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The guard -- a man about Kuril's age -
- 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.
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"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 file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Hegira.txt (55 of
77) [5/21/03 12:35:57 AM]
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Hegira.txt 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
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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." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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