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- was pale and noticeably reluctant to stay in the building with him. Again they spoke in
Mediwevan, but for a few moments Bar-Woten and Barthel conversed in Arbuck, which Kiril understood
only slightly.
Then they left, and Barthel was quiet.
The day seemed unbearably long. Survey crews climbed Barometer and continued their measuring,
but Kiril wasn't among them. He stood by the landing strip waiting for the plane to arrive,
knowing it came this time to take Bar-Woten to his trial. He waited until dusk, walking to the
food shed and mess tent after sunset to eat, then to the beach to listen to the swift surge of the
river heading seaward.
The airplane didn't arrive by late evening, and the landing field, without lights as yet, was
closed. Kiril went to his cabin to try for a few hours of sleep.
He didn't have a chance. He was caught between slumber and nervous alertness when Barthel
called from outside the tent. The other sleepers grumbled, and one sat up in the murky light of
the pole lamp rubbing his eyes. Kiril motioned for him to go back to sleep and held his fingers to
his lips. Then he swung out of the cot, automatically picked up the clothes he had packed earlier,
and left the tent.
A flaring gas flame provided a guttering illumination across the end of the camp, exaggerating
the shadows and emphasizing the frequent gusts of wind. The night was dark and without bright fire
doves. Barthel stood next to a barrel covered by a wire screen. Someone else was behind him,
shadowy and indistinct, but Kiril knew who it was. "How did he get out?"
"Never mind that," Bar-Woten said from the darkness. Barthel took Kiril's arm and pulled him
along.
They crossed the tarmac. Rocky and molten terrain began several hundred meters north of the
camp. Bar-Woten told them they would follow the beach for a while, then duck into the stony maze
if they were pursued.
"I thought there weren't supposed to be night landings," Barthel said. He stopped in the dark,
squinting eastward at die pair of red lights racing low over the water. "They can't land on the
runway. No lights."
"That's not an airplane," Kiril said. "It might be a helicopter. It's flying too low and too
slow to be an -- "
Bar-Woten grabbed both of them by the arms. "Quickly!" he said. "Into the rocks."
"Why?" Kiril asked, resisting the rush. "No one's after us."
"Trust a soldier's instincts for once! Into the rocks."
They broke into a run. Engines roared from the east. Bright lights split the camp into
scattered spots of day. Barthel stumbled on a rock and split his knee open. Limping and gasping,
he held up his hands, and they lifted him to cover behind the rocks. Kiril peered over a split
boulder. The base camp was alive with running, shouting people.
"What's going on?" he asked wonderingly.
"They're being attacked," Bar-Woten said.
"Nobody's shooting -- "
Gouts of flame billowed from the main tents. A vivid red arrow of light swept the camp.
Everything it touched flared incandescent.
"They're ships," Bar-Woten said. "But they're going faster than the hydrofoils -- they're
flying above the water!"
At least five of the craft skimmed up the beach, each shooting lethal red beams into the camp.
The ships resembled broad scrub brushes scouring the water. They danced on wide fringes of rubber
and threw plumes of spray behind them. Each was fifty or sixty meters long, rounded and
streamlined. They didn't slow as they approached the beach.
Bar-Woten examined the Khemite's leg by matchlight. He tore a strip from the bottom of his
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shirt and tied a bandage. "It's only a cut," he said. "Hold your leg out straight."
"What are they doing up there? I can't see anything." Barthel gritted his teeth.
"They're killing everybody."
"Who? With what?"
"I don't know. Just be glad you're here."
"They're coming up on the beach!" Kiril said. "They can go anywhere!"
"What are they shooting with?" Barthel asked.
"I don't know," Bar-Woten said. "Keep still."
"We have to leave, or they'll kill us too!" The Khemite groaned in pain.
"We're well hidden."
"They'll come after us," Kiril agreed. "God, I can't stand it!" he held his hands up to his
ears. "It's slaughter!" He crouched to jump down from the ledge.
Something blinding flashed over them. His hair caught fire, and for an instant, amazed, he
stood like a torch. Bar-Woten reached up and pulled him off the rock, smothering his head in a
coat. When he removed the coat, the Mediwevan was unconscious. His scalp hadn't been burned, but
the smell of his singed hair added to the sickening smoke drifting across the rocks. Barthel's
glancing eyes picked up stray gleams in the orange half-light. He struggled up from Bar-Woten's
grip to look across the airfield. "Holy Allah!" he said, ducking down quickly. He grimaced as his
knee flexed.
"Keep the leg straight!" Bar-Woten commanded.
"We can't stay here. We have to go farther away, or they'll kill us."
"You speak without thinking -- " The Ibisian pulled his head in like a turtle as another beam
flashed above them. "They've got the wrath of Samhain at work out there. They'll scythe us if we
stick our heads up. Best to stay here for a moment."
There were fewer screams now. Scattered shots punctuated the crackle and hiss of burning. The
engines of the craft throttled and hummed. Kiril came to and reached for his scalp. He brushed his
hair vigorously with his fingers. They came away smudged. "Am I burned?" he asked.
"Not badly. You're lucky, young friend," Bar-Woten said. His face was fixed into a death's-
head smile. Barthel leaned back in the shadow of the ledge and muttered prayers with his hands
clasped. Kiril wondered why he wasn't praying himself. Mediweva's provincial God didn't seem to
have any jurisdiction here. He brushed the singed hairs from his head.
"What are we going to do?"
"Wait," Bar-Woten said. He stood up and put his knees on the ledge, barely raising his head
over the rim of the rock. "There are men leaving the ships. They're carrying weapons -- guns, I
think. Some of the camp people are surrendering. They aren't shooting."
"Taking prisoners?" Barthel asked.
"It would seem so." He ducked back. "We'll lie low and creep around these rocks as fast as we
can. Nobody is close."
"Who are they?" Kiril asked.
The Ibisian shrugged. "The rivals are here. Do you think a bone as big as an Obelisk wouldn't
draw every jackal in the area? The real story's barely begun now."
"Allah was good to us, having you arrested," Barthel said. "There is a reason for everything."
Bar-Woten grunted. "Let's go."
"Morning in an hour or so," Kiril said as they crawled over the rough, pebbly ground between
the bigger boulders. "We should be pretty far from here by then."
An ear-pounding whumpf broke the quiet behind them. Bar-Woten stood up and saw the Trident's
fragments riding a flower of smoke and fire. Bits of blazing wood fell on the beach, forcing ranks
of prisoners to break and run. "It's the ship," he said. "I don't think the new ones did it,
though."
"Did what?"
"She's gone."
They continued to crawl. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]