She played her part beautifully, hanging from his arm as if barely conscious, unable to hold herself up — though actually she was supporting a good bit of her own weight.
“What would” you like to talk about, Gejas?” Ruiz shouted in a cheerful brassy voice.
“Look!” said Corean, gazing into the screen, full of amazed delight. “He’s somehow captured the hetman. What a dire creature he is! See, his luck assists us now. Surely whatever treachery they planned for us has been disrupted.”
Marmo seemed skeptical, though he watched with almost as much interest as she did. “Perhaps,” he said. “Though things aren’t always what they seem.”
Gejas felt an ambiguous exultation — The Yellowleaf lived. But how could he free her from the mad slayer? It was clear Ruiz Aw was capable of anything.
To gain time, he shouted, “You don’t know what you’re doing. If you release The Yellowleaf and throw down your weapons, I can promise you an easy death. If not, you’ll live in Hell forever. Once a year, on the High Day, we’ll take you out and let you scream, as a lesson to those who would obstruct Roderigo.”
The madman laughed, a trembling breathless sound. “You paint a vivid picture, tongue. But I’ve got my own ticket to oblivion, right here in my hand. After I turn the hetman’s head to slush, I’ll do the same for myself.”
“We’ll torment your clones, then!”
“You do that, tongue! I’d expect no less from Roderigo. But I’m a man without imagination, so the thought holds no terror for me.”
Gejas felt the truth of it. He bit his lip. “What will you accept in exchange for The Yellowleaf’s life?”
“I don’t know that you possess anything I want more than her death,” said the slayer cheerfully.
“There must be something!” Gejas shrieked, panic clouding his vision.
A silence ensued. Gejas couldn’t really see the madman’s expression in the darkness of the ridge, but he sensed that the man was considering, and hope flared.
“Well,” said Ruiz Aw. “I’d still like to bid Sook farewell — though the idea seems no more than a dim fantasy…. Let’s see. I seem to hold the whip hand. So, cast away your ruptor.”
“How can I do that? You’d just kill me,” Gejas responded.
“No! Tell your man at the weapons arch to blow us all to bits, if I do that.”
Gejas considered. Somewhere there was a flaw in the plan — perhaps the madman just wanted to be sure he could kill both hetman and tongue. But what other choice did he have? He could almost feel the madman’s anger, a black pressure pulsing in the night. At any instant, he might decide to finish murdering The Yellowleaf, or she might succumb to the injuries he had already inflicted on her.
“All right,” Gejas said. “Give me a moment.” He bent over his communicator. “Irsunt. The Yellowleaf has been taken hostage, and I must disarm myself to get close to her. Before I can attempt her rescue. Direct all your weapons at the crazy slayer. If he attacks me, destroy him instantly. If he removes his weapon from The Yellowleaf’s neck, pinbeam him instantly.”
Then he stood up and moved away from his cover behind the boulder.
“Throw the ruptor away,” said his opponent. Now Ruiz Aw sounded just a little less mad, a little colder. More in control.
Gejas took the ruptor by the barrel and smashed the mechanism across the boulder before he cast it out upon the sand.
“Now what?” he asked, folding his hands on top of his head. He half-expected to be cut in half. “What do we do next?”
Ruiz was pleasantly surprised when the tongue stepped into the clear and destroyed his ruptor. Probably the tongue had other weapons hidden about him, but the Roderigan seemed remarkably biddable. Perhaps Ruiz had underestimated the tongue’s loyalty to his hetman.
He sighed. He counted the guards at the weapons arch; all of the remaining Roderigans were there, apparently trusting to the armament of the arch and the cover of the landwalkers.
Now he came to the part of his plan where he must rely on a little luck — though surely it was reasonable to assume that anyone who dealt with Roderigo would be untrusting, would come to the meeting armed to the teeth. He must hope so, and hope that the transport was indeed not Roderigan. He keyed in his transceiver code and waited for the transport to answer.
The transceiver burped, and the thin sexless voice emerged. “Yes? Shall we send an autoboat to the beach now?”
“No,” whispered Ruiz Aw. “No, the Roderigans plan a betrayal. They boast of how their fleet will be augmented by your craft, and their stockyards by your crew. If you wish to thwart them, I’ve arranged that their weapons currently bear inland. Destroy the arch, now!”
As he spoke, he shoved Nisa ahead of him, down the path toward the waiting tongue.
Corean leaned over her screens, concentration furrowing her brow. “What do you think, Marmo?”
The cyborg watched Ruiz Aw march the captured hetman toward the beach. “I don’t know. The arch is focused inland; that much is true. But I still fear his luck — and his guile.”
“Yes,” said Corean slowly. “But do you not also fear Roderigo’s treachery?”
The old pirate sighed and turned away. “Of course, of course. Treachery is only another name for Roderigo, and from the beginning of this mad adventure I warned they would never deal fairly with you.”
“Then I suppose we must do as he bids us.” Corean felt a sense of dislocation at that unpalatable thought. It seemed so strange, so uncanny, that Ruiz Aw had again found a way to compel her.
But she unlocked her fire control board and armed her weapons.
“Let’s go up,” she said.
Out on the sea, the light had strengthened enough that Ruiz saw the boil of white foam when the submarine broke the surface.
It was still too dark to see the vessel clearly, but there was some disturbing familiarity to its ominous shape — though it was not the Roderigan sub that had put them ashore on Dorn.
He had time only for a flash of uneasiness before the submarine’s big grasers fired.
Gejas whipped his head around, mouth dropping open. He stood frozen as the weapons arch and the remaining guards were consumed in orange glare. Ruiz wrenched the splinter gun out of the crack between Nisa’s helmet and collar.
For a crucial instant the front sight caught on the collar and the gun refused to come free.
Gejas recovered and dove for the cover of the big boulder, just as Ruiz finally cleared his weapon and snapped off a burst. The spinning wires struck sparks from the boulder and flung the Roderigan’s legs backward, but Ruiz couldn’t be sure he had wounded the tongue seriously, and now Gejas was hidden behind the boulder.
Ruiz pushed Nisa flat and hid behind her armored body; Gejas might have another weapon ready.
He felt a deep sense of regret. He had probably failed to kill the tongue. How could he have been so inept?
He listened. He could hear nothing but the crackle of flames and the groan of tortured metal.
Indecision plagued him. Should he go after the tongue? Or should he wait for the man’s wounds to weaken him? Apparently the transport was not Roderigan, but could he now trust them to do their part? Might they not think it safer to burn all the witnesses? They had breached their contract with Roderigo, a very dangerous thing. He risked a peek above the beach grass. The three surviving prisoners still huddled by the water’s edge, apparently unharmed — perhaps a good sign.
He reached up and refastened Nisa’s helmet as best he could, so that she would have whatever protection it still offered. “Listen,” he whispered. “We have to act soon, before the Roderigans send reinforcements. But I’m not sure I got Gejas.”