'WHY SHOULD WE? IT BARELY KNOWS IT IS ALIVE. ELVES BREED LIKE FLIES IN THE WOODS. YOU THINK THEY MAKE NICE MUSIC, BUT IT IS AS A CRICKET CHIRPS -- MINDLESSLY.
'l GATHER YOU HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE EXPLOSION THAT KNOCKED ME OUT OF THE AIR THREE DAYS AGO?'
'Uh, yes.' Kin thought quickly. 'There was a flying chariot, you see--'
'A THREE THOUSAND TONNE STARSHIP' Sphandor agreed, 'IMPACTING AT FOUR HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR.'
'Do you know what those words mean?'
'NO, BUT THEY WERE AT THE FOREFRONT OF YOUR MIND. THE SHOCK WAVES KNOCKED ME OUT OF THE AIR, AND SOME CHRISTERS REACHED ME AND BOUND ME BEFORE I COULD RISE. IF I BUT HAD MY FREEDOM I WOULD TEAR THEIR EARS OFF.'
It must be vat-grown, thought Kin. Nothing like that could have evolved naturally. If those wings worked it would have to be very light, bird-boned. She would have to ask it questions -- later.
'I want to escape,' she said. 'Silver?' There was no answer from the earpiece.
'l LIKEWISE. IT IS UNFORTUNATELY IMPOSSIBLE. TOMORROW WE SHALL BE BROUGHT BEFORE THE BISHOP'S COURT. I SHALL CERTAINLY BE EXECUTED.'
'Will they waste time with a court when they think their god is coming?'
'ALL THE MORE REASON TO BE SEEN GOING ABOUT WHAT THEY CONSIDER TO BE HIS BUSINESS, KIN ARAD.'
'What will they execute you for?'
'I AM SPHANDOR! I SPREAD ARTHRITIS, THE BONE ACHE AND AGUE OF THE NECK. I BLIGHT CROPS AND CAUSE ABORTION IN CATTLE. THEY SAY I FOUL STREAMS AND HURL THE LIGHTNING STONE.'
'And do you do all that?'
'l SUPPOSE SO. I CERTAINLY ALWAYS INTEND TO.'
Kin glanced towards the fire. The men had spread out, and she could just see them outlined against the last stains of sunset, watching the sky.
'THEY THINK MY BROTHERS WILL TRY TO RESCUE ME' said Sphandor. 'FAT CHANCE!'
A holy man entered the compound with a tray of food. Kin watched him absently.
One of the guards sauntered over to the priest and took a bowl off the tray. He had his back to Kin who saw him stiffen, drop the bowl and slump down. A third hand had shot out of the robe, holding a sword...
Some of the others came running after hearing the priest's anguished cry, and the fallen man was lost to sight as his fellows gathered round.
There was an explosion of flesh.
Two men staggered back and two, a little faster, turned to run and slid along the ground with knives in their backs.
Laughing like a hyena, Marco leapt barehanded at the others. The few seconds of astonishment they experienced helped him, and he worked through them with a mixture of kung digitsju and blind destruction while arrows from the men who had the sense to stay out of it hissed around him. Sphandor giggled.
Marco screeched a kung battle-cry and stalked towards the nearest archer, glistening in the firelight. The man fired one arrow which hit him fairly in the chest, rocking him back on his heels for a moment. Then he walked on. The archer was still staring when two hands grabbed him by the throat and two more swung up in a gristle-cleaving arc.
As one man the surviving guards dropped their weapons and ran for the compound entrance.
'Marco!' shouted Kin. 'Keys! Find the keys.'
Marco glared at her stupidly, then looked up. A white shape dropped out of the night, towing the familiar form of the dumbwaiter behind her.
Silver landed lightly. Behind her, Marco wrenched the arrow from his chest and looked at it absently.
'NEAT,' commented Sphandor with interest.
The shand examined the cage closely.
'I do not like to damage private property,' she said, 'but speed is of the essence.' She stepped back a few paces and hit the bars at a dead run. As Kin jumped over the debris the shand nodded towards Sphandor.
'What about that?' she said.
'I PLEAD,' said the demon.
'Let him out,' said Kin, taking her suit and stepping into the lift belt. 'Right now I'd just love him to spread bubonic plague or whatever it is he spreads.'
'Does he do that?' said Silver. 'The ancients always said demons spread disease.'
'This one is a mobile disaster area,' said Kin.
'Is it wise to let him loose, then?'
'We might learn a lot from him. If you've got any scruples, remember Marco's just killed half a dozen men and you've been involved in the molestation of research subjects.'
Silver considered this. 'True,' she said, and splintered the bars with a backhand swipe. 'If we're baddies, let's be bad.'
Marco stepped forward with two knives levelled to throw as the demon wriggled through the gap. There was a smear of pink blood around his wound. Would it have helped the dead archer to know that a kung in a fighting rage was practically awash with regenerative enzymes? It had been hard enough for Earthmen to see kung fight on with their flesh healing like boiling wax.
'I do not trust this creature. Grab him!'
Silver shot out an arm and caught Sphandor by his scaly tail. With the other hand she unwrapped a length of cable from her waist and knotted it several times around the creature's neck. Sphandor screeched.
'WHERE ARE YOU, SOIGNATORIE, UNSORE, DILAPI-DATORE--' he began.
'Shut up,' advised Marco, taking the other end of the cable from Silver. 'All ready? Soon people will overcome their fears.'
They rose quickly. Marco hovered fifty metres up and looked down at the demon, a tall shadow in the moonlight. Sphandor shrugged. The big wings unfolded.
'l SHALL REQUIRE A RUN TO TAKE OFF.'
Kin watched Marco bob above him as the demon loped across the ground, the wide wings rattling. Halfway across he brought them down with a whump that threw up a dust cloud, and he hung there for several seconds while the wings hammered on the air. Then he rose ponderously, like a giant heron.
When he was level with them, but a hundred metres away, he took a length of cable in his talons.
'FAREWELL, FOOLS!' he bellowed, and tugged. A look of dismay crept over his face.
With the belt's lateral stabilizers full on Marco hung immovable in the air. When he reeled in the line no amount of wing-flapping could budge him. When the horned head was just a few metres away the kung whispered: 'I'm told you can read minds...'
'ONLY SURFACE THOUGHT, LORD.'
'Read mine.'
After a second Sphandor's face was a mask of terror.
With the creature in tow they moved slowly, because the wide wings acted as an air brake. The demon held a loop of cable in both hands and glided behind them unsteadily, peppering them alternately with entreaties and curses.
The smoke no longer dominated the sky. It was the sky. Winds in the upper air had teased it out into a ragged mushroom.
Apart from the background noise behind them they flew in silence, Kin and Silver following a little behind Marco. Finally Kin's radio chimed.
'This is Silver, transmitting on your suit frequency only, Kin. You had something to say? If you move the switch to position four Marco will not hear,' the voice added.
'Silver, he slaughtered them! They didn't have a chance!'
Silver made a noncommittal noise. 'They outnumbered him ten to one.'
'They weren't expecting a kung, damn it!' Kin felt the bottled-up words rushing to be said. 'He enjoyed it! You saw him, he even killed ones who were running away, he threw... their only crime was that they happened to be in his way, it was completely inhu--' She choked on the word.
After a while Silver said: 'Quite.'
Kin thought about the first contact with the kung. Men had already met the shandi, who apart from their duelling had no concept of warfare and viewed mankind's ragged history with barely concealed horror. So the first ship to land on Kung had no weapons aboard at all.
Five deaths served to convince men that, considered on the galactic scale, they were gentle and peace-loving. Perhaps it had been worth it.