iii
They huddled, an exhausted group, in the shade of a hedge. Raen slipped fingers under her visor and wiped sweat from her eyes, withdrew them, adjusted the rim to a new place and grimaced it back to the old. The hood of her sunsuit was back, the gloves off, the sleeves unfastened to the elbow; toward evening as it was, still the heat lingered as the residue of a furnace. The suits that saved from burn, ventilated as they were by majat-silk insets, left the skin sticky with perspiration, clung with every movement. A dead azi’s rifle was on her knees, weight on sore muscles; she had food and a canteen from the emergency stores and would not drink, tormenting herself with the thought of it—supplies meant for ten, and a cluster of thirsty men about her: neither did others drink, being azi, and waiting. The wounded bore their wounds, and the insects, without a sound: it was only surprise could get an outcry from them, and there was none of that. They knew what the situation was. They were the lighter by two they had started with, the worst-wounded; the bearers had been glad, and she did not delude herself otherwise. In that day she had reconsidered her mercy, and gazed at two others as had, and at the grasslands endless about them, and she had almost turned the gun on them. Instead she had given them a sip of water, that compounded the idiocy, and the same to the bearers: for herself and the others there was only the chance to moisten mouths and spit it back, and no one defied instructions.
She was, however long ago, of Cerdin, and Cerdin’s sun was no kinder; she was, for the rest, accustomed to exercise, and most of these were not. She had Merry by her, poor Merry, his lips as cracked as hers felt, his face bruised as well as scraped; she trusted him more than the others, these babes new from the pens. Merry helped, used his wits; the others obeyed.
There was a stirring, a shrilling; they snatched rifles up nervously, but it was one Warrior, their own, that bore a white rag tied on a forelimb so that the azi could tell it. It ran low, scuttled up waving its palps and seeking scent.
“Here,” Raen said, turning her hand to it. It came, offered taste, the sweet fluids of its own body, and it was welcome. She touched the scent-patches, soothed it, for it had been moving hard, and air pulsed from the chambers so it had difficulty with human speech.
“Mennn. Humanasss. Human-hive.”
She gave a great breath of relief. Every face was turned toward it, faces suddenly touched with hope. She caressed the quivering palps. “Warrior, good, very good. Where are other Warriors?”
“Watching men.”
“Far?”
It quivered slowly. Not far, then. “We leave the wounded and five to help them,” she said. “We’ll come back for you injured when we’ve gotten transport. I say so. Understood?”
Heads inclined, all together.
“Come on,” she told Merry. “Choose those to stay and let’s move.”
Warrior moved ahead of their concealment, a black shape in the starlight. Likely Warrior was screaming orders; human ears could not pick it up. In a moment all three came back to the hedgerow, clicking with excitement.
“Guardss,” Warrior said, with two neat bows in the appropriate directions: majat vision in the cool of night could hardly miss a human.
“No majat?” Raen asked.
“Humanss. Human-hive.”
Fifty men were, in the last twos, grouping behind her. Lights showed ahead, floodlights about the fields, the farmyard. An azi barracks showed light from the windows; the farmhouse had the same, windows barred, proof against majat.
“Door’s nothing,” she said to Merry. “A burn will take it. Azi won’t fight if we can get the betas first.”
“Take the guards out,” Merry said. “Three men each, no mistakes. I’ll take one.”
She shook her head: “Stay by me at the door. I’ll get it, ten men with me take the house, twenty round the side door. You get down by that porch and take any charge starts out the door of the barracks.”
“Understood,” Merry said, and orders passed, quick and terse, by unit.
“No firing unless fired on,” Raen said, and took the nearest Warrior by the forelimb. “Warrior: you three stay here. Guard this-place until I call.”
“Warrior-function: come,” it lamented.
“I order, Meth-maren, hive-friend. Necessary.”
“Yess,” it sighed.
“I go first,” she said, to the distress of Merry and the others, but they said no word of objection. She stood up, gripped her rifle by its body, and started out into the road, dejected, limping. Her eyes, her head still downcast, flicked nervously from one to the other of the guardposts she knew were there, in the hedges.
“Stop!” someone shouted at her.
She did so, looked fecklessly in that direction, with no move of her rifle. “Accident,” she said. “Aircraft went down—” and pointed back. The azi came from their concealment, both of them, naive that they were. “I need help,” she said. “I need to call help.”
One of them determined. to walk with her. The other stayed. She limped on toward the house, toward the door, studying the lay of the place, the situation of windows; the barracks was at her back, the porch before.
And the azi with her went up the steps ahead of her, rang at the door, pressed the housecomp button. “Ser?”
Someone passed a window to the door.
“Ser, there’s a woman here—”
“Istra shuttle went down,” She cried past him. “Survivors. I need to call for help.”
The door unlocked, opened. A greying beta stood in it. She slipped inside, leaned against the wall, whipped the rifle up.
“Don’t touch the switch, ser. Don’t move.”
The beta froze, mouth open. The guard-azi did likewise, and in that instant a rush of men pelted across the yard. The guard whirled, found targets, fired in confusion, and the rush that hit the door threw him over, swept the beta against the wall, ringing him with weapons. Her azi kept going, and elsewhere in the house were shots and outcries. “No killing!” she shouted. “Secure the house! Go, I’ve got him.” She held her rifle on the man, and the azi swept after their comrades.
It was a matter of moments then, the frightened family herded together into their own living room, the azi servants, one injured, along with them.
Merry held the front porch. The first shot into the azi barracks had convinced the others. Her men regrouped, meditating that problem.
“Ser,” Raen said to the householder, “protect your azi. Call them out unarmed. No one will be hurt.”
He did so, standing on the porch with enough rifles about to assure he made no errors. In the house, the family waited, holding to one another, the wife and a young couple that was likely related in some way, with an infant. The baby cried, and they tried to hush it.
And fearfully the farm’s azi came out as they were told; she bade Merry and some of the men search the barracks and the azi themselves for weapons.
But most of all was water, food. She gave them permission as quickly as she could, and they drank their fill—brought her a cup, which she received gratefully, and a grimy fistful of dried fruit. She chewed at it and kept the rifle slung hip-level, pocketed some, drank at the water. The householder was allowed to rejoin his family on the chairs in the living room. “Ser,” Raen said, “apologies. I told the truth: we’ve injured among us. I need food, water, transport, and your silence. You’re in the midst of a Kontrin matter—Kont’ Raen, seri, with profound apologies. We’ll not damage anything if we can help it.”
A cluster of beta faces stared back at her, grey with terror, whether for their attack or for what she told them, she was not sure.
“Take what you want,” the man said.
The baby started crying. Raen gave the child a glance and the woman gathered it to her; the injured azi touched it and tried to soothe it. Raen took a deep breath for patience and looked at the lot of them. “You’ve a truck here, some sort of transport?”