"It is irony," Melein said. "You are honored to become warriors in the world's last age; and you avoided it so zealously until now.
"Ele'etl" Abotai cried, and lunged forward into the light, at her. Melein sprang aside, startled, looked up at the flash of a firearm in an elee hand moved, kel-quick.
Kel Mada sprang for it; his body took the shot; and an instant later the sweep of a path'andim sword cut the elee Illatai half asunder. Abotai screamed, and Melein spun on her heel at the sting of something from back to arm, struck, with a shout of anger, and Abotai sprawled in her jeweled robes, neck broken.
Elee screamed in anguish; some fled; some struck blows with glass shards. And Hlil and Ras and Bias were instant with a fence of blades. Dusei launched themselves. What elee were within reach of those paws died worse than the others.
A section of the board went out, a city dead. And by that dead panel, the Husband and the she'pan-second died. Kalis of the ka'anomin killed them, and the several elee who had fled, armed, into that corner.
"Coming up on target," the city Ele'et droned. "Priorities; shields or fire?
"Shields," Melein said at once. She had lolled; white-robed, she had struck in anger; she was dazed by that enormity at the touch of sen'ein, who seized up her arm and tried to stanch her wound she realized that blood was running freely off her fingers. And beyond the hedge of kel'ein were others Niun was back; and Duncan; and with them a strange small woman. Melein stared at her, at success and failure at once, while the city rocked with fire which sent the sound of breaking glass everywhere at once. She flinched, as they all did, despite dignity, stood still again as a sen'en bound her arm.
"Your ship is under fire," Melein said to the human who wore sen-color. "I have spoken with your sen'anth. They accuse regul; two ships lifted from here; I permitted. But one was destroyed.
"We are holding the way open," Niun said, came to her, took her good hand. "Come. Please, let us get you out of this place, while there is time.
She hesitated, reason persuading her that he was right; and if there was Sight, he was wrong. She leaned upon it, that inward turning which she had constantly distrusted.
Intel's kind of madness, she thought; it had launched them in the beginning, a she'pan's vision.
"Cornel" Niun pleaded with her. "If this can be fought, humans are fighting it For once, we cannot
"We can," she insisted, but reckoning the cost She turned from him, and from the sen'ein, looked up at the machine. "Ele'et Location of the enemy. Show me.
Screens leapt to Me. She saw the world, and a point above it which flashed in alarm, another point, stationary, a third, indistinct
"Fire on ships which fire at Kutath.
"They have passed this range," Ele'et said. "Coming up over Le'aliaen. LeVhaen priorities; shields or fire?"
"Fire," Melein said. The membrane hazed her eyes a moment, cleared again. She watched the steady advance of the enemy. In time another set of lights began to flicker on the boards.
There was nothing for the moment, only the dark and the stars, and change-over. Galey struggled with suit-fastenings, locked on his helmet; it was an exhausting exercise in the tight space of the shuttle, trying the while to keep an eye to scan.
"Not getting anything," Shibo muttered, fussing with com with one hand and working at his helmet with the other.
There was, ominously, something on scan.
It was Santiago, by its size; and it gave no answer to hailing.
"Where's Sober?" Kadarin asked. "What's going on, that Saber's not up here doing something? They wouldn't have let regul through to us.
"Didn't let them, I'm thinking." Galey freed both hands, kicked in full toward the silent object in scan. Computer signal raised nothing. "No more com," he said. "Hold it. Let's give no one anything we can help. All we have for protection is being too small to spot.
They had visual finally, stark shadow and stark metal-glare in the light of Na'i'in. It was Santiago, hard to recognize for the black shadow was in the wrong places on its hull, and it was rolling very slowly, describing its own peculiar dance about the globe of Kutath.
"Dead," Shibo whispered through the suitcom. "O God, we're up here with nothing. Santiago, Saber. . . both gone.
"Not our regul allies," Kadarin said, a thin, cold sound. "They're here, I'm betting, somewhere around the curve. Pounding the surface into rubble. And Flower Flower's all we've got can get us home.
"What do we dor Shibo asked. "Sir?-We dive back down there?
Galey took several quick breaths, trying to think, with nausea heaving at his stomach. "The regul have to be close in," he said. "If Shirug's firing on the surface, they have to be close in as they can get; and they don't like to do that." The silver and black hulk of Santiago filled all their view now; he put the shuttle under comp, to match with its roll. From the others there was not a word, only careful breathing hissing over the suitcoms. It was an ugly operation, matching the tumbling hulk; comp did most of it. He jerked control back again at the last, contacted the flat plane aft with a jolt and grappled, trying not to look out the ports or at the screens which tumbled and spun with them.
"We're going in?" Kadarin asked. "Its armscomp can't have lasted.
"Easy," Galey muttered, his mind too muddled for argument He applied power carefully, biting blood from his lips as the shuttle strained to control the derelict, sliding and grating metal on metal. It began to have its effect, a gradual stability, easing over to come level in the concealment of shadowside.
"We got us a ship," Shibo muttered. "And what, sir?
"Hang to it," Galey said. He heaved himself out of the cushion and slung hand over hand aft, toward the hatch. "I'm going in to see if the E-system's active. If I can move her, we'll see.
"What are we supposed to do?
"Aim her; keep her straight at them.
Shibo's voice and Kadarin's exclaimed protest; he did not stop, did not argue orders; it was not a thing that bore thinking, what there was left for them to do.
Shirug was due over that horizon sooner or later, downworld from them.
He was acrophobic, always had been, mildly. He seized a handjet from the locker, vented himself out the lock, looking steadily at Santiago's surface and not the stars, nor Kutath. There was no need to use the lock for entry; the gaping hull afforded access. The big ships were never meant to land, fragile compared to the tough downworld probes and the shuttle-workhorses; she had blown badly. The blackness inside was absolute, and his light showed barren ruin ... no bodies, no gee, no power, no atmosphere, dead metal. He used the handjet in total dark, walls and bulkheads and hazards careening insanely past in the momentary contact of his suit lamp fended a jagged edge of metal with his boot, bounced a wall in his haste, hurled himself through a hatchway and against another hatch. He used manual, and it opened, without the blast of atmosphere he had braced for. There was void, gaping ruin here too; the bridge had blown. Comp was down; the cold had got it One light still showed, a red eye in the dark, on a panel at the right.
"Got some life," he sent back into the static. "E-light's lit Think I can get her moving. You ungrapple when I do. Get yourselves downworld.
There was faint acknowledgment. He eased over to the panel His stomach kept trying to heave and he swallowed repeatedly, sweating in the suit and cold at the same time. He found the whole progress of it like a bad dream; kept thinking traitor thoughts of taking them all and diving downworld to live; they did not know, in fact, whether Flower herself survived, whether the whole exercise had any use at all for anyone, any use.