"Hmm." Ajeri swung back, frowned at the Cell. "Given it works, that should be easy enough. All right. What about the Banger?"
"It is in place. All it needs is the touch of my finger." He held up the bony digit, the flesh finger on his realhand. "That is not long off, Ajeri tiszteh."
"Good." After a long dark stare at the Cell, she bent over her sensor board and started working.
5
The music and the voice came from everywhere, sound picked up from a thousand speakers, Shadith singing with herself,, smooth as water flowing, effortless as breathing or so it seemed until the POV swooped closer to her, showed her face, gaunt with strain, sweat rolling into her eyes, dripping from her nose and chin…
Ajeri leaned forward, smiling; tongue moving along her lips, eyes glowing with anticipation, she reached slowly down and touched a sensor…
The song collapsed into a screech… the kind of noise that made the teeth ache and put twitching knots in the back muscles…
Shadith dropped the kitskew and fell to her knees, her arms pressed over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut…
Kikun fell flat, unconscious, his eyes rolling back, his mouth sagging open.
The cats went crazy, clawing at their ears, rolling on the ground during the first seconds of that assault, then they howled and attacked whomever they could reach, grabbing with their forelegs, disemboweling with their powerful hinddaws, one stroke and twist away, on their feet again, jaws closing on necks, a shake and leap ahead to the next..
Rohant brushed Kayataki away, tossed Miowee off him (she landed on several surviving pilgrims, rolled to the ground bruised but intact and screaming for her daughter) and raced after his beasts.
Before he got near them, Na-priests came from the crowd like maggots from meat and shot the cats into hamburger.
Rohant the Ciocan roared his fighting challenge, and ran at the nearest shooters, his lips drawn back from his tearing teeth, his eyes red with fury,
As he ran past, a priest snapped erect, hammered him to the ground with a club like a young tree.
The sound cut off.
Shadith struggled to her feet, looked wildly around, started running, head down, driving as hard as she could for the Gate.
A Na-priest came after her, whipped his stranglecord about her neck, jerked her back against his body, tightened the ligature… she started to lift her hands then there wasn't anything left…
6
A chime sounded repeatedly, a pleasant bonging sound. with an unpleasant message; quiverwort #3 was announcing the arrival of a starship-over a week before he was expecting it. Ginbiryol swore, swung round and tapped off the alarm. It might be coincidence, a wandering trader, but he didn't think so. He set the kephalos searching for the intruder and turned to the Pilot. "Wake up the Paems and get ready to go, fast, Ajeri tiszt. Thirty minutes, no more, then we run for the Limit."
"Trouble?"
"It could be. We will continue to record as long as possible. When the time comes to leave…" He pointed to the traces of a ship racing recklessly insystem. "Head out ninety degrees that line, as fast as you can wind her up." He looked at the track of the incoming ship for a minute. "Yes, I'm sure of it, that has to be a Vryhh ship. If we are not obtrusive about it, I believe the Hunter will ignore our departure in favor of the world itself." He smiled tightly, slanted his eyes at Ajeri. "With a little Luck, she will still be there when the Banger lets loose."
"Luck."
"Oh, yes." He turned his shoulder to her and went back to watching the scene in Cell 1 unfold.
CELL 1
The stink of perfumed oils brought her back. She was tied to the center pole of a Sacrifice Pyre, her boots sunk in the carved sticks, Mlowee bound beside her knees like a slave sacrificed to serve her mistress in the afterlife, Kayataki beside her mother, bound and gagged so she wouldn't cry out when the Fire took her, both of them tethered to the center post. Shadith tried to say something, but all she could do was croak; her throat felt destroyed. He should have ended it, that priest. He was too cruel. Ropes wound round her, knees to neck. No more running, no more maybes left for her.
Kikun was slumped on her left. He was alive, but his soul was somewhere else, the body was an empty sac.
Rohant was on her right, struggling with the ropes that bound him to his pole, so much rope he was like a worm in a cocoon. Blood dripped from the wound on the back of his head, his eyes were glazed, wild, no intelligence left, only the ancestral beast glaring out.
The Gospah Ayawit came from the side and stood in front of Shadith. He was furious and afraid of the consequences flowing from the past hour's events. For one thing, Oppalatin had almost been denied his prime Sacrifice-the thought of his God's vengeance for this failure made him sweat all over. And there were Kiskaids bloodily, publicly, dead-already howls out there for his hide, rebels stirring everyone up against him. And against the Nistam-his hold on power would be even more precarious and the Nistam was not a man to tolerate the lapses of his subordinates. Both aspects of the Gospah's ambitions, the sacred and the secular, were put at risk by what the Singer had done. What they all had done, those cursed Avatars. If they were such.
"By your choice, so be it," he chanted, his voice carried out over speakers suddenly cleared of noise. (or so it seemed to Shadith as she twisted her wrists against the ropes, searching for a way to slip her hands clear). "You chose to begin the Last Battle beforetime, so do you bring the Culmination on you also beforetime. Come the sundown we send you home." He bowed, turned and walked to the front, brought his staff down three times on a sounding board and the ritual took up where the priest-Mimes, the Longhomers and the choir had left off when she brought their gods to life.
For a moment she gave'in to panic, then she bit down hard on her lip, closed her eyes and reached-searching for something, anything she could use to disrupt what was happening, rats or any sort of furry capable of chewing the ropes off her… I won't give up, she croaked, the words lost in the hoom of the horns, the doorndoom of the drums…1 won't give up as long as I'm breathing… there has to be a way… has to be… She spoke aloud to help focus her efforts, to escape from a terror-induced paisivity, to remind herself of the fragility of the body she wore.. despite the pain in her throat, she kept on talking as she searched.
Shadows crawled across the bubble as the sun descended, time was running out…
7
"Ginny, we're ready. Give the word and we go."
Ginbiryol grimaced. He was going to miss the Burning. Well, what could not be cured must be endured. He glanced at the ship-track; at the rate she was going, the Hunter would reach Kiskai about sundown, a nose to nose finish with the Fire. He spent a second hoping she would be just too late, then he unlocked the Kill-link and touched the sensor. "Right," he said. "The Bang's set for the moment we cross the Limit. Go."
8
As Ginbiryol Seyirshi's ship slid into the insplit, her detecs registered an enormous burst of radiation. He turned his head, smiled at Ajeri, then coaxed the Pet into his lap and began stroking the simi's velvety fur.
Chapter 24. Boom!
Shadith let the reach fade. Even Sassa was too far off to answer her call, driven away like all the other beasts and birds by the turmoil in the crater.
She was shaking with fatigue; her strength was gone, her mind was mush.
All she could see was fire.
All she could think about was fire.
Their voices deep, burring, near subsonic, the choir was chanting: Ma Ma Ma…
The lug-ikes picked up the sound, transmitted it to the pilgrims along with the Longhorn bellows and the beats of the god-Mimes' feet on the great Drums.