I salved my conscience by wondering whether that confusion was really such a bad thing. I remembered the Tetron theory of history that 69-Aquila had described to me, and wondered how it accommodated the kind of interspecific psychological differences that meant so much to Amara Guur. For all that they were leaf-eaters by nature, the Tetrax seemed predatory enough in their sanctioning of slavery and their notions of obligation. Behind their herdlike ethics there was real power and real strength.
Omnivores of the universe unite! I thought. Let’s show the hunters just how double-faced we can be!
“Someone moving,” hissed Jacinthe Siani, close to Amara Guur’s pointed ear.
The vormyran turned, quickly. He grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me away from the wall. He pushed me into a position between himself and the flowery forest.
“You will be my shield,” he murmured. “Keep perfectly still, and be silent. While you are useful, I will let you live. The prudent predator never kills without purpose.”
This ambiguous promise did not seem to me to be at all encouraging.
“Guur!” called a female voice from the jungle. “I want to talk!”
“I agree entirely,” Amara Guur called back. “We are very sorry about the unfortunate accident, which occurred when my foolish friend was overtaken by panic. We must all work together now. Please come forward.”
I glanced from side to side. The vormyran called Kaat was to one side of me, Jacinthe Siani to the other. Neither Heleb nor the other vormyran was visible now—they had each moved surreptitiously into the thick undergrowth.
If I had been a braver man, I dare say that I would have shouted out to tell the star-captain that she was being invited into the jaws of a trap. As it was, I simply could not find a voice.
I watched Susarma Lear—apparently unarmed—step into a small open space between two of the great coloured flowers, and my heart sank as I wondered whether this curious garden might rather be a kind of arena, where the emperors of Asgard staged their circuses. It was pretty obvious now just who the lions were—and I couldn’t help fearing that the poor benighted Christians might be unable to put up any kind of resistance at all.
34
“We deeply regret the death of your soldier,” said Amara Guur smoothly. “It was an unfortunate error, caused by the shock of discovering ourselves in this astonishing situation.”
“I can understand that,” replied Susarma Lear coolly. “We don’t want to fight your people. We came to kill the android, and that’s what we want to do. I gather that you don’t have any reason to like him either—that you’d be just as happy to see him dead as we would.”
I felt Guur relax slightly, though he kept the needier pressed into my spine, just below the neck.
“That is correct,” he said. “The giant… the android… killed a number of valued men. We certainly would not wish to interfere with your mission.”
“Once the android is dead,” the star-captain went on, “our next priority is getting out of here. There’s no point in wasting our energies trying to kill one another. We need to work together.”
“I agree,” said Guur.
“Then I suggest that you put down your guns, so that we can talk in a civilized manner.”
Guur relaxed a little more, and I felt the pressure on my vertebra relent. But he didn’t drop the gun. Jacinthe Siani let the barrel of the crash-gun droop, but the vormyr to the other side of me didn’t move a muscle.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” lied Amara Guur. “But you will appreciate my desire to be careful. We can see you, empty-handed, but we cannot see your companions.”
I found my voice at last. “He’s lying,” I said to the star-captain. “If I were you, I’d get the hell out of here.”
I felt the gun boring into my back again, and Guur’s hard-nailed fingers bit into my arm where he was still holding me.
“Mr. Rousseau does not understand,” he said flatly.
The star-captain’s face never changed expression. I couldn’t tell whether she was looking at me or at the creature behind me.
“Trooper Rousseau is in deep trouble,” she said, laconically. “He faces charges of cowardice and desertion. He ran out on us when he thought we were in trouble. If you want him, you can keep him. Frankly, I don’t care.”
They say that when the chips are down, you find out who your real friends are. I didn’t seem to have any. The only person with whom I’d recently exchanged an amicable word was Myrlin, who seemed even more unpopular than I was. I had been worried before, but now I began to feel downright terrified. I didn’t know the star-captain well enough to fathom her real motives and true beliefs. I knew that Amara Guur was a verminous bastard who would kill everyone in sight given half a chance, but what the star-captain’s game was I really couldn’t be certain. Maybe she did think she could make a deal. Maybe she did figure that zapping the android was so important that it was worth taking sides with Amara Guur.
“If your men will come out of hiding,” said Guur, “mine will do the same. When we are all clearly visible, we will all lay down our arms. Is that agreeable?”
“Certainly,” said Susarma Lear, with apparent equanimity.
Then, somewhere away to the left, there was the unmistakable sound of a flame-pistol erupting. There was a great gout of smoke, and the jungle went mad as every oversized insect in the place started chattering in blind panic.
I had already planned my move. I ducked out of the way of Guur’s needier, stuck my arm between his legs, and heaved upwards. In the low gravity Guur weighed less than half what he normally did, and although I couldn’t lift him vertically I got him off the ground, pitching him sideways so that he cannoned into Jacinthe Siani and knocked her flying. The crash-gun she’d been holding flew from her grasp and landed in the bell of a huge flower whose petals were amber streaked with dark red.
Amara Guur was too clever to let go of his needier, but for the moment he was all tied up trying to collect himself. His reflexes were quick, but they were the wrong reflexes for this kind of gravity—when he thrust against the ground, trying to bring himself back to his feet, he thrust far too hard, and completely lost his balance again, tumbling in mid-air in a long somersault.
The vormyran Guur had called Kaat hadn’t been at all inconvenienced by his master’s acrobatics, but when he’d jerked his own needier up to the firing position he’d also trusted his old reflexes, which were geared to functioning in Asgard-normal gravity. The shots he fired went high and wide.
The star-captain had obviously been trained for low-gee combat. I couldn’t see where she’d stashed her own gun, but it was suddenly in her hand, and the entire upper part of Kaat’s body was suddenly aflame as the flesh boiled away from the bones.
I dived for the flower where the crash-gun had fallen. Although I’d lost sight of it, my groping hand caught it up without a fumble. I let the dive carry through, rolling with it. The enormous flower, crushed beneath my weight, felt like a sheet of sticky rubber but it didn’t stop my forward roll. When my feet touched the ground again I let myself come upright, stretching with just the right touch of delicacy, bringing the gun up to fire.
I felt as if everything were happening in slow motion— as, after a fashion, it was. While I was up on my feet again I could see that Amara Guur had just about regained control of his own body. He’d fetched up against the curving wall and with its aid he was bracing himself, bringing the needier round to aim at my midriff.
I fired, holding the trigger down to discharge the last three bullets as fast as they would go. The first one hit him in the navel, the second in the sternum. The third exploded his head.