my daughter?'
She shook her head. 'It hurts if anything touches me, and my back
and shoulders are the worst. I've had men see me naked lots.
Usually I've had a couple, though, or a pinch of rust. Rust makes it
easy.' She turned to Auk. 'My name's Chenille, Bucko. I'm one of
the girls from Orchid's.'
Auk nodded, not knowing what to say, and at length said, 'I'm
Auk. Real pleased, Chenille.'
That was the last thing he could remember. He was lying face down
on a cold, damp surface, aware of pervasive pain and soft footsteps
hastening to inaudibility. He rolled onto his back and sat up, then
discovered that blood from his nose was dribbling down his chin.
'Here, trooper.' The voice was unfamiliar, metallic and harshly
resonant. 'Use this.'
A wad of whitish cloth was pressed into his hand; he held it
gingerly to his face. 'Thanks.'
From some distance, a woman called, 'Is that you?'
'Jugs?'
The tunnel was almost pitch dark to his left, a rectangle of black
relieved by a single remote fleck of green. To his right, something
was on fire--a shed or a big wagon, as well as he could judge.
The unfamiliar voice asked, 'Can you stand up, trooper?'
Still pressing the cloth to his face, Auk shook his head.
There was someone nearer the burning structure, whatever it
was: a short stocky figure with one arm in a sling. Others, men with
dark and strangely variegated skins... Auk blinked and looked
again.
They were soldiers, chems that he had sometimes seen in parades.
Here they lay dead, their weapons beside them, eerily lit by the
flames.
A small figure in black materialized from the gloom and gave him
a toothy grin. '_I_ had sped you to the _gods_, my son. I see _they_
sent you back.'
Through the cloth, Auk managed to say, 'I don't remember
meeting any,' then recalled that he had, that Scylla had been their
companion for the better part of two days, and that she had not
been in the least as he had imagined her. He risked removing the
cloth. 'Come here, Patera. Have a seat. I got to have a word with you.'
'Gladly. _I_ must speak with _you_, as well.' The little augur lowered
himself to the shiprock floor. Auk could see the white gleam of his teeth.
'Was that really Scylla?'
'_You_ know better than _I_, my son.'
Auk nodded slowly. His head ached, and the pain made it
difficult to think. 'Yeah1 only I don't know. Was it her, or just a
devil pretending?'
Incus hesitated, grinning more toothily than ever. 'This is rather
difficult to explain.'
'I'll listen.' Auk groped his waistband for his needler; it was still in
place.
'My son, if a devil were to _personate_ a goddess, it would become
that goddess, in a way.'
Auk raised an eyebrow.
'Or that _god_. Pas, let us say, or _Hierax_. It would run a grave risk
of merging into the total god. Or so the science of _theodaimony_
teaches us.'
'That's abram.' His knife was still in his boot as well, his hanger at
his side.
'Such are the _facts_, my son.' Incus cleared his throat impressively.
'That is to say, the facts as far as they can be expressed in purely
_human_ terms. It's there averred that devils do not often dare to
personate the gods for _that very reason_, while the immortal gods, for
their part, _never_ stoop to personating devils.'
'Hoinbuss,' Auk said. The man with the injured arm was circling
the fire. Changing the subject, Auk asked, 'That's our talus, ain't it?
The soldiers got it?'
The unfamiliar voice said, 'That's right, we got it.'
Auk turned. There was a soldier squatting behind him.
'I'm Auk,' Auk said; he had reintroduced himself to Chenille with
the same words, he remembered, before whatever had happened
had happened. He offered his hand.
'Corporal Hammerstone, Auk.' The soldier's grip stopped just
short of breaking bones.
'Pleased.' Auk tried to stand, and would have fallen if Hammerstone
had not caught him. 'Guess I'm still not right.'
'I'm a little rocky myself, trooper.'
'Dace and _that young woman_ have been after me to have
Corporal Hammerstdne carry you, my son. I've _resisted_ their
importunities for his sake. He would _gladly_ do it if I asked. He and I
are the _best of friends_.'
'More than friends,' Hammerstone told Auk; there was no hint of
humor in his voice. 'More than brothers.'
'He would do _anything_ for me. I'm tempted to _demonstrate_ that,
though I refrain. I prefer you to think about it for a while, always
with some element of _doubt_. Perhaps I'm teasing you, merely
_blustering_. What do you think?'
Auk shook his head. 'What I think don't matter.
'Exactly. Because you _thought_ that you could throw me from that
filthy little boat with _impunity_. That I'd _drown_, and you would be
well rid of me. We see _now_, don't we, how _misconceived_ that was.
You have fodeited any right to have your opinions heard with the
_slightest_ respect.'
Chenille strode out of the darkness carrying a long weapon with a
cylindrical magazine. 'Can you walk now, Hackum? We've been
waiting for you.'
From his perch on the barrel, Oreb added, 'All right?'
'Pretty soon,' Auk told them. 'What's that you got?'
'A launcher gun.' Chenille grounded it. 'This is what did for our
talus, or that's what we think. Stony showed me how to shoot it.
