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the tent without getting it soaked inside as well as out.
She dragged Maorgan inside, stripped and wiped him dry, wrapped him in a
blanket, then went hunting for Danor.
* * *
The first chorek was a burly man, short, a greasy beard covering most of his
face, his clothes filthy enough to stand on their own if he d ever taken them
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off. He was also very dead, a black dart in the center of one bulging eye.
She found Danor sprawled beside the last dead chorek, the darter clutched in
his good hand.  Gods!
What am I going to do with you?
He didn t answer, being too busy dying ..
Working carefully so she wouldn t dislodge the filthy, sodden bandage, she got
him draped over one shoulder, powered herself onto her feet, and staggered
back to the tent.
With the two unconscious men wrapped in blankets, their wounds
coated with antiseptic and bandaged with sterile pads from her medkit, she
stripped off her saturated clothing, hung it over branch stubs, hauled the
rest of the packs inside the tent, set up a throway heat pac and hung a glow
bulb from one of the tent poles. Aching with weariness, the crease on
her shoul-der sorer than a rotten tooth despite the plasskin she d
sprayed on it, the pain from the crease on her head beyond description, she
swallowed a painpill from her personal pharmacopoeia, pulled the last
blanket about her, and sat a moment gathering strength before she even
tried to think of what else she should do.
The rain pounded down on the canvas, a soothing steady beat, the heat eddied
from the throway, seeping into her muscles and bones. Sitting up was too much
trou-ble, she shifted position, shifted again, curled up beside Maorgan,
closed burning eyes for just a moment ....
4
Marrin Ola jumped, caught the leather ball as it flew out of bounds, sent it
looping back to Glois and the others playing on the bare patch of ground out
beyond the blai.
He squatted outside the line drawn in the dirt and watched the game progress
with flurries of activity as the ball was kicked and butted from end to end of
the field, flying a few times through vertical loops barely wide enough to let
it pass through, watched shouting arguments between the two sides, two Fior
boys bracing nose to nose, chest to chest until Utelel teased them out of
their fury, watched a couple of players go stalking off when they were called
on fouls.
He muttered a few field notes into the Ridaar re-mote, but didn t bother with
a detailed description.
It was a game so typical of prepubescent youngsters in dozens of the cultures
he d studied that he could
have recited the rules without even asking the boys. Be-sides, that wasn t
what he was here for.
As the game broke up, he beckoned to Glois and Utelel.
They came over and squatted in front of him, smeared with dust and sweat,
scruffy and grinning.
 Back home on Picabral when I was your age, my cousins and me, we knew
everything that was happen-ing round home. I figure you two re about the
same.
Utelel pursed his wide mouth, opened his eyes wide and managed to look as
innocent as the yellow flower dropping over one ear.
Glois turned wary.  Maybe so, he said.  Why?
 Because there s a problem. Our problem, not yours, but we could
use some help. The other mes-uchs, you know, the ones on Melitoëh, they re
proba-bly going to send spies to kill us. He sighed as he saw the two pairs
of eyes start to sparkle with excite-ment. Aslan wasn t going to like this,
but he wasn t going to tell her unless he had to.  This isn t a game, Glois,
Utelel. I m talking to you because I
think you re smart enough to understand that
Glois tongue flicked across his upper lip, he turned to Utelel. The boy and
the Meloach looked at each other for a moment, then Glois turned to Marrin.
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 You want to know if there s strangers hanging about, asking questions,
right?
 Maybe not just strangers. Anyone acting different than they usually act. You
know what I mean?
 Uh-huh. You think maybe somebody been bought?
 That s the trouble with this kind of thing. You never know. Marrin scooped
up a small smooth stone from among those at the edge of field and sent it
slamming against the goal post. It hit with a thunk, bounded off.  Don t you
go doing anything you wouldn t ordinarily, huh? He found another pebble and
sent it after the first.  Otherwise you could warn  em we re watching. You
know what I mean?
 Uh-huh. But nobody much looks at kids. Unless they should be in school and
aren t.
Marrin snorted as he saw hopeful faces turned to him.  You start skipping
school and I ll haul you back myself should I see you round. He got to his
feet.  Seriously, you two. You watch it, huh?
He walked off wondering if he d just cut the throat of his own career. If
those kids got hurt and it came out he d recruited them ....
As he went back to mapping the Dumel and count-ing the population, he eased
his conscience with mem-ories of his own turbulent youth, the things he d
managed to survive until he finally got offworld.
9. Incursions
1
Kurz landed the flikit on an island in the middle of one of the Marishes and
started unloading his gear beside the spring of clear, clean water that welled
up between the high-kneed roots of a tree, smiling as he thought about the
meltdown in the software of the Yaraka satellites that made his security
possible.
Clotheads too dumb to suck tit.
He worked quickly and silently; the faster he got the flikit out of here, the
safer he d be. Too bad it was only the longcoms gone down. Yark security not
connected with sat tech was still running and the fur-heads were a sneaky lot.
Chav satellites had located this fleck of dry sand in the middle of one of
the seacoast Marishes.
Though the islet wasn t all that far from a knot of shacks used by a band of
choreks that made a habit of attacking travelers on the road that passed close
to the edge of the Marish, the satwatch reported they never visited it. The
others in the Marish also avoided the place, the swampies who lived in the
heart of the wetlands in widely scattered hutches, none of them less than a
day s walk apart. They tended to make constellations, not settlements. If one
could have a collection of hermits, this might be the way they organized
themselves.
He knew there had to be a reason for this careful avoidance, but the satwatch
hadn t discovered anything in the three weeks before this no large preda-tors,
no wash-over with flood water, not even any insect swarms. Whatever it was, he
trusted himself to deal with it. He d met and defeated hairier
things be-fore this. No chichin-haunted islet was going to get him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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