beam had come.
Zurzal was struggling in his hold and for a moment Jofre resisted the Zacathan's fight to free himself. Then he realized that the other was attempting to move away from that exposure into the lee of one of the crumbling stands of weathered block. Jofre aided that with a stout push. Now they were crouched tightly together in the small measure of protection that hollow offered them.
The Holder's flitter took off, seemingly by a straight upward leap, whirled and turned back towards the outer plain. Their own craft was also quickly aloft, heading not after the first ship, but along the range of the heights with now and then the crackle and flash of a blaster beam aimed from it to spatter and slice rocks. There was no sign of any return fire.
Not that that would mean they themselves were in the clear. Jofre, surveying as much as he could see of those rock walls without offering himself as a good target, fully expected an attack from above. And he was not the only one to so judge trouble. Though the flitter which had transported them was hunting aloft, the guards who had been so ready to keep him under control were both still at ground level. Against the light grey of these rocks the dark shade of their uniforms made them visible, though they had taken cover as quickly as he and Zurzal.
He watched Harse twist a little in a crevice between two piles of the ancient masonry and wriggle a tube loose from that fringe of arms he wore at his belt. Sliding back a little so that he could gain all the protection possible from his cover, the Tssekian fitted that rod to the weapon he had already openly in hand, making the barrel near twice as long. Again he plundered his belt arsenal and produced something he cradled in the palm of his hand until he could fit it into the mouth end of that barrel.
Having so prepared, Harse inched forward once more to the very end of his cover and the weapon in his hand moved slowly, pointed well up towards the heights. At length he apparently had it centered to his satisfaction. There was a click sharp enough to be heard even over the crackle of those blasters being fired indiscriminately above.
What he released arose almost lazily, angled inward toward the cliff face. Then it struck and Jofre flung up his arm a little too late to save his eyes entirely from a torturing burst of vivid white light. A second later sound beat at his ears. When he could again see through his watering eyes there was a glowing scar down the rock face; a good portion of wall had simply vanished. Harse sat back, his hand slipping along his weapon almost as if rewarding its action by fondling it as he might a living thing.
The flitter had ceased firing and was now coasting along, quite close to that scarred wall as if those aboard were inspecting the results of the attack. Then it spiraled down towards the level space from which it had earlier arisen.
Could they believe it was all over, Jofre wondered. He absently brushed down his side and then snatched away his fingers. That beam had come close! The fabric of his tunic was blackened, he ripped it a little to look at that line of smarting flesh his earlier touch had awakened into protest. However, save for the burn graze he could see no great harm.
Then his hand was jerked away and Zurzal bent over him, pulling the brittle cloth apart.
'It is nothing,' Jofre said quickly. 'No more than one would get being careless at a campfire.'
'Yessssss—' Not only was the hiss very loud in the Zacathan's speech but his frill was extended to its furthest extent, throbbing an ever-deepening shade of crimson. 'You have served, oath bound.' There was a certain formality in those words and Jofre forced himself not to allow himself any credit. What he had done was only such actions as he had been pledged to. He drew together his slitted tunic.
'Someone wants you dead,' he said slowly. Zurzal had been directly in the line of that first fire.
'Me dead—or that out of commission—' The Zacathan had sense enough not to stand up as a target to any who might still linger above, but he was wriggling toward the scanner.
That was tilted on its tripod; Jofre himself might have pushed it out of place when he had made that jump for Zurzal. On the ground there was a blackened line inches away from the machine. No, Jofre was sure, it was the Zacathan and not his scanner which had been the prime target.
Harse and the other guard were on their feet and walking freely toward them from the flitter.
'Move it—' Harse approached the two by the scanner. 'We go—now!' He jerked a thumb at the scanner and then at Zurzal and Jofre. The latter glanced upward. There was only that new blackened scar on the cliff side and it would seem that these believed the battle—if battle it had been— was now over.
The man with Harse advanced purposefully on the scanner and Zurzal swung out his good arm to ward him off.
'No hands on that—' His now blood-red frill was still up. 'We shall do it.' He beckoned to Jofre.
Together they dismounted the scanner, nor would Zurzal pay any attention to the attempts to make him hurry as he examined it carefully and supervised Jofre's two-handed disassembling of the stand. Only when that was packed away to his satisfaction would he pick up the carrying case of the scanner and start for the flitter by which most of the squad were obviously impatiently waiting.
Jofre was occupied with speculations. The attack, he was sure, was truly meant to take out Zurzal and perhaps the scanner—but first the Zacathan. He was sure that the Tssekians were well aware that only Zurzal could properly set up the machine—or was he wrong there? Did they believe that, after this rehearsal, one of them could do as well? Still he was very sure that that attack from the heights had NOT been part of any plan made by the Holder. Leaders of nations did not use themselves as bait.
Therefore—who— ?
He was chewing on that as they packed into the flitter once more. But this time he had shoved past Harse and taken his place beside the Zacathan. When the Tssekian tried to shoulder him back the Zacathan faced around.
'That is my bodyguard. I am alive right now because of him. No thanks to you and your men here. He rides with me, he stays with me—from now on or I shall not be coming out of my quarters. This I shall make very sure of with your Holder himself!'
Harse scowled but did not seem sure enough to protest and Jofre found himself in the fore of the flitter with Zurzal as they winged back across the plain.
