Aleytys grinned at her. "Eh, Shadow, Dea ex Machina reporting for duty."
"Eh, Lee." Shadith closed her eyes, popped them open again as she remembered… "You better machinate some more or all we'll be is smears on rubble." She eased the blade into the center post, above Kikun's head. She didn't trust herself with it, not any more. "I suppose you didn't see any ship in orbit?"
"Someone was skittering for the Limit. Thought I'd better collect you first. Machinate how-and why?"
"That someone probably left us a little present. Planetkiller. Think you can locate it, say it's there?"
"Lovely friends you have. Here, before you bleed to death and waste my worry." Aleytys tossed a medpac to Shadith, then snapped a command to the warbot she was riding. It twisted its long jointed neck up and around, bringing its head close to hers; she began talking rapidly and inaudibly into its shielded sensors.
Leaving Kikun to finish freeing himself, Shadith eased down onto the quenched and blackened sticks, maneuvering her wounded leg around so she could see the cut. Not much point in cleaning it up now, leave that to Lee's Autodoc. Better stop the bleeding though. Sar! I've lost enough blood on this jauza world to feed a vampire for a year. Come on, come on, Lee, move it! We die now, I swear I'll haunt you… hey, I wonder if one ghost can haunt another? Sheehl Pm getting giddy…
She broke the seal, brought out the canned bandage and sprayed a thick layer of foam over the cut. The foam solidified into resilient fauxskin-that hurt! Pressure on the damaged nerve ends. Knowing what was doing it didn't help at all. Hands shaking, she dug out a painpopper, checked the dials, her eyes blurring unreliably, then managed to get a pop into her leg and shut off the agony.
Cool dry fingertips touched her face. "All right?"
"Right enough."
Kikun straightened, looked around. "Useful friend."
"Yeh."
"I had better cut the Ciocan loose, don't you think?"
"Cool him down first. Um. You know about the knife?"
"I know. Cuts anything."
"Not a great exaggeration, my friend."
"Wa." He gazed across the backs of the warbots, shook his head at the bloody screaming war going on out in the crater. "Wa weh."
Shadith grimaced as he jumped down, the knife held loosely in his left hand; he was surefooted but given the properties of the crystal, prancing about with it like that came absurdly close to suicide. She'd done the same thing a minute ago, but she hadn't been tracking very well just then.
Aleytys was still talking to that bot. Shadith's stomach knotted and she swallowed hastily to keep her dinner down. That ship of hers… Tigatri, she calls it… Daughter. I don't know. Maybe it… she… can handle the Banger. Be the baddest joke in the universe if Lee rescued us just in time we all get blown to nada… got here faster than I expected. Maybe… depends on Ginny. Double-knotter. If I read him right, he'll want to be insplitting before the Banger goes. If… Gives us some hours working time… maybe… I don't know, I don't know…
She hitched painfully over to the center pole, leaned against it and shut her eyes.
Its chelae absurdly gentle, the warbot plucked Shadith off the Pyre and deposited her beside Aleytys who was leaning back but keeping a wary eye on the readouts spread across the front of the howda.
Shadith forced herself erect. "Lee…"
"Relax. Tigatri's got the Banger located, she's slapped a stasis field around it. That's the good news. Bad news is there's no way of shutting it down and the field eats power like it's cotton candy on a stick. She's in the process of hauling the thing up and carting it to the next world out, that's an iceworld, barren, better it goes than this one. That'll shake up the system some, but Kiskai and these people, they'll survive." She glanced over her shoulder at the war outside the Bubble. "If they don't kill each other off first."
"How long before we can get out of here?"
"About an hour."
"Oh." Shadith hauled her leg up, rested her ankle on the front of the howda. "Well, I lasted this long…" She inspected Aleytys. "Had the baby, hmm?"
"Two months ago. Daughter." Aleytys' eyes went fond and sappy (Shadith's assessment), she smiled down at her hands. "Her name's Lilai. You'll meet her when we go onboard Tigatri. She's beautiful, Shadow, she's a little firehair, got angelcurls redder than mine. Grey's gaga over her. He didn't want me to bring her, but I'm not leaving her like I did my son. No. Never. Where I go, she goes."
Rohant was squatting on his Pyre, scowling. Abruptly his face relaxed. He got to his feet. "Shadow! I'm calling Sassa in, tell your friend to let him through, right?"
Aleytys raised a brow. "Sassa?"
"Hawk."
"Ah." She lay back, closed her eyes. "Bird. Raptor. Admit."
Shadith-eased back, the tension dropping out of her; for the first time in months she was safe, she didn't have to fight any more, she didn't have to scramble or run; she could lie there and let the minutes drift past.
She enjoyed it for about a minute and a half, then her eyes popped open and she sat up again. "Miowee," she said "Kikun…" She broke off, then burst out laughing as the little lacertine came stumping between the pyres, Miowee on his back and Kayataki following behind. "Kikun, if you can't read minds, you do a good imitation."
Kikun wiggled his pointed ears. He deposited Miowee on Rohant's bench and went trotting into the darkness behind the pyres. A minute later he was back with the Paleka Kitskew and her harp. He set them by the bench and dropped into a squat beside them.
Shadith took hold of her leg and shifted it down, caught hold of the; top of the console and pressed herself forward until she could see the singer better. "Looks like your revolution's kicked off to a good start, Mee. What about you? What are you going to do?"
Miowee passed her hand over her tumbled tangled hair. "Wait," she said after a while. "I've got people out there. When the fighting's over… it will be over soon, it can't last… Kaya and I, we'll go back to Aina'iril and see what we can do to help pull things together."
"Asteplikota's going to be looking for who killed his brother."
"I'll face that when… if… I have to."
"Come with us. I'll get you into a place where you can regrow your legs, fix your eye. Starfolk klem, you know."
Miowee covered her face with both hands, hunched her shoulders. For a long time she said nothing, then she shook her head. "No," she said. "No."
"Be reasonable, Mee. The next months are going to be hell and a half, by the time you get back things will've settled down some."
"Reasonable!" The word exploded out of her; she glared up at Shadith. "If I'd been reasonable, I'd be dead. Reasonable snuffs out the light. I never have been reasonable and I'm not going to change now. Look at me. I can make you look at me. I can make you SEE me. I can make you listen. You listen out of pity and horror, but you do listen. And you HEAR!" She sighed. "You're a nice child, Shadow, and you mean to be kind, but you don't understand."
"Maybe not, but…"
"I am who I am, Shadow; I am what I've made myself, and it's something to take pride in. I won't take gifts, I won't unmake ME."
There was a soft, almost subliminal chime. Aleytys sat up, frowned at the console. "There's a swarm of flits coming this way."
Miowee heard her, laughed, not a nice sound. "One gift," she cried. "I'll take one gift. Will your friend open the glass for us, crack the oyset so we can get at the putrid pearl inside? Nistam, the Nistam! Let us have him if we die for it."
Shadith nodded. "Yes. I owe that lot something, too. Lee?"
"If you mean that hill out there, look at the thing, Shadow. It's five deep with stomping locals. I doubt you want me to punch holes through them."