Toller raised his eyes from her and saw that the remaining four women had split into pairs, each of which was busily engaged in close combat. To his left, Jerene and Mistekka had taken on four Vadavaks and were giving every appearance of being able to deal with the threat; to his right, Vantara and Arvand were almost hidden by a larger group of aliens who were pressing in on them from all sides.
Marveling at the aliens’ carelessness over the essential matter of guarding their flanks, Toller nodded to Steenameert and they flung themselves at the milling group of white-clad figures. Again they wrought a fearful slaughter in the space of a few heartbeats, inflicting terrible gouting wounds which either leveled the recipients at once or sent them staggering blindly away to sink down and expire in pools of blood.
Other aliens were coming forward to take their places, but Toller was beginning to sense a change in the overall situation. The Vadavaks, possessing not even a rudimentary battle sense, were pressing their attack with undiminished fervor in spite of conspicuous lack of success—and their forces were rapidly being depleted. Snatching a quick glance around the complex scene, Toller guessed that less than half of the Vadavaks were still on their feet, and a proportion of those were becoming slow and uncertain in their movements.
It had to be less than a minute until the impeller unleashed the energies which would displace the planet, and from that time onward Director Zunnunun’s warriors would—presumably—have no reason to continue the struggle. They should be well content to withdraw at that stage and limit the number of their dead. Feeling a resurgence of optimism, Toller risked looking in the direction of Greturk and his fellow Dussarrans, hoping for an indication that the machine was about to function. He felt a dull shock when he saw that his allies had disappeared—the only sign that they had ever been present being a fast-fading tinge of green in the morning air.
An instant later Toller paid the price for allowing himself to be distracted from the deadly conflict all about him. Pain exploded through him as something touched his left shoulder, and an instant later the sensation was repeated again in the region of his left hip. He had twice been hit from behind by enervators, but this time—miraculously—the effect was less devastating than before and he was able to remain on his feet. His attacker, who had clearly expected a quick and easy kill, was still gaping at him in astonishment when Toller swung an ill-controlled blow which was intended to sever the alien’s neck. The strike was slightly lacking in reach, because of Toller’s partial immobility, and the sword tip reached no further than the Vadavak’s throat, slicing cleanly through his windpipe. He clapped a hand to his throat and backed rapidly away, only to be impaled from behind by a sword held by the tall, dark-haired figure of Mistekka.
“These large bodkins are quite fun,” she called out to Toller, her brown eyes glinting as she casually pushed the dying alien away. “I’m beginning to see why you always carried one.”
“Just don’t get careless!” No sooner had Toller spoken than he heard Steenameert give a bellow of pain. He turned and saw that his friend was surrounded by four Vadavaks who were jabbing at him with their enervators, at least one of which had found its mark.
“Stay on your feet, Baten!” Toller shouted. He threw himself forward, closely followed by Mistekka and the stockier figure of Jerene. They descended on Steenameert’s attackers in a murderous swoop which, again in what seemed the blink of an eye, had a significant effect on the balance of forces. Steenameert had been hit with enervators several times and was sinking to the ground in spite of Arvand’s attempts to hold him up. But when Toller took a broader view he was uplifted to see that the humans were running out of live opponents. Of the original attacking force only two were on their feet in the immediate vicinity, and they were being competently dealt with by Jerene and Mistekka.
Three other Vadavaks, having faced strong and well-armed enemies for the first time, were withdrawing in dismay, fleeing across the plain towards the point where they had materialized. The only other movements among the aliens, Toller noted with an exultant feeling of relief, came from the white-and-crimson carpet of the wounded. It was a tragedy that even one of the Kolcorronians had been lost, but…
“Behind you, Toller!”
Jerene’s warning shriek came too late. Toller heard the sudden movement shockingly close behind him, and realized at once that he had become too complacent, too certain that the diminutive Vadavaks had none of the tenacity of a genuine warrior. Now he felt a curious, unmanning sensation in the calf of his left leg. There was no pain to speak of, and yet he had just received the most serious injury of his life. He looked down and saw that a Kolcorronian sword, almost certainly Tradlo’s, had gone to the bone in his leg. He struck backwards at the wounded Vadavak who had been lying on the ground, feigning death and awaiting his chance to strike. The alien sighed and rolled away to meet the point of Jerene’s sword.
“We must finish the lot of them,” Jerene shouted. “Show no mercy!”
“Keep everybody well away from the machine,” Toller said to her, wondering why Vantara was not more in evidence in her capacity as Jerene’s commander. “It is bound to detonate, or whatever it does, any second now.”
Jerene nodded and signaled for the combatants to move farther away from the box, which was now glowing like fresh snow in the light of the rising sun. “And we had better take a look at that leg of yours.”
“I’ll be…” Toller glanced down at his leg and felt a moment of giddiness as he saw that a grinning red mouth had opened right across the calf. It was spewing blood down his ankle on to the grass, and in its depths he could see the gleam of bone. When he tried to move the leg his foot remained obstinately on the ground.
“That has to be stitched here and now,” Jerene said in a hard and unemotional voice. “Somebody give me a held kit.”
Toller allowed himself to be lowered to the ground beside Steenameert, who was beginning to show signs of regaining consciousness. He felt nauseated, and was glad to surrender all responsibility to another for a period, even when the pain of the stitching began. With his chin resting on folded hands, Toller clenched his teeth and distracted himself from the pain by thinking about the impeller. What would the crucial moment be like? Would they hear great explosions or be blinded by flashes of lightning? And why was the cursed box taking so long to unleash its power?
“Surely more than four minutes have passed since we arrived in this place,” he said to those who had clustered around to watch his leg being repaired. “What say you? Can you see anything happening?”
Steenameert, who was lying with his face towards the sky, startled Toller by answering his question as though he had never been unconscious. “I don’t know about our wonderful white box, Toller—but I think something very strange is happening up there.”
He pointed straight up to the zenith and others followed his example. Toller twisted his upper body around, grunting as he involuntarily disturbed the work being done on his leg, and looked into the center of the sky. The vast disk of Land was divided equally by the terminator, and mounted exactly on the central line was the pulsing yellow star the watchers knew to be the Xa. But changes had taken place since Toller had first looked at it.
The Xa had grown much brighter—it now resembled a miniature sun—and its pulsations had become so rapid that they were almost merging into each other. It came to Toller that he had been so preoccupied with Greturk’s impeller, and the events surrounding it, that he had practically forgotten about that infinitely greater impeller which had spread itself across the weightless zone. The collective attention focused on the distant Xa seemed to throw a telepathic gateway wide open…