Laneff guided them to the branch that let them out near the hangar and its wide exit. But here the ceiling had fallen in, dust thickening the air. Coughing, they retreated.
“I don’t know all the emergency exits,” confessed Laneff. They hadn’t trusted her completely yet.
Jarmi had her bearings now, and still gasping from the long run, said, “I know a way. Here!” She opened a side door into a storeroom and led them into darkness. The lights refused to come on, and Laneff took Jarmi’s arm, saying, “Which way should be out?”
“Straight across, there’s a door into another storeroom that opens off Corridor Q-12, Sipples-Bay.”
“I don’t zlin any other door,” said Laneff, scanning.
Azevedo moved to their right. “I do. This way.”
With the Simes leading, they wound their way through the crates and bales of supplies. The door was locked but gave under the impact of three Simes. The other storeroom was also pitch-dark, and so was the corridor when they found it. Gunfire and explosions told of the battle in progress.
They had no weapons. Without instructions, the four Simes moved to the front, the four Gens bunched at the rear. They came to a bend, the last leg of the corridor to the hangar. Bright flashes strobed through the dark, loud cracks echoed when guns went off. Zlinning, Azevedo reported, “Five Gens with their backs to us. A barricade of large potato sacks. And beyond the Gens, two of Yuan’s Simes holding the five off with rifles.”
“They’re probably shooting drug darts,” supplied Jarmi. “But they might have live bullets.”
There was a roar as a helicopter revved engines inside the hangar. The feel of the air changed as the big doors opened.
The two gypsy Simes, blond hair and pale skin making them all but invisible in the smoky darkness, touched Azevedo. They seemed ready to pounce on the Gens. Azevedo gathered Laneff into a huddle.
“The Simes won’t shoot at us. We can approach the Gens silently and knock them out. But we must not harm them.”
His firm order was directed more to the gypsy Sime who seemed near turnover, but it was clear that, as was traditional with gypsies, Azevedo would not permit them to injure any Sime or Gen seriously.
Renewed billows of smoke belched from the air circulators and a distant whump marked another explosion. Jarmi smothered a cough. Laneff returned to explain their plan and ended, “Hug the wall and dash through as soon as the fighting stops.”
Then, with all the craft of the wild, the three gypsy Simes led the way around the bend, advancing stealthily on the Gens who were shooting randomly into the smoke. Laneff’s throat felt raw from the smoke, but she went hypoconscious anyhow, ignoring the coughing prickle, intent on not feeling Gen shock and pain.
The defending Simes zlinned them coining and held fire. The Gens hardly noticed that before the four Simes fell on them. Laneff’s target went down as she got a hold on his throat, cutting off circulation to his brain. He went out quietly. The two defending Simes joined the fight, taking out one of the Gens. Before Laneff could turn around, all the Gens were unconscious.
Azevedo dropped his target Gen and whirled across the barricade of potatoes to where one of the defending Simes had dragged a Gen. The poor Sime’s need had driven him to hunting mode, and he was now intent on a kill. But Azevedo swept the Sime’s grip away from Gen arms before it was properly seated. Just as any Tecton channel might, Azevedo lured the Sime into accepting channel’s transfer.
For one instant, the two of them were surrounded by a blurred bubble of privacy. Laneff was transfixed, duoconscious, remembering how, at Digen’s funeral, she had been willing to fight for a transfer from this channel. Now what she zlinned reminded her achingly of Yuan’s selyn flow. And the expression on the Sime’s face, together with the singing in the man’s nager, made her wish she hadn’t taken that transfer from Jarmi.
As Azevedo dismantled his grip, the Sime looked down in astonishment at the channel’s tentacles, as if he hadn’t known he hadn’t killed.
Then they were both coughing at a new, blacker smoke. Azevedo, showing no signs of being in recovery after giving that transfer, pulled the defending Sime with him as he called, “We’ve all got to get out of here!” Their Gens had joined them, Shanlun’s field brightening the scene for all the Simes. “How long will Yuan keep the hangar doors open?”
“They’re broken. Never close again,” answered a defender.
Meanwhile, the two gypsy Simes had each hefted a Gen body. Azevedo chose another, saying, “Come on.”
Laneff picked one of the smallest, a woman, and slid the limp body onto her shoulder. Still, the hands dragged as she made for the open doors. Shanlun came up behind her and picked up the woman’s hands.
There were no more machines left on the hangar floor. Overhead, the doors which had been camouflaged as a hedgerow sagged inward, spilling dirt and thorned plants onto the floor. They found a side exit stair that led up and began to climb. Laneff struggled, aware that the others behind her could not get out if she fell and blocked the narrow stair.
And then they were out in the moist winds, chill with oncoming storm. Clouds darkened the night, but Gen nager hazed the whole farmstead like city lights.
And that haze was lurid with battle lust. Shanlun helped Laneff set her burden down and placed himself next to the gypsy Sime who was too near turnover. “Laneff, can you zlin any sign of Yuan?”
She scanned. The farmhouse was in flames. Craters pocked the once neat rows of crops. A stand of trees near a brook masked another emergency exit, and many Simes and Gens were gathering there. A wrecked chopper lay burning with no one alive inside. Other aircraft circled, some with Sime pilots—and some Gens. Laneff couldn’t tell Diet from Distect and said so.
Azevedo observed, “He could be anywhere by now. Even dead. But he said he might have to blow the whole warren up. So I think we’d best get off the tunnels.”
Jarmi said, “The nearest safe ground is that grove there.”
Agreed, they moved in that direction. Before they’d covered half the distance, a fast plane swooped in from above the clouds and dropped something into the stand of trees they were headed for. In the split instant between the delivery of the object and the explosion, Laneff had time to yell, “Selyn bomb!” and to slide her burden to the ground, throwing her own body on top of Shanlun.
She nearly cracked heads with Azevedo, who’d also thought to protect Shanlun. And then the world exploded. To the Gens, it was a loud bright wall of power that swept over them. But to the Simes, it was also a flash of selyn movement so powerful it lit up their nerves even if they were staunchly hypoconscious. The blast turned everything transparent and died off so quickly it stunned like transfer abort backlash.
“Shenshay!” spat one Sime, naming it not swearing.
Bits of tree and rock, wet sand, splintered fence, and bloody shreds of flesh rained down. As it stopped, one of the gypsy Simes said, “This Gen is dead. A rock hit him.”
“This one, too,” said one of the defenders. “He’d taken three or four darts, and it only now got to him.”
Three of the Gens survived. Hurting with shock, Laneff gathered her feet, holding to Shanlun. “We’ve got to move,” she said. “When Yuan says he’ll do something, he does.”
“Yuan may be dead,” said Azevedo.
“Where can we go?” asked someone.
“Into the bomb crater,” said Laneff. “They won’t hit there again!”
They staggered over the shock ripples in the ground around the explosion, then climbed and slipped in a mixture of soil, blood, and water, and scraped themselves on stones and splintered wood, until they scrambled down into the center of the bomb crater.
Mercifully, much of the gory mess was buried. And at the center, there was enough clear space to sit down. The war around them was
undiminished, though, and Laneff followed Azevedo back up to the rim of the crater.
“Laneff, do you know the other emergency exits?”
&nb
sp; “No.” She turned and called, “Jarmi! Come here!”
The Gen scrambled up the loose slope, swearing at the splintered branches that caught at her. “What?”
“Point out to me the locations of the other emergency exits,” commanded Azevedo.
Orienting herself, she pointed out six more locations. And with each one, Azevedo shook his head. “Bombed also. No one living.”
“They’ve shut us up down there!” said Jarmi, horrified.
“Next will be the hangar bay. I don’t know why they—”
At that, another sere explosion lit the night, from the direction of the hangar, but muffled underground. When rubble ceased falling, Azevedo said, “Defective bomb? Where has the Diet gotten these monsters?”
“The Tecton makes them,” said Jarmi bitterly. “And only the Tecton. Ostensibly to excavate unpopulated rain forest, and to control concentrations of killer tribes in the South Continent mountains. Actually, they were developed for use against us.”
“Let’s not argue politics,” said Laneff, and stopped, suddenly aware of a wisp of nageric static. Jarmi was between Azevedo and Laneff, with nothing but night blackness to Laneff’s right. She turned now toward that blackness, scrambling along the branch-matted, blood-and-flesh-strewn ridge, zlinning intently. Azevedo followed, and Laneff said, “It’s Yuan!”
“I don’t– Yes! You do have remarkable sensitivity!” He turned to Jarmi. “Go tell everyone to stay there!”
He led the way toward the Gen, who was obviously unconscious and injured. On the level, they fought through rows of old grapevines. The darkness was nearly absolute, but the two Simes went unerringly to the lone Gen.
Azevedo turned the body over gently. “If I hadn’t just taken transfer from him, his nager would have been strong enough for us to find him sooner!”
“If you hadn’t taken that transfer,” countered Laneff, “you’d be in no shape to help us now.”
Azevedo ignored that. “He’s going to live, Laneff. It’s only some internal bleeding.” A heavy section of fencing had fallen across Yuan’s midsection as he lay supine, and a shower of large stones had followed. As they lifted off the last section offence, they found a small box clutched in Yuan’s hands. His grip tightened as he began to moan.
“Take his ankles, Laneff,” ordered Azevedo. “We’ll get him back to the others, and Desha will work with me to heal him.”
As they reached the upslope into the crater, willing Sime hands helped them. Before long, they had Yuan stretched out on the bit of level ground at the bottom of the crater. False dawn had begun to pale the horizon. The sounds of fighting were dying away, and fewer aircraft roared overhead. The three Gen prisoners were conscious now, guarded by two Simes.
Enough burning wreckage had fallen that Laneff wondered if any of the Distect fliers had escaped loaded with refugees.
Azevedo and Desha had barely begun to work over the Gen when Yuan fought to consciousness, mumbling, and then asking clearly, “Is everyone out yet?”
But it was obvious he didn’t know what he was saying. A moment later, he glanced about, “What’s this? What happened?”
Azevedo was concentrating, wrapped around in some channel’s working mode that warped the selyn fields. Desha was kneeling behind the channel, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes closed, assisting him with all she had. Shanlun moved to kneel beside Yuan. In terse sentences, he explained how they’d come here.
“Then,” concluded Yuan, “they’ve closed every exit. Most of their own forces are trapped down there, too—but then they signed on for suicide. My people didn’t.” His fingers began to fumble at the box, raising the lid. “What time is it?” Laneff told him, and he said, “That’s twice the time it takes to evacuate the whole installation. Still—”
A roar cut him off, and he demanded, “What’s happening?”
One of the gypsy Simes called down from the ridge, “They’re landing planes. One just—” A fulsome explosion wiped out the words, and then the Sime finished, “landed in a bomb crater. Two more made it down—three—four. I think that’s all—but they’re fielding squads of men now.” He turned toward them. “It can’t be much longer until the Tecton shows up in force. We’re not that far from a major city!”
“I’ve got to get up there!” said Yuan, struggling to move. But Shanlun held him down. “Azevedo is working on you. You’ll bleed to death; besides, you’re too weak.”
Yuan subsided, but he called, “Tell me when the last of those men is offloaded. Are any headed this way?”
“Not yet,” answered the lookout.
Jarmi, Laneff noticed, was clinging to Laneff’s side. She put an arm around the Gen woman, knowing that the box Yuan carried must be the trigger for the hidden destruct charges. And some of the trapped must be Jarmi’s friends.
Hidden as Yuan was in the cocoon of Azevedo’s field, Laneff couldn’t zlin him. But in the growing light, his face showed just what she imagined he must feel.
The lookout called softly, “That’s it. They’re fanning out—searching I guess for survivors.”
With the planes down and the explosions stopped, there was a huge ringing silence. Then the crack of a rifle. The other gypsy Sime joined the lookout, calling incredulously, “They’re murdering the survivors!”
“Yes,” said Yuan, “their own as well as ours! The filthy lorshes!” There were tears dripping unheeded from the corners of his eyes. A horrible grimace distorted his features, much like that of a Sime in killmode, and with a lurid curse, he rammed his finger home on the button set into the open box he held.
Azevedo flinched, his hands nearly coming up to protect his face before he recovered himself. Shanlun scrambled to his side, displacing Desha roughly, shrouding Azevedo in a brilliant shell of bright fluorescent confetti.
A distant rumbling waxed to a ground-rippling shudder. All eyes flicked about the crater looking for safety and finding none. The roar gathered and the ground heaved, then settled with a long, grinding noise.
Gen deathflash was lacing the nager like lightning, and every Sime sought the nearest Gen. Laneff clutched her throat to throttle her own scream and held on to Jarmi, hardly able to zlin the Gen’s field even at contact for the blasting overload all about them.
Jarmi whimpered, unable to breathe in Laneff’s grip. In the abrupt silence, nerves battered to insensibility, Laneff heard Jarmi’s plea, and her heart melted. “I’m sorry! Oh, please, Jarmi, forgive me!” At that moment, this Gen was the most precious thing in the universe.
Catching her breath, Jarmi replied, “It’s nothing. I just hope you’ll learn your own strength someday!”
Meanwhile, Desha and the other gypsy Gen had joined the two Simes on the ridge. As her senses cleared, Laneff climbed the slope, Jarmi right after her.
The dawn light showed churned and puckered fields where neat, knee-high rows of crops had been. The vineyard was flattened. There was no sign of the farmhouse. Tangles of wreckage smoldered. In the distance, an irrigation pipe had broken and was spewing water into the air, spread by the light breeze into a mist. Nagerically, the entire field of pulverized and cratered mud was dead. But as they watched, the first rays of the sun struck through a slit in the clouds, and a rainbow arced over the grisly destruction.
Tears blurring her vision, Laneff turned to those below, but they required no report. Azevedo gripped Shanlun’s shoulders once, hard, and then raised his face to the sky. The two rose and faced the rising sun.
As if by some unspoken signal, the four gypsies around Laneff and Jarmi also rose, facing east. The silence of the dead fields seemed to be dispelled by an even larger silence—the silence of living Sime and Gen nager, pulsing with life in clear concert.
It was only an instant, but the gypsies held them all breathless. Afterward, Laneff felt normality return, but now the horror was dispelled. Laneff went back down to Shanlun and Azevedo. Yuan had lapsed into unconsciousness. The others gathered around.
To Shanlun, Laneff whispere
d, “You call that prayer?”
“No,” he answered. “Just a salutation.”
Azevedo said, “We must move swiftly now. We’ll require a litter for Yuan.”
One of the Distect Simes said, “We can’t afford to drag these three along, too.”
Azevedo walked over to the prisoners, zlinning, then took one of the dart rifles and without preamble shot each of the Gens in the thigh. They each recoiled in anticipation of horror, but that faded as the drug put them to sleep.
Desha said something, objecting in the gypsy dialect. Shanlun answered, and one of the other gypsy Simes argued. While they spoke, Laneff heard the Distect Simes remark on how the gypsies will argue until doom strikes. They made shift to construct a litter out of the splintered wood about them and jackets they took from the three Gens.
The slit in the clouds had closed, darkening the day ominously. A damp, cold wind skirled about them. Laneff cut into the gypsy discussion. “It isn’t so important where we go as that we get out of here– now.”
Shanlun looked at her, surprised, and she decided they had indeed been discussing destination. Azevedo replied, “We’re in Gen Territory here. It’s imperative that we cross over before nightfall—sooner if possible.”
Desha again objected in the gypsy language, though Laneff had once heard her speak perfectly intelligible Simelan. Azevedo answered, “We can if we must. We’ll discuss it later.” He went to talk to the Distect Simes who were securing Yuan to the litter.
“We’ll head north,” announced Azevedo.
“We don’t accept a channel’s leadership just because he’s a channel,” answered one of the Simes.
“There are six of us and four of you,” said Azevedo, counting Jarmi as Distect. “We know this country. You’re welcome to join us if you like.”
There was a bristling moment, and Jarmi said, “I think Yuan would go north with Azevedo. Shall we wake him and ask?”
The Simes zlinned their burden. “No,” one said. “Let’s move.”
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