BROTHERS OF EARTH. C. J. Cherryh

They went quickly and carefully now, ready for ambush at any turn. Kurt privately feared a mine, but that was something he did not tell them; they had no other way.

The door at the top of the stairs was closed, as Kurt had known it must be. With Ben to steady the gun, he blasted the wood to cinders, etching the outline of the stone arch on the wall across the hall. The weapon started to gather power again, beginning that sinister whine, and Kurt let it, dangerous as it was to move it when charged. It had to be ready.

They entered the hall leading to the human section of the Afen. There remained only the door of Djan’s apartments.

Kurt held up a hand signaling caution, for there must be opposition here as nowhere else.

He waited. Kta caught his eye and looked impatient, out of breath as he was.

With Djan to reckon with, underestimation could be fatal to all of them. “Ben,” he said, “this may be worth your life and mine.”

“What will you?” Ben t’Irain asked him calmly enough, though he was panting from the exertion of the climb. Kurt nodded toward the door.

T’Irain went with him and took up position, kneeling. Kurt threw the beam dead center, fired.

The door ceased to exist. In the reeking opening was framed a heap of twisted metal, the shapes of two men in pale silhouette against the cindered wall beyond, where their bodies and the gun they had manned had absorbed the energy.

A movement to the right drew Kurt’s attention. There was a burst of light as he turned and Ben t’Irain gasped in pain and collapsed beneath the gun.

T’Tefur. The Sufaki swung the pistol left at Kurt and Kurt dropped, the beam raking the wall where he had been. In that instant two of the Indras rushed the Sufaki leader, one shot down, and Kta, the other one, grazed by the bolt.

Kta vaulted the table between them and Isthain swept m an invisible downstroke that cleaved the Sufaki’s skull. The pistol discharged undirected and Kta staggered, raked across the leg as t’Tefur’s dying hands caught at him and missed. Then Kta pulled himself erect and leaned on Isthain as he turned and looked back at the others. Kurt edged over to the whining gun and shut it down, then touched t’Irain’s neck to find that there was no heartbeat. TTefur’s first shot had been true.

He gathered his shaking limbs under him and rose, leaning on the charred doorframe. The heat made him jerk back, and he staggered over to join Kta, past Ian t’Ilev’s sprawled body, for he was the other man t’Tefur had shot down before dying.

Kta had not moved. He still stood by t’Tefur, both his hands on Isthain’s pommel. Then Kurt bent down and took the gun from Shan t’Tefur’s dead fingers, with no sense of triumph in the action, no satisfaction in the name of Mim or the other dead the man had sent before him.

It was a way of life they had killed, the last of a great house. He had died well. The Indras themselves were silent, Kta most of all.

A small silken form burst from cover behind the couch and fled for the open door. T’Ranek stopped her, swept her struggling off her feet and set her down again.

“It is the chan of the Methi,” said Kta, for it was indeed the girl Pai t’Erefe, Sufaki, Djan’s companion. Released, she fell sobbing to her knees, a small, shaken figure in that gathering of warlike men. She was also of the Afen, so when she had made the necessary obeisance to her conquerors, she sat back with her little back stiff and her head erect.

“Where is the Methi?” Kta asked her, and Pai set her lips and would not answer. One of the men reached down and gripped her arm cruelly.

“No,” Kurt told him, and dropped to one knee, fronting Pai. “Pai, Pai, speak quickly. There is a chance she may live if you tell me.”

Pai’s large eyes reckoned him, inside and out. “Do not harm her,” she pleaded.

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