He stiffened. Over at the shrine a figure had raised itself up from the ground. For a beat it stood there, silhouetted against the white ceramic. Then, crouching low, it headed across the enclosure.
Directly toward Thrr-tulkoj.
Thrr-tulkoj pressed his tongue hard against the inside of his mouth, quickly readjusting his laser rifle back to full power. The figure was still coming, blatantly arrogant in his presumption that no protector would dare fire on him with a shrine at his back. Lifting his laser rifle a fraction, Thrr-tulkoj peered through its sights. Right or wrong, it was time to make a move. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he settled his thumbs against the rifle's triggers.
His only warning was a whisper of sound from above him... and by then it was too late. Too late to react; too late to move; too late to do anything but realize to his shame and chagrin that the enemy had outmaneuvered him one final time. Against the sudden hum of the returning transport came the faint flopping sound of something semirigid flying through the air toward him—
And suddenly he was hammered flat against the ground as the black stickiness of a tar slab slammed into him.
He dropped his weapon, turning half-over and pushing upward against the sticky, semisolid blackness. It molded itself around his hands, the sides folding gradually but inexorably in toward his body. He tried pulling his hands sideways in opposite directions, hoping to tear a hole in it. But the slab was too thick, the material too resilient, and he succeeded only in lowering the roof of the slowly shrinking cave he and Thrr-aamr were in. Desperately, he let go with one hand and grabbed for his laser rifle, swiveling it awkwardly in the cramped space and managing to get it jammed up into the tar like a tent pole. Mentally pleading for good luck, he pressed the triggers.
The entire tar slab didn't burst into flame, as he'd feared it might. Instead, a small section around the muzzle flashed into vapor. The slab dropped inward around the new hole; holding it back with one hand, Thrr-tulkoj repositioned the rifle to another spot and fired again.
It seemed to take forever but was probably no more than fifteen hunbeats before he had enough of the tar slab vaporized to pull himself out from under it. Breathing heavily, his tail going double time with the body heat he hadn't been able to get rid of in there, he got shakily to his feet and looked around.
Not that there was any need to do so. The intruders and their transport were long gone, having accomplished whatever it was they'd come there to do.
Swearing dully, he reached down and pulled Thrr-aamr partway out of the tar, making sure his face and tail were clear. Then, retrieving his rifle, he headed across the enclosure toward the dome. It was far too late to give the alarm now—whatever the damage, it was already done. But it was still part of his job to do so.
Very likely the last part of this job he would ever do.
"Yes, I'm coming," Thrr-pifix-a called as the insistent knock came a second time on her door. She'd spent much of the postmidarc in her garden, and her legs had now stiffened up as she sat fussing with her decorative edgework. "I'll be there in just a hunbeat."
Whoever was out there apparently heard her, because the knocking stopped. She made her way across the conversation room to the foyer, her legs thankfully loosening up somewhat in the process. Reaching the door, she opened it.
There was no one there.
Frowning, she took a half step outside, letting her lowlight and darklight pupils widen as she looked around in the darkness. No one. Some child, perhaps, up late pulling pranks? She took another half step outside, shivering in the chilly latearc air—
Her foot kicked something solid. Frowning some more, she looked down.
It was a small pouch, of the sort she liked to practice her edgework on, just lying there in the dirt. Bending over with some difficulty—her back had stiffened up, too—she retrieved it and stepped back into the foyer. Pulling the fastening strip open, she looked inside.
And froze, her hands going suddenly rigid.
It was a fsss organ.
She hurried outside again, this time going all the way to the roadway. But Korthe and Dornt were nowhere to be seen. They must have just set the pouch and fsss down and run.
Something in the back of Thrr-pifix-a's mind found that disturbing. But for right now it didn't seem to matter. What mattered was that they'd kept their pledge to her.
She had her fsss.
Slowly, she retraced her steps back into the house, closing and locking the door behind her. She had her fsss. Here, in her hands. Her own fsss. To destroy, if she so chose.
The question was, did she now so choose?
She groped her way to the kitchen table and sat down, staring into the open pouch as she did so, her mind a swirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions and questions. This was what she had wanted, wasn't it? Of course it was. She had her future—her life—here in her hands. All she had to do—
And suddenly, without challenge or warning of any sort, her door slammed open.
She spun around in her chair, the pouch somehow getting away from startled fingers. Three Zhirrzh were already in her house—big Zhirrzh, wearing the sort of warrior fighting suits she'd seen in pictures and dramas—with more of them piling in through the door behind them. All were carrying short, vicious-looking weapons; all were wearing grim expressions.
Weapons and expressions that were pointed directly at her.
"What's going on?" she demanded. Or rather, tried to demand. Even in her own ear slits, her voice sounded as weak and thin as that of a sickly child. "What do you want?"
The lead warrior didn't bother to answer. Stepping into the kitchen, he reached a long arm down to the floor and retrieved the pouch she'd dropped. "Is this yours?" he asked, his voice as cold as the latearc air as he held it up.
For the first time Thrr-pifix-a focused on the pouch itself. To find, to her utter amazement, that it was indeed hers. There was her edgework, plain as a sunny fullarc, edgework she'd completed not five fullarcs ago.
But how in the eighteen worlds had it wound up at her door?
The warrior was still waiting for an answer. "Yes," she murmured, still staring at the pouch. Korthe or Dornt must have stolen it. That was the only explanation. They must have stolen it while they were here last fullarc. Without her even noticing.
"And this," the warrior said, holding it open for her inspection. "You want to tell us what you're doing with this?"
Thrr-pifix-a stared up at his face, a horrible twisting sensation knifing through her. Suddenly, suddenly, it was clear. She'd been set up. For whatever reason, she'd been set up. "I didn't take it," she whispered. "It was two young male Zhirrzh. Korthe and Dornt, they called themselves. They said they were members of an organization called Freedom of Decision for All."
"Uh-huh," the first warrior grunted, handing the pouch to another warrior. "Korthe and Dornt, from Freedom of Decision for All. Right."
"It's true," Thrr-pifix-a insisted. "Really. They said they'd get my fsss for me. And they did."
"And did they happen to mention to you that fsss theft is a grand-first felony?" another warrior put in harshly.
"That's enough," the first warrior said before Thrr-pifix-a could stammer an answer. "We'll check it out. In the meantime—" He fixed Thrr-pifix-a with cold eyes. "Thrr-pifix-a; Kee'rr, you're hereby charged with grand-first theft and placed under detention. By authority of the Overclan."