They noticed nothing else. Niun retreated behind the ridge, raced a distance, came over and down in a plummeting slide, hit the solid mass of the regul and staggered it; and when it rounded on him clumsily, making the mistake of aiming a weapon at a kel'en, it was the youngling's final mistake. Niun did not think about the flash of the as'ei that left his hand and buried themselves in the youngling's throat and chest: they were sped before the thought had time to become purpose.
And the human, scrambling to reach the regul's gun Niun hit him body to body, and if there had been a knife in Niun's intentions, the human would have been dead in the same instant.
No mean adversary, the human: Niun found himself countered, barehanded, in his attempt to seize hold of him; but the human was already done, bleeding from the nostrils, his bubbling breath hoarse in Niun's ear. He broke the human's hold: his arm found the human's throat and snapped his head back with a crack of meeting teeth.
Not yet did the human fall, but a quick blow to the belly and a second snap to the head toppled him writhing to the sands; and Niun hit him yet another time, ending his struggles.
A strip from his belt secured the human; and he recovered his as'ei and sheathed them quickly, hearing the slow grinding of machinery advancing on this place, and both of them having made tracks even the night-blind regul could read.
The human was showing signs of consciousness; he gave him a jerk by the elbow and dragged him until the man tried to respond to the discomfort. Then he gave him slack to drag his legs under him and try to stand.
"Quiet," Niun hissed at him.
And if the human thought to cry out, he thought better of it with the edge of the av-tlen near his face; he struggled up to his knees and, with Niun's help, to his feet, and went silently where he was compelled to go. He coughed and tried to smother even that sound. His face was a mask of blood and sand in the dim light that shone from the field, and he walked as if his knees were about to fail him.
Onto the edge of the flats they went, and slow, ominous shadows of dusei stood watching them from the dunes, but gave them no threat. There was no sound of pursuit behind them. Perhaps the regul were still in shock, that a kel'en had raised hand against the masters.
Niun knew the enormity of what he had done, had time to realize it clearly; he knew the regul, that they would take time to consult with authority, and beyond that he could not calculate. No mri had ever raised hand to his sworn authority. No regul had ever had to deal with a mri who had done so.
He seized the human's elbow and hurried him, though he stumbled at times, though he misstepped and cried out in shock when a crust broke with him and he hit boiling water. They went well onto the flats, where neither regul nor regul vehicles could go, into the sulphuric steam of geysers that veiled them from sight. By now the human coughed and spat, bleeding in his upper air passages if not in his lungs, Niun reckoned.
In consideration of that he found a place and thrust the human down against the shoulder of a clay bank, and let him catch his breath, himself glad enough of a chance to do the same.
For a moment the human lay face down, body heaving with the effort not to cough, correctly reckoning that this would not be tolerated. Then the spasms eased and he lay still on his side, exhausted, staring at him.
Unarmed. Niun took that curious fact into account, wondering what possessed the humans; or what had befallen this one, that he had lost his weapons. The human simply stared at him, eyes running tears through sand: no emotion, no other expression than one of exhaustion and misery. Unprotected he had come into Kesrith's unfriendly environment; unwisely he had run, risking damage to his tissues.
And he had run from regul, with whom his people had made a treaty.
"I am Sten Duncan," the human whispered at last in his own tongue."I am with the human envoy. Kel'en, we are here under agreement."
Niun considered that volunteered information: human envoy, human envoythe words rolled around in his mind with the ominous tone of betrayal.
"I am kel Niun," he said, because this being had offered him a name.
"Are you from the edun?"
Niun did not answer, there seeming no need.
"That is where you're taking me, isn't it?" And when again the human had no answer of him, he seemed disquieted. "I'll go there of my own accord. You don't need to use force."
Niun considered this offer. Humans lied. He knew this. He had not had experience to be able to judge this one.
"I will not set you free," he said.
It was not the custom of humans to veil themselves; but Niun was sorry, all the same, that he had so dealt with a human kel'en, taking dignity from himif he was kel'en. Niun judged that he was: he had handled himself well.
"We will go to the edun," he said to Duncan. He stood up and drew Duncan to his feetdid not help him overmuch, for this was not a brother; but he waited until he was sure he had his balance. The man was hurt. He marked that the human's steps were uneven and uncertain; and that he walked without knowledge of the land, blind to its dangers.
And deaf.
Niun heard the aircraft lift from the port, heard it turn in their direction; and the human had not even looked until he jerked him about to see itstood stupidly gazing toward the port, malicious or dull-witted, Niun did not pause to know. He seized the human and pulled him toward the boiling waters of Jieca, that curled steam into the night; and by a clay ridge, their lungs choked with sulphur, they took hiding.
Regul engines passed. Lights swept the flats and lit plumes of steam, fruitlessly seeking movement. Heat sensors were of limited usefulness here on the volcanic flats. The boiling springs and seething mud made regul science of little value in tracking them.
"Kel'en," Duncan said."Which one are they looking for? Me or you?"
"How have you offended the regul?" Niun asked, reckoning it of no profit to give information, but of some to gain it; and all the while the beams of light swept the flats, lighting one plume and another. "Were you a prisoner?"
"Assistant to the human envoy, to come" A burst of fire lit their faces and spattered them with boiling water. They made a single mass against it, and as the firing continued and the water kept splashing, a rumble began in the earth and a jet of steam broke near them, enveloping them, uncomfortably hot but not beyond bearing.
"Tsi'mri," Niun cursed under his breath, forgetting with what he shared shelter; and as the barrage kept up he felt the human begin trembling, long, sickly shudders of a being whose strength was nearly spent.
"to come ahead of the mission," the human resumed doggedly, still shaking ."To see that everything is as we were promised. And I don't think it"
A near burst threw water and mud on them. The human cried out, smothered it.
"How many of you are there?" Niun asked.
"Myselfand the envoy. Two. We came on Hazanback there."
Niun grasped Duncan's collar and turned his face to the light that glared from the searching beams. He saw nothing to tell him whether this was truth or lie. This was a young man, he saw, now that the face was washed clear by the moisture that enveloped both of thema kel'en of the humans: he shrank from applying that honorable title to aliens, but he knew no other that applied to this one.
"There was a kel'en on Hazan," said Niun, "who died there."
For the first time something seemed to strike through to the human: there was a hesitancy to answer. "I saw him. Once. I didn't know he was dead."
Niun thrust him back, for the moment blind with anger. Tsi'mri, he reminded himself, and enemy, but less so now than the regul. I saw him. I didn't know he was dead.
He turned his face aside and stared bleakly at the rolling steam and the lights that crisscrossed the flats, searching.