("If you could thread that vortex, you can thread that corridor.")
The guardians of the fortress-temple were waiting for them at the entrance with arrows nocked, bows drawn, and spears at the ready.
("Slow up and hit them with the blasters,") Pard directed.
That seemed too brutal to Dalt. "I'll just ride right through them. They're only armed with sharpened sticks."
("I'll remind you of that when they swarm over us from behind and spit your body like a piece of meat.
Compassion dulls your memory. Have you forgotten the bathers on Clutch? Or that little boy?")
Enough! Dalt filled his lungs and pressed the newly installed weapons button on the console. The blasters hummed but the guards remained undaunted and uninjured.
"What's wrong?"
("Nothing, except the energy dampers are more powerful than I expected. We may not even get near Kali.")
"Oh, we'll get there, all right." Dalt gunned his craft to top speed again as he dropped the keel to a half meter above the stone steps. Spears and arrows clattered ineffectively off the hull and enclosed cabin but the guards held their ground until Dalt was almost upon them. Then they broke formation. The quick dove for the sides and most escaped unharmed. The slower ones were hurled in all directions by the prow of the onrushing craft.
Then darkness. At Pard's prompting, Dalt's pupils dilated immediately to full aperture and details were suddenly visible in the dimly lit corridor. The historical frescoes Pard had seen on his previous visit blurred by on either side. Ahead, the corridor funneled down to a low narrow archway.
"I don't think I can make that," Dalt said.
("I don't think so, either. But you can probably use it to hamper pursuit a bit.")
"I was thinking the same thing." He abruptly slowed the craft and let it glide into the opening until both sides crunched against stone. "That oughta do it." The side hatch was flush against the side of the arch, so he broke pressure by lowering the foreward windshield. Cool, damp, musty air filtered into the cabin, carrying a tang of salt and a touch of mildew.
He fed the first round from the canister into the sawed-off Ibizan and climbed out onto the deck. As he slid to the floor, something clattered against the hull close by and an instant later he felt an impact and a grating pain in the right side of his back. Spinning on his heel, he sensed something whiz over his head as he flipped the Ibizan to auto and fired a short burst in an arc.
Four Kalians in a doorway to his right were spun and thrown around by the ferocious spray of shot, then lay still.
What hit me? The pain was gone from his back.
("An arrow. It glanced off the eighth rib on the right and is now imbedded in the intercostal muscle. A poor shot—hit you on an angle and didn't make it through the pleura. I've put a sensory block on the area.")
Good. Which way now?
("Through that doorway. And hurry!")
As Dalt crossed the threshold into a small chamber, another arrow caught him in the left thigh. Again, he opened up the Ibizan and sprayed the room. He took a few of his own ricocheting pellets in the chest, but the seven Kalians lying in wait for him had taken most of them.
("Keep going!") There was more than a trace of urgency in the directive.
He managed to run, although his left leg dragged somewhat due to the arrow's mechanical impediment of muscle action. But he felt no pain from this wound either. As he left the bloody anteroom and entered another corridor, his vision suddenly blurred and his equilibrium wavered.
What was that?
("The same knockout punch that separated us on Clutch. Only this time I was ready for it. Now the going gets tough—the lady has decided to step in.")
Dalt started to run forward again but glanced down and found himself at the edge of a yawning pit. Something large and hungry thrashed and splashed in the inky darkness below.
"Where'd that come from?" he whispered hoarsely.
("From Kali's mind. It's not real—keep going.")
You sure?
("Positive ... I think.")
Oh, great! Dalt gritted his teeth and began to run. To his immense relief, his feet struck solid ground, even though he seemed to be running on air.
White tentacles, slime-coated and as thick as his thighs, sprang out from the walls and reached for him. He halted again.
Same thing?
("I hope so. You're only seeing a small fraction of what I'm seeing. I'm screening most of it. And so far she's only toying with us. I'll bet she's holding back until—")
A spear scaled off the wall to his right, forestalling further discussion. As Dalt turned with the Ibizan at the ready, an arrow plunged into the fleshy fossa below his left clavicle. The guards from the entrance to the temple had found a way around the flitter and were now charging down the corridor in pursuit. With a flash that lit up the area and a roar that was deafening in those narrow confines, the Ibizan scythed through the onrushing ranks, leaving many dead and the rest disabled, but not before Dalt had taken another arrow below the right costal margin. Fluid that looked to be a mixture of green, yellow, and red began to drip along the shaft.
How many of these things can I take? I'm beginning to look like a Neekan spine worm!
("A lot more. But not too many more like that last one. It pierced the hepatic duct and you're losing bile. Blood, too. I can't do too much to control the bleeding from the venous sinusoids in the liver. But we'll be all right as long as no arrows lodge in any of the larger joints or sever a major motor axon bundle, either of which would severely hamper mobility. The one under your clavicle was a close call; just missed the brachial plexus. Another centimeter higher and you'd have lost the use of your ...")
The words seemed to fade out.
"Pard?" Dalt said.
("... run!") The thought was strained, taut.
("She's hitting us with everything now. ...") Fade out again. Then, ("I'll tell you where to turn!")
Dalt ran with all the speed he could muster, limping with his left leg and studiously trying to avoid contact between the narrow walls and the shafts protruding from his body. The corridor became a maze with turns every few meters. At each intersection he would hear a faint ("left") or ("right") in his mind. And as minutes passed, the voice became progressively weaker until it was barely distinguishable among his own thoughts.
("Please hurry!") Pard urged faintly and Dalt realized that he must be taking a terrible beating—in twelve hundred years Pard had never said "please."
("Two more left turns and you're there ... don't hesitate ... start firing as soon as you make the last turn. ...")
Dalt nodded in the murk and double-checked the automatic setting, fully intending to do just that. But when the moment came, when he made the final turn, he hesitated for a heartbeat, just long enough to see what he would be shooting at.
She lay there, propped up on cushions and smiling at him. El. Somehow it didn't seem at all incongruous that she should be there. Her death nearly a millennium ago had all been a bad dream. But he had awakened now and this was Tolive, not some insane planet on the far side of the galaxy.
He stepped toward her and was about to let the Ibizan slip from his fingers when every neuron in his body was jolted with a single message:
"Fire!"
His finger tightened on the trigger reflexively and El exploded in a shower of red. He was suddenly back in reality and he held the roaring, swerving, bucking weapon on target until the feed canister was empty.
The echoes faded, and finally, silence.
There was not too much left of Kali. Dalt only glanced at the remains, turned, and retched. As he gasped for air and wiped clammy beads of sweat from his upper lip, he asked Pard, No chance of regeneration, is there? No answer.