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Acorna asked.
"Lets harry a few to their deaths," Gill said, and altered course once more,
bearing down on a covey of them.
"We're down to laser fire," Cal said.
"Misbegotten son of a syphilitic camel driver," Rafik said, and swore on. "If
you'd listened to Pal in the first place, we'd've been able to go for one of
the mother ships instead of having to go after the small fry."
"Let's fight them," Gill said, "not each other. Ah, got one."
Which he did, but the small ships seem to explode into even smaller divisions.
"How long can they keep separating?" Gill complained in exasperation.
Fighters from the battle cruisers and the pinnaces, which had survived against
incredible odds, began shooting the new lots like so many swallows in a
seasonal pilgrimage. However, the swallows had barbs in their tails, and one
after another the three pinnaces following their primary targets were hit.
"Sowing space mines?" Gill asked rhetorically. Some pods had escaped each of
the pinnaces. "We better get as many survivors as we can."
The brilliantly colored Linyaari ship and the Uhura had had much the same idea
and collected the pods, which attached themselves to their rescuers' hulls
with tractor beams. But that meant the loss of any high-speed maneuvering
capabilities for the rescuers.
"Let's get this lot back to the Haven," Gill said, pointing to the bulk of the
Starfarer ship just visible at the edge of Rushima's primary moon. The small
one that rushed around in orbit beyond the bigger one wouldn't have hidden a
Khieevi parasite.
By the time the AcaSeckl, the Uhuru, and the Linyaari had brought the pods
safely back to the Haven, Captain Andreziana had received orders from
Ikwaskwan to come out of hiding and get the last three ovoid mother ships. The
other six had been accounted for and were destroyed.
"All Khieevi are now on the planet, or about to land. We can move in now -with
kinetic energy weapons and smash them," Ikwaskwan said, his voice vibrant with
triumph. "Pick on our clients, will you, you parasitical, piratical, putrefied
parcels of puking pus-filled perverts. You won't be back in this part of space
again, I can tell you! We'll pick you off like nits from a nanny."
Rafik listened to Ikwaskwan's harangue with the air of one master of the art
of invective listening to another.
"But there are now so many of them down there," Acorna said.
"Thousands." Ikwaskwan grinned. "It could be expensive . . . lucky our clients
are rich."
The Haven, with them on the hangar deck, moved out from behind the moon and,
one by one, turned her big lasers on the ovoid stems that were attempting to
find refuge behind the moon from the dreadnoughts and battle cruisers chasing
them.
Amid the cheers as the last mother ship blew up, Markel said with great
satisfaction and in anticipation of what was to come next-
"Well, it's up to Dr. Hoa now, isn't it?"
He became the center of everyone's attention.
"Well, isn't it?" he asked in a slightly speculative tone.
"Look," Ed Minkus said patiently for perhaps the twentieth time, "we aren't
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the invaders you were warned about. There are aliens-real aliens-heading for
Rushima. And they're nasty bastards. They'll torture and kill every last one
of you and turn this planet into a wasteland. We were sent to get you
off-planet before the fighting starts. We're the good guys, damn it! "Sure,"
One-One said. "Sure you are. That's why you was wreckin' my cabin. You all
seen the damage they done, didn't you, fellers?"
There was a general murmur of agreement, broken only by one dissenting voice
that said he personally had seen One-One do worse than that to the bar at
Grip's Crossing more than once.
One-One frowned the dissenter down. "Caught 'em in the act, din't I? And you
ain't never seen me toss me own good stock of furs in the mud, have you,
Quashie?"
Over the hours while Des and Ed had been held prisoner, there had been a
steady trickle of other settlers who'd remained behind, coming in twos and
threes in response to a message put out by One-One on some incredibly
primitive homemade broadcasting device that seemed to operate on quartz
crystals, wire coils, and curses. The gist of his message seemed to be that
the bastards who'd messed over Rushima's weather had finally made the mistake
of coming down to mess them all over in person; he'd caught two that they
could use for hostages or execute depending on how things went, and everybody
within range should come to his cabin as soon as they could get there, and
bring their weapons.
The motley crowd that now filled the cabin inspired Ed with no very sanguine
hopes as to his and Des's future. There were too many of them, and the cabin's
tiny windows let in too little light, for him to see them all clearly, but he
was nist as glad of that. The faint light from the windows showed lean,
weary-looking men and a few women, dressed in limp rags or stiff, awkwardly
tanned leather. Their skin and clothes were crusted with engrained grime,
their eyes glittered with the dangerous light of people who'd been pushed too
far and isolated too long, and, collectively, they stank of old sweat and
stale liquor. And the weapons they had collected inspired him with no more
confidence. There were a few fairly up-to-date laser pulsers and blasters, but
more common were edged weapons that looked to have been improvised out of
farming equipment and whatever could be found for handles-sharp blades, things
with rows of pointed hooks, a kitchen cleaver. There were even a few ancient
projectile -weapons that looked as if they belonged in a museum.
"Individualists" was in Ed's private opinion an overly polite name for the
Rushimese who'd chosen to settle the backcountry and stay there in the threat
of an invasion by overwhelming forces. Several more appropriate terms came to
his mind, including, "nuts," "wackos," and "psychotic bastards." But he was
careful, considering his company, to keep those opinions strictly private. One
of the first arrivals had been carrying a long rope with which he bound Des
and Ed together, seated back-to-back on the floor. He'd cut off the unused
length of rope and coiled it again. Whenever the settlers discussed what to do
with their prisoners, this man's lean, grimy fingers began stroking the coil
of rope, and Ed watched it with horrified fascination.
From One-One's broadcast and subsequent conversations, Ed and Des had learned
how the land and huts they'd overflown had come to be in such poor condition
and why the settlers were so hostile to strangers now. They'd likely have been
received with suspicion even if they hadn't been caught wrecking the cabin in
search of valuables to loot. Ed had to admit that little fact did rob their
story of some credibility ... but damn it, he was actually telling the truth,
and it was in these people's interest to listen to him; they'd all be in deep
kimchee if they didn't untie him and Des and let them take them off-planet.
Ed kept trying to convince them of that, though with less and less hope of
doing it as the hours wore on. The changing quality of the dim light warned
him that much precious time had already passed . . . how much he didn't know;
One-One had relieved him and Des of their chronometers and other equipment as
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soon as someone showed up to hold the blaster on them -while he patted them
down for weapons.
Des was unable to join in the argument for their lives, having exploded in
such bursts of fury and blasphemy when first tied up that One-One had told the
man with the rope to gag him. All Des could do now was rock back and forth and
breathe stertorously through his nose to express his fury and indignation. Ed
decided to make one more try at convincing -with the colonists.
"Look," he said reasonably, "I can understand why you wouldn't trust us on our
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