For Love and Glory

LI

Seconds later, the thing flew into their sight. It was dull-blue metallic, maybe three lean meters long, and something in the nose caught the sundown light to a flash like a lens. There was no sign of jets or engines, yet it came too fast, low above the desert, for Lissa to get more than a glimpse.

“Back!” Hebo roared. He caught her arm, whirled her around, and half-dragged her into the force-shimmer. She shook loose and ran on her own beside him. Dzesi loped behind. They slipped through the lattice at the bottom of the tower, slammed to a halt, and stared out.

Dzesi unslung her launcher and latched the rack of little missiles into place. “Easy,” gasped Hebo. “We don’t know it’s a threat.” But his rifle was in his hands.

The flyer braked to a halt and hung some thirty meters away, five or six meters up. Its outline rippled in Lissa’s eyes. She thought it must be—peering—through the haze, at them.

She felt and smelled the sweat cold on her skin, her heart slugged, but the clarity of endangerment was again upon her and she had no time to wonder why the thing hadn’t arrived until now. If it was to study them, stop them if they started doing damage—

Her faceplate darkened itself. Even so, the glare from the lens left blinding after-images. She turned away, and the plate cleared. Dzesi’s yowl rang in her receiver. “Yaroo tsai!” Then: “It’s shooting at us!”

Either Rikhan eyes were less readily dazzled or she had kept from staring straight at it. Yes, a dryland hunter.… Hebo must also have been spared, for she heard him: “My God, watch out! That was close!” Once more he yanked at her.

She stumbled back. Vision began to recover. She saw a strut glow red. Melted metal congealed below a deep gouge. Had she not been spacesuited, she would have felt the heat.

Another fire-spot erupted on another girder. And the one beyond it. An energy beam, she knew, sweeping about in bursts of nigh-solar fierceness. “It’s a killer,” Hebo said. “I think the force-field’s confusing its aim, but it’ll probe till it gets us. The robots can make repairs later.”

Senseless fury speared through Lissa. Would the Forerunners, the Earth people order this?

“Run,” Dzesi snarled. “Scatter. Don’t give it a single sitting target.”

She’s right, Lissa knew, and groped out from under the helicoid. Seeing still better, she dashed for a giant polyhedron. Hide behind it, inside it. But the machine would keep on, though the whole complex be wrecked.

A chant rang wild in her receiver, Dzesi’s voice. It pulled her from herself, brought her to a halt beside the structure. She looked back.

Barely, she glimpsed the dart that spurted from the helicoid. Flame and smoke burst against the flyer. Dzesi had stood her ground, with target-seeking missiles.

The shape lurched in midair. Had the explosion put a dent in the hull? It recovered. New incandescences fountained on the lower coils. Dzesi wasn’t there. She had climbed, bounded, crouched higher on the frame. She fired afresh. Her song went on.

Hebo came from wherever he had gone. “We’ll try for the ship,” he gasped. “Quick!”

“But Dzesi—”

“She’s diverting it, duelling with it. That’s her death-song we hear. Don’t let her die for nothing. We can’t help. Maybe we can tell her Trek.”

Yes, our own weapons are toys, Lissa realized. She ran beside Hebo. Fatigue had dropped away. There was nothing but running.

They left the complex and pelted over rock and sand. The straightest way to Hulda kept the fight at the edge of their field of view. Shot after shot rocked the machine. Bolt after bolt pursued Dzesi up the tower skeleton. The song went on.

It broke off. Lissa heard a scream. A firebolt had found Dzesi. The hit was not direct, the wound not immediately mortal. A last missile flew. Maybe she had stared right into the lens to dispatch it. She fell off the lattice, down to the black stone. But this burst was straight to the nose. The machine lurched, veered, crashed, and lay still.

And now Hulda loomed ahead. At Hebo’s hoarse command, she had extruded a boarding ramp and opened a crewlock. Man and woman staggered into the chamber. They stood embraced while the outer door closed, the alien air was pumped off, ship’s air flowed in, and the inner door retracted. Lissa wept.

When Hebo took off his helmet, she saw that his face streamed with more than sweat.

“Anything else around?” he snapped.

“Not in my detection range,” Hulda answered.

“We’ll lift for space right away.”

Lissa’s breath gasped in and out. She felt stifled. “Let’s first shuck these suits,” she stammered. “W-won’t do us much good if, if we take a hit and the hull can’t close.”

“Okay.” They helped one another. When they were free, they again clung together for a moment before they mounted to the control compartment.

As they fell into their chairs, they looked through the view-screen, back toward the complex. From here, they saw none of the harm done, or the fallen killer, or any other sign. “Goodbye, Dzesi,” Hebo said. “Yes, I’ll go myself and tell your Ulas Trek.”

“We will,” Lissa whispered.

No data would be lost either, she thought aside, irrelevantly. The instruments they bore had downloaded everything into each database. So that much that was Dzesi’s would also abide.

Ironbright’s image entered the visiscreen. “You escaped,” she said. “That is well. We could do nothing to help you, in orbit as we are, but now you shall have our protection.”

“We’re leaving,” Hebo replied, equally flat-voiced.

“Of course. The only prudent action.” Even the trans conveyed grimness. “You will rendezvous with us at a thousand kilometers’ altitude. Do not attempt to flee. If it seems you are making a break for hyperjump distance, we will destroy you. You may have the acceleration to dodge one naval missile, but you cannot outrun a barrage.”

Hebo did not smile; he skinned his teeth. “If you insist. We’ll boost and take orbit very slowly. But don’t you come any closer to us than—um-m—fifty klicks. If you do, we will scamper. We may or may not get clear, but either way, you’ll have lost the information you sent us after.”

“Be sensible. You are exhausted, perhaps injured. You need rest, nourishment, care. Your friends are aboard, waiting to welcome you.”

“Ironbright, if it weren’t an insult to a better species, I’d call you a bitch. Our real friend is dead because you forced us to go down. She, nobody and nothing else, bought our two lives for us. The data are our bargaining counter. Why should we trust you any further than we’d trust a spitting cobra?”

The Susaian rested rock-still for a few seconds that hummed. Then: “Your attitude is wrong but comprehensible, when you are overwrought. We will assume orbit at the distance you request, and until then, if you wish, refrain from further communication. I urge that you refresh yourselves and consider the realities. Our duty is to the Dominance and the Great Confederacy. However, I tell you on my nest-honor that we have no desire to harm you.”

Lissa’s mind roused. “If you mean that, don’t you be in a hurry,” she said. “Give us several hours before you approach.”

Hours to think. Time to kiss.

Ironbright rippled assent. “Unless something unforeseen occurs, Authority will take station fifty kilometers from you at 2100 by her clock. It now registers 1430.”

“Fair enough.” The best we could hope for, anyhow.

“I shall cease transmission. Leave your receivers open, as we will ours.”

“Of course.” The screen blanked.

Lissa slumped. “You heard, Hulda,” she said dully. “Get us out of here.”