sacrifice a few of them for the future of this world? They play right into the hands of the off worlders there's a conspiracy between them to oppress us-Winter — the people who want to make this world a free partner hi the Hegemony. And they've succeeded, for a millennium! Do you want them to go on succeeding, forever? Isn't it time we had our turn?'
'Yes! But—'
'But nothing. Offworlders, Summers — what have they ever done for you, either of them, but betray you, abandon you?' She watched the words work in the dark corners of his soul that she had probed so thoroughly.
'Nothing.' His mouth was like a knife slash. 'You're right ... they deserve it, for what they've — done.' His hands closed over his belt, like claws sinking into flesh. 'But how can you arrange a thing like that, without the Blues finding it out?'
'The Source will handle it. He's arranged other accidents of fate for me; even one that happened to the last Commander of Police.' She watched Starbuck's eyes widen. 'This is on a somewhat larger scale; but then, for the possession of your take from this final Hunt, I'm sure he'll see that the task is done efficiently. He's an honorable man, after his fashion.'
'But it'll have to happen before the final ships go. Won't the Blues still try—'
'With the Prime Minister here, and the Gate closing? They'll run; they'll leave us in chaos, thinking that without them we'll end up in the sea anyway. I know them ... I've studied them for a century and a half.'
He let his resistance out in a sigh. 'You know them better than they know themselves.'
'I know everyone that way.' She rose from her chair, letting his arms come around her at last. 'Even you.'
'Especially me.' He breathed the words against her ear, kissing her neck, her throat. 'Arienrhod ... you have my body; I'd give you my soul if you'd take it.'
She touched a button on the desk, opening a door into a more appropriate room. Thinking, with sorrow, I already have, my love.
Chapter 26
'Got warm bodies registering down there someplace, Inspector.' The pilot, TierPardee, roused from his usual truculent silence with rare animation. 'Looks right for humans. Along that rift to the left; there's bush for cover.'
'Using any power?' Gundhalinu stuck the Old Empire novel into a pocket of his heavy coat, leaned forward in his seat, the patrol craft shoulder harness pressing the side of his throat. At last, some action ... He peered out through the windshield, scanning with inadequate human eyes for a trace of what their all-seeing equipment saw. They had been tracking this party of thieves for a day and a half after the raid on the star port The trail had been muddled at the start, but it had been steadily getting fresher. The list of things missing included a crate containing a portable heavy-duty beamer that belonged to the police; he wondered how in hell they had managed to get access to that. The nomads were not usually well armed, which was why their raids depended on stealth and avoided confrontation. But they were as pitiless and unsubtle as the stark black-and-white land that sheltered them, and they had killed almost casually the handful of off worlders who had gotten in their way. He meant to make sure this acquisition didn't change their method of operation.
He glanced down at the readout on the panel again, to make his own assessment, as TierPardee sang out, 'Yes, sir! We've finally nailed 'em, Inspector, they've got snow skimmers down there.' TierPardee laughed gleefully. 'I'll take us in low and scare the piss out of them; ought to be no trouble picking the Mother lovers off after that, right, sir?'
Gundhalinu opened his mouth to make a skeptical response just as his eyes found the next readout, just as it suddenly glared red-red warning — 'Get us the hell out of here now!'
He reached across TierPardee's amazed and sluggish body, jerked the control bar back and around into a steeply climbing turn. He felt the bar tremble and fight his control. 'Come on ...'
'Inspector, what the—' TierPardee never finished it, as the hidden bolt of directed energy caught them from below and punched them out of the sky.
Gundhalinu had a brief, whorled image of black-white-blue photo printed indelibly on his brain; giddy free fall spun him like a lottery wheel before the craft's stabilizers reintegrated and stopped their nightmare tumbling. But not their fall — they were dead hi the air, dropping down like a stone through a soundless dive that would end with them dead on the ground. His hand stretched instinctively to press the restart button; he pushed it again and again, his numbed brain acknowledging at last the reason why there was no response: the beamer had slagged the shielding on the power unit, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing — TierPardee sat gaping like a plastic dummy, making a sound that at first he mistook for laughter. The sky disappeared, he saw the rumpled cloud- surface of the snow and the jutting black fangs of the naked cliff leap up to meet them...
They hit the snow before they hit the cliff, and that was all that saved them. The snow plowed up in a cushion of blinding white, absorbing the impact that still threw him forward so hard his helmet warped the pliant windshield.
For a long time he lay without moving, doubled over in the embrace of the harness; listening to bells, unable to focus his eyes or even make a sound. Knowing that there was something important he must say, must warn — but it wouldn't take form in his mouth or even his mind. The cabin felt hot to him, which struck him as strange because they were buried hi snow. Buried. Buried. Dead and? He shut his eyes. Something stank. His eyes hurt... The air. The air was going bad, smelled like buried — like burning.
His eyes watered; he opened them again. Burning insulation. That was it. The avalanche of snow was slushing, slipping down outside the windows. 'Pardee. Overload. Gedoud.' The words ware unintelligible even to him. He shook TierPardee, but the patrolman's eyes stayed shut, and he hung forward across the straps unmoving. Gundhalinu struggled with his own harness latch, finally set himself free. He tried the door; it was still blocked shut by snow. He beat against it with his fist, uselessly, while every blow fed back through his bones into his throbbing head. At last he wedged himself sideways and shoved with his feet, threw all his returning strength and his fear into it. The door began to give, a centimeter at a time, until at last it sprang upward on its own, half dumping him out into the snow.
He landed on his knees in a puddle of slush, shocked by the sudden assault on his aching body of painful heat and cold. He pulled himself up the side of the craft, forcing his rubber legs to lock and support him, separating the sinister heat of the power unit going critical from the icy embrace of the wind. He had to get TierPardee out and as far away as he could before the patroller turned into a star.
He leaned into the cabin; but something caught his collar, jerked him away and back into the snow again. Not bells, this time, but the ugly music of human laughter echoing off the cliff face; ugly, because he knew it was directed at him. He rolled over, pushed up onto his knees to face his tormenters — saw with no surprise at all the white parkas and leggings, half a dozen pale, amorphous faces half obscured by slitted wooden goggles, like the bulging eyes of a family of insectoids. But these were human, all right — nomadic Winter pfalla herders turned thieves by opportunity, who had shed their bright, traditional clothing for the antiseptic camouflage of arctic commandos. A blow on the back ended his assessment as he sprawled forward into the snow; he felt someone roll him onto his side and deftly disarm him. There was a whoop of triumph as the bearded male held his stunner up like a prize.
Gundhalinu sat up, wiping snow from his face, forgetting the indignity of his position in the urgency of his need. 'That's going to blow — !' He pointed, not sure how much they would understand. 'Help me get him out of there; there's not much time!' He climbed to his feet, relieved at the murmur of consternation that ran through the group. He started back toward the patrol craft but another of the nomads had gotten there first, and straightened holding TierPardee's gun, grinning satisfaction. 'He's good for nothing, that one — this's all I found. It's too hot in there; forget about it.' The roving muzzle of the stunner suddenly targeted Gundhalinu's chest. 'Zap, you're paralyzed, Blue!' A high-pitched adolescent giggle escaped from the muffled figure.
Gundhalinu stopped, looking past the teenager and the filamented muzzle of the gun. 'He's not dead, he's hurt! He's alive; we've got to get him out of there—' His breath rose up white in his face.
