Nixie climbed nimbly up on the far side of her, paused for a split second, and then launched herself forward. All the experiences and instincts of a lifetime’s conditioning told Gina that Nixie shouldn’t make it; but unseen forces guided her, and she landed lightly inside the Shapieron.
Gina swallowed and glanced at Hunt.
He nodded. “Go on!”
Forcing all other thoughts from her mind, she pitched off the rail-oblivious to the shove in her back that sent her moving.
Danchekker climbed up shakily. “If we ever manage to return after this escapade, I’ll greet Ms. Mulling with flowers,” he muttered to Hunt, and jumped.
As Keshen moved to follow, Fendro looked back and shouted in dismay. “We’ll never make it!”
Hunt turned his head. The door from the building was open again, and police were rushing out onto the platform. “Go!” he yelled, and pushed Keshen off. But Fendro was right: there were still three of them to go, and some of the police were already leveling weapons.
And then one of the Shapieron’s probes came swooping downward with a roaring, swishing sound, flattening out to race over the platform at head height, straight at the doorway like a fighter on a strafing run. The police scattered amid shouts of terror, some throwing themselves out of the way, others retreating back into the doorway. At the last moment the probe broke and peeled upward, grazing within a few feet of the face of the tower, and began turning for another run.
Murray and Fendro had clambered up onto the rail, and both disappeared together as Hunt looked back. Hunt glanced behind one last time, then hurled himself over after them. For an instant he seemed to hang in midair above the abyss, and then without his really registering what had taken place, hands were steadying him inside the Shapieron.
“All aboard,” ZORAC’s voice said from somewhere. “Anybody want to change their mind? No? Then let’s get out of here. Next stop, orbit. Calazar and Caldwell are through in the command deck via VISAR, waiting to talk to you.”
Hunt accepted a set of communicator accessories from one of the Ganymeans and attached them to his neck, ear, and forehead as they walked. “Who’s running the ship?” he asked as they approached one of the internal transit tubes.
“Leyel Torres, at your service,” a voice said in his ear.
“Quite a stunt,” Hunt complimented. “Pity about the hole in the roof.”
“I assume their insurance will cover it.”
“What’s the score otherwise?”
“Well, it seems that you’ve gone and doubled all our problems-literally. The versions of you that we’ve just extricated from that mess were only half the story. Now we have to worry about the other half.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Shingen-Hu refused to let himself be demoralized again. The higher gods had told him that he was to be their chosen instrument, and he had seen their power. Therefore the sudden cessation of the demonstration was a sign to him. It meant something. They had placed their emissaries in his charge, he had decided as the procession wound its way through the hills surrounding Rakashym, and left them stripped of their protection. All the time, the emissaries had remained quiet and subdued, obviously leaving Shingen-Hu to work the interpretation out for himself. It could only mean that the gods were entrusting to him the task of saving them. It was a test of his faith and worthiness.
Having satisfied himself of that much, he maneuvered himself into one of the corners of the cart below the two guards who were riding up front, and out of their line of vision. Then, under cover of the other bodies packed around him, he slipped from his robe one of the pieces of mobilium from the dignitaries’ carnage that he had picked up and concealed when they were back in the village square. He laid the sliver along one of his fingers and, concentrating his powers, slowly passed his finger through one of the links of the chain shackling his hands. The mobilium following behind his finger repelled the material, preventing it from rejoining behind, and the chain fell apart. He nudged Thrax, indicated what he had done, and passed him the other piece of mobilium. Thrax loosened his own chains, then worked his way across to the far side of the cart. By the time the cart had covered another mile, they had freed all five of the captives whom the gods had entrusted to them.
The train rounded a sharp bend at a point where the trail began descending, and there Shingen-Hu saw the opportunity that the gods had prepared for him. On one side, a steep gully rose into the rocks above the trail, its course littered with many loose and precarious boulders. On the other side, just past the bend where the gully spilled out onto the trail, there was a deep gorge with a stream at the bottom, and across it a cliff of crumbling, red-brown gritstone, its face patchy and veined with crystal of various colors.
Shingen-Hu waited until the cart carrying the prisoners had passed the gully, at which point the supply wagon and main body of the escorting soldiers following behind were obscured momentarily by the bend. Straightening up suddenly, he pointed at the gully with the extended fingers of both hands, singling out a large boulder that had acted as a dam and accumulated a mound of smaller debris fallen from higher up. The rock moved. Shingen-Hu sent a bolt of focused power, which he felt augmented by Thrax, concentrating beside him, and moments later a miniature avalanche came rumbling and tumbling down the gorge, sealing off the trail behind.
Ahead, the cart that the dignitaries were traveling in-commandeered from the villagers to replace the carriage-had come to a stop on a narrow stretch where the trail passed between two rock walls. As the occupants came spilling out in consternation, they blocked the way of the soldiers from the front, who were trying to get back.
Shingen-Hu marveled at how perfectly the gods had prepared the moment.
Casting his powers forward, he materialized a curtain of thick, black smoke to add to their confusion. Now the train was blocked both to the rear and to the fore, and the way open for escape lay off to the side, across the gorge. Again combining his power with Thrax’s, he walked out on a jutting rock that the gods had provided. There he paused until he felt a current surging, gathered his effort, and then stepped forth confidently to feel himself carried across to a narrow ledge near the cliff base, a short distance above the water. Thrax moved onto the jutting rock, marshaling the emissaries. Shingen-Hu could see that, just as he had expected, they were giving Thrax no assistance, but were acting like helpless novices to let him meet his test on his own merits.
“Walk forward over the bridge,” he called, beckoning for them to follow.
“What bloody bridge?” the emissary who was called Hunt shouted back.
“The bridge that faith shall build for ye. Trust my word, and my power shall carry thee safe.”
Hunt shrugged and stepped off the rock, and Shingen-Hu felt a wave of exhilaration as he bore the emissary over. Next came the redheaded female, followed by the ring-eyed Father of Gods, who had arrived in the spinning temple of beasts. By that time the ledge was crowded, and Thrax was left on the other side with the short-skirted female and the long-headed giant.
“Now we must climb,” Shingen-Hu exhorted. His power would never lift five of them to the top. The test would be to get them there, he was certain. What was to happen after that would then be revealed. So saying, he began moving smoothly and surely up the face, making use of frictite veins to afford a grip where there was no convenient hold, and avoiding the protrusions of green anchorite and black catchstone, as any youngster would know how to do.
But he had barely ascended halfway when a cry from below halted him. “What in God’s name is this confounded stuff? I can’t move.”