The rustles in the underbrush had grown closer as they approached the beach, but now Ruiz heard nothing. He tried to gather his thoughts. How could he get past Gejas and aboard the waiting transport? How could he ensure that the transport took them where they needed to go? How could he prevent Gejas from pursuing them when the Roderigans arrived?
He breathed deeply, trying to suck inspiration from the air. It proved as dry of ideas as his own brain.
He leaned his hip against a square of broken paving stone that jutted from the sand. He noticed that it was loose and not too large to be lifted.
Abruptly, a plan suggested itself to Ruiz. He went over the idea, and quickly detected a dozen ways it could end in disaster. However, surely the same would be true of any plan he could devise. He should probably consider himself lucky to have hatched any scheme, however farfetched.
He glanced up at Nisa. Could he rely on her to keep silent if he startled her? He couldn’t explain his plan in advance. Gejas surely watched and listened — in fact Ruiz’s plan depended on it.
He probably should have gagged her before they had left the cave. He sighed. Hindsight was always so clear, and so useless.
Nisa faced away from him, still watching the beach. He snapped the rotten rope that bound him. He took the stone in both hands and rose up, lifting the stone high. He brought it down in a vicious arc that just brushed the back of her helmet, managing in the same motion to snap his left shin across the backs of her knees so that she collapsed as if from the force of the descending stone.
As she fell into the deep grass, he waited for her to cry out. But she didn’t, she didn’t — and his heart gave a hopeful leap. He raised the stone high again and smashed it down into the sand beside her head. He crouched over her, hidden by the grass.
She turned over and looked at him, and he was glad he couldn’t see her face. He held an admonitory finger before his mouth before he remembered that the equivalent Pharaohan gesture put the finger under the chin.
She nodded slowly, and he smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. Then he slithered as silently as possible into a slight depression a few meters away.
He waited.
Gejas tried not to look at the screen that showed The Yellowleaf and the slayer, but occasionally he felt the compulsion to glance that way.
Eventually The Yellowleaf and her prisoner stood on the last ridge above the beach. When he looked again, they had both disappeared.
He swore and cued the playback mechanism.
For a long breathless moment he found himself frozen in horror. He watched the crazy slayer jump up, he watched the huge chunk of stone descend, he watched The Yellowleaf fall bonelessly into the long grass.
The terrible stone rose above the grass, fell again.
And then, nothing.
Gejas clawed at his communicator, keyed the channel of the guard he’d detailed to flank The Yellowleaf’s return. “Herin, The Yellowleaf’s been attacked by her prisoner. She’s down. Go to her aid, kill the offworld slayer if you can get a clear shot — but above all, take no risks with The Yellowleaf’s safety. Be very careful — the slayer is dangerous.”
The remaining guards ran up. “Irsunt,” Gejas barked. “Man the weapons arch — but hold your fire, unless I’m killed. Then burn them all. Call the sub right now, and let them know what’s happened.”
The guard set down his ruptor and started warming up the heavy weapons.
Gejas was delayed for precious seconds, looking for a medical limpet. Finally he found one and stuffed it in his jacket. He took the guard’s ruptor, slung it across his back, and started running toward the ridge. If The Yellowleaf was seriously hurt… his vengeance would be monumental. He couldn’t yet consider the possibility that she was dead.
Someone crashed through the bushes toward them. Ruiz rose to a half-crouch and waited, wireblade in hand.
The guard was no more than a glimmer in the starlight, his mirrorsuit making him almost invisible — but his progress was so noisy that Ruiz had no trouble finding him.
Just before the guard reached him, Ruiz felt a disorienting intensity of perception. The night air was chill on his suddenly sweaty skin; he heard the movement of the guard and the sound of Gejas’s approaching feet, thudding on the sand. The dry clean scent of the beach grass filled his nostrils. The tautness of his muscles, the readiness, the focus — all these seemed for that instant to return him to a comfortable reality he had almost forgotten.
All kill-thrilled, he thought in disgust. A sudden bleakness washed over him. Never mind. Never mind.
He forced himself to leave thought behind. He leaped as the guard passed, knocking the man off his feet and into the concealing grass.
The man writhed under him and attempted to bring his weapon to bear, but Ruiz once again moved in the illusion of invincibility that had served him so well over so many years. He smothered the man’s struggles and punched the wireblade through the tough fabric of the mirrorsuit, up into the man’s vulnerable throat.
Ruiz twisted the blade and the man died. Blood ran smoking over his hand and he felt an unexpected weakness.
His energy sagged away, but only for a moment. Gejas was much closer, though the rhythm of his footsteps had moderated to a more cautious tempo. Ruiz pried the guard’s weapon loose from the clenched hands and crawled back to Nisa’s side.
There he examined the weapon, and discovered to his disappointment that it was a splinter gun, deadly at short range, relatively useless at over fifty meters.
And he could no longer hear Gejas. Either the tongue was moving more carefully, or he had deduced his mistake in sending the guard against Ruiz and was waiting just out of range.
Ruiz ground his teeth together. What now?
As gejas ran, it occurred to him that he had been very stupid. The slayer had bested The Yellowleaf, after all. What chance would an ordinary guard, unarmored and unaugmented, have? He had probably just armed the slayer with the guard’s weapon.
He crouched on the sand and used his communicator again. “Herin,” he barked. There was no answer. Gejas groaned and ran on.
He took cover behind one of the huge boulders that edged the top of the beach, gripping the ruptor in sweat-slick hands. What should he do? If he went blundering up to the ridge, the slayer would surely chop him down. But The Yellowleaf might be badly hurt; he must get the limpet to her before it was too late.
Fifteen seconds passed before his fear for The Yellow-leaf grew too great to contain. “Ruiz Aw!” he shouted in a voice hoarse with hate and apprehension. “Speak to me, Ruiz Aw.”
Chapter 13
Ruiz heard Gejas with a certain relief; at least the tongue wasn’t sneaking up behind him. Nisa turned her masked face toward him. He shook his head and made another shushing gesture. He examined his alternatives, found them discouragingly few. He sighed and made ready. He rolled closer to Nisa and disengaged the latches on her helmet, creating a gap between helmet and seal just wide enough to admit the muzzle of the splinter gun.
“You’re dying, but you’re not dead yet; maybe your tongue still values your stringy carcass,” Ruiz said roughly. He hoped that Nisa would understand without any more explicit hint, and that Gejas, if he was still listening, would be further alarmed.
He shifted the transceiver from his boot to the back of Nisa’s helmet, where he could use it without being seen by the tongue.
“Let’s get up,” he said, lifting her, his arm around her waist. As they rose above the grass, he jammed the splinter gun into the opening in her armor and swiveled her so that she shielded Ruiz from the tongue.