"The old Sekiton works," the cub said. "They moved us here from the prison compound near the city so they could guard us easier." The young Karbarran pointed vaguely toward the rising greenish primary, Karbarra's star. "You can barely even see Tracialle from the tallest tower here."
The raid on the old prison had provided for searching possible alternative sites near the city, but not this far out. Kami looked off the way the cub had pointed, feeling waves of defeat flow over him.
"Sir? Sir?" the little one was saying. "Who are you?"
He shook off his despair as he would have shaken off water, fur ruffling and standing out, tail fluffing. He held out his hand to them for silence.
Somehow the valve of his breather had been turned down. He increased the flow a bit, looking at the sky, inhaling.
Lron had been unfair, and wrong, in accusing the Gerudans of using hallucinogens. The fact was that the Gerudans' mental processes were symbiotically linked with an astounding range of microorganisms and a wide variety of complex trace molecules found in their planet's ecosystem.
Their brain activity was a result of interaction with these factors in their environment. It reacted to and was influenced by those stimuli on a subcellular and even atomic level, in ways that left Human molecular psychologists shaking their heads and talking to themselves.
Gerudan life was a partnership with their world; their neurological systems were a vital part of the reproductive cycle of the microscopic life-forms that were indispensable to the Gerudans' perception and very ability to think.
Kami inhaled and thought. Certain perceptions began to shift and intensify. The sky sang a dirge and the windblown sand took on strange shapes. Then he realized something was chanting, in a register so low he could barely hear it. He knelt and put his ear to the ground; the cubs looked at one another dubiously.
Kami listened to the dull thrumming.
Sekiton. Sekiton. Sekiton.
Of course. He spun to the cub who had spoken to him. "My name is Kami. Who are you?"
The cub drew himself up proudly. "I'm Dardo, son of Lron and Crysta, leaders among our people. The children needed a leader, too, and so I got them organized. My parents-"
So apparently this was the action committee, the ones who hadn't succumbed to hopelessness.
"I know them. Listen, all of you! We haven't much time. There's still Sekiton around here, is there not?"
"Over in the warehouse." Dardo pointed to a low bunker. "There's not much use for it now that the Invid stopped us from spacefaring."
But between the prisoners and the Sekiton was an imprisoning Invid energy wall, a ghostly curtain of angry red power a hundred feet high, generated by pylons spaced every hundred yards around the prison compound. Kami knew that it meant a searing burn and unconsciousness to get too close to one, and Immolation to try to pass through.
"So Sekiton's not much good to us anymore," Dardo said. "Worse luck, because there's still plenty of it around here everywhere."
He scuffed the sand aside with his foot, digging down a depth of several inches. Pushing aside thicker, grittier soil, Dardo dug stubby fingers in and came up with a fistful of darkish Sekiton mixed with sand. "See?"
"Yes; I've seen the stuff, thank you," Kami said offhandedly. Yirrbisst was getting higher, and there wasn't much time left. With the first air strikes or the attack of the Destroids, the order would go out for the killing to begin at the concentration camp.
Dardo shrugged, formed the clot into a dirtball, and heaved it. The dirtball went up in a blaze as it hit the energy wall. Another cub took some and heaved it for an even bigger fireworks effect. From the gouges here and there around the compound, Kami could see that they had done it quite often to pass the time.
Sekiton. Sekiton. Sekiton. The ground thumped it into his feet like the vibration of some huge pile driver, but the message was lost on him. Kami picked up a clot of the stuff, too, made a ball of it, and heaved it disgustedly at the wall.
The dirtball passed through unharmed, to land and break up several yards beyond.
"It-it didn't burn up," Dardo blinked.
"That's because…it wasn't handled by a Karbarran!" Kami fairly howled through his breather.
He didn't understand any better than anyone else what the weird Karbarran affinity for Sekiton was, but he had seen for himself that the stuff was stubbornly inert if a Karbarran didn't come in actual physical contact with it at some point.
"Quick, get sticks or boards from the buildings, or anything else you can dig with, and start uncovering more, but don't touch it directly! And fetch me water, lots of water!"
A short time later the cubs stood in a crowded circle shielding him from view, although the Invid had shown little interest in keeping the prisoners under close surveillance, trusting their energy wall.
Kami packed the thick mud onto himself. It was gratifyingly adhesive.
"I'm going to need a weapon. Did anyone see what the Inorganics did with my equipment?"
One of the taller cubs, a female with a dark tinge to her fur, pointed at a blockhouse. "I saw them set some things down over there just before they brought you here."
Kami was slapping mud onto himself frantically, trying to be thorough, because any missed spot would probably get him fried, but trying to be quick, too, because time had just about run out. "All right! I get my gun, and if I can blow out one of these pylons, all of you run as fast as you can for the Sekiton storage bunker! If the rest come along, fine, but don't wait for them, because I'm going to need you over there! Do you understand?"
They said they did. He was about as covered as he would ever be, except for his eyes. He had layered over his breather mask, and would have to get by on pure Gerudan air from his tank.
"But-what are we going to do then, sir?" Dardo inquired.
"Send a message," Kami told him. He made his way stiffly and cautiously toward the energy wall, until he could feel the heat of it on his exposed eyes. He made a last application to the bottoms of his feet from the armload of mud he carried and slapped more over his eyes until they were covered. He took a deep breath and stepped in the direction in which, he hoped, the wall waited and glowed.
And promptly lost his footing, falling.
He expected to be burned to ash, but he was still alive after he thumped to the ground. But he had lost his bearings completely and didn't dare remove the blinding mud.
Hoping for the best, Kami rolled and rolled in what he thought was the right direction.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I'm running away an' joinin' th' Robotechs! Then you'll be sorry!
Popular threat among Earth children during the period of preparation for the SDF-3 Mission At Lisa's command, the Destroids opened up with all weapons. The first terrible barrage of pumped lasers, particle beams, and missiles struck the nearest inorganics at virtual point-blank range, like a tidal wave rolling over a shore.
Inorganics went up like roman candles or simply vanished from sight. The Destroids trained their weapons on the next target and the next, exploiting the element of surprise for all it was worth, because the odds were still badly against them. Those on the ramps were firing, too, and marching down, heavy-footed, to join their fellows.
The assorted weapons of the Farrago opened up, showering down fire like burning hail, careful to keep their aim in close to the ship where the Invid were, to avoid hitting the Karbarran crowds.
Invid were blown to smithereens, or holed through by star-hot lances of energy. They were confused and Indecisive for those first few seconds, and in that time dozens of them were wiped out. Lisa watched a monitor, as a Crann under the flagship's bow was hit dead center by a laser cannon round, like a white-hot needle going through a beetle. The Crann's characteristic snout tentacle, or flagellum, or whatever it was, was still snapping like an angry whip as the thing flew apart in all directions.