Horrified, Lunzie forced herself to think. Paskutti had to know if a message had been beamed to the beacon. How would that information alter his plans for them? Triv had now completed the preliminaries of Discipline. Lunzie wished for a smidgeon of telepathy so that the four of them could coordinate their efforts.
"There isn't a power pack anywhere," Tanegli said, storming into the shuttle. He seized hold of Varian by her broken arm. "Where did you hide them, you tight-assed bitch?"
"Watch it, Tanegli," Paskutti warned him, "these lightweights can't take much."
"Where, Varian? Where?" Tanegli emphasized each syllable with a twist of her arm.
"I didn't hide them. Bonnard did." Tanegli threw Varian's suddenly limp body to the deck.
"Go find him, Tanegli. And the packs, or we'll be humping everything out of here on our backs. Bakkun and Berru have started the drive. Nothing can stop it once it starts."
Lunzie wondered what he meant and whether she dared to go over to Varian and examine her. The heavyworlder leader snarled at Kai.
"Get out of here. All of you. March." Paskutti kicked Triv and Portegin to their feet, gesturing curtly for them to pick up the unconscious Gaber and Trizein, for Aulia and Margit to lift the girls. Lunzie bent to Varian, managing to feel the strong steady pulse and knew the girl was dissembling. "Into the main dome, all of you," he ordered.
The camp was a shambles of wanton destruction from Dandy's broken body to scattered tapes, charts, records, clothing. The search for Bonnard continued, punctuated by curses from Tanegli, Divisti and Tardma. Paskutti kept glancing from his wrist chrono and then to the plains beyond the force-screen.
With Discipline-heightened senses, Lunzie caught the distant thunder. She spotted the two dots in the sky: Bakkun and Berru, and the black line beneath, a tossing black line, a moving black line, and suddenly, with a sinking heart, she knew what the heavyworlders had planned.
The Theks might get the message but they wouldn't reach here in time to save them from a fast approaching stampede. Paskutti was shoving them into the main dome now but he caught Lunzie's glance. "Ah, I see you understand your fitting end, medic. Trampled by creatures, stupid, foolish vegetarians like yourselves. The only one of you strong enough to stand up to us is a mere boy."
He closed the iris lock and the thud of his fist against the plaswall told them that he had shattered the controls. Lunzie was already checking Trizein over, briefly wondering if "your fitting end, medic" meant this whole hideous mess had been arranged to destroy her.
"He's at the veil," Varian said, peering over the bottom of the far window, her arm dangling at her side.
Trizein groaned, regaining consciousness. Lunzie moved on to Cleiti and Terilla and administered restorative sprays.
"He's opened it," Varian reported. "We ought to have a few moments when the herd tops the last rise when they won't be able to see anything for the dust."
"Triv!" Kai and the geologist jammed Discipline-taut fingers into the fine seam of the plastic skin and ripped the tough fabric apart.
Lunzie got the two girls to their feet. Gaber was dead. She gave the near hysterical Aulia another jolt of spray,
"There are four on lift-belts in the sky now," Varian kept reporting. "The stampede has reached the narrow part of the approach. Get ready."
"Where can we go?" Aulia shrieked. The thunderous approach was making them all nervous.
"Back to the shuttle, stupid," Margit said. "NOW!" Varian cried.
Stumbling, half crawling, they hurried up the hill. Trizein couldn't walk so Triv slung him over his shoulders. One look at the bobbing heads of crested dinosaurs bearing down on them was sufficient to lend wings to anyone. The shuttle hatch slammed behind the last human as the forerunners flowed into the compound. The noise and vibration was so overwhelming not even the shuttle's sturdy walls could keep it out. The craft was rattled and banged about in the chaos, death and destruction outside.
"They outdid themselves with the stampede," Varian said with an absurd chuckle.
"It'll take more than herbivores to dent shuttle ceramic. Don't worry. But I would sit down," Kai added.
"As soon as the stampede has stopped, we'd better make our move," a voice piped up from behind the last row of seats.
"Bonnard!"
Grinning broadly, the dusty, stained boy appeared from the shuttle's lab. "I thought this was the safest place after I saw Paskutti moving you out. But I wasn't sure who had come back in. Am I glad it's you!"
"They'll never find those power packs, Varian. Never," Bonnard said, almost shouting above the noise outside. "When Paskutti smashed the dome controls I didn't see how I could get out in time. So… I… hid!"
"You did exactly as you should, Bonnard. Even to hiding," Varian reassured him with a firm hug.
Another shift of the shuttle sent everyone rocking.
"It's going to fall," Aulia cried.
"But it won't crack," Kai promised. "We'll survive. By all the things that men hold dear, we'll survive!"
When the stampede finally ended, it took the combined strength of all the men to open the door. The carnage was fearful. They were buried under trampled hadrosaurs. It was full night now. Under the cover of darkness, Bonnard and Kai slipped out and, using lift-belts, managed to bring the power packs back to the shuttle. "Bonnard was right. We've got to make a move," Kai told them as the survivors huddled together, still shaken and shocked by their ordeal. "Come dawn, the heavyworlders will return to survey their handiwork. They'll assume the shuttle is still here, buried under the stampede. They won't be in any hurry to get to it. Where could it go?"
"I know where," Varian said.
"That cave we found, near the golden fliers?" Bonnard asked, his tired face lighting.
"It's more than big enough to accommodate the shuttle. And dry, with a screen of falling vines to hide the opening."
"Great idea, Varian," Kai agreed, "because even if they used the infrared scan, our heat would register the same as adult gifts."
"And that's the best idea I've heard today," Lunzie said briskly, handing around peppers which had been overlooked by the heavyworlders in the piloting compartment.
It required a lot of skill to ease the shuttle out from under the mountain of flesh but Lunzie knew it had to be done now while Kai and Varian held on to their Disciplined strength. The two managed, with Bonnard assisting in the directions since he'd been outside.
By dawn they had reached the inland sea and manoeuvred into the enormous cave, every bit as commodious as Varian and Bonnard had said. Not one of the golden fliers paid attention to the strange white craft that had invaded their area.
"The heavyworlders don't even know this place exists," Varian assured them when they were safely concealed.
Triv and Dimenon used enough of the abundant drooping foliage to synthesise padding to comfort the wounded on the bare plastic deck. Lunzie sent them out again to get enough raw materials to synthesize a hypersaturated tonic to reduce the effects of delayed shock. Then everyone was allowed to sleep.
Lunzie was one of the first awake late the next day. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the exhausted survivors, she cooked up another nutritious broth in the synthesiser, loading it with vitamins and minerals.
"Guaranteed to circulate blood through your abused muscles and restore tissue to normal," she said, serving up steaming beakers to Kai and Triv who had awakened. "We've slept around the chrono and half again."
After checking the binding on Kai's arm, she massaged his shoulders to work out some of the stiffness before she ministered in the same way to Triv.
Thanks. How long before the others rouse?" asked Triv, gratefully working his upper arms in eased circles.