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Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors CHAPTER NINE
Hands pulled urgently at Rianav and she groaned. An ache encompassed her whole body.
“Lemmalone.”
“Not when I have no choice but to retrieve you,” a familiar voice said. Hands now reached under her armpits, lifting her strangely unresisting body out of the pilot’s seat. “You’re in one piece. Just relax, Lieutenant.”
“Easy there, now,” another voice called, its tone of command undiminished by distance.
“You’re lighter than I’d thought,” the familiar voice murmured.
Rianav forced her eyes open and gasped. Blood seemed to be dripping from her face. The arms that lifted her were heavily corded. She started to struggle.
“Don’t,” Aygar ordered impatiently. “I’m under surveillance and I’ve no wish to be stunned again. You have nothing to fear from me. Or mine.” His tone was bitter, but as he eased her from the damaged cockpit, his hands did not abuse his advantage.
“Cut the chatter,” the other voice ordered. The voice came from below her. She couldn’t make out her surroundings. “Just lift her out. Nice and easy. Medic!”
“I’ll carry her down.” Aygar has lost none of his arrogance, she thought. She relaxed as she felt him descending a steep and uneven way.
Despite blurred vision, partly due to the blood which streamed down her nose, Rianav looked about her as Aygar scrambled down a rocky incline. The sled had crumpled, nose first, into the side of a cliff and wedged in. Another sturdy young man was extracting Portegin’s limp body from his side of the wrecked vehicle. On a much wider shelf about fifteen meters below were a pinnace and a cluster of uniformed personnel, some with drawn stunners, watching the rescue operation.
Blinking to clear her eyes, Rianav looked beyond, to the vast plateau now inhabited by the immense squat bulk of a colony transport ship and the long sleekly dangerous form of a medium deep-space cruiser. As Rianav made out the designation, 218-ZD-43 on the stern fins, she experienced an unreasonable spurt of pure panic and clutched at Aygar’s shoulders.
“I told you. I won’t harm you. That bunch is just wailing for a chance to blast us out of existence.” Aygar’s bitterness was intense.
“Your transport shot us down.”
“You and your phony rescue mission. All the time your cruiser was tracking the transport!”
Rianav flinched from his anger, aware of contradictory, nonsensical and conflicting emotions.
But the next moment Aygar had reached the ledge and she was removed from his arms. She started to protest as she saw him pushed to one side by armed personnel. Then a medic was busy checking the pupils of her eyes and someone else applied an antiseptic pack to her bleeding forehead. She felt a spray go in one arm, a powerful restorative to judge by the flood of energy that surged through her body.
“You’ll do,” the medic muttered and stepped back, signaling his assistant to help Rianav clean the worst of the blood from her skin. The Iretan flies were buzzing in a cloud, attracted by the smell of blood.
“Lieutenant Rianav,” and she turned to look at the officer who now confronted her. His race was totally unfamiliar to her. Even medium-size cruisers were not so huge that officers could remain unknown to one another. His expression was compounded of many elements: anticipation, curiosity, and a tinge of awe. “Commander Sassinak is waiting for your personal report.”
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Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors To gain a moment to collect herself, Rianav looked over to where Portegin was being examined.
“Is he all right?”
“He’ll have a worse headache than you will, Lieutenant,” the medic replied cheerfully then pointed to the long gash across Portegin’s forehead. “Only a flesh wound. Here, you, let’s get him out of this stinking air and away from those blood-sucking insects.”
Aygar and his friend were summarily encouraged to lift Portegin and bring him into the pinnace.
“We used those two local lads to reach you,” the officer was saying in an apologetic tone as he escorted Rianav to the pinnace. “They said,” and he gave a skeptical snort, “they were on their way to rescue you anyhow.” He dropped his voice to a confidential tone as they entered the little ship.