Redlaw shrieked in agony and spun away, clutching his arm. "Run!" he bawled, setting them an example. They blundered after him, and at every leap Org Rider expected that green fire to burn through their backs.
They stopped almost up against the bare rock wall that cupped that edge of the lake. "There was one still alive," Redlaw gasped, holding the place on his upper arm that had blossomed into a blood-red blister of pain. "It's lucky he fired when he did! If he'd waited he'd have had me clean, and you two as well." He scowled up at the mountain. "We can't go up that way," he muttered. "And we can't go back to the lake, because he's waiting there."
Org Rider risked raising himself to peer around the multiple boles of a flame-tree. He could see the Watcher, broad yellow wings slowly stirring. One was damaged, and dragged; the Watcher had been hurt, too. But he held the thing that looked like a black stick, and spat green flame, without faltering.
"If we can't go forward," Org Rider said, "and can't go back—and can't stay here, because they'll be another Watcher ship before long—then what do we do?"
They waited and watched, but the creature remained steadfastly alert.
"We have no choice," Redlaw groaned at last. "We have to kill him. His gun outranges our weapons, and his bug eyes can see us in every direction. It won't be easy."
Redlaw scowled at his cleaver.
"The only way I see to take him is to rush from all sides. He may kill us all, but I don't think so. One of us will get him. But the other two—"
He hesitated, then he finished: "At least one of the other two will be dead."
"No!" the boy shouted. "Not her. She has suffered enough from the Watchers. You and I can do it, Red- law!"
The girl, listening, shook her head. She spoke in that pretty, singing voice, and the metal voice from her arm echoed, "I can perform my share. I thank you for your good heart."
Org Rider stared at her and said, "Please don't. I don't know your name—"
She said in her own voice, not through the translator, "Zara." It sounded like music to him as he rehearsed it several times, tasting its flavor.
"Zara. Please, Zara, don't do this. You are not a warrior. Redlaw and I can handle the Watcher."
The giant thundered, "Idiot boy, we can't! Our only hope is three attacks at once. That is a faint enough hope—two is suicide!"
The girl spoke, and the Pmal rattled flatly, "It is decided, Org Rider. I again thank you, but now let us act. Tell me what I must do."
The giant rasped, "Come in from behind the ship. Get close to him. The beast has a hard shell, but there are soft joints. One is where his neck would be, if he had a neck. There's a pale stripe above his black hump. Stab him deep in the middle of that, if you can."
Org Rider watched the girl go on her longer, roundabout trip with his breath caught in his throat. She would not die! He would see to it. The first one to display himself to the Watcher would surely be the first one fired on; the other two would have a chance at least minutely better. Org Rider determined to be that first one.
But it would be foolish, would even endanger them, for his break to come much before their own. It would simply mean that the . Watcher would pick him off quickly, and then have only two foes to confront. So he squirmed to his place and waited, watching the faint ripples in the underbrush that marked the movements of Redlaw and the girl. Could the Watcher see and understand those same ripples? He did not know. He could only hope.
Something was tugging at the back of his mind. What was it?
Then he recognized the growing sound from the sky, and looked up. Down at him dived a great org.
Org Rider froze. It was his death he saw coming. With only the knife left—the bow was long since cast away—he could not prevail against talon and fang. All he could do was stare at its savage splendor. He crouched numbly, waiting for the hooked black talons to strike.
Even in that moment he saw the blue beauty of its huge, hooded eyes, the bright flow of its form, the even sheen of bronze scales shading into the silver flash of its narrowed wings. Wonder at its clean, sleek power made his throat ache. Orgs were better and greater than men! Surely they were more beautiful. It was his death . . . but if he had to perish, here on Knife-in-the-Sky, it was better to be killed by this mighty org than by die waiting Watcher.
But dying that way would not serve Zara . . .
Org Rider leaped to his feet, yelling and bounding toward the Watcher ship.
As he had expected, the Watcher was staring up with his great blind eyes, distracted by the org. Perhaps after the org finished with him it would go for the Watcher next! Org Rider glanced toward the Watcher, husbanding his charges as he nervously waited under the shelter of the ship, then back toward the org.
It screamed again.
The bright wings opened a little, flaring it toward him out of the bottom of the dive, and he saw the scars that marred its lean perfection. A long, dark wound, not fully healed, where the scales had been ripped from its flank. A break in the brightness of one wide wing.
The screaming changed . . . and queerly, became words.
"Babe!" blared the mighty voice of the org, repeating his own voice like a tape under maximum gain. "Babe come back!"
The boy heard his own voice thunder down at him from the sky and could hardly understand. But what the words did not explain the actions did. The org dipped down over him. Its golden-scaled trunk snatched him up into the air, squeezed him almost too hard, flexed to set him on its back above the widened wings.
Then recognition hit him.
It was Babe! Changed—older—hurt, but Babe! Scales had replaced the infant fur. The healing scars told of combat. But it was he!
A laser scream spat past his ear and brought him out of his dreaming. He kicked the org strongly and shouted, "Fast, Babe! Over the trees!"
The beast responded instantly, putting the loom of the ship between them and the Watcher. And Org Rider sobbed, "Babe! I'm so glad!" He stroked the bronze scales. Yards below he could see the top of the trees and caught a glimpse of Zara's terrified pale face, staring up at them. What could she be thinking? Had she ever seen an org before? Did she understand that Org Rider was master, not prey?
But looking at her brought him back to the needs of that moment. He wheeled Babe around, low over the treetops, and shouted down: "Now! Let's get him!"
And as he saw the mighty form of Redlaw leap free and begin to run toward the Watcher, he gouged his heels into Babe's scaled side and commanded, "Kill, Babe! The Watcher! Kill him!"
The chaos of the next moments was indescribable. Org Rider heard the shouts of Redlaw and the shriller, fainter cry of the girl. He saw the cleaver glinting in the hands of the giant.
Then he was around the ship and beating back in toward the Watcher.
The black stick crackled. Bright light blasted Org Rider's eyes; a sudden electrical stench choked him. But it had been a miss; he was still alive!
And then they were on top of the Watcher. Babe bellowed as his striking talons ripped the Watcher out from under the hull. They all tumbled in a slow-motion heap, boy, org, and Watcher together. The reek of the squealing Watcher stung his throat as he stabbed and stabbed with his knife to find the death place.
In the end it was Babe that took the last of the life from the Watcher, the great claws simply wrenching the hideous head free of its body. The shrilling scream stuttered and stopped abruptly, and the ugly carcass toppled slowly forward in death.
"We did it!" Org Rider called. "Babe, you're a hero! Babe—"
But the org did not respond.
Shaken, Org Rider lifted his head free and stared. The delicate pink trunk was trembling violently. The huge eyes were dulled. As Org Rider reached out to touch him, Babe screamed in pain.