Jao tossed the portfolio into the back of the inflated compartment. “I hope these were worth it,” he snarled at the curator. “You risked a shuttleful of lives for them.”
Through blue lips, the curator said defiantly, “They’re irreplaceable.”
“So are we,” Jao snapped.
The walker’s long strides ate up the miles. Through the radio, the pilot’s strained voice kept them informed. “Year-Captain, the main body of the dragonfly force just passed our position. But several vehicles have separated from it and are crossing the plain toward us. The other remaining shuttle is going to take off now.”
Ahead, flame boiled from the landscape and climbed the black sky. Bram looked across at the rim road and saw a line of tiny specks heading toward the city.
“I can see the vehicles,” Bram said. “We should reach your position in about ten minutes.”
“I’m warming the engines. Please hurry.”
“Oh, oh,” Jao said. “Take a look at that.”
The walker’s movement had attracted attention. On the rim road, four of the specks left the dragonfly cavalcade and headed inland.
“Trying to cut us off,” Jao said. “But a walker can outrun one of those rolling travel tubes without half trying.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Bram said. The tilted cylinders were picking up speed, streaking across the surface like gigantic writing pens guided by an invisible hand. Now their speed was too much for the low gravity. They began to jounce into the air, higher and higher, between the brief scrabbling of the wheels at the ground. One of them bounced a good thirty feet and came down upright, still moving. The passengers within must be shifting their weight around to keep it stable. Wingless the nymphs might be, but they still had the instincts of fliers.
Bram could see the shuttle now, a minuscule dome on stilts. A haze of escaping gas covered its skirts. Beyond, a wave of the angled tube vehicles rolled toward it.
“It’s going to be close,” Jao said.
“Too close,” Bram said. “We’re drawing them toward you,” he told the pilot. “It’s no good. You’d better lift off now!”
“No,” the pilot said. “I can see you now. The outside air lock door is open, and everybody’s in a suit and helmet just in case. I’ll hold for you until the last minute. Jump for the door, hold on to the ladder or a strut—anything—if you have to. I’ll use the docking jets to get us space-borne, so you don’t have to worry about being cooked.”
In the rear of the walker, the curator hugged his portfolio to himself and moaned. Bram wondered about jumping for the air lock one-handed. Perhaps he could throw the curator at the door. No, Jao could jump first, catch the curator and fling him inside, then catch the portfolio.
It would be a shame to leave the etchings behind after they had risked their lives for them.
“We’re not going to make it,” Jao said.
Bram gave up the idea. The tube vehicles were fanning out to engulf the base of the lander—fanning out to engulf the walker when it arrived.
“Do as I say,” Bram ordered. “You’ve got thirty people there to think of.”
The pilot’s voice was filled with anguish. “We’ll wait. We’ve talked it over together.”
Bram’s eyes stung. Beside him on the narrow bench, Jao cursed and brought the walker to a rearing halt.
Off to the side, the four dragonfly vehicles that had moved to cut the walker off instantly made a slight course correction to adapt to the new vector.
“Listen,” Jao said roughly, “there’s still a pallet out there ready to go. I strapped the rockets to it myself. We’re going for it. So forget about waiting for us.”
In the rear, the curator sat goggle-eyed. He clutched the portfolio with a death grip.
“When you get back to the tree,” Bram told the pilot, “tell Jun Davd to watch for us. If we miss, Lydis can try for a catch.”
“Yar,” Jao said. “It’s line of sight all the way. It’s not as if I have to compute it to the last decimal place.”
With a sob, the pilot said, “Good-bye, Year-Captain,” and cut off.
Jao started the walker up again. Bram peered through the transparent bubble at the lander. At its base, tube vehicles were jolting to a stop. Nymphs popped out of the ends of tubes and swarmed around it. Bram could see the sticklike figures clinging to the landing legs. Two of them were at the air lock door. One of them disappeared inside. It must have blown the inner door and been caught by the gust, because seconds later it came tumbling out. The big, box-shaped helmet made it top-heavy; by the time it hit the ground, it was falling head first. The transparent cage shattered.
“Glass,” Bram said. “Their helmets are made of glass.”
“So?” Jao, wrestling with the walker’s controls. “They must have a very strange industrial base.”
A brilliant puff of flame bloomed underneath the shuttle. She was using the main propulsion unit, after all—using it as a weapon. The flame spilled over the nearer dragonfly machines, swallowed the square-helmeted figures clamoring around the landing legs. Slowly the shuttle lifted, shedding dragonfly forms that twisted in the air and fell helmet-down. A few of them still clung to the air lock ladder and upper structures, to be carried like an infection to the tree. The humans would have to keep them outside somehow. Surely they couldn’t carry enough air in their suits to last the whole trip.
That raised another specter. “Jao, are there any spare air bottles loaded on the pallet?”
“No. It wasn’t intended to be manned. We’ll have to take the walker with us for our life support.”
Their four pursuers were closing in fast, along a broad front. Jao wrenched at the controls and spun the walker around. What made it scary was the fact that he was heading toward them at a slant, trying to beat them to the pallet. The other dragonfly vehicles—those which hadn’t been seared by the lander’s flame—abandoned the site where they had been deprived of their prey and decided to come after the walker.
“They’re coming at us from all sides,” Bram grimaced.
“Just hold on,” Jao said. He pulled up at the pallet and scrambled out of the walker. “Help me unload some of this junk!” Bram tumbled out after him, leaving the helmetless curator huddled within, clutching his precious portfolio.
The pallet was dangerously unbalanced. The last-minute effort to load it had been abandoned halfway through. Piles of crates surrounded it, and more crates and sacks were heaped indiscriminately on its edges, waiting to have their weight distributed evenly and to be tied down.
Bram started heaving cargo overboard. He did not care to imagine what priceless human artifacts were being jettisoned. Jao worked beside him with frantic haste.
“That’s good enough,” Jao panted. “Just pray that it doesn’t tip over when we get off the ground.”
Together they lashed a cargo net over the remaining load. The top surface was fairly level; Bram could only hope that the different weights averaged out, too.
He stayed outside while Jao squeezed back into the walker and jumped it to the top of the load. Bram tied down the walker’s legs while Jao crawled over obstacles to find the detonator.
Then a dragonfly vehicle skittered up, hitting the edge of the wooden platform with a jolt. The impact swerved it around. Bram looked up and saw the overhanging end of the tubular chassis above him. A hatch popped open, and box-helmeted forms came pouring out. The first of them floated downward—not so high as to make it fall on its head, but just high enough to give it a lazy half turn in midair and enable it to land on all fours.
More of the vehicles were crowding around, more hatches popping open, and then Jao set off the rockets.