She selected the biggest Guardian. “Nirozha, you first, then Shisora. I will follow. Gizhot, I want you and Rigosha to remain outside and receive the prisoners as we send them out. Tell me if you all feel ready.”
The Guardians gave aggressive hoots, like dancers ready for a competition.
“Then go inside now.”
The humans had tried to lash the hatch shut, but Nirozha braced himself in the entry tube and used his midlimbs to shove it open far enough to cut the cord with his knife. The hatch popped open and he surged inside. Shisora followed swiftly in case of trouble.
Tizhos struggled up the tube, her life-support pack scraping the side as her belly pressed against the ladder. She wondered briefly how a bulky Guardian like Nirozha had managed to fit.
Then she pushed through the hatch into the shelter. The humans had turned off the lights so she could see only the jerky beams from the Guardians’ shoulder lamps.
She aimed her light up. Three humans dangled in hammocks in the upper section. Nirozha had also seen them and began climbing the flimsy ladder up to them. They made no aggressive moves, which pleased Tizhos.
A sudden screaming made her jump. All three humans began shrieking as Nirozha approached. He tried to pull one of the human males out of his hammock, but the human started struggling and kicking. Tizhos recognized him as Richard Graves. For some reason he did not use his arms.
“Wait here. I will go up to assist Nirozha,” she told Shisora. The ladder felt as if it could barely support her weight. In the upper section she could hardly find room to move with three humans and Nirozha crowded in. The Guardian and Richard Graves still struggled. Nirozha grabbed his legs with all four arms and pulled, but he still did not come out. His shouting increased in volume. Tizhos found it hard to think.
She could see something around Richard Graves’s wrists attaching him to the ring supporting the hammock. Tizhos wondered why the humans had restrained themselves.
“Please quiet yourselves!” she called out, but the humans continued shouting. She could not make out anything they said, but their tones sounded angry.
Nirozha used his knife to cut the restraint holding Richard Graves to his hammock. The human struggled free of Nirozha’s grip and danced around the upper part of the shelter, swinging from handholds and jumping over the other two humans. Finally the Guardian got his midlimbs around the human and half-passed, half-tossed him to Tizhos.
She had to use three of her arms to hold Richard Graves, and could barely get down the ladder to the lower level, especially with him struggling and kicking his legs. Shisora and Tizhos held him down and tried to get him into a drysuit, but he continued kicking and struggling, still shouting.
They got him suited and tossed him into the water for Gizhot and Rigosha to deal with.
Next Nirozha captured the human female. Despite her smaller size she proved even more difficult for him to handle than the male. Twice he got her in his grip only to have her wriggle free. She struck and kicked him repeatedly, and finally Nirozha backhanded her with his left midlimb, knocking her down to the lower level where Shisora could pounce on her.
Getting her into a suit felt worse than trying to wash an uncooperative infant. Infants didn’t kick as hard and scream insults. Infants didn’t grab at your own suit hoses, or throw equipment across the shelter, then break free when you had to let go to retrieve it.
And then, when they had her legs into the suit for the third time and were trying to capture her arms, she punched Shisora in the ribs once too often.
He hit her back, a powerful blow with his midlimb. And then he hit her again. He held her down with his upper arms and began hitting her with his midlimbs, over and over again. Her screams changed in pitch, getting higher and louder.
Tizhos still held the female’s legs down. I should stop this, she thought. Before she gets badly hurt. But it felt so satisfying to watch the human being pounded. Tizhos’s suit reeked of anger and frustration, and watching Shisora work the human over felt almost as good as doing it herself.
The screams stopped, and suddenly Tizhos snapped back to reality. “Shisora, stop. I order you to stop!”
He got in one more blow, then sat back on his four rear limbs, breathing heavily. The human didn’t move. Circulatory fluid leaked from her mouth and nostrils, and Tizhos could see sections of skin changing color.
The female human’s suit included a medical monitor, and when they turned it on the readouts showed lots of blinking red alert signals. Gizhot had the most medical training, and Tizhos knew enough first aid and human physiology to assist, but neither had ever tried to aid an injured human before. The little medical kit in the shelter contained a manual and some emergency drugs, but they didn’t do much. Eventually her heart stopped and she stopped breathing.
The remaining male offered no resis tance. The one outside slipped away during the confusion. Tizhos led her little team back toward Hitode, towing the dead human’s body herself. Nobody spoke much.
Broadtail is teaching the youngsters how to speak properly. Each student is kept in a pen, and Broadtail moves along the row with a bag of clinger meat. They strain against the netting of the pens, snatching at him, but he keeps behind the row of little stones marking the limit of their reach.
He stops before each pen and conducts a little lesson. The student doesn’t get any meat until it can say “Give me food.” Half of them fail. Broadtail recalls Oneclaw’s advice.
“Most of them fail at new lessons, but I expect improvement. Hunger is a good teacher.”
The female at the end of the row, Smoothshell, can only snatch feebly. Broadtail doesn’t remember her eating anything in the pens. She fails all her lessons. Is she too stupid to learn? In that case she is nothing but food for the others.
But she sounds clever enough. Her pings are rare but sharp. Broadtail recalls her almost getting herself untied from one of Oneclaw’s clumsy knots. Perhaps she is simply stubborn. He decides to try something he dimly remembers from his own youth.
“Food,” he says, and loudly eats a bit. Then he places a chunk of clinger flesh where she can reach it. “Food,” he repeats as she grabs the bit. “Food.”
“I give you food,” he says, putting out another bit. He listens as she gobbles it. He waits.
She strains against the netting, clacking her pincers, but she can’t reach the bag.
“Speak to me,” he says. “Speak or starve. Choose now. I think you understand me.”
He waits. She stops struggling, tries one last surprise lunge, which brings her extended pincer almost close enough to touch him, then is still. He waits some more.
“Food,” she says quietly.
“Good. What do you want?”
Another long pause, then she says “Give me food.”
Broadtail shoves half a dozen clingers toward her. “Very good. I give you food. I give Smoothshell food.”
“Holdhard,” she says a little more loudly. It is not a name he recognizes.
“Where is Holdhard?”
“I am Holdhard.”
“You are Smoothshell.”
“I am Holdhard.”
This is a curious development. Normally children her age don’t have personal names. They can barely comprehend themselves as individuals.
“Very well, Holdhard. I give Holdhard food.” He gives her the last two bits of clinger. “Broadtail gives Holdhard food.”
He waits a little longer, then turns to go. As he leaves he just catches her saying “Broadtail gives Holdhard food” very quietly.
Rob and Josef found Dickie Graves about half a kilometer from Coquille 1. Actually he found them—they were making a very stealthy approach to the Coq with Rob listening on all the external microphones for any hint of Sholen presence when a rescue strobe started flashing nearby. The sudden light made Josef cry out in surprise, but his hands on the thruster controls were perfectly steady, and he swung the sub around for a sudden getaway before Rob heard Dickie’s voice and told him to wait.