Then I got it and held on and let it struggle, the wings thrashing and the beak striking and striking again and again at my wrists and arms as I walked with the thing to the aeroplane while the rest of the flock wheeled screaming overhead.
I had left the sliding door to the flight-deck fully open and now I hurled the bird inside and shut it in and came away and dropped to the sand and began walking, began lurching into some kind of a run towards the rock outcrop, hearing the mad shrieking behind me as the thing battered at the windows for escape.
Cerebration minimal now but I knew that I'd done what I'd meant to do: the rest would depend on chance. If the flightdeck had been totally dark the bird would have fluttered aimlessly, disorientated, and that would have been dangerous. I'd cleared the windows so that it could see the daylight, and for a while it would beat uselessly there until its frenzy tired it, leading it to look instinctively for a perch.
N'Gami, are you a god for me or for them?
The screaming was fainter now because of the distance.
I took the transceiver from the niche among the rocks and cradled it against me and tried to run with it but couldn't manage, had to make do with a shambling lurch through the sand, stopping sometimes to listen. I could hear the distant cries of the flock as they circled the freighter, disturbed by what had happened to their leader. The one distinctive cry, with its note of panic, was no longer audible. Perhaps the bird was tiring now.
A throbbing was in my head as I made what pace I could, in my head or in the sky, and I stopped again, turning to look back.
The helicopters had broken off their search and were moving into the target area at dune height: they'd seen the vultures and knew from desert experience that there must be carrion below, or some kind of living prey. When they landed I would go back there and talk to them, a voluntary captive parched for water, and show them the freighter, telling them what I'd found inside it, and arranging at the most convenient moment that the little god should summon his lightnings.
I thought I was already beyond the residual radiation range but I turned and went on again because if they landed I would hear them. I would give myself until then.
The weight of the transceiver was dragging me forward and I fell twice, the second time pitching down off balance and lying prone, a flashing in my head as I got on to all fours and dropped again, sudden rage rising, can't stand being feeble,Christ sake get up, trying again and hanging on the sand like a dog,get up and get on, trying again, no go, trying again as the dunes in front of me turned dazzling white and I squeezed my eyes shut, dropping again and groping for the transceiver, hitting the switch.
Slowly the white light was dying.
Beneath me the desert shuddered.
Mission completed.
They would hear it in Kaifra. Loman was waiting for it and until it came he'd be staying open to receive. There wasn't any hurry because the sound would take nearly a minute to reach there, but I called him up straight away because I didn't know how long I could last out here in the burning sand, under the burning sky.
Tango.
He didn't answer immediately. Wasn't expecting a signal.
Tango receiving you.
About time.
I did the bang.
Of course he started asking a lot of questions but I cuthim short, told him where I was, north of the rocks, told him to pull me out.