"Terrorists don't have to be sane. Their van was selyn-powered, too. After all, it's cheapest." Zlinning her death creeping up on her from behind, Laneff wondered how she could be so calm. Then she realized it was Yuan who was calm—tense like the eye of a storm, but nagerically still. "You act as if you do this every day. You're not—not a terrorist, are you?" Or worse?
"No," he answered as another rumble tossed them about.
He's a great pilot for a Gen, she thought. Where would a Tecton Donor get such a skill?
"Shen!" swore the Gen. "I've lost track of the compass bearing. Laneff, you've got to guide us. Listen," he said, his nager vibrating pure sincerity. "The Tecton and its Last Year Houses, murdering juncts on sight, isn't all there is in the world. I know a place where you can live—and not kill. Eighteen months—maybe two years, or more, with your wits about you. Help get us there, and I promise you won't regret it."
The deck rocked under them again, and a tiny hole appeared in the bulkhead near Laneff’s knee, air whistling shrilly. No matter who he is, it's a better chance than trying to surrender now!
For the next two hours, she talked at the Gen, spotting the pursuers and keeping them oriented as they dodged up and down canyons. Then she sensed a concentration of nageric fields that whispered into nonexistence as they approached. "As if a number of Gens had dived into a deep cave."
"Diet hideout for sure! Knew it was here somewhere! There! That one?" When she nodded, his nager flared fiercely, and he gritted through compressed lips, "Hang on!"
He swooped high, turning so the pursuers got a fix on them, and then he dived straight toward that cave mouth until the Tecton craft had surely lost them from their instruments and their Sime spotters would be unable to zlin them through the intervening hills. At the very last second, he gunned the motors and pulled the chopper around into a low curve that set them skimming along the course of a stream, their downwash lashing the rain-swelled water to foam.
The river gorge twisted and turned, putting solid hills between them and the cave mouth—and the Tecton choppers. Yuan kept low, nearly on the water so the rising edges of the canyon hid them. "I don't believe this; we're really going to make it!"
The boyish delight glowed once again in his nager, as if life and death were all a game to him. Laneff began to like this crazy Gen who was always so surprised at his "good luck"—the result of incredible skill and daring. Zlinning behind, she said, "No trace of the Tecton choppers."
"Unless Mairis himself was with them, we've lost them!"
"He wasn't." That nager, she'd always recognize. As the canyon turned, they both spotted a column of rich black smoke billowing into the breeze far behind them—too far for Laneff to zlin anything more than a dim haze of selyn field against the empty landscape.
"They've attacked the shenoni-be-dunked Diet hideout! Laneff– the Tecton owes you for that one. That base has been a launching pad for Diet escapades in Garby, Peroa, and Zyfhild. At least fifty people have been murdered just that I know of, from that rathole."
"What are you? Some kind of antiterrorist task force?"
He laughed. It was a merry laugh, lacing his nager with sheer delight. "I guess some people might say so. But if so, you're looking at one thoroughly lost task force!"
They had come out onto a valley floor, where spring flowers turned a meadow into a riot of color reminiscent of the Household Square decked out for Digen's funeral. The stream widened into a shallow lake, a few shade trees overhanging it. Yuan worked at the controls until he produced a map on the screen in front of Laneff. "Can you place us on that?"
Map reading had never been one of Laneff’s strong points, but a graph was a graph. Matching her innate Sime sense of position with the Gen-drawn map, she said, "North of that section."
He showed her how to scroll the display. They were still flying low but with reduced speed. Without looking at the gauge, Laneff knew the fuel cells were depleted. Her vast relief at their escape faded. It would be terrible to be left on foot in this wilderness.
"Here!" She set the autocursor onto their position and watched it track them.
Working with the compass, he veered onto a new heading. "We've got fuel enough to get pretty close!"
"Where?"
"Safety."
His certainty made her bones believe it, and tension melted out of her. She buried her face in her hands, scrubbing her tentacles over her forehead and scalp, feeling the tremor in every muscle. And she just noticed she had to urinate.
"What kind of safety?" she asked miserably.
"From Gens who tempt Simes to kill; from Simes who'll murder you for yielding to that temptation." He reached over to grip her wrist, just around the tentacle orifices. He, too, was trembling from the prolonged strain, but his nager was steady. "First thing, I'll give you the selyn you still need. Then, we'll talk—make plans. By the day after tomorrow, you'll be far from here—and you'll have a lab you can stock and design yourself. I promise."
Promises! But despite the painful cynicism, Laneff felt reassured. An hour passed in which they watched the dwindling fuel supply and the unconscious pilot. Laneff endured the backwash of shock and the lingering ache of unsatisfied need. She had been days away from her scheduled transfer. She kept telling herself she wasn't really in need, j but it didn't help. It wouldn't take much to make her go for another '' kill. But Yuan steadied her with his nager.
And then the rotors chugged into a descending rhythm, each individual beat audible. "We're going down!" said Yuan. "Not too bad, though."
Before them was a highland meadow, thickly wooded except for a flat rock outcropping near a cliff face that blocked the eastern approach. They came in from the west and with the very last beats of the rotors bounced to a landing on the flat rock.
Gasping, they laughed together to have survived once more. Then Laneff noticed a wooden cabin built against the cliff. It was old, weathered to a bare gray, the roof beam swaybacked, but the windows were glazed, and new wood shone here and there. A curl of smoke rose from the chimney.
As they scrabbled out of the cockpit to open the cargo bay door, an elderly Sime emerged from the cabin, whipcord slender and tough, weathered to a leathery brown startling against white hair.
Yuan jumped down first and went to the Sime, yelling his greeting, "Callen! Callen! You've got company!" "What's all this?" called the old man back. "Excitement—adventure—and challenge. We're going to change the course of history!" As Yuan announced that, the two men met. Yuan scooped the smaller Sime into a quick embrace and walked him toward Laneff, who was sitting on the deck of the chopper, her legs dangling high above the ground. "Let me introduce Laneff Farris ambrov Sat'htine, the most important person in the world today." "Ambrov Sat'htine?" The old man scrutinized her duoconsciously. "Ain't no one sick here! But if Yuan says you're welcome—then you're welcome!" He turned to Yuan. "Back room is ready—like always. You go on in. I'll fetch some more wood and find something for you to eat." He gave her one more appraising glance.