HELLO, MY RINGS. Report now and prepare for urgent movement. Clearly we have experienced — and survived — an episode of the Drawback.
The what?
Truly, you do not know, My rings? You have no experience of the chief disadvantage of the Oailie gift?
Certain weapons exist which can render us Jophur insensate for a time, forcing us to rely on robotic protection for the duration of that brief incapacity.
What incapacity? you ask.
I/we look around. We are no longer near the CaptainLeader, but stand instead at the main control panel, our tendrils wrapped around the piloting wheels.
WHAT ARE WE DOING?
I command the tendrils to draw back, and they obey. Viewscreens show a blur of high-speed motion as the Polkjhy races across a landscape of jagged, twisty canyons, unlike anything our memory tracks recall from the Slope. Inertial indicators show us racing east, ever farther from the sea. Away from the prey.
Other stacks are beginning to stir, as their master rings rouse from the Drawback. Hurriedly, I send our basal torus in motion, taking us away from the pilot station. We scurry around behind the CaptainLeader, who is just now rousing from torpor.
In all likelihood others will assume that our sophisticated robotic guardians — programmed to serve/protect during a Drawback interlude — had good reason to send Polkjhy careening in this unfavorable direction. Feigning innocence, I/we watch as the pilot stacks resume control, arresting this headlong flight, preparing to regain altitude once more.
MY RINGS, WHAT WAS YOUR AIM? WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH WHILE YOUR MASTER TORUS WAS INCAPACITATED? TO SEND US CRASHING INTO A MOUNTAIN, PERHAPS?
The robots would not have allowed that. But diverting the course of Polkjhy—that was in your power, no?
I perceive we are not finished learning the arts of cooperation.
Gillian
THRILLING AS IT WAS TO BE MOVING AGAIN, GILLIAN knew this wasn’t the same old Streaker. It ran sluggishly for a snark-class survey ship. The nearby landmass receded with disheartening slowness compared with the rabbitlike agility she used to show. Suessi’s motors weren’t at fault. It was the damned carbon-carbon coating, sealing Streaker’ s hull under countless tons of dead weight, clogging the probability flanges and gravitics radiators, costing valuable time to gain orbital momentum. Minutes of vulnerability.
Gillian glanced at the swarm display. A scatter of bright dots showed at least twenty decoys out of the water, with a dozen more now rising from their ancient graves, screaming joy — or agony — over this unwonted mass resurrection. Groups of bait ships speared away in different directions, disbanding according to preset plans, though empty of life.
All empty, except one.
Gillian thought of the human girl, Rety, self-exiled aboard one of those glimmering lights. Would it have been better to break into her hijacked ship? Or try to seize control of the computer, reprogramming it to bring Rety ashore?
The Niss didn’t think either effort would succeed in the slim time allowed. Anyway, Alvin and Huck had convinced Gillian not to try.
“We know what you Earthlings are trying to do with this breakout attempt,” the young g’Kek had said.
“And yet you volunteered to come?”
“Why not? We risked the Midden in a hollow tree trunk. All sooners know life is something you just borrow for a while. Each person must choose how to spend it.
“All our families and all our septs depend on your venture, Dr. Baskin. This Rety person selected her destiny. Let her follow it.”
As Streaker gradually accelerated, Gillian turned to the dolphin in charge of psi-ops. “Let me know when you get anything at all from the observer,” she ordered.
“No sssignal yet-t,” the fin answered. “It’sss well past due, if you ask me.”
“No one asked,” Gillian snapped.
Without wanting to, she glanced at the Jijoan mathematician, Sara Koolhan, whose brother took off in a hot- air balloon, knowing that if the gale did not get him, the Jophur probably would. Sara floated in a swarm of bubbles, watching intently. But behind the visor of her breathing helmet, Gillian saw a single soft tear, running down the young woman’s cheek.
Gillian did not need more guilt. She tried hard to think pragmatically.
I just wish the boy hadn’t died for nothing. We’re going to have to decide…
She checked the swarm monitors.
… in moments.…
Dwer
THE DAZZLING BLAST JOLTED HIS REWQ, CAUSING IT to retreat, almost comatose. But the creature served its purpose, saving Dwer’s eyes. Except for a few purple spots, vision soon returned almost to normal.
There’ll be a shock wave, he thought. After the abuse of last night and morning, he wondered if the balloon would survive another shaking.
Dwer readied his hammer over the row of crystals, each jammed into the wicker gondola. He peered east, trying to figure out which message to send.
All the decoy balloons were gone — no surprise there.
But dammit, where’s the Jophur ship?
Dwer could not act without data, so he held on and rode out the explosion’s booming echo when it came rolling by, flattening the serrated grass of the Venom Plain.
The balloon survived. Solid urrish workmanship. Picking up binoculars, he sought again for the Jophur, scanning the horizon.
Could it have been blown up by the aerial mine? Gillian Baskin had thought the prospect nearly impossible. No weapon in Streaker’s arsenal could pierce the defense of such a dreadnought, even with the element of surprise. But it might be possible to inconvenience the enemy for a crucial time.
Finally, he made out the distant glint. In fact, the ship seemed to be receding! He had the illusion that it was heading toward the rising sun.
Dwer hesitated over the message crystals. There were only four. None of the prearranged codes took in this possibility … that the foe would flee the scene. Not upward toward space, or west back to the Midden, or even standing still, but away from any chance to spy the Earthling ship!
If I don’t send anything, they’ll think I’m dead.
He thought of Sara, and was tempted to smash all the crystals, just to reassure her.
But then they might make a wrong decision, and she might die instead of me. Because of me.
By now, squadrons of salvaged decoy spaceships would be heading out beyond Jijo’s atmosphere, spiraling toward orbit and beyond. Gillian Baskin had to decide which group to go with. Dwer’s signal was supposed to help.
Frustration locked him in a rigor of indecision. Raising the binoculars once more, he found the Jophur ship again, a bare pinpoint near the horizon.
Then he noticed something.
The distant dot … it had stopped receding. Instead, it seemed to hover beyond a range of craggy highlands.
The Gray Hills, Dwer realized. If only I can give the right signal, I’ll be able to start descending in time to land where I want!
The glittering pinpoint hesitated, then began to move again. Dwer soon confirmed — it was growing larger. The Jophur were heading back this way!
