there, and so she did not hesitate, leaning through the crumpled frame into what was left of the compartment. The windscreen, which should have formed a quarter-sphere above the twin pilot stations, was bowed inward, almost on top of the twisted chairs. The heavy safety glass was crazed to transluscence, but had not shattered: a very minor mercy, Heikki thought. There were marks of fire along the forward walls, and smears of yellowing foam from the automatic extinguishers that had put it out. Probably short circuits in the consoles, she thought, automatically adjusting the camera to capture as much information as possible. There might be bits of bodies in the crumpled metal, but nothing larger, and she did not look too closely.
“Heikki.” Nkosi’s voice sounded in her earpiece, and she turned away from the burn-marked metal.
“Yes, Jock?”
“The orcs are moving back toward the clearing. I thought you would want to know.”
That was an understatement, Heikki thought. “Are the sonics having any effect?”
“They are still on the fringe of the effective zone,” Nkosi answered, “but I would say not. They are still coming toward us.”
“How long?” Heikki asked.
Nkosi’s voice was carefully casual. “Unless they slow down considerably, they will be here in about half an hour.”
“You waited a while before letting us know,” Heikki said, and could almost hear the pilot’s shrug as he answered.
“I did not see any point in worrying you before it was necessary. And I thought you should have as much time as possible in the wreck.”
“Right,” Heikki said, grimly, and turned back to the technical compartment. “You heard that?” she began, and Djuro nodded.
“We heard.”
“I think the orcs probably got the bodies,” Alexieva said, her face pale but composed. Sebasten-Januarias was nowhere in sight. Still back in the cargo section, Heikki thought. I hope.
“They can tolerate a certain amount of human flesh in their diet,” Alexieva went on, staring at the shoe that still lay against the forward bulkhead, “and they seem to like the taste. It’s happened before, a breeding group using a wreck site as a secondary food source. They’ll be sorry later, though, the young generally have problems on a long-term diet.”
She was talking to stave off the horrors, Heikki knew, but there was no time for that now. “We’ve got twenty minutes,” she said, riding over the other woman’s words. “We need to find the crystal matrix—or be sure it’s not on board.” She lifted her voice to carry to the cargo bay. “Jan, found anything?”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Sebasten-Januarias leaned into the hatchway. “I think you should see this.” His voice was tightly controlled. Oh, God, more bodies, Heikki thought, and followed him back into the bay.
Sebasten-Januarias had levered aside half a dozen of the distorted floor plates, stood now on the edge of the opening, the beam from his handlight playing on something in the wreckage below. Heikki glanced at Djuro, and saw the same mix of fear and disgust in his expression.
“What’ve you got?” she said aloud, keeping her voice deliberately neutral, and undipped her own light from her belt. Sebasten-Januarias did not answer, and she stepped up beside him, training her own light on the hole. Light flared back at her, glittering as though from a hundred, a thousand tiny mirrors. She blinked, dazzled, and then realized what she was seeing. Someone— and who else could it have been but the hijackers?—had smashed everything in sight, everything moveable, and swept the fragments into the lower hull on top of the distillery. She swept her light slowly across the glinting field, picking out bits that might have been part of the instrumentation, something that might have been a tape player, something that gleamed white as picked bone…. She swallowed hard, and swung the light away again.
“Sten, get your camera over here, too,” she said flatly, and trained her own machine on the field of debris. “Jan, Alexieva, I need more light.”
The others obeyed without speaking, and for a long moment there was no sound in the compartment except the faint whisper of the cameras. “Full reel, Heikki,” Djuro said at last, and Heikki glanced at her own indicator in some surprise. Ten seconds of disk left, she thought, and kept the machine going until the very end. She lowered the camera then, just as Sebasten-Januarias said, “Heikki, shouldn’t we, I don’t know, bring some of it back—?
Heikki shook her head. “There’s no time,” she said, and tried to speak gently.
“We’ll be back,” Djuro said, “probably lift the whole thing out, right, Heikki?”
“Probably,” Heikki agreed, and glanced at her lens. Almost in the same instant, Nkosi’s voice said in her ears, “Heikki, you had best come back right now.”
“On our way,” Heikki answered, and collected the others with a glance. “You heard the man. Let’s move.”
The clearing seemed deceptively peaceful, empty except for the jumper at the far end, its rotos beating steadily against the breeze. Alexieva threw back her head, unslinging the blast-rifle she had been carrying across her shoulders; as if in answer, a sound like a throaty cough sounded from beyond the trees to their left.
“They’re circling around the sonics,” the surveyor said, quite calmly now. “Go on, I’ll cover you.”
“Right,” Heikki said, and waved the others forward. She drew her own blaster and started after them, checking the charge as she moved. Alexieva backed after her, the blast-rifle levelled. They had covered perhaps two-thirds of the distance to the jumper when there was a movement in the trees to the left.
“Damnation,” Alexieva said, quite distinctly, and fired twice. The short bursts kicked up smoke and dirt at the forest edge—she had fired quite deliberately into the ground, Heikki thought, with a sort of remote surprise.
“Keep moving,” Alexieva called, and the first of the orcs edged out into the open. It was deceptively thin- limbed, a gangling biped, covered in mottled grey-green fur only a little lighter than the trees around it. It didn’t look very impressive, Heikki thought, lifting her own blaster, and then the creature coughed again, baring enormous yellow tusks. Alexieva fired again, still into the ground, but the orc hesitated only for an instant before slipping sideways past the little plume of smoke. It moved very fast, limbs blurring. Heikki fired twice, and missed both times. A second orc appeared, and then a third, fanning out to try and get between the humans and their ship. More shapes moved behind them, slipping between the trees. Alexieva took careful aim then, and fired twice more. The leading orc dropped. The survivors shrieked, enraged, and then the nearer of the two dropped to all fours beside the corpse, sniffing at the body.
Alexieva let out a sigh of relief. “Let’s go,” she said, not taking her eyes off the orcs. The second survivor was sniffing at the corpse now; with a snarl, the first cuffed it away and began to feed.
Heikki lowered her blaster, and sprinted for the hatch, Alexieva at her heels. Djuro hauled them both into the jumper, and dogged the hatch behind them. “Get us out of here, Jock,” he ordered, and Heikki echoed him, “Yeah, do it.”
The engines whined up to lifting pitch, the sound rising a little more quickly than usual. Heikki, starting to struggle to her feet, felt the jumper lurch into the air, and sank back onto the padded floor plates until Nkosi had stabilized the craft. The jumper shot upward, tipped at a slight sideways angle, and did not steady until they were well above the forest canopy.
“Is everything all right down there?” Nkosi said, after a moment.
“Just fine, Jock,” Heikki said, rather sourly, and Alexieva said, “I’m all right.”
“Good,” Nkosi answered. Heikki sighed, only too aware that she was shaking, and was glad to accept Djuro’s hand to help her to her feet.
“Back to Lowlands, Jock,” she said, and was too tired to care if the others heard the revulsion in her voice. “Take us home.”
CHAPTER 6
The flight back to Lowlands seemed interminable despite the fact that this time they took the most direct route. Heikki did her best to concentrate on the numbing task of editing the cameras’ data into a preliminary
