“Only to the Theks,” said Kai, the mind-dominated part of his emotions wanting to add “now release the girl”.
"You know what you need to know," screamed Gaber, still attempting to reach Paskutti and make him release Terilla." You'll kill the child. Release her! Release her! You told me there'd be no violence. No one hurt! You've killed Trizein, and if you don't let go of that child . . ."
Paskutti casually swatted Gaber into silence, the cartographer hit the deck with a terrible thud and rolled to one side. Terilla was dropped in a heap by Cleiti. Kai couldn't tell if the girl had been killed by the mishandling. He glanced surreptitiously at Lunzie who was staring at the girls. Some relaxation about the woman's eyes reassured him: the girls were alive.
Beside him, Triv had completed the preliminaries to Discipline. Now he, too, would wait until his strength could be of use. The hardest part was the waiting until such time as this controlled inner strength would be channelled into escape. Kai breathed low in the diaphragm, willing himself to the patience required to endure this hideous display of brute strength and cruelty.
Dimenon was rousing but, although he moaned in pain, Lunzie did not attend him. Margit, Aulia and Portegin kept their eyes front, trying not to focus on scenes they could neither stop nor change.
Tanegli came storming up the ramp to the shuttle, his face contorted with anger, a man controlled by his emotions, no longer the calm rational botanist, interested in growing things.
“There isn't a power pack in any of the sleds,” he told Paskutti but he strode right up to Varian, grabbing her by both arms and shaking her. Kai willed her to feign unconsciousness. Such handling might impair any chance of that broken shoulder healing properly.
“Where did you hide them, you tight-assed bitch?” he cried.
“Watch your strength, Tanegli. Don't break her neck yet?” said Paskutti, stepping forward in his urgency to arrest the angry man.
Tanegli visibly pulled back some force of the blow he had levelled at Varian. Nevertheless, her head rolled sharply backwards but as she righted herself, her eyes were still open. The marks of Tanegli's fingers were vivid weals on her cheek.
“Where did you hide the power packs?”
“She's broken her left shoulder. Use that as goad,” said Paskutti. “Not too much . . . just enough. Can't have her passing out with pain. These light weights can't take much.”
“Where? Varian, where?” Tanegli accompanied each word with a twist to her left arm.
Varian cried out. To Kai's ears, the echo was false since, in the throes of Discipline, Varian wouldn't feel pain right now.
“I didn't hide them. Bonnard did.”
Margit and Aulia gasped at this craven betrayal of the boy.
"Go get him, Tanegli. Find out where those power packs are or we'll be backing the supplies out of here. Bakkun and Berru will have started the drive. Nothing can stop it once it starts." Paskutti twitched with a sense of urgency now." She'd know where he is. Tell me, where? Varian?"
Varian suddenly hung limp in Tanegli's grip. He let her drop to the deck with a disgusted oath and strode to the open lock. Kai heard three more steps before the man stopped, shouting for Bonnard to come. Then Tanegli called for Divisti and Tardma to help him search for the boy.
Paskutti looked down at Varian's crumpled figure. Kai hoped that the man didn't suspect that she was only pretending. An expression close to the snarl of a fang-face crossed the heavy-worlder's face, but he was expressionless again when he turned to Kai.
“March!” Paskutti gestured peremptorily to the lock. He motioned to Lunzie and the others to move; with flicks of his forefinger he indicated that each was to carry one of the unconscious ones. “Into the main dome, all of you!” he ordered.
As they crossed the compound, Dandy was lying dead in his pen, back broken. Kai was glad neither Cleiti nor Terilla would see their pet. The ground was littered with scattered tapes, charts, exposed records and splintered discs. Inadvertently he trod on one of Terilla's careful drawings of a plant. Forcing deep breaths from his diaphragm, he controlled the fury he felt at such wanton destruction.
The main dome had been stripped of everything useful. The unconscious were laid on the floor the others motioned to stand by the farthest arc from the iris lock.
Outside, the search for Bonnard continued. Paskutti was now glancing first at his wrist chrono and then at the plains beyond the force-screen.
Kai's heightened hearing caught the faint sound of his name. Carefully he turned his head and saw Lunzie staring at him, saw her imperceptibly indicate that he was to look outside. By shifting slightly he could see out, could see two dots in the sky, the black line beneath, a tossing black line, a moving black line and then he knew what the heavy-worlders had planned to do.
The force-screen was strong enough to keep out ordinary dangers but not the massed attack of stampeded creatures. The camp's advantage of height above the plain and forest would be cancelled. The heavy-worlders were herding the animals right up where they wanted them to do their damage.
The Theks, receiving Kai's message, might react to it . . . in a few days" time. They might, if the thinking spirit moved them, send one of the younger Theks to investigate. But Kai doubted it. The Theks would rightly consider that any intervention of theirs would arrive too late to affect the outcome of the mutiny.
The light weights would have to effect their own salvation. The heavy-worlders would have to leave the compound soon, Would it be soon enough? And how would they leave their scorned captives? Could Bonnard stay out of their grasp?
Paskutti's fingers twitched. He glanced, almost apprehensively at the wrist chrono, squinted at the oncoming black line.
“Tanegli? Haven't you found that boy?” Paskutti's bellow deafened ears made sensitive by the Discipline.
“He's hidden. We can t find him, or the power packs?” Tanegli was raging with frustration.
“Come back, then. We're wasting time.” Paskutti was not at all pleased with this unexpected check to his plans. The look he turned on the limp figure of Varian was ominous. “How did she know?” he asked Kai. “Bakkun thought something was up when she used such a trivial excuse to bring you back early.”
“She found the place where you spent rest day. And the wounded fang-face you couldn't kill.” Kai's instinct was to continue to protect Bonnard as long as he could from possible retaliation. If they all died, the boy couldn't last on his own on Ireta. He'd have to seek what refuge the heavy-worlders would offer him.
"Bonnard! I told Bakkun he took a risk letting the boy see the arena." Paskutti's face reflected many emotions now, contempt, supercilious disdain, satisfaction in past performances. His upper lip drew back from his teeth in a travesty of a smile." You wouldn't have appreciated our rest day. No matter," Paskutti glanced down the valley. "The rehearsal has paid dividends . . . for us!"
The sun in its brief evening appearance, lighting the plain so that Kai discerned the bobbing bodies of the herbivores inexorably moving toward the encampment. The other heavy-worlders now congregated about the lock, their faces for once flushed with exertion and shiny with sweat.
“He's gone to earth,” said Tanegli in a savage tone, glaring at Kai. “And all the power packs.”
“We've no more time to look. Move the sleds out of the direct line of the stampede. Be quick about it. Do you all have lift-belts? Good. Then keep up and out of trouble until the stampede has passed.”
“What about the shuttle?”
“It should be all right,” said Paskutti, glancing at the vessel perched above the encampment on its ledge. “Move!”
The others did, in great leaping strides towards the sled park.
Paskutti stood in the iris opening, hands on his belt, glancing with unconcealed pleasure at the docile captives. Kai knew that the moment of ultimate danger was now! Would Paskutti seal them into the dome, conscious and cruelly aware of their fate? Or would he stun them?