signal raised nothing. "No more com," he said. "Hold it. Let's give no one anything we can help. All we have for protection is being too small to spot.”

  They had visual finally, stark shadow and stark metal-glare in the light of Na'i'in. It was Santiago, hard to recognize for the black shadow was in the wrong places on its hull, and it was rolling very slowly, describing its own peculiar dance about the globe of Kutath.

  "Dead," Shibo whispered through the suitcom. "O God, we're up here with nothing. Santiago, Saber. . . both gone.”

  "Not our regul allies," Kadarin said, a thin, cold sound. "They're here, I'm betting, somewhere around the curve. Pounding the surface into rubble. And Flower… Flower's all we've got can get us home.”

  "What do we dor Shibo asked. "Sir?-We dive back down there?”

  Galey took several quick breaths, trying to think, with nausea heaving at his stomach. "The regul have to be close in," he said. "If Shirug's firing on the surface, they have to be close in as they can get; and they don't like to do that." The silver and black hulk of Santiago filled all their view now; he put the shuttle under comp, to match with its roll. From the others there was not a word, only careful breathing hissing over the suitcoms. It was an ugly operation, matching the tumbling hulk; comp did most of it. He jerked control back again at the last, contacted the flat plane aft with a jolt and grappled, trying not to look out the ports or at the screens which tumbled and spun with them.

  "We're going in?" Kadarin asked. "Its armscomp can't have lasted.”

  "Easy," Galey muttered, his mind too muddled for argument He applied power carefully, biting blood from his lips as the shuttle strained to control the derelict, sliding and grating metal on metal. It began to have its effect, a gradual stability, easing over to come level in the concealment of shadowside.