Carialle dropped her airlock door, intending to trap the pirate inside. Bisman saw the lights activate, and scowled, but he didn't stop running. He raised the energy weapon again, and shot the controls, freezing the doors. She struggled to find another servo that could pull down the door, but the mechanism reacted too slowly. He was able to roll underneath the door. He ran out and down the ramp and out across the field with deliberate, long, heavy steps that ate up the distance. Their rhythm suddenly matched with something Carialle would never, never forget.
"Keff!" she cried. "It's him. It's his footsteps!"
Keff scrambled out from his hiding place. "Whose?"
"Bisman!" Carialle said, opening all screens to show the pirate leader running across to his own ship. "He was the one, the one who walked on me."
"You're sure?" Keff demanded.
"I couldn't forget it as long as I live. Keff, stop him!" Carialle said desperately. "We have to get him back here. He's the one. He can clear my record, Keff. He can't get away."
Keff dashed for the airlock. He waited impatiently until Carialle had raised it high enough for him to scramble underneath, then dashed down the ramp after Bisman. "Do something about Thunderstorm, for pity's sake," he shouted.
Carialle tried to pull herself together. For once in her life she wished she could go about on two feet, or four, or wings! That man must not get away from her. He held the answers she had been seeking for twenty years. It meant the vindication of her sanity.
But her life was not in danger, and Thunderstorm's was. She pulled herself together and located the nearest transmission tower. With a broad-band sweep, she broke into the thousands and thousands of "phone calls" going on across Thelerie.
"Attention," she said, through the shell of the IT program, wishing that it was up to fluent medical Thelerie. "There is an emergency medical situation on the Melange's plain. Will any healer in the area please come at once?" Hubbub erupted on the open lines as thousands of Thelerie broke into speech all at once, wanting to know more. She repeated her message, shut down the transmission and returned her attention to the inside of her cabin.
"And thus is mass communication born," she said, ironically.
"His heart beats," Big Voice said. He sat on the Thelerie's left, his globe in two pieces behind him. "I know not what else to do, but I can keep that doing."
"I am making him breathe," Small Spot said, clasping one of the Thelerie's claw hands in his own. "Come, friend. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Am I doing too fast?"
"I don't think so," Carialle said. "He's in pain. I wish I could tell you what nerves to deaden, or what drugs to use, but I don't dare interfere. We might cause permanent damage."
"Don't touch him," Sunset cried, trying to scatter the amphibioids away from his mentor's body. He ran at them, flailing his wings. The Cridi gently pushed him back, mildly using Core power. The wound was serious, but it didn't go all the way through the Thelerie's body, for which Carialle was grateful.
It didn't take long for her message to have an effect. On her screen, Carialle saw a very large Thelerie with a pouch around its neck sail over the plain. Carialle flashed her running lights to attract the griffin's attention. The creature changed direction on a wingtip and landed on the ramp. It galloped on all fours up into the ship.
"I was called," it said. "I heal! How to help?" It saw Thunderstorm and hurried toward him, with concerned horn calls. It spilled herbs, vials, and tools out of its pouch onto the deck, and went to work.
Another Thelerie, and another, appeared behind the first. "I, too! I, too! I am called. I will help!"
"Help is here," Big Voice said, leaning close to Thunderstorm's face. "I told you we did not want your life."
Thunderstorm fluttered his eyelids and wingtips feebly, acknowledging the irony of his old enemies working to save him from the wounds of his allies.
Keff ran, keeping his knees up with an effort. His feet grew more caked with mud at every step. The previous night's rain had made the field a mire. Tall Eyebrow had sailed ahead in his globe, then realized Keff wasn't keeping up with him. He and Big Eyes swept back and pulled him out of the mud with a mighty pop! Keff checked to make sure he hadn't left his boots behind, then turned all his attention forward.
The red ship fired slugs and energy beams at the approaching human and his companions. With a single sweep of his fingers, Narrow Leg created a barrier of Core power between them. The missiles ricocheted all over the landscape. A gout of mud kicked up with a bang! almost right in Keff's face. Hot steam hissed where the energy bolts sizzled into the mud. Keff hoped fervently that Big Voice and the others were protecting Carialle from attack.
Ahead of them, Bisman reached the ramp, and hurtled up it in a few long strides. The heavy metal door began to slide downward.
"They close the hatch!" Narrow Leg signed, meters ahead of Keff. "What to do?"
"Hold it open! Hold the ship," Keff shouted in Cridi at the top of his lungs. The ammoniated air made him hoarse. "Don't let them launch. Carialle needs them alive, awake!"
"We understand," Gap Tooth and Wide Foot signed. They stretched out their skinny arms as best they could in the confines of the plastic bubbles. The rising ramp halted in mid-arc, and jerked hard a few times. The airlock hatch, manipulated by Long Hand, reversed direction and began to inch upward.
"Good," Keff said, urging his small force forward. "Cari, we have them!"
"Get him," Carialle said, speaking so rapidly he had to listen closely to understand. "You have to bring him to me. He's my proof for Maxwell-Corey. That bastard must listen. This is the man. He will talk. He must talk. It wasn't aliens; it was a human being, one who should have known better. He knew a brain pillar when he saw one! He must have known!"
"Almost there, Cari," Keff said, willing her to hang on. Only a few hundred meters to go to the red ship. He heard the screech of tortured servos fighting against the pull of Core power. The ramp had opened almost all the way. He heard shouting from inside the ship, saw men and women in shipsuits fighting to lower the airlock doors by hand.
Suddenly, he and the Cridi were all swept straight through the air into the side of the pirate ship. Keff slammed face first into the hull and slid, dazed, down to the ground. The travel globes split apart, leaving the Cridi dry, gasping, and shocked in the hot, ammonia-laden air. There was no doubt about it: the pirates had the third Core in their ship, and they knew how to use it.
More Thelerie healers, landing on the plain in answer to Carialle's call, swooped in and helped pick the small aliens out of the mud. Two hovering griffins lifted Keff free of the ship's side, and set him on his feet.
"It burns, it burns!" Gap Tooth shrieked, batting at her skin with her hands. "The air is hot!"
The Thelerie, though they understood the small beings were distressed, couldn't understand the language. They fluttered around uncertainly. The Cridi had to help themselves. Tall Eyebrow, with Big Eyes swept up in his arms, cried out to the others. "Pick up globes, purify air!"
Narrow Leg, recovering his wits in a flash, started clapping travel globes together around his crew with waves of his fingerstalls. In a moment, all the Cridi were rallying.
"Are you all right?" Keff wheezed. His ribs were sore and bruised, and one of his eyes felt as if it was swelling shut.