Rebka nodded again. He raised a clenched fist in encouragement, stepped closer to one of the turning Zardalu, and burned its eye.
Sound thinking. Make sure they stay blind. But Nenda did not have time to watch.
He made a split-second inventory of the rest of his group. Atvar H’sial could take care of herself, better than anyone. Kallik was missing a limb, but the wound was already sealed. To a Hymenopt it was no more than a minor inconvenience. She’d be all right. No time to worry about J’merlia, either, he’d follow Atvar H’sial’s lead. Birdie Kelly was as safe as anyone, provided that he did not move.
Which left Julius Graves: blinded, battered, and bloody useless.
Nenda cursed. Typical of a councilor, to jump in and do something stupid when he did not know what was really going on. And to hand out orders into the bargain. Nenda had felt like kicking him for sticking his nose in, back in the other chamber when he was trying to lure the Zardalu to the transportation vortex and Graves had insisted on becoming involved.
He resisted the urge to roll the feebly moving Graves down the steep tunnel and be rid of him. There was always the chance that Rebka or Darya Lang might see him do it.
What was the answer?
Nenda felt the touch of a tentacle on his back. He jumped clear and looked around. In the moment he had been wondering what to do, the Zardalu had been driven a foot closer by Rebka and the others. Four feet more, and escape from those killing arms would be impossible.
He ran to J’merlia and Kallik’s side, pointing up to the tunnel ceiling and waving them on. Without waiting to see the results he moved to Atvar H’sial, placing himself right under the dark-red carapace.
“Graves.” He pointed, though it was unnecessary with a pheromonal message. “The ceiling. Can you?”
Atvar H’sial nodded. “I can. If he is unconscious.”
Which he was not. Not yet. Nenda moved over to Julius Graves and delivered a rabbit punch to the back of the councilor’s neck, knocking him cold.
Atvar H’sial picked up the body easily in two mid-limbs and began to climb up the wall to the corridor ceiling. Nenda saw that J’merlia and Kallik were already there. They were hanging upside down, waiting for a good moment to hurry over the heads of the maddened Zardalu.
Which left only one problem. How was he going to get away? The Zardalu completely blocked the corridor, higher than his head. Crawling along ceilings was easy enough for bugs, impossible for him.
He could see only one answer. It was one that did not appeal at all.
Better do it now before you decide you can’t face it, he told himself.
Nenda moved to the prostrate body of Holder. As the other Zardalu groped for him he forced his way headfirst into the thick tangle of Holder’s limbs. The space between the base of the tentacles was scarcely as wide as his body. There was a throat-clutching smell of musk and ammonia. Nenda shivered at the greasy touch of Zardalu flesh on his face. He could not do it this way; he would choke before he was halfway. He clumsily turned around to move in feet first.
Push. A bit farther. Do it. Don’t think of where you’re going.
He forced himself on until he was completely hidden.
His legs were cramped against the bottom of Holder’s torso. The lower body sac felt soft and unprotected. Maybe that was the point of vulnerability for the Zardalu, something that had been known in the Great Rising and then forgotten.
Nenda dismissed the thought. He could not use the information, while if Holder were to become conscious now…
Don’t think of that, either. There was plenty else to worry about. The pain of his twisted limbs and bruised middle made him gasp when he moved — although ten seconds earlier he had been too busy to notice it.
Think positive. Think we’re winning.
Maybe they were. The sounds of the fight above and about him continued. He heard the sizzle of flashburn units on Zardalu flesh, whistles and clicks of pain, the pounding of enraged tentacles against walls and floor. Powerful tentacles slapped against Holder’s body.
And then he heard a new sound. It was a human being in final agony.
He risked pressing his face to the space between two tentacles and peered out.
E. C. Tally’s failing body had been too slow. A Zardalu had him in four of its python arms. Hans Rebka and Darya were there, running in dangerously close to burn the eyes and the maw.
To no effect. The Zardalu was filled with its own rage and blood lust. It was slowly pulling Tally apart. As Nenda watched both arms were plucked free, then the legs, one by one. They went into the body pouch — even in the middle of battle, food for ravenous Zardalu young would not be wasted. Finally the bloody stump of torso was hurled away, to smash against the corridor wall. The top of the skull flew loose, to be cracked like an eggshell a moment later by a threshing Zardalu tentacle.
Nenda pulled his head back. There was nothing to be done for Tally. At least Atvar H’sial and the others must have made it across the ceiling to the relative safety of the higher corridor level, for there was no sign of them. He had to lie low a while longer, as Lang and Rebka tried to push the disoriented Zardalu the final few meters. He looked out along the line of Holder’s tentacles. Just three steps more, and they would be on the ramp to the vortex, right on the point of no return.
The stab of agony in his right thumb was so unexpected that for a moment Nenda had no idea what was happening. The half-muffled cry squeezed out of him was shock more than pain.
He lifted his hand. Clinging to it, its beak firmly set in the bleeding flesh, was a young Zardalu. As Nenda watched it swallowed a piece from the base of his thumb. In the same motion it snapped for another bite.
He smacked the creature away with his other hand and stared around him. Now that he could see better in the shade of the sheltering tentacles, he could make out four small rounded shapes, pale apricot against the blue of the unconscious parent.
The Starburst had been enough to knock out Holder, but the offspring were far from quiet. All the other infants were crawling single-mindedly toward him.
“Not today, Junior. Try a bit of this.” Nenda grabbed them as they came and held them one after another to the underside of the adult Zardalu’s tentacles. After a moment’s hesitation they attacked the tough flesh with their sharp beaks. Holder’s body began to twitch.
Nenda cursed his own stupidity. How dumb could you get? He ought to have let them keep on at him, rather than risk waking the unconscious adult.
He groped for the black satchel at his side, opened it, and pulled out random bits of food. It was his reserve supply, but if Holder woke up now Louis Nenda would never need food again.
The young Zardalu grabbed the fragments eagerly. Cannibalism was not apparently their first preference.
Holder’s body rolled suddenly to the left. Nenda froze in horror. Then he realized that none of the tentacles was moving. Something was rolling the great body from outside, pushing it closer to the ramp. The sizzle of flashburn units was louder.
He took another look along the line of Holder’s tentacles. The Zardalu were past him! He could see a confusion of stumbling bodies. While he had been preoccupied with the young ones, the adults had been herded forward. He watched them stagger one by one onto the beginning of the ramp, then overbalance and start away down the incline. Once they were on the steepest section the blind Zardalu were unable to stop. They could have no idea what was happening to them.
Going, going… gone.
The last Zardalu vanished, to cries of triumph from Rebka and the others. Nenda joined in, then realized that Holder’s body was still moving toward the tunnel that led to the vortex. A couple more meters and it, too, would be rolling on its way.