It occurred to him that the Shadows might win. He shrugged.
Nevi admitted an admiration for these Zavatans, for their independence that Flattery couldn't yet control. He didn't intend to muddy his own hands, though this trip had already proved messy enough.
Nevi smiled, a rare break in the steel of his countenance. He had plans for his retirement, and this upcoast region with its farmland and its new, burgeoning forests appealed to him. The people up here just might want some professional protection soon. Protection from the likes of Flattery and his bungling Chief of Security.
Lot of new squatters this year, he thought.
Since the earthquakes started a few years ago people had turned to the surface for safety. Even with burmhouses it was easier to spot a dwelling than a tunnel, it wouldn't take that much effort to map these people. Nevi flew into a sudden wall of weather and there wasn't much possibility of spotting anything.
Nevi kept his attention on the screen. The slash of rain against the metal skin and plaz of the cabin nearly deafened him. He switched on the landing lights to clarify the terrain. Still, visibility was a few hundred meters, tops. A buzzer reminded him that he was flying at the stall point.
They were only a couple of kilometers downcoast from the overflight coordinates. Zentz came around enough to set his couch up and hold his head.
"So, how was it?" Nevi asked.
"I don't ever want to go back."
"Where'd you go?"
"Everywhere." Zentz wiped his drool with his sleeve. "I went everywher... at once. I saw them picked up."
"They're around here somewhere."
"Beached," Zentz said. "Down the cliff. Beached."
Nevi grunted his amusement. He imagined this gray land on a sunny day, blooming.
Flattery couldn't possibly send troops, he thought, they'd never come home at all.
"Approaching set-down," he said, and throttled back. "See them yet?"
"N... yes!" He pointed a shaking finger starboard. "There, look at the size of tha... thing! I knew it was more than a dream."
Nevi was disgusted at the spit-spray of Zentz's excitement. The squall was moving on already as quickly as it had come, and visibility over the downed hylighter was good. The terrain, however, looked deadly. The crumple of downed foil was plainly visible amid the orange shards of the deflated hylighter.
It was a monster, all right, and deflated it covered far more than the hundred-meter diameter it had occupied in the air. Almost half of it trailed the fifty meters down to the sea, and the rest lay crumpled in the narrow stretch of beach between the sea and the precipitous rocks. The foil appeared to be nearly intact right at the foot of the cliff.
Nevi did not want to set down inside the perimeter of that thing - he'd seen what that blue dust did to some of those burned-out Zavatans who wandered dazed around the village. The strip of tideline was too narrow and the tides less predictable than he liked. The beach itself, from tideline to cliff, was a jumble of boulders. That meant a water landing or a set-down at the top of the cliff. He didn't like the look of all that kelp in the water, or the positioning of the dead hylighter.
"Electronic and infrared scan," Nevi ordered. "I'm making a couple of passes so that we don't get surprised down there. Then we'll worry about how to get them out from under that thing."
Their situation suddenly struck Nevi as absurd. Flattery had positioned his precious Orbiter and had the Voidship nearly ready to go; he had plans to establish a steppingstone colony in a debris belt over a million kilometers away. Pandora's moons were even more unstable than the planet. Even Nevi agreed that fleeing was the ultimate answer. But he doubted that it would be worth it in his own lifetime.
Especially if he insisted on risking his life in a wrestling match with a hydrogen gasbag of hallucinatory dust and tentacles. He chose a set-down atop the cliff, near a trail that didn't look too difficult. Zentz should be clear of his kelping by the time they reached bottom.
If the girl's as holy as they say, let's see her get herself out of this one.
***
That's all Ship ever asked of us, that's all WorShip was meant to be: find our own humanity and live up to it.
Rico sprung the galley hatch with a crowbar from the tool locker and saw Ben sitting up, fumbling with the catch of his harness.
"Ben, budd..."
He stumbled over the crumbled deck to Ben's couch, but was careful not to touch him. Ben's Merman-green eyes seemed clear when they looked at him, but they weren't tracking all that well. Both Ben and Crista were half-buried in debris from what was left of the galley.
"Can you talk?"
Ben's voice caught in his throat. "... I think so," he said.
"Sit back," Rico said.
His own head started a strange buzz, so he took a deep breath, let it out slow. "We're not going anywhere for now, so relax."
He hesitated short of unclipping the last two restraints.
"Crist..." Ben's voice sounded foreign, distant. "Is she all right?"
Rico felt his lips tingling, and his fingertips, too. It was just like Ben to think of someone else first. He glanced over at the other couch. There was no movement. All the lights in the galley were out, but from where Rico knelt in the rubble it looked as if she wasn't breathing.
Shit!
"Sit back," Rico repeated, pushing Ben back. "I'll check." His muscles didn't work quite as they should, and he felt as if he was moving in slow motion. The heavy rain that pelted their foil dimmed what little light seeped through the single uncovered port. Rico noticed that the shadows weren't just shades of gray, but dancing hues of blue and green, backed up by flickering tongues of a cold yellow flame.
A halo of yellow flame surrounded the prone form of Crista Galli. Rico couldn't see any movement, but her lips were pink and that gave him hope. He moved to check for a pulse at her neck, then backed off. He couldn't bring himself to touch her.
She lay still, absolutely sagged, her mouth a little open. The inflated dive collar kept her head back and her airway clear. Even this way, Rico had to admit she was beautiful. For Ben's sake, for the sake of the hungry people of Pandora, he hoped she stayed alive. As he watched, a green glow smoldered over her body. A fainter glow, also green but lighter-hued, came from himself. Pockets of green oozed out of him and, amoebalike, they crept the air. One of these joined with a similar pocket oozing away from Crista Galli. She was alive, no question about it. Now all he had to do was keep her that way.
"Rico?"
"Yeah, Ben," he said.
His voice sounded a long way away to himself. But it's right here my voice is right here.
"Is she all right?"
Rico breathed in a deep breath, and some of the lime-green glow sped into his lungs like fog or dust.
"She's OK," he said, fighting for control of his tongue. "Flattery gave her drugs a while back."
Rico turned slowly and saw his partner backlighted by the one piece of uncovered plaz. The rain that spatted against it struck sparks that shot out from Ben and ricocheted around the galley. Ben sat up rubbing his eyes, and a roil of fire moved with him. It was not the blue-green glow that captured Crista and Rico, but a sensuous warm glow like the throb of some membrane from the inside.
The spore dus...
"I think I'm dusted," he told Ben in his new, slow way. "How do you feel?"
"Headache," he heard Ben say. "Helluva headache."
Ben's speech was thick and slurred.