Aiela had his gun in hand: though it was not designed to kill, firing on a pregnant woman gave him pause—the shock and the fall together might kill her.
And the amaut whirled suddenly in midstep, and his hand that was under Chaikhe’s body held a weapon that was indeed lethal.
Aiela fired, reflexes quicker than choice, tumbling both amaut and iduve woman into a heap, unconscious.
There was no stopping to aid Chaikhe. He ran, holding his side, stumbled onto the glidewalk of the extended ramp, daring not activate it for fear of advising Tejef of his presence. He raced up it, the hatchway looming above. It came to him that if it started to close, it could well cut him in half.
It stayed open. He almost fell onto the level surface of the airlock, ran into the corridor, his boots echoing down the emptiness.
Then the idoikkhe’s pain began, slowly pulsing, unnerving in its gradual increase. Coordination failed him and he fell, reaching for his gun, trying to brace his fingers to hold that essential weapon, expecting, hoping for Tejef s appearance, if only, if only the iduve would once make the mistake of over-confidence.
Leave me, go! he cried at his asuthi, who tried to interfere between him and the pain.
Something was breaking. The light-dimming had ceased for a time, but now a steady crashing had begun down the hall, a thunderous booming that penetrated even Margaret’s drugged sleep. She grew more and more restless, and Arle’s soothing hand could not quiet her.
Someone cried out, thin and distant, and when Arle opened the infirmary door she could hear it more plainly.
It was Daniel’s voice, Daniel as she had heard him cry out once before in the hands of the amaut, and such crashing as Margaret’s body had made when Tejef struck her. That flashed into her mind, Margaret broken by a single unintended blow.
She cried out and began to run, hurrying down the hall to that corner room, the source of the blows and the shouting. Her knees felt undone as she reached it; almost she had not the courage to touch that switch and free it, but she did, and sprawled back with a shriek as a chair hurtled down on her.
The wreckage crashed down beside her on the floor; and then Daniel was kneeling, gathering her up and caressing her bruised head with anxious fingers, stilling her sobs by crushing her against him. He pulled her up with him in the next breath and ran, hitting another door-switch to open it.
A woman met them, of a kind that Arle had never seen, a woman whose skin was like a summer sky and whose hair was light through thistledown; and no less startling was the possessive caress she gave, assuming Arle into her affections like some unsuspected kin, taking her by the arm and compelling her attention.
“Khasif,” she said, “Arle—a man like Tejef, an iduve— have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”
Her command of human language was flawless. That alone startled Arle, who had found few of the strangers capable of any human words at all; and her assumption of acquaintance utterly robbed her of her power of thought.
“Arle,” Daniel pleaded with her.
Arle pointed. “There,” she said. “The middle door in the lab. Daniel!” she cried, for they left her at a run. She went a few paces to follow them, and then did not know what to do.
The kameth no longer resisted. Tejef saw the fingers of his left hand jerk spasmodically at the pistol, but the kallia no longer had the strength to complete the action. Tejef kicked the weapon spinning down the corridor, applied his foot to the kameth’s shoulder, and heaved him over onto his back.
Life still remained in him and the harachia of that force worked at his nerves; but there was little enough point in killing one who could not feel, nor in committing the e-chanokhia of destroying a kameth. The eyelids jerked a little but Tejef much doubted there was consciousness. He abandoned him there and went down the corridor to the airlock. It lacked a little of noon. Chimele had cast her final throw. He felt greatly satisfied by the realization that she had failed any personal vaikka upon him, even though she would not fail to destroy him; and then he felt empty, for a moment only empty, the minds about him suddenly stilled, takkhenes almost gone, the air full of a hush that settled about bis heart.
Then came a touch, faint and bewildered, a thing waking, female and sensitive.
Chaikhe.
He willed the monitor into life and saw the field, four forms, three of which moved—a squat amaut dragging Ashakh’s limp body in undignified fashion. Ashakh too tall a man for such a small amaut to handle; and Gerlach lying very still by the ramp, and a mound of green stirring toward consciousness, feebly trying to rise.
Katasathe. The harachia of the green robes and the realization that he had fired on her, once nas, hit his stomach like a blow. The sight of her tangled with Gerlach’s squat body— beautiful Chaikhe tumbled in the dust of the pavement—was a painful one. Such a prisoner as she, was a great honor to a nasul, a prize for katasakke or kataberihe to an Orithain, the life within her for the dhis of her captors, great vaikka, if that nasul could bend her to its will.
So long alone, always mateless; the illusions of kamethi melted into what they were—e-chanokhia, emptiness.
She arose, lifted her face: takkhenes reached and touched, an impact that slammed unease into his belly. She seemed to know he watched. Anger grew in her, a fierceness that overwhelmed.
He must kill her. Obscene as the idea was, he must kill her. He faltered, hesitated between the hatch control and the weaponry, and knew that the indecision itself was a sickness.
Her mind-touch seized the lock control, held it, felt toward other mechanisms. Uncertain then, he gave backward, realizing she would board the ship—dhisais, e-takkhe with him. He could not let it happen. In cold sanity he knew it was a risk to face her, but he could not reach her with the weapons now. She was ascending the ramp in firm control of the mechanisms. He gathered himself to wrest that control from her.
Takkhenes reached out for him, a fierceness of we incredibly strong, as if a multiplicity of minds turned on him—not Chaikhe’s alone, not Ashakh’s, whose mind was silent. It was as if thousands of minds bore upon him at once, focused through the lens of Chaikhe’s, like the takkhenes-nasul of all Ashanome, willing his death, declaring him e-takkhe, anomaly, ugliness, and alone, cosmically alone.
It acquired a new source, a muddled echo that had the essence of Khasif about it, leftward, same-level. Tejef realized that presence, felt it grow, and desperately reached his mind toward intervening door locks, knowing he must hold them.
They activated, opening, one after the other. Khasif was nearer, fully alert now, a fierceness and anger that yet lacked the force that Chaikhe sent.
Death took root in him, cold and certain, and the rage that he felt at Chimele was all that held it from him. He could not decide—Khasif or Chaikhe—he could not find strength to face either, caught between.
And Chimele, knowing: he felt it.
He turned, flight in his mind, to seize manual control of the ship and tear her aloft, self-destroying, taking the e-takkhei with him to oblivion.
“Nasith.”
Chaikhe’s image occupied the screens now at her own will. Her dark and lovely face stared down at him. Doors refused to open to his mind: he operated them manually and ran.
A last sprang open before he touched it. Khasif was there, the kamethi Isande and Daniel with him—and with a reaction quicker than reason Tejef went for Khasif, Khasif yet weak from his long inactivity and his wounds—Tejef’s takkhenois gathered strength from that realization. The kamethi themselves attempted interference, dragging at them from behind.
He spun, swung wildly to clear them from him, and saw Isande’s face, in his mind Margaret, her look; that it was which kept the strength from his blow.