At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (58 page)

Daniel went for his pistol.
No!
Aiela ordered, throwing him off-time, making the movement clumsy.

The amaut fired first. The shot took his left leg from under him and pitched him onto his face in the sand. Arle’s thin scream sounded in his ears—the wrist of his right hand was ground under a booted heel and he lost his gun, had it torn from his fingers. Aiela, driven back by the pain, was trying to hold onto him, babbling nonsense. Daniel could only see sideways— Arle, struggling in the grip of the other human, kicking and crying. He was hurting her.

Daniel lurched for his feet, screamed hoarsely as a streak of fire hit him in the other leg. When he collapsed writhing on the sand Parker set his foot on his wrist and took deliberate aim at his right arm. The shot hit. Aiela left him, every hope of help left him.

Methodically, as if it were some absorbing problem, Parker took aim for the other arm. The amaut stood by in a group, curiosity on their broad faces. Arle’s shrill scream made Parker’s hand jerk.

“No!” Daniel cried to the amaut, and he had spoken the kalliran word, broken cover. The shot hit.

But the amaut’s interest was pricked. He pulled Parker’s arm down; and no loyalty to the ruthless iduve was worth preserving cover all the way to a miserable death. Daniel gathered his breath and poured forth a stream of oaths, native and kalliran, until he saw the mottled face darken in anger. Then he looked the amaut straight in his froggish eyes, conscious of the fear and anger at war there.

“I am in the service of the iduve,” he said, and repeated it in the iduve language should the amaut have any doubt of it. “You lay another hand on me or her and there will be cinders where your ship was, and you know it, you gray horror.”

“
Hhhunghh.
” It was a grunt no human throat could have made. And then he spoke to Parker and Quinn in human language. “No. We take thiss—thiss.” He indicated first Daniel and then Arle. “You, you, walk, report Anderson. Go. Goodbye.”

He was turning the two mercenaries out to walk to their camp. Daniel felt a satisfaction for that which warmed even through the pain:
Vaikka?
he thought, wondering if it were human to be pleased at that. A hazy bit of yellow hovered near him, and he felt Arle’s small dusty hand on his cheek. The remembrance of her among the amaut brought a fresh effort from him. He tried to think.

Daniel.
Aiela’s voice was back, cold, efficient, comforting.
Convince them to take you to Weissmouth. Admit you serve the iduve there; that’s all you can do now.
Chimele was furious. That leaked through, frightening in its implications. The screen went up again.

“That ship overhead,” Daniel began, eyeing the amaut, drunk with pain, “there’s no place on this world you can hide from that. They have their eye on you this instant.”

The other amaut looked up as if they expected to see destruction raining down on them any second; but the captain rolled his thin lips inward, the amaut method of moistening them, like a human licking his lips.

“We are small folk,” he said, mouth popping on all the explosive consonants, but he spoke the kalliran language with a fair fluency. “One iduve-lord we know. One only we serve. There is safety for us only in being consistent.”

“Listen, you—listen! They’ll destroy this world under you. Get me to the port at Weissmouth. That’s your chance to live.”

“No. And I have finished talking. See to him,” he instructed his subordinates as he began to walk toward the ramp, speaking now in the harsh amaut language. “He must live until the lord in the high plains can question him. The female too.”

“He had no choice,” said Aiela.

Chimele kept her back turned, her arms folded before her. The
idoikkhe
tingled spasmodically. When she faced him again the tingling had stopped and her whiteless eyes stared at him with some degree of calm. Aiela hurt; even now he hurt, muscles of his limbs sensitive with remembered pain, stomach heaving with shock. Curiously the only thing clear in his mind was that he must not be sick: Chimele would be outraged. He had to sit down. He did so uninvited.

“Is he still unconscious?”

Chimele’s breathing was rapid again, her lip trembling, not the nether lip as a kalliran reaction would have it:
Attack!
his subconscious read it; but this was Chimele, and she was civilized and to the limit of her capacity she cared for her kamethi. He did not let himself flinch.

“We have a problem,” she said by way of understatement, and hissed softly and sank into the chair behind her desk. “Is the pain leaving?”

“Yes.”
Isande—Isande!

His asuthe stood behind him, took his hand, seized upon his mind as well, comforting, interfering between memory and reality.
Be still,
she told him,
be still. I will not let go.

“Could you not have prevented him talking?” Chimele asked.

“He was beyond reason,” Aiela insisted. “He only reacted. He thought he was lost to us.”

“And duty. Where was that?”

“He thought of the child, that she would be alone with them. And he believed you would intervene for him if only he could survive long enough.”

“The
m’metane
has an extraordinary confidence in his own value.”

“It was not a conscious choice.”

“Explain.”

“Among his kind, life is valued above everything. I know, I know your objections, but grant me for a moment that this is so. It was a confidence so deep he didn’t think it, that if he served beings of
arastiethe,
they would consider saving his life and the child’s of more value than taking that of Tejef.”

“He is demented,” Chimele said.

Careful,
Isande whispered into his mind.
Soft, be careful.

“You gave me a human asuthe,” Aiela persisted, “and told me to learn his mind. I’m kallia. I believe
kastien
is more important than life—but Daniel served you to the limit of his moral endurance.”

“Then he is of no further use,” said Chimele. “I shall have to take steps of my own.”

His heart lurched. “You’ll kill him.”

Chimele sat back, lifted her brows at this protest from her kameth, but her hand paused at the console. “Do you care to stay
asuthithekkhe
with him while he is questioned by Tejef? Do not be distressed. It will be sudden; but those who harmed him and interfered with
Ashanome
will wish they had been stillborn.”

“If you can intervene to kill him, you can intervene to save him.”

“To what purpose?”

Aiela swallowed hard, screened against Isande’s interference. He sweated; the
idoikkhe
had taught its lesson. “It is not
chanokhia
to destroy him, any more than it was to use him as you did.”

The pain did not come. Chimele stared into the trembling heart of him. “Are you saying that I have erred?”

“Yes.”

“To correctly assess his abilities was your burden. To assign him was mine. His misuse has no relevance to the fact that his destruction is proper now. Your misguided
giyre
will cost him needless pain and lessen the
arastiethe
of
Ashanome.
If he comes living into the hands of Tejef he may well ask you why you did not let him die; and every moment we delay, intervention becomes that much more difficult.”

“He is kameth. He has that protection. It would not be honorable for Tejef to harm him.”

“Tejef is
arrhei-nasuli,
an outcast. It would not be wise to assume he will be observant of
nasul-chanokhia.
He is not so bound, nor am I with him. He may well choose to harm him. We are wasting time.”

“Then contact that amaut aircraft and demand Daniel and the child.”

“To what purpose?”

The question disarmed him. He snatched at some logic the iduve might recognize. “He is not useless.”

“How not? Secrecy is impossible now. Tejef will be alerted to the fact that I have a human nas kame; besides, the amaut in the aircraft would probably refuse my order. Tejef is their lord; they said so quite plainly, and amaut are nothing if not consistent. To demand and to be refused would mean that we had suffered
vaikka,
and I would still have to destroy a kameth of mine, having gained nothing. To risk this to save what I am bound to lose seems a pointless exercise; the odds are too high. I am not sure what you expect of me.”

“Bring him back to
Ashanome.
Surely you have the power to do it.”

“There is no longer time to consider that alternative. Shall I commit more personnel at Tejef s boundaries? The risk involved is not reasonable.”

“No!” Aiela cried as she started to turn from him. He rose from his chair and leaned upon her desk, and Chimele looked up at him with that bland patience swiftly evaporating.

“What are you going to do with Priamos when you’ve destroyed him?” Aiela asked. “With three days left, what are you going to do? Blast it to cinders?”

“Contrary to myth, such actions are not pleasurable to us. I perceive you have suffered extreme stress in my service and I have extended you a great deal of patience, Aiela; I also realize you are trying to give me the benefit of our knowledge. But there will be a limit to my patience. Does your experience suggest a solution?”

“Call on Tejef to surrender.”

Chimele gave a startled laugh. “Perhaps I shall. He would be outraged. But there is no time for a
m’metane’s
humor. Give me something workable. Quickly.”

“Let me keep working with Daniel. You wanted him within reach of Tejef. Now he is, and whatever else, Tejef has no hold over him with the
idoikkhe.
”

“You
m’metanei
are fragile people. I know that you have
giyre
to your asuthe, but to whose advantage is this? Surely not to his.”

“Give me something to bargain with. Daniel will fight if he has something to fight for. Let me assure him you’ll get the amaut off Priamos and give it back to his people. That’s what he wants of you.”

Chimele leaned back once more and hissed softly. “Am I at disadvantage, to need to bargain with this insolent creature?”

“He is human. Deal with him as he understands. Is that not reasonable?
Giyre
is nothing to him; he doesn’t understand
arastiethe.
Only one thing makes a difference to him: convince him you care what—”

A probing touch found his consciousness and his stomach turned over at foreknowledge of the pain. He tried to screen against it, but his sympathy made him vulnerable.

“Daniel is conscious.” Isande spoke, for at the moment he had not yet measured the extent of the pain and his mind was busy with that. “He is hearing the amaut talk. The child Arle is beside him. He is concerned for her.”

“Dispense with his concern for her. Tell him you want a report.”

Aiela tried. Tears welled in his eyes, an excess of misery and weariness; the pain of the wounds blurred his senses. Daniel was half-conscious, sending nonsense, babble mixed with vague impressions of his surroundings. He was back on the amaut freighter. There was wire all about.
Aiela, Aiela, Aiela,
the single thread of consciousness ran, begging help.

I’m here,
he sent furiously.
So is Chimele. Report.

“‘I,’” Aiela heard and said aloud for Chimele, “ ‘I’m afraid I have—penetrated Tejef’s defenses—in a somewhat different way than she had planned. We’re coming down, I think. Stay with me—please, stay with me, if you can stand it. I’ll send you what I—what I can learn.’ ”

“And he will tell Tejef what Tejef asks, and promise him anything. A creature that so values his own life is dangerous.” Chimele laced her fingers and stared at the backs of them as if she had forgotten the kamethi or dismissed the problem for another. Then she looked up. “
Vaikka.
Tejef has won a small victory. I have regarded your arguments. Now I cannot intervene without using
Ashanome’
s heavy armament to pierce his defenses—a quick death to Tejef, ruin to Priamos, and damage to my honor. This is a bitterness to me.”

“Daniel still has resources left,” Aiela insisted. “I can advise him.”

“You are not being reasonable. You are fatigued: your limbs shake, your voice is not natural. Your judgment is becoming highly suspect. I have indeed erred to listen to you.” Chimele gathered the now-useless position report together and put it aside, pushed a button on the desk console, and frowned. “Ashakh: come to the
paredre
at once. Rakhi: contact Ghiavre is the lab and have him prepare to receive two kamethi for enforced rest.”

Rakhi acknowledged instantly, to Aiela’s intense dismay. He leaned upon the desk, holding himself up. “No,” he said, “no, I am not going to accept this.”

Chimele pressed her lips together. “If you were rational, you would recognize that you are exceeding your limit in several regards. Since you are not—”

“Send me down to Priamos, if you’re afraid I’ll leak information to Daniel. Set me out down there. I’ll take my chances with the deadline.”

Chimele considered, looked him up and down, estimating. “Break contact with Daniel,” she said. “Shut him out completely.”

He did so. The effort it needed was a great one. Daniel screamed into the back of his mind, his distrust of Chimele finding echo in Aiela’s own thoughts.

“Very well, you may have your chance,” said Chimele. “But you will sleep first, and you will be transported to Priamos under sedation—both of you. Isande is likewise a risk now.”

He opened his mouth again to protest: but Isande’s strong will otherwise silenced him. She was afraid, but she was willing to do this for him.
No harm will come to us,
she insisted.
Chimele will not permit it. Kallia can hardly operate in secrecy on a human world, so we shall go under
Ashanome’
s protection. Besides, you have already pressed her to the limit of her patience.