Nerves crawled. The techs on the bridge looked at her from time to time. Silence existed inside as well as among the ships, contagious unease.
A comtech turned at his station, looked at her. “Pell situation worsening,” he said off com. There was a murmur from other stations.
“Minds on your business,” she snapped, on general address. “It’s likely to come from any side of us. Forget Pell or we get it in our faces, hear me? I’ll vent the crewman who woolgathers.”
And to Graff: “Ready status.”
The blue light went on in the overhead. That would wake them up. A light flashed on her board, indicating the armscomp board lit, the armscomper and his aides fully prepared.
She reached to the comp board, punched a code for a recorded instruction. Norway’s sighting eye began to rove toward the reference star in question, to perform identifications and to lock in. In case. In case there was something going on unaccounted for in their plans, and Mazian, likewise receiving that Pell chatter, was thinking of running: their direct beam pickup was trained on Europe, and Europe still had nothing to say. Mazian was thinking; or had made up his mind, and trusted his captains to take precautions. She tapped a signal to the jump tech’s board, as he had already to have noted the other move. The board went live, a stepped up power flow to the generation vane monitors, that gave them options other than realspace. If the Fleet broke from Pell, chances were they would not all arrive where they were instructed, at the nearest null point. That there would never again be a Fleet, nothing between Union and Sol.
The com flow from Pell became grim indeed.
ii
Men-with-guns. Keen ears could still pick up the shouts outside, the terrible fighting. Satin shivered at a crash against the wall, trembled, finding no reason for this thing that happened… but that Lukases had done this; and Lukases gave orders, in power in the Upabove. Bluetooth hugged her, whispered to her, urged her, and she came, as silently as the others. The whispers of bare hisa feet passed above them, below. They moved in dark, a steady flow. They dared no lights, which might guide men to find them.
Some were ahead of them, some behind. Old One himself led, the strange hisa, who had come down from the high places, and commanded them without telling them why. Some had lingered, fearing the strange ones; but there were guns behind, and mad humans, and they would come in haste very soon.
A human voice rang out far below in the tunnels, echoing up. Bluetooth hissed and pushed, moved faster in his climbing, and Satin scampered along with all her might, heated by this exertion, her fur damp and her hands sliding on the rails where others had grasped them.
“Hurry,” a hisa voice whispered at one of the levels, high, high in the Upabove’s dark places, and hands urged them up still another climb, where a dim light shone, making a silhouette of a hisa who waited there. A lock. Satin tugged her mask into place and scrambled up to the doors, caught Bluetooth’s hand, for fear of losing him where Old One should lead.
The lock received them. They jammed in with others, and the inner seal gave way on a mass of brown hisa bodies, hands which reached and drew them out in haste, other hisa, who stood facing outward, shielding them from what lay beyond.
They had weapons, lengths of pipe, like the men carried. Satin was stunned, felt backward after Bluetooth, to be sure of his presence in this milling angry throng, in the white lights of humans. There were only hisa in this hall. They filled the corridor as far as the closed doors at the end. Blood smeared one of the walls, a scent which did not reach them through the masks. Satin rolled a distraught glance in the direction the press was sweeping them, felt a soft hand which was not Bluetooth’s close upon her arm and lead her. They passed a door into a human place, vast and dim, and the door closed, bringing quiet.
“Hush,” their guides said. She looked about in panic to see if Bluetooth was still with her and he reached out to her, caught her hand. They walked nervously in the company of their elder guides, through this spacious man-place, oh, so carefully, for fear, and for respect to the weapons and the anger outside. Others, Old Ones, rose from the shadows and met them. “Storyteller,” an Old One addressed her, touching her in welcome. Arms embraced her; others came from beyond a bright, bright doorway and embraced her and Bluetooth, and she was dazed by the honor they gave. “Come,” they said, leading her, and they came into that bright place, a room without limits, with a white bed, a sleeping human, and a very old hisa who crouched by it. Dark and stars were all about, walls which were and were not, and of a sudden, great Sun peering into the room, upon them and on the Dreamer.
“Ah,” Satin breathed, dismayed, but the old hisa rose up and held out hands in welcome. “The Storyteller,” Old One was saying, and the oldest of all left the Dreamer a moment to embrace her. “Good, good,” the Oldest said tenderly.
“Lily,” the Dreamer said, and the Oldest turned, knelt by the bed to tend her, stroked her grayed head. Marvelous eyes turned on them, alive in a face white and still, her body shrouded in white, everything white, but the hisa named Lily and the blackness which expanded all about them, dusted with stars. Sun had vanished. There was only themselves.
“Lily,” the Dreamer said again, “who are they?”
At her the Dreamer looked, at her, and Lily beckoned. Satin knelt down, and Bluetooth beside her, gazed with reverence into the warmth of the Dreamer’s eyes, the Dreamer of the Upabove, the mate of great Sun, who danced upon her walls. “Love you,” Satin whispered. “Love you, Sun-she-friend.”
“Love you,” the Dreamer whispered in her turn. “How is it outside? Is there danger?”
“We make safe,” Old One said firmly. “All, all the hisa make safe this place. Men-with-guns stay away.”
“They’re dead.” The wonderful eyes filmed with tears, and sought toward Lily. “Jon’s doing. Angelo — Damon — Emilio, maybe — but not me, not yet. Lily, don’t leave me.”
Lily so, so carefully put her arm about the Dreamer, laid her graying cheek against the Dreamer’s graying hair. “No,” Lily said. “Love you, no time leave, no, no, no. Dream they leave, men-with-guns. Downers all stand you place. Dream to great Sun. We you hands and feet, we many, we strong, we quick.”
The walls had changed. They looked now upon violence, upon men fighting men, and all of them shrank closer together in dread. It passed, and only the Dreamer remained tranquil.
“Lily. The Upabove is in danger of dying. It will need the hisa, when the fighting is done, need you, you understand? Be strong. Hold this place. Stay with me.”