about in bursts of nigh-solar fierceness. “It’s a killer,” Hebo said. “I think the force-field’s confusing its aim, but it’ll probe till it gets us. The robots can make repairs later.”
Senseless fury speared through Lissa. Would the Forerunners, the Earth people order this?
“Run,” Dzesi snarled. “Scatter. Don’t give it a single sitting target.”
She’s right, Lissa knew, and groped out from under the helicoid. Seeing still better, she dashed for a giant polyhedron. Hide behind it, inside it. But the machine would keep on, though the whole complex be wrecked.
A chant rang wild in her receiver, Dzesi’s voice. It pulled her from herself, brought her to a halt beside the structure. She looked back.
Barely, she glimpsed the dart that spurted from the helicoid. Flame and smoke burst against the flyer. Dzesi had stood her ground, with target-seeking missiles.
The shape lurched in midair. Had the explosion put a dent in the hull? It recovered. New incandescences fountained on the lower coils. Dzesi wasn’t there. She had climbed, bounded, crouched higher on the frame. She fired afresh. Her song went on.
Hebo came from wherever he had gone. “We’ll try for the ship,” he gasped. “Quick!”
“But Dzesi—”
“She’s diverting it, duelling with it. That’s her death-song we hear. Don’t let her die for nothing. We can’t help. Maybe we can tell her Trek.”
Yes, our own weapons are toys, Lissa realized. She ran beside Hebo. Fatigue had dropped away. There was nothing but running.
They left the complex and pelted over rock and sand. The straightest way to
It broke off. Lissa heard a scream. A firebolt had found Dzesi. The hit was not direct, the wound not immediately mortal. A last missile flew. Maybe she had stared right into the lens to dispatch it. She fell off the lattice, down to the black stone. But this burst was straight to the nose. The machine lurched, veered, crashed, and lay still.
And now
When Hebo took off his helmet, she saw that his face streamed with more than sweat.
“Anything else around?” he snapped.
“Not in my detection range,”
“We’ll lift for space right away.”
Lissa’s breath gasped in and out. She felt stifled. “Let’s first shuck these suits,” she stammered. “W-won’t do us much good if, if we take a hit and the hull can’t close.”
“Okay.” They helped one another. When they were free, they again clung together for a moment before they mounted to the control compartment.
As they fell into their chairs, they looked through the view-screen, back toward the complex. From here, they saw none of the harm done, or the fallen killer, or any other sign. “Goodbye, Dzesi,” Hebo said. “Yes, I’ll go myself and tell your Ulas Trek.”
“
No data would be lost either, she thought aside, irrelevantly. The instruments they bore had downloaded everything into each database. So that much that was Dzesi’s would also abide.
Ironbright’s image entered the visiscreen. “You escaped,” she said. “That is well. We could do nothing to help you, in orbit as we are, but now you shall have our protection.”
“We’re leaving,” Hebo replied, equally flat-voiced.
“Of course. The only prudent action.” Even the trans conveyed grimness. “You will rendezvous with us at a thousand kilometers’ altitude. Do not attempt to flee. If it seems you are making a break for hyperjump distance, we will destroy you. You may have the acceleration to dodge one naval missile, but you cannot outrun a barrage.”
Hebo did not smile; he skinned his teeth. “If you insist. We’ll boost and take orbit very slowly. But don’t you come any closer to us than—um-m—fifty klicks. If you do, we will scamper. We may or may not get clear, but either way, you’ll have lost the information you sent us after.”
“Be sensible. You are exhausted, perhaps injured. You need rest, nourishment, care. Your friends are aboard, waiting to welcome you.”
“Ironbright, if it weren’t an insult to a better species, I’d call you a bitch. Our real friend is dead because you forced us to go down. She, nobody and nothing else, bought our two lives for us. The data are our bargaining counter. Why should we trust you any further than we’d trust a spitting cobra?”
The Susaian rested rock-still for a few seconds that hummed. Then: “Your attitude is wrong but comprehensible, when you are overwrought. We will assume orbit at the distance you request, and until then, if you wish, refrain from further communication. I urge that you refresh yourselves and consider the realities. Our duty is to the Dominance and the Great Confederacy. However, I tell you on my nest-honor that we have no desire to harm you.”
Lissa’s mind roused. “If you mean that, don’t you be in a hurry,” she said. “Give us several hours before you approach.”
Hours to think. Time to kiss.
Ironbright rippled assent. “Unless something unforeseen occurs,
“Fair enough.” The best we could hope for, anyhow.
“I shall cease transmission. Leave your receivers open, as we will ours.”
“Of course.” The screen blanked.
Lissa slumped. “You heard,
LII
They could quench their thirst, bathe, don clean clothes, eat a little. They could not sleep. They hardly dared.
However, it became oddly restful to lie weightless, at peace for this while. The planet glowed huge, starkly beauteous. When their vessel swung around the night side with interior lights dimmed, stars crowded darkness, the galactic belt became a river of silver, nebulae glimmered afar, majesty and mystery that went on forever. Music lilted softly in the background, old melodies that Lissa had always loved, the harmonies of home.
Neither dared they drug themselves to any extent; but mild psychotropes helped the body heal the hurts of stress. At last they could speak almost calmly.
“I can’t quite believe the Forerunners, or at least the Earth people—they must be in touch—would suddenly turn so… vicious,” Lissa said.
“I don’t think you have to believe it,” Hebo answered.
She looked at him as she might have looked at salvation. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve had years to turn notions over in my head, and, oh, I don’t claim any real knowledge, but maybe I’ve gotten a sort of feel for the business. Experience seems to bear my hunches out. You’re right, a high civilization won’t be aggressive or quick on the trigger. It wouldn’t have lasted if it were. And it doesn’t need to be.
“But it isn’t God. It can’t foresee and provide against everything.”
No, she thought, this is too big and strange a universe. There was an odd comfort in that. Her own kind belonged here too. The same ultimate freedom was theirs.
“Whether the Forerunners originally planned to install a guardian, or Earth suggested it and helped program it, we know it was benign,” Hebo went on. “If necessary, it might have disabled our drives as well as our hyperwave sets, but then I bet you it would’ve sent a message to our planets to come and get us. Ironbright, though, blasted
