Mavra lay unnaturally on her side, still but breathing hard. Huge, thick tears fell from the horse’s eyes.
The fight between the two Yugash had intensified.
The energy sphere grew denser, more compact, and more intense. Now, suddenly, there was but a single glowing bright-red ball, almost too bright to look at, in the air above the room. It was about the size of a grapefruit.
There was a sudden, violent explosion and thunder reverberated along the halls of the building, rattling partitions, doors, and anything else that was loose. The odor of ozone was sharp.
Then, so dim that it could hardly be seen, a figure dropped to the floor and seemed to inflate, like a balloon. It moved slightly, but was terribly weak and stunned, that was obvious.
One of the Yugash had survived.
“Which one?” Vistaru breathed. “I wonder which one?”
Trelig turned slightly to face her. “We’ll only find out when it can get into a body,” he said. “Until then—”
His words were cut short as Yulin, taking advantage of Trelig’s preoccupation, suddenly dropped to one knee and fired directly at the frog. As Joshi’s had, Trelig’s form froze in fire, seemed to become a negative of itself, then winked out with a flash.
Antor Trelig had made the first mistake of his long life, and now he was dead.
Vistaru gasped and had her own pistol from its little holster in an instant. Yulin turned to face her, gun ready, and saw that she had him cold.
He paused, shrugged, and tossed his own energy pistol away to the other side of the room where it fell with a clatter.
The Lata was amazed.
“Why?” she asked him in wonder.
He laughed. “I’m your only way into Obie now,” he reminded her. “And the only pilot with hands. I think it’s time for a merger.”
Vistaru didn’t trust him, but was uncertain as to what to do. Mavra was apparently in shock; the Yugash, whichever it was, was badly hurt and unable to communicate; Wooley was out cold; Trelig was gone; the rest of her allies were out cold or dead.
She and Ben Yulin were the only whole and conscious people in the room, perhaps in the whole building.
Yulin stood up and looked around. His massive bull’s head surveyed the wreckage of bodies, the charred and smashed equipment.
“God! What a mess!” he breathed.
The Launch Complex Four Hours Later
Bozog attendants wheeled out the last of the problem cases, janitorial crews swabbed down the floor, and blowers cleansed the air. Several decisions had been made by the survivors, which had pared things down nicely.
Of them all, Renard had been the least hurt; the paralysis from the Yaxa venom wore off within an hour of the battle. Wooley was slower to recover; she had lost some blood in the first clash and had a debilitating headache as a result of the second. Burodir and the centaurs were sent to the Zone Gate for return home. The form of a Yugash still lay on the floor, indistinct but definitely alive. The survivors still had no idea which Yugash had survived; to most of their tastes, it would have been better if the two enemies had destroyed each other.
And now they sat—just Renard, Wooley, Yulin, Vistaru, and Mavra Chang—and the odd red form on the floor.
With Bozog help, they’d managed to get Mavra to her feet; she hadn’t made any protest, just remained limp and glassy-eyed.
Ben Yulin looked her over carefully, trying to get some reaction, but none was forthcoming. “Think it was the Yugash battle that did it?” he asked casually.
Wooley, still nursing her head, emitted a sigh that sounded like metal scraping glass. “No, I don’t think so. Certainly her experience would have been no worse than what I went through, which was bad enough—and I surely had the crazy one. The creature was totally insane, its thoughts flooded into my brain somehow. It hated us—it hated all of us, everything and everybody. It was incredible. And I almost lost. If Vistaru hadn’t yelled…”
“So what is wrong with her?” Vistaru asked, perplexed. “Why won’t she say anything?”
Renard, now cleaned up thanks to a chemical suggested by Wooley and provided by the Bozog, got to his feet and walked over to her.
Twenty-two years, he thought. She has changed more than I; she had a nasty life for that period while I enjoyed things. The guilt he felt was mixed with admiration for her. She was here, she’d come this far. He was also convinced that she’d survived because of her total egoism, her absolute belief in self, in the ability to do anything no matter what the odds.
He looked at her. “Come on, snap out of it!” he said sharply. “You’re Mavra Chang, damn it. Perhaps you loved him, cared for him as wife or mother, but you’ve gone through that before! You never let it get to you! You survived! You triumphed! That’s what life’s all about to you! The chase is coming to a climax after all this time! Come on! You can’t give up now!”
He sensed a flicker in her eyes, minimal animation, fleeting but nonetheless very real. She heard him and understood him all right.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?” Vistaru asked, concerned.
“Let him be, Star,” Wooley whispered. “Let’s face it, he knows her a lot better than we.”
The Lata nodded silently. “You feeling as guilty and rotten as I am?” she asked after a moment. Wooley didn’t reply.
Renard threw up his hands in exasperation and walked over to them. “So much for psychology,” he sighed and sat back down. They were silent a time, and Yulin drowsed off. Finally, Renard turned to Wooley and Vistaru. “Are you really her grandparents?” he asked.
Vistaru nodded. “Yes—although I didn’t know it until Ortega told me. This bastard’s known for over twenty years, but didn’t even tell me when we met on that island and joined forces to find her.”
Wooley chirped a dry chuckle. The Yaxa couldn’t manage to change its cold voice, but there seemed an extra dimension of humanity, of warmth in it somehow. “You want to tell him the story, or should I?” she asked.
The Lata shrugged. “I’ll start and you can join in any time you want.” She turned to face Renard. “Let’s see—where to begin. I suppose we ought to go way back, to the first of our three lives.”
Yulin was suddenly awake and interested, too. “Three lives?” he said.
Vistaru nodded. “I was born on a Comworld, one of those where you are made into little plastic ten-year-old neuters and raised and conditioned only for a specific function. The theory’s to produce a society much like an insect colony—and it works, after a fashion. I was called Vardia Diplo—I was a courier, a kind of human tape recorder. You understand this was two centuries ago.”
“My background was much the same,” Wooley put in. “I was a farm worker who didn’t work out on a world that didn’t work out, either. It was Com, but syndicate-controlled. I suppose you know about that, Yulin.”
Yulin’s bull’s face could show no human expression, but the minotaur’s bearing seemed to grow sheepish and apologetic. Yulin could show sincerity and conviction—whether he felt or not.
“I was never involved with that,” the Dasheen responded defensively. “Look, I was born into the syndicate, the son of a major controller. Raised in luxury on a private world a lot more human and humane than Trelig’s. Who knew? Educated in the best places as a scientist and engineer. You have to understand—when the big-shot villains of the galaxy are your father, mother, friends, family—everybody you know—then they aren’t villains at all. Not to you. Not to me. It’s true I had no particular regard for anything but family law, but, then, again, aren’t freighter captains like Chang there just variations of the same attitude?”