“Ask Atvar H’sial why she did not tell her thoughts before, to you or me,” Rebka said.
The blind white head nodded again. Wing cases lifted and lowered as the question was relayed. “Tell what thoughts?” Nenda translated. “Atvar H’sial says that she disdains to encourage anxiety in others, on the basis of such vague and subjective discomforts.”
Rebka knew the feeling. “Tell her that I appreciate her difficulty. And also say that I want to ask Atvar H’sial’s further cooperation.”
“Ask.” The open yellow horns focused on Rebka’s mouth. He had the impression, not for the first time, that the Cecropian understood more than she would admit of human speech. The fact that she saw by echolocation did not rule out the possibility that she could also interpret some of the one-dimensional sonic patterns issued by human vocal cords.
“When World-Keeper returns, I do not want communication to proceed through J’merlia, as it did last time. Ask Atvar H’sial if she will command or persuade him, whatever it takes to get J’merlia out of the way.”
Nenda held up his hand. “I’m tellin’ her, but this one’s from me. You expect At to trust you more than she trusts J’merlia? Why should she?”
“She doesn’t have to. You’ll be there, too. She trusts you, doesn’t she?”
That earned Rebka an odd sideways glance from Nenda’s bloodshot eyes. “Yeah. Sure she does. For most things. Hold on, though, At’s talkin’ again.” He was silent for a moment, nodding at the Cecropian. “At says she’ll do it. But she has another suggestion, too. We’ll go back in, an’ you ask any questions you like of J’merlia. Meanwhile At monitors his response an’ looks for giveaways. I think she’s on to somethin’. It’s real tough to track your own pheromones while you’re talking human. J’merlia won’t find it any easier than I do.”
“Let’s go.” Rebka led the way back into the flare-lit chamber. It might be days before World-Keeper returned — but it might be only minutes, and they needed to find out what they could about the new and strange J’merlia before anything else happened.
There had been one significant change since they left the chamber. J’merlia had moved from his corner to crouch by Kallik. He was speaking rapidly to her in her own language, which Rebka did not understand, and gesturing with four of his limbs. Atvar H’sial was close behind when Rebka walked up to the pair. J’merlia’s eyes swiveled, first to the human, then on to his Cecropian dominatrix.
“J’merlia.” Hans Rebka had been wondering what question might yield the quickest information. He made his decision. “J’merlia, have you been lying to us in any statement that you have made?”
If anything could produce an unplanned outpouring of emotional response, that should do it. Lo’tfians did not lie, especially with a dominatrix present. Any response but a surprised and immediate denial would be shocking.
“I have not.” The words were addressed to Rebka, but the pale-lemon eyes remained fixed on Atvar H’sial. “I have not told lies.”
The words were definite enough. But why was the tone so hesitant? “Then have you concealed anything from us, anything that we perhaps ought to know?”
J’merlia straightened his eight spindly legs and stood rigid. Louis Nenda, on instinct, moved to place himself between the Lo’tfian and the exit to the chamber. But J’merlia did not move in that direction. Instead he held out one claw toward Atvar H’sial and moaned, high in his thin throat.
And then he was off, darting straight at the flaming column in the middle of the room.
The humans and the Cecropian were far too slow. Before they could move an inch J’merlia was halfway to the wide pillar of flaring blue-white. Kallik alone was fast enough to follow. She raced after J’merlia and caught up with him just as he came to the column. As he threw himself at its blazing heart she reached out one wiry arm and grabbed a limb. He kept moving into the roaring pillar. Kallik’s arm was dragged in with him. There was a flash of violet-blue. And then the Hymenopt had leaped backward fifteen meters. She was hissing in pain and shock. Half of one forelimb had been seared off in that momentary indigo flash.
Rebka was shocked, too. Not with concern for Kallik — he knew the Hymenopt’s physical resilience and regeneration power. But for one second, as J’merlia leaped for the bright column, Rebka had thought that the pillar must be part of a Builder transportation system. Now Kallik, nursing her partial limb, banished any such idea. Louis Nenda was already crouched on the ground next to her, helping to cover the cauterized wound with a piece ripped off his own shirt. He was clucking and whistling to Kallik as he worked.
“I shoulda known.” He straightened. “I should’ve realized somethin’ was up when we came back an’ saw J’merlia talkin’ a blue streak. Kallik says he was tellin’ her a whole bunch of twists an’ turns an’ corridors, a route up through the tunnels, an’ he wouldn’t say where he got it. She figures he must have learned it before, when he was with World-Keeper or even earlier. She says she’s all right, she’ll be good as new in a few days — but what now? J’merlia said before he killed himself that World-Keeper wouldn’t be comin’ back here. If that’s right, we’re on our own. So what do we do?”
It was phrased as a question, but Hans Rebka knew Nenda too well to treat it as one. The Karelian might be a crook, but he was as tough and smart as they came. He knew they had no options. There was nothing down here humans could eat. If World-Keeper was not coming back, they had to try for the surface.
“You remember everything that J’merlia said to you?” At Kallik’s nod, Rebka did not hesitate. “Okay. As soon as you can walk, lead the way. We’re going — up.”
Kallik raised herself at once onto her remaining seven legs.
“To the surface,” Nenda said. He laughed. “Zardalu an’ all, eh? Time to get tough.”
Hans Rebka nodded. He fell in behind the Hymenopt as she stood up and started for the exit to the great square room with its flaring funeral pyre. Louis Nenda was behind him. Last of all came Atvar H’sial. Her wing cases drooped, and her proboscis was tucked tight into its chin pleat. She did not speak to Hans Rebka — she could not — but he had the conviction that she was, in her own strange way, mourning the passage of J’merlia, her devoted follower and sometime slave.
Going up, perhaps; but it was not obvious. Kallik led them down, through rooms connected by massive doors that slid closed behind them and sealed with a clunk of finality. Rebka hung back and tried one after Atvar H’sial had scrambled through. He could not budge it. He could not even see the line of the seal. Wherever this route led them, there would be no going back. He hurried after the others. After ten minutes they came to another column of blue plasma, a flow of liquid light that ran vertically away into the darkness. Kallik pointed to it. “We must ride that. Upwards. To its end.”
To whose end? Rebka, remembering J’merlia’s fate, was hesitant. But he felt no radiated heat from the flaming pillar, and Louis Nenda was already moving forward.
“Git away, Kallik,” he muttered. “Somebody else’s turn.”
He fumbled a pen from his pocket, reached out at arm’s length, and extended it carefully to touch the surface of the column. The pen was at once snatched out of his hand. It shot upward, so fast that the eye was not sure what it had seen.
“Lotsa drag,” Nenda said. “Don’t feel hot, though.” This time he touched the blue pillar with his finger, and his whole arm was jerked upward. He pulled his finger back and stuck the tip in his mouth. “ ‘Sall right. Not hot — just a big tug. I’ll tell you one thing, though, it’s all or nothin’. No way you’re gonna ease yourself into that. You’d get pulled in half.”