“Then you must close your eyes and promise not to look,” she said crossly. “Not that the promise of an untouchable means a thing.”
Six grinned to himself. As a matter of fact it didn’t. “I promise,” he said mendaciously.
“And you could have asked me if I am hurt,” she complained.
“I didn’t want to impose,” he said, pulling the spare bodywrap out of the back pack. “Here you are!”
“Ouch! Ow!” A series of dull thuds and winces told him that she was trying to carry out his suggestion. There was a few moments tugging and then, “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“My leg is stuck under the console. I can’t move it.”
“Well you might have told me that at the beginning! Honestly Diva, I could throttle you!” He bent down and tried to locate her leg.
“That is not my leg!” she informed him in a dangerously quiet tone.
“Well I can’t just guess where it is, so you are going to have to put up with being handled, milady, aren’t you? Unless you would like me to come back another day?”
“I spps nt”
“I’m sorry? What was that?”
“I said, I suppose not.”
“Let me get this clear. You – Divina Senate Magmus of Coriolis – would like me – Six of Kwaide – to save your precious skin?”
Diva growled. “I said. YES!”
Six smiled. “Worth coming up here just to hear that! Now keep still and let me see if I can lift this console off you!”
“Ouch!”
“Err … Diva … I haven’t touched you yet.”
“Liar! I felt something crawl down my leg!”
Six touched her leg, pulled off his mask pack and put his padded finger to his mouth. “That’s blood,” he said. “You have cut yourself.”
He felt worried. That was a lot of blood! But it was so dark inside the pod that he couldn’t see what was causing it. He struggled with the console, tugging it this way and that until he managed to move it slightly.
“Got it!” he muttered through his teeth, breathing heavily with the effort. “Just need to pull it a bit more this way … There!” The console shifted, Diva gave a stifled cry, and Six pulled her leg swiftly out from under the instrument panel.
“Are you all right? Can you move your foot?” he demanded.
There was a pause. “Yes, but there is something wrong with it. Never mind, I can get the bodywrap on now. Don’t watch!”
Six shook his head in amusement. “I’ve seen better legs in a pond full of Kwaidian frogs!” he told her. “Don’t flatter yourself!”
“What’s wrong with my legs?” she flared.
“They just go on and on. That’s why they get trapped under consoles and stuff. They are far too long and thin.”
“I suppose you no-names prefer short stumpy legs like tree-trunks?”
“Stands to reason,” he said. “Much better for survival. Who wants thin willowy things? Bound to bend at the first sign of trouble. No good at all on Kwaide.” He grinned to himself.
There was the sound of the bodywrap being fastened, with some anger. “All right. We can go now.”
“Yes, modom. If your royal numbness will kindly step this way …”
“Oh, get out of my way!”
“I was trying,” complained Six, “but you just stepped on my foot.”
“That squishy thing was your foot? I thought it must have been a cushion.”
“I wondered why you ground your heel into it.”
“I was only trying to keep my balance.”
“Sure. And I believe you.”
“It’s true! It’s your own fault for having a foot like a dumpling!”
“I suppose you think I am a Cesan trogling!”
“Not … exactly, but you are a bit … err … prehistoric. I suppose it is all that petrifying water on Kwaide.”
“No Mesteta baths, perhaps? No pandering to your cutis? No polishing up of your teeth?”
“At least they would have made you slightly better to look at. Ouch! Be careful, dummy!”
“Oops! You must have slipped out of my clumsy Kwaidian hands, your flashness, so sorry!”
He found himself wedged behind Diva, trying to push her up through the hatch.
“Permission to put unworthy hands on modom’s … err … posterior?”
“Oh Cian!”
“Only from my lowly … err … hind view it would appear that your ladyship is stuck.”
“Go on then – if you have to!”
Six applied pressure with gusto and Diva popped out of the top of the hatch like a cork on a bottle of wine. With a squeal she tried to catch hold of something, failed, and tumbled out and down to the ground with a bump.
“You did that on purpose!” she accused.
“Me? Such a backward being? Do you think I could have thought that up all by myself?”
“Now you have made everything worse. OW! HEY! Did you have to throw yourself out of the hatch on top of me?”
Six blew a sigh. “Anyone with half a brain would have known to get well out of the way,” he said.
“You could have told me you were going to project yourself out of that thing like lightning on the summit of the Xianthes!”
“I could, of course,” he agreed.
“You are incorrigible!”
“Thank you,” he said, pleased. “I do my best.”
“Ugghh!” she said, blocking her mask pack. Six listened to the desperate gurgling sounds as she tried to clear it again, and shook his head. She would never learn.
IT TOOK THEM nearly half an hour to get back to the intact shuttle pod, although it was only fifteen metres away. Diva couldn’t stand, which meant that Six had to pull her over his back to drag her along. She was a dead weight in conditions which were already extreme, and he felt his own strength draining slowly away as he tried to keep his steps straight. He staggered under the weight, which made it hard to keep the right course to the pod. Six cursed. It was only fifteen metres. A Rexel beetle could spit that far! This was ridiculous!
Try as hard as he could, the conditions outside were so bad that he simply could not make any better time. Sweat was running down the inside of his bodywrap and fogging up the mask pack, and it was a huge effort to keep it from blocking. He despaired of ever finding the second pod. His pulse beat an accelerated tattoo and his heart pounded, both in apprehension and with the physical effort.
At least Diva had shut up now. He thought that he couldn’t have taken any of her crowing just at that moment. But that might mean she was unconscious – she would have to be completely unaware to miss such a good opportunity to bait him. She was still losing blood, how long could she have before she bled out while slumped over his back?
That same back which was groaning protest after protest against its mistreatment. He wished he could straighten up for just a moment. But he kept on, dragging himself and Diva at a snail’s pace towards where he thought the pod was. The wind was behind him now, but instead of helping him, it simply hammered into both bodies like a moving brick wall, making it impossible to keep a foothold. He was suddenly unsure how much longer he could go on.
Then, when he was on the point of giving up and dropping with his burden onto the enticing white ice, he saw a blurred shadow right in front of him. Thank Lumina! The last remaining steps were lighter, easier, and then they were there.
Diva was unconscious, so the only way he could get her into the pod was by tying a rope into a sort of makeshift harness and hauling her up like a sack of potatoes. She weighed a ton, and even though he was now inside the pod, and able to divest himself of the bodywrap and mask pack, he was still utterly exhausted.
It took every last cubit of energy which he had left to hoist her up to the hatch. She lodged against it, wedged sideways on, so he tied the rope securely to the console and stretched up to the hatch. He would have to manhandle her in through the opening.
It was impossible to get
to her feet, so he had to drag her head around first. Then he pulled until her head was level with his chest. There was a moment of equilibrium, and then gravity won out, and he grabbed at her as she began to fall head first towards the console. Her momentum pulled him with her, and they both ended up in an undignified heap on the floor.
Six was glad she was unconscious. He found himself pressed against the whole length of the Coriolan girl, and he hated to think what she would have said. He rolled off her, unbound the rope, and rebound it quickly around the top of her leg. The bodywrap was soaked with red blood – not the royal blue he had half been expecting. He made a hasty tourniquet, and left her on the floor. His priority now was to get them both back to the spaceport near the base camp.
BY THE TIME they landed on the spaceport he had been able to relay the situation to Grace up in the orbital station, and she had been in touch with Kwaide to organize help. Vion was waiting at the landing port, stretcher at the ready.
Six watched as the doctor sliced through the bodywrap to examine the wound. Then he refastened the tourniquet again, and turned to Six.
“She may get through this. I will have to operate at once, though, and she has lost a great deal of blood.”
Six felt drained. “Do your best, Vion.”
“You look terrible, Six. Get some rest. Doctor’s orders!”
Six nodded. “What is the situation here? Where did the bombs fall?”
“Three full hits on the base camp, one miss. One partial on the middle camp, and one full hit on the black peak camp, which by pure chance only killed three vaniven. We have about a hundred dead and wounded in the middle camp, and well over a thousand dead in the base camp. Many, many wounded.”
“Thank you for coming out to Diva.”
Vion shrugged. “Cimma organized five hundred volunteers in a flash, so I have plenty of help. I still have many operations to do, of course, but I can take a couple of hours to look after Diva. Don’t worry, Six, I will do my best.”
Six touched the doctor’s arm. “I know you will, Vion. Thank you.” He watched as Diva was wheeled away, and then rubbed his eyes. There was a rough utility building on the spaceport, with a couple of bunk beds hewn out of wood. He made himself drink some water, and then crawled into one of the beds. He was done.
Chapter 28
IT WAS FIVE days later, and they were huddled around Diva’s bed in the aid centre. Diva was on her way to recovery, after a three-hour operation in which the gash in her leg had been repaired, including nerves. Luckily there had been no severing of tendons. She would walk and run again.
Others had not been so lucky. The final death toll had been nearly two thousand, and there were nearly the same number of injured, although many were now well on the way to recovery.
“The Sellites will soon be back,” said Six gloomily.
Grace shook her head. “I don’t think so, Six. Remember that there are only five hundred Sell houses, and that they really don’t have the personnel to keep up this rate of attack. Atheron must have pulled in all the favours he could to man so many spaceships – they must have taken the ships away from mining operations all over the system. And they don’t have an arsenal of bombs either. What with the attack on Arcan last year, and this one on Kwaide, I don’t think they can have more than a couple of missiles left. Plus, they lost all their nuclear weapons. I really don’t think they will be anxious to come back to Kwaide.”
“So they won’t send soldiers?” asked Ledin, who had called in to enquire after Valhai Diva.
“There is no army on Valhai. The only trained combat team is the one that protects the head of Sell, in the Valhai Voting Chamber. That is it. They don’t have an army to send.”
“That is a great relief,” said the pilot. “Although I don’t think the Elders will let it go so easily.”
Six shook his head. “They will attack again. We will have to be ready. The result of the next attack could finish the conflict.”
Diva struggled against the sheets. “I have to get up!”
Six put a flat hand on top of the sheet. “You will stay there,” he said, in a quiet tone.
Diva opened her mouth, and then closed it again.
Grace giggled. “You looked just like a fish then, Diva!”
Vion cleared his throat. “You need to stay in hospital for at least another week, Diva, and then it will take you six weeks of rehabilitation to get full use of your leg back. From there to being in combat fitness will take months.”
Diva gave him a look. “I have no intention of sitting around here interminably,” she informed the company. “I might manage a week or two, and then you had better cross me off the Kwaide visiting list.”
Six gave a nod. “I think we would do better to send you to Valhai to help Arcan,” he said. “That big meeting is coming up, and I think you and Grace ought to be there. I would go myself, but with the menace of a new battle, it might be better if I stayed here. In any case, we don’t want Diva here totaling any more shuttles. We have had to ask Coriolis for a loan of two of theirs as it is.”
Diva opened her mouth to protest, but Grace looked pointedly at her with one eyebrow raised. She got a resigned nod back.
“Very well,” Grace said. “We will go back to Valhai when Diva can travel, and if Arcan is willing to transport us back.”
Vion made a stifled sound. All of them turned to look at him. He reddened. “I … err … that is—” He broke off and looked like a stuffed Xianthan turkey bird. Grace felt a cold shadow of apprehension.
The doctor cleared his throat. “I … err … I suppose I should tell you all that I am … about to enter into a life commitment with the daughter of the 466th house.”
Grace looked down at the floor for a short second, collecting herself. “Congratulations, Vion, I hope you will both be very happy. May the heavenly triangle bless the union with progeny.”
Diva had looked quickly at Grace, but now smiled up at the doctor too. “Indeed. Congratulations.”
Six gave a grunt, but said nothing. His eyes slipped over to look at Grace too, but he kept his own counsel. There was a long and rather uncomfortable silence in the ward.
“Well, I must be going – I have to start my rounds,” said Vion, getting to his feet.
“Sure. Thanks for all your help. When are you due to go back to Coriolis?” asked Six.
“Next week. I should be able to leave everything to the new trainees by then – they have been making huge progress.”
“And how is the new house in Mesteta coming on?”
“Fine. It will be ready soon – in time for the …”
“Ceremony?” finished Six.
“Exactly. We have decided to live on Coriolis, at least for a short time.”
“New Kwaide is very grateful for your help, Vion. We wish you well.”
“Thank you.” The doctor got to his feet and left the room. The others glanced around.
“We are going to have to be very careful about what we say in front of him in the future,” Six told them.
“Vion would never betray us!” Grace said.
“Grace, you ought to know better than that. He has made his decision, and it involves maintaining the status quo on Valhai. He can no longer be trusted.”
“Of course he can!”
Six shook his head, and turned to Ledin, who had been listening to the conversation attentively. “Make sure everybody knows not to discuss any tactics in front of the doctor from now on, please,” he told him.
“Of course.” Ledin nodded and walked away.
Diva put a hand over Grace’s wrist. “All right, Grace?”
“Sure.”
“Only I thought—”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“I don’t think so. But I understand. He has a family to consider.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Grace shook the hand away. “There was never anything between Vion and me. He is far too old.”
“He is not good enough f
or you,” said Six.
“You think?” Grace looked up.
“Of course he’s not. If he were he wouldn’t have put his family before you. Nobody who cared would.”
The two girls looked at Six in surprise. He wasn’t much given to analyzing emotions.
“What?” he asked. “Well, stands to reason. Anybody would say the same.”
“I don’t think they would,” said Grace slowly, “not in Sell, anyway.”
“Oh well – Sell!” he retorted, with such a tone of disdain that the girls both laughed. “No, seriously,” he went on, “I am disappointed in Vion – I thought he was a straight-up sort of guy.” He thought a bit. “If you want my opinion, I think he’s making a big mistake!”
“You’ll find somebody much worthier, Grace,” Diva told her.
“Of course I will!” But Grace was sure that she never would. She just wished they would shut up about it, leave her alone. She felt strange – as if the air had suddenly become thicker. It was like swimming through jelly, and she didn’t like the feeling one little bit. Grace made an effort to get her concentration back on track. “Then we will head back to Valhai for the meeting in the Valhai Voting Dome. Will you be all right here, Six?”
Six stuck his chin out with a stubborn look. “Naturally,” he said. “I want to see New Kwaide established once and for all.”
“We could meet back on Valhai when it is all over?” suggested Grace.
Six sketched a bow. “Ladies,” he said, “May both Almagest and Sacras watch over you. And Diva – don’t go getting into any more trouble – I am getting tired of having to rescue you!”
“Of all the—”
But he had gone, swinging out of the door jauntily, and leaving Diva with the words on her lips. “Ogghh!” she finished, with a face that promised revenge.
ARCAN CONTACTED GRACE before Diva’s convalescence in hospital was over. He appeared out of the blue in front of the Sellite girl, as she was cleaning her teeth in the shack she shared with the now absent Coriolan girl.
Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 Page 50