a damned nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and restore sight.
His vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things.
The balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time, widening his field of view.
And the Jophur ship was gone!
But … where …?
Blade wondered if it might be right below, in his blind spot. That provoked a surging fantasy. He saw himself slashing the balloon and dropping onto the cruiser from above! Landing with a thump, he would scoot along the top until he reached some point of entry. A hatch that could be forced, or a glass window to smash. Once aboard, in close quarters, he’d show them.…
Oh, there it is.
The heroic dream image evaporated like dew when he spied the corvette, diminishing rapidly, heading roughly northwest.
Could it have already finished off the Egg?
Scanning nearer at hand, he spied the great ovoid at last, some distance in the opposite direction. It lay in full view now, a savage burn scarring one flank. The stone glowed along that jagged, half-molten line, casting ocher light across jumbled debris lining the bottom of the Nest. Still, the Egg looked relatively intact.
Why did they leave before finishing the job?
He tracked the corvette by its glimmer of reflected starlight.
Northwest. It’s heading northwest.
Blade tried to think.
That’s where home is. Dolo Village. Tarek Town.
And Biblos, he then realized, hoping he was wrong.
Things might have just gone from bad to worse.
Ewasx
THE THREAT WORKED, MY RINGS! Now our expertise is proven. Our/My worth is vindicated before the CaptainLeader and our fellow crew stacks. As I/we predicted, just as our bomber began slicing at their holy psychic rock, a signal came!
It was the same digital radiance they used last time, to reveal the g’Kek city. Thus, the savages attempt once more to placate us. They will do anything to protect their stone deity.
OBSERVE THE HUMAN CAPTIVES, MY RINGS! ONE OF them — the local male whom we/Asx once knew as Lark Koolhan — quailed and moaned to see the “Egg” under attack, while the other two seemed unaffected. Thus, a controlled experiment showed that I/we were right about the primitives and their religion.
Now the female comforts Lark as our cruiser speeds away from the damaged Egg, toward the signal- emanation point.
What will they offer us, this time? Something as satisfying as the g’Kek town, now frozen with immured samples of hated vermin?
The chief-tactician stack calculates that the sooners will not sacrifice the thing we desire most — the dolphin ship. Not yet. First they will try buying us off with lesser things. Perhaps their fabled archive — a pathetic trove of primitive lore, crudely scribed on plant leaves or some barklike substance. A paltry cache of lies and superstitions that simpletons dare call a library.
You tremor in surprise, O second ring-of-cognition? You did not expect Me to learn of this other thing treasured by the Six Races?
Well be assured, Asx did a thorough job of melting that particular memory. The information did not come from this reforged stack.
Did you honestly believe that our Ewasx stack was the only effort at intelligence gathering ordained by the CaptainLeader? There have been other captives, other interrogations.
It took too long to learn about this pustule of contraband Earthling knowledge — this Biblos—and the exact location remained uncertain. But now we/I speculate. Perhaps Biblos is the thing they hope to bribe us with, exchanging their archive for the “life” of their Holy Egg.
If that is their intent, they will learn.
We will burn the books, but that won’t suffice.
NOTHING WILL SUFFICE.
In the long run, not even the dolphin ship will do. Though it will make a good start.
Blade
NORTHWEST, WHAT TARGET MIGHT ATTRACT THE aliens’ attention that way?
Nearly everything I know or care about, Blade concluded. Dolo Village, Tarek Town, and Biblos.
As pale Torgen rose behind the Rimmer peaks, he watched the slim ship glide on, knowing he would lose sight of it long before the raider arrived at any of those destinations. Blade no longer cared where the contrary winds blew him, so long as he did not have to watch destruction rain down on the places he loved.
A chain of tiny, flickering lights followed the cruiser as scouts stationed on mountain peaks passed reports of its progress. He deciphered a few snatches of GalTwo, and saw they weren’t words, but numbers.
Wonderful. We are good at describing and measuring our downfall.
With combat hormones ebbing, Blade grew more aware of physical discomfort. Nerves throbbed where one of the urrish hooks had ripped away skin plates, exposing fleshy integuments to cold air. Thirst gnawed at him, making Blade wish he were a hardy gray.
The balloon passed beyond the warm updraft and stopped climbing. Soon the descent would resume, sending him spinning toward a landscape of jagged shadows.
Wait a dura.
Blade tried to focus his vision strip, peering at the distant Jophur vessel.
Has it stopped?
Soon he knew it had. The ship was hovering again, casting its search beam to scan the ground below.
Was I wrong? The next target may not be Biblos or Tarek, after all.
But … there’s nothing here! These hills are wilderness. Just a useless tract of boo—
He was staring in perplexity when something happened to the mountain below the floating ship. Reddish flickers erupted, like marsh gas lit by static charges, at the swampy border of a lake. Sparklike ripples seemed to spread amid the dense stands of towering boo.
What are the Jophur doing now? he wondered. What weapon are they using?
The flickers brightened, flaring beneath scores of giant greatboo stems. The ship’s searchlight still roamed, as if bemused to find slender tubes of native vegetation emitting fire from their bottoms … then starting to rise.
The first thunder reached Blade as he realized.
It’s not the Jophur at all! It’s—
The corvette finally showed alarm, starting to back away. Its beam narrowed to a slicing needle, sweeping through one rising column.
An instant later, the entire northwest was alight. Volley after volley of blazing tubes jetted skyward in a roar that shook the night.
Rockets, Blade thought. Those are rockets!
The vast majority missed their apparent target. But accuracy seemed of no concern, so dense was the missile swarm. The retreating corvette could not blast them fast enough before three in a row made glancing blows.
Then a fourth projectile struck head-on. The warhead failed, but sheer momentum crumpled one section of starship hull, tossing it spinning.
