A pair of huge boulders down on the beach beneath her smashed together with a jarring crack that caused her to jump. She glanced at the beach across the bay. As quickly as it crossed the high-tide mark, the waters began their ebb.
Curious.
Tons of boulders had been rolled up against the cliff barrier across the compound. More of them obviously must be on the beach beneath her. The boulders she could see were gigantic.
That much power in the waves.
"Legata.
The abruptness of Oakes' voice and touch upon her shoulder startled her, and she crushed the glass in her hand. She stared down at the hand, the cuts, her own blood, shards of glass glinting in her flesh.
"Sit over here, my dear."
He was the doctor then, and she felt thankful for it. He plucked out broken glass, then unrolled strips of Celltape from a dispenser at his com-console to stop the bleeding. His hands were firm and gentle as he worked. He patted her shoulder when he had finished.
"There. You shoul...."
The buzz of the console interrupted.
"Colony's gone." It was Lewis.
"What do you mean, gone?" Oakes raged. "How can the entir...."
"A shuttle overflight shows nothing but a hole where Lab One was. Plenty of demons, hatchways to all lower levels blow...." He shrugged, a tiny gesture in the console screen.
"That'.... that's thousands of people. Al.... dead?"
Legata could not face Lewis, even on the screen. She crossed to the divan silently and stared out the plaz.
"There could be survivors holed up behind some of the hatches," Lewis went on. "That's how we made it here whe...."
"I know how you made it here!" Oakes shouted. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm not suggesting anything."
Oakes gritted his teeth and pounded the console. "You don't think we should have Murdoch try to save anyone?"
"Why risk the shuttles? Why risk one of our last good people?"
"Of course. A hole, you say?"
"Nothing but rubble. Looks to've been the work of lasguns and plasteel cutters."
"Do the.... I mean, are there any shuttles left over there?"
"We disabled everything before leaving."
"Ye.... yes, of course," Oakes murmured. Then: "LTAs?"
"Nothing."
"Didn't you and Murdoch say that you cleared everything out of that Lab One site? Moved it all here?"
"Apparently the rioters thought there might be some burst hidden away there. They captured the only remaining communications equipment. They were demanding help fro.... the ship."
"They didn'...." Oakes could not complete the question.
"The ship didn't answer. We were listening."
A deep sigh shook Oakes.
Without turning to face him or the viewscreen, Legata called out, "How many people did we lose there?"
"Ship knows!" Lewis threw back his head, laughing.
Oakes hit the key to shut him off.
Legata clenched her fists. "How could he laugh that way a....?" She shook her head.
"Nervous," Oakes said. "Hysteria."
"He was not hysterical! He was enjoying it!"
"Calm yourself, Legata. You should get some rest. We have much to do and I'll need your help. We've saved the Redoubt. We have most of the food that was at Colony and far fewer people to eat it. Be thankful that you're among the living."
That worry in his tone, in his eyes.
It was almost possible to believe he felt genuine love for her.
"Legat...." He put out a hand to touch her arm.
She pulled away. "Colony's gone. The hylighters and kelp are next. Then what? Me?"
She knew it was her own voice speaking, but she had no control over it.
"Really, Legata! If you can't handle alcohol, you should not drink it."
His gaze went to the broken glass on the floor.
"Especially this early in the dayside."
She whirled away from him and heard him press the console key and summon a clone worker to clean up the broken glass. As he spoke, Legata felt the last of her hope shatter in the morning air, lost on the wild glinting of the waves she could see out there.
What can I do against him?
***
Human, do you know how interesting it is, this thing you describe? Avata does not have a god. How is it that you have a god? Avata has Self, has this universe. But you have a god. Where did you find this god?
FOR THOMAS and Waela, the return of the hylighters had appeared another concerted attack. Thomas tried to close the gondola's hatch and found it jammed. Waela was shouting up at him to hurry, and asking if he saw Kerro.
Both suns were up now. And the light on the sea was dazzling.
Waela's head was still spinning from the gondola's gyrations.
"What'll they do with him?" she called.
"Ship knows!" He jerked at the hatch cover, but it would not move. Something had hit the mechanism while the gondola was twisted and tilted in the first attacks.
Thomas peered at the tacking hylighters. One of them had its tendrils tucked up tightly. It could be holding Panille in there. He saw that the gondola had been pushed out of the dead kelp into a patch of living green. The sea all around was subdued by a carpet of gently pulsing leaves.
"They're coming back!" Waela shouted.
Thomas abandoned his attempts on the hatch, slid back into the gondola.
"Brace yourself in your seat!" he called. And he followed his own order while he watched the advancing swarm of orange.
"What're they doing?" Waela asked.
It was a rhetorical question. They could both see the hylighters slow their advance at the last instant. In concert, they turned their great sail membranes into the wind and cupped the gondola in dangling tendrils.
Waela freed herself from her seat, but before she could move, the massed hylighters opened a way overhead and Panille was lowered through the hatch.
She tried to avoid the questing mass of tendrils which accompanied Panille, but they found her. They enfolded her face with a sensation of tingling dryness which immediately gave way to a drunken sense of abandon. She knew her body; she knew where she was: right here in the gondola which was being held steady in a cupped hammock of hylighter tendrils. But nothing mattered except a feeling of joy which insinuated itself all through her. She felt that the sensation came from Panille and not from the hylighters.
Avata? What are Avata?
That thought had seemed her own, but she could not be certain.
She was not aware of up or down. There was no spatial solidity.
I'm going crazy!
All of the horror stories about poisonous and hallucinogenic hylighters crashed through her barriers and she tried to scream but could not locate her voice.
Still, the joy persisted. Panille was right there saying things to soothe her. "It's all right, Lini."
Where did he get that name for me? That was my childhood name! I hate that name.
"Don't hate any part of yourself, Lini."
The joy would not be denied. She began to laugh but could not hear her own laughter.
Quite suddenly, an island of clarity opened around her and she knew Kerro Panille lay nude beside her. She felt his warm flesh against her.
Where did my clothing go?
It was not important.
I'm hallucinating.
This was a product of Thomas' command that she seduce the poet. She gave herself up to the dream, to the warmth and hardness of him as he slid into her, rocking her. And she sensed all around the questing tendrils as they explored, joining her with images of flaring stars. That, too, was unimportant - more hallucination. There was only the joy, the ecstasy.