I think I can walk,she said, and wistfully: if it were only a question of moving at night, I could probably—

No. No. You’re safer with him. Come, we’ll never get these amaut closer to those ships. Besides,arastiethe won’t permit Khasif to argue with us with them to witness it. If we want that ship to open to us, we had better be alone.

You are learning the iduve,Isande agreed. But he will take us inside before he asks why. Then—

The idoikkheiburned, jolted, whited out their minds. When Aiela knew that he was still alive and that Isande was, he found himself fallen partially on her, his head aching from an impact with the pavement, his right arm completely paralyzed to the shoulder. He touched Isande’s face with his left hand, cold and sick as he saw a line of blood between her lips; and this was the iduve’s doing, a punishment for their presumption. He hated. Ikasas it was to hate, he did so with a strength that made Isande cringe in terror.

“They will kill you,” she cried. And then the idoikkheibegan to pulse again.

It was different, not pain, but an irregular surge of energy that made one anticipate pain, and it had its own variety of torment.

Two minds,Aiela realized suddenly, remembering the sensation: two opposing minds,and his anger became bewilderment. Isande tried to rise with his help, found she could not, and then through her vision came a view of the other ship, hatch opening, a tall slim figure in black descending.

An iduve, onworld, among outsiders.

Even Tejef had maintained his privacy; that a nasulso exposed itself was unthinkable. Even in the midst of their private terror it occurred to the asuthi simultaneously that Priamos might die for seeing what it was seeing, an iduve among them. Had it happened on Kartos there would have been panic and mass suicides.

Mejakh!Isande recognized the person, and her thoughts became a babble of terror. The iduve was coming toward them. The idoikkheiwere beginning to cause pain as Mejakh’s nearness overcame Khasif’s interference.

Aiela hauled Isande to her feet and tried to run with her. The pain became too much. They stumbled again, trying to rise.

The hatch of the base ship opened and another iduve descended, careless of witnesses. Aiela forgot to struggle, transfixed by the sight. It was incredible how fast the iduve could move when they chose to run. Khasif crossed the intervening space and came to an abrupt halt still yards distant from Mejakh.

Sound exploded about them all, light: the ground heaved and a wall of air flung Aiela down, dust and cement chips showering about him as he tried to shield Isande. Choking black smoke confounded itself with the darkness: lights on the field had gone out. Amaut poured this way and that, gabbling alarm, human shapes among them. Powerful lights from off the field were sweeping the clouds of smoke, more obscuring than aiding.

Isande!he cried; but his effort to reach her mind plunged him into darkness and pitched him off balance: he felt her body loose, slack-limbed. His hand came away wet from hers, and he wiped the moisture on his jacket, sick with panic.

Hands seized him, hauled him up, attempted to restrain him: humans. He fired and dropped at least one, blind in the dark and smoke.

But when he was free again and sought Isande, he could not find her. Where she should have been there was no one, the pavement littered with stone and powder.

And close at hand an airship thundered upward, its twin lights glaring barefully through the roiling smoke.

Don’t let it go,Aiela implored the silent form of the base ship; but both his asuthi were dark and helpless, and the base ship made no effort to intervene. Weaponsfire laced the dark. More shadows, human-tall, raced toward him. Of the hovercraft there was no sign at all. It had deserted them.

A projectile kicked up the pavement near him. The chips stung his leg.

He ran, falling often, until the pounding in his skull and the pain in his side made him seek the shelter of the ruins and wait the strength to run again.

10

Tejef came infrequently to the outside of his ship. Considering the proximity of Ashanomehe did not think it wise to put too great a distance between himself and controls at any moment. But the burden this aircraft brought was a special one. First off the ramp was Gordon, a thin, wiry human with part of two fingers missing. He was not a handsome being, but he had been even less so when he arrived. He was senior among the kamethi, and of authority second only to Margaret.

“Toshi has a report to give,” Gordon said, gesturing toward the little amaut who was supervising the unloading of three stretchers. “She can tell it better than I can. We took casualties: Brown, Ling, Stavros, all unrecovered.”

“Dead, you say. Dead.”

“Yes.”

“A sadness,” Tejef said. The three had been devoted and earnest in their service. But his attention was for the three being unloaded.

“A male and female of your kind,” said Gordon. “And another—something different. Toshi says she’s kallia.”

The litters neared them, and Khasif was the first: Tejef looked into the face that was so nearly the mirror image of his own, felt the impact of takkhenesas Khasif’s eyes partially opened. They must have poured considerable amounts of drug into his veins. It would have been the only way to transport him, else he would seize control of the aircraft and wreck them all. Even now the force of him was very tangible.

“Mainlevel compartment twelve is proof against him,” Tejef told the bearers. “Put a reliable guard there to warn the humans clear of that area. I think you understand the danger of confronting him once the drug has worn off.”

“Yes, sir. We will be careful.”

And there was Isande. The kallia and he were of old acquaintance. He was glad to see that she was breathing, for she was of great chanokhia.

“She must go to the lab,” he told the amaut. “Dlechish will see to her.”

And the third one was shrouded in a blanket, darkish blood seeping through it. So the humans treated the dead, concealing them.

This would be the female of his kind. He reached for the blanket, unknowing and uneasy. Chimele it would not be: the Orithain of Ashanomewould not die by such a sorry mischance, or so shamefully. But for others, for gentle Chaikhe, for fierce old Nophres or Tahjekh, he would feel a certain regret.

The ruined face that stared back at him struck him with a harachiathat drained the blood from his face and wrung from him a hiss of dismay. Mejakh. Quickly he let fall the blanket.

“Are there rites you do, sir?” asked Gordon.

“How you say?” Tejef asked, not knowing the word.

“Ceremonies. Burial. What do you do with the dead?”

She was sraof his. It was not chanokhiato let her be bundled into the disintegration chamber by the hands of m’metanei.He must dispose of her, he. He conceded Mejakh that final vaikkaupon him, to force him to do her that honor. There was no other iduve able to do so.

“I see to her. Put her down. Put down!”

He had raised his voice, e-chanokhia,disgracing himself before the shocked faces of the m’metanei.He walked away from the litter to take himself from the harachiaof the situation, to compose himself.

“Sir.” Toshi came up at his elbow and bowed many times, so that he was forewarned he might not have reason to be pleased with her. “Have I done wrong or right?”

“How was this done?”

“I urged the authorities in Weissmouth to remember their loyalty to you, my lord, and they heard me, although it needed utmost persuasion. There were delays and delays: transportation must be arranged; human mercenaries must be engaged; it must not be done in the headquarters itself. All was prepared. We aimed only for the kamethi, who were accessible; but when the great ships opened and presented us such a chance—my lord, your orders did direct us to seize any opportunity against such personnel—”