Spaceship hulls were not built for structural strength. Impact with one of those jutting rocks would split the ship wide open.
Hans Rebka had returned to maximum lift the moment they were free of the enfolding growths. The Indulgence flew toward the rocky outcrops, straining upward as it went.
Upward, but too slow. Darya watched in terrified fascination. Touch and go. They were heading right for one of the tallest rock columns.
There was a horrible sound of scraping metal and a glancing blow all the way along the bottom of the ship. Then Darya heard a strange noise. It was Louis Nenda. He was laughing.
He released his hold on the inner lock door and walked across to the still-open outer lock, balancing himself easily on the shifting floor. As Darya watched he leaned casually out to look far down at the receding surface, then slammed the lock shut with one heave of a muscular arm.
He came back to where Darya and E.C. Tally were still wedged in the doorway, clutching it — in Darya’s case at least — with the unbreakable grip of pure terror. He lifted them, one in each hand, and set them on their feet.
“You two all right?”
Darya nodded, as a wail of anguish rose from beyond the lock. “I’m all right.” It was the wrong time for it, but she had to ask the question. “You were laughing. What were you laughing at?”
He grinned. “To prove to myself I ain’t dead.” And then he shook his dark mop of hair. “Naw, that’s not the real answer. I was laughin’ at myself. See, when I come down here this time I told Atvar H’sial that I was fed up of gettin’ close to the Zardalu, an’ then comin’ back without any blind thing to show they even existed. It happened on Serenity. It happened last time I was down on Genizee. An’ damned if it didn’t just happen again, though I swore to myself it wouldn’t. I didn’t collect even a tentacle-tip. Unless you wanna go right back down an’ look for keepsakes?”
Darya shivered at the thought. She reached out and put her hand on Nenda’s grimy, battered forearm. “I knew you’d come back to Genizee and save me.”
“Not my idea,” he said gruffly. He looked away, toward the interior of the ship where Dulcimer was still moaning and screaming. “Though it would have been,” he added, so softly that Darya was not sure she heard him correctly, “if I were brighter.”
He eased away from her in Dulcimer’s direction. “I’d better go an’ shut up that Polypheme, before he wakes up everybody on board who’s tryin’ to sleep. You’d think he was the only one anythin’ ever happened to.”
Darya followed him through to the main cabin of the Indulgence, E. C. Tally close behind her. Hans Rebka was sitting at the controls. Dulcimer was a few feet away, rolling around the floor in panic or agony.
“Shut him up, will you?” Rebka said to Louis Nenda. He gave Darya a wink and a grin of pure delight when she moved to stand next to him. “How did you like that takeoff?”
“It was awful.”
“I know. The only thing worse than a takeoff like that is no takeoff at all. My main worry now is the scrape on the hull, but I think we’re fit for space.” He glanced away from Darya to where Nenda and Tally were down on the floor next to the moaning Dulcimer. “You’re not shutting him up, you know — he’s making more noise than ever.”
“He is. An’ I don’t see why, he looks just fine.” Nenda grabbed hold of the Chism Polypheme, who appeared to be trying to form himself into a seamless blubbering sphere of dark green. “Hold still, you great streak of green funk. There’s not a thing wrong with you.”
“Agony,” Dulcimer whimpered. “Oh, the sheer agony.”
“Where do you say you’re hurtin’?”
Five little arms waved in unison, pointing down toward Dulcimer’s tail. Nenda followed the direction, probing down with his hands into the tight-coiled spiral.
“Nothing here,” he muttered. And then he gave a sudden hoot of triumph. “Hold it. You’re right, an’ I’m wrong. Jackpot! Dulcimer, you’re a marvel, bein’ smart enough to grab this with your rear end. Relax, now, I’ve got to pull it off you.”
“No! It’s in my flesh.” Dulcimer gave a whistling scream. “My own flesh. Don’t do that.”
“Already did. All over.” Louis Nenda was bending low at the Polypheme’s tail and chuckling with satisfaction. “Think of it this way, Dulcimer. You got a contract with us that gives you twelve percent of this. An’ not only that, I think mebbe there’s others will give you their share of it, too.”
While Darya stared at him in total confusion, Louis Nenda slowly straightened up. He raised his right hand.
“Look-see. They’re not gonna be able to say we made the whole thing up this time.”
And finally the others could see it. Held firmly between Nenda’s finger and thumb, wriggling furiously and trying to take a bite out of him with its tiny razor-sharp beak, was a pale apricot form: the unmistakable shape of an angry infant Zardalu.
Chapter Twenty-Three
If Hans Rebka had been asked — without giving him time to think about it — how long it was from leaving the Erebus to his return with Darya Lang and the rest, he might have guessed at fifteen to twenty hours. Certainly more than twelve. It was a shock to glance at the ship’s log on the Indulgence as they docked, and learn that less than three hours had passed since they had floated free of the main ship.
Nothing on board the Erebus seemed to have changed. The ship was drifting along in the same high orbit, silent and apparently lifeless. No one greeted them as they emerged from the hold.
Rebka led the way to the bridge. Everyone followed him, not because they were needed there but because they were too drained to think of doing anything else. Dulcimer was the sole exception. The Polypheme went toward the nearest reactor with a single-minded fixity of intention that made him oblivious to everything else.
“Ah, let him have it,” Nenda muttered, seeing Darya’s questioning face. “Look at the color of him. He’ll be good for nothin’ anyway, till he gets a jolt of sun-juice. An’ close that damned reactor door behind you,” he called out to Dulcimer as they went past him.
The two of them had been walking last in the group, Darya drinking from every spigot until she felt like a rolling ball of water. They were both exhausted, drifting along and talking about nothing. Or rather, she was exhausted and Nenda was talking about something, but Darya was too tired to fathom what. He seemed to be trying to lead up to a definite statement, but then always he backed away from it. Finally she patted his arm and said, “Not just now, Louis. I’m too wiped out for hard thinking.”
He grunted his disagreement. “We gotta talk now, Darya. This may be our only chance.”
“Of course it won’t be. We’ll talk later.”
“Can’t do it later. Has to be now. Know what the Cecropians say? ‘Delay is the deadliest form of denial.’ ”
“Never heard of that saying before.” Darya yawned. “Why don’t you just wait and tell me about it tomorrow?” She moved on, vaguely aware that he did not seem pleased with her answer.
Nenda followed, the infant Zardalu tucked under one arm. It was peering around with bright, inquisitive eyes and trying to turn far enough to bite his chest. He sighed, gave the Zardalu a reproving swipe on the head, and increased his pace until he was again side by side with Darya. He put his free arm around her and hugged her shoulders, but he did not speak again on the way to the control room of the Erebus.