Europe, and Europe still had nothing to say. Mazian was thinking; or had made up
his mind, and trusted his captains to take precautions. She tapped a signal to
the jump tech’s board, as he had already to have noted the other move. The board
went live, a stepped up power flow to the generation vane monitors, that gave
them options other than realspace. If the Fleet broke from Pell, chances were
they would not all arrive where they were instructed, at the nearest null point.
That there would never again be a Fleet, nothing between Union and Sol.
The com flow from Pell became grim indeed.
ii
Downer access
Men-with-guns. Keen ears could still pick up the shouts outside, the terrible
fighting. Satin shivered at a crash against the wall, trembled, finding no
reason for this thing that happened… but that Lukases had done this; and Lukases
gave orders, in power in the Upabove. Bluetooth hugged her, whispered to her,
urged her, and she came, as silently as the others. The whispers of bare hisa
feet passed above them, below. They moved in dark, a steady flow. They dared no
lights, which might guide men to find them.
Some were ahead of them, some behind. Old One himself led, the strange hisa, who
had come down from the high places, and commanded them without telling them why.
Some had lingered, fearing the strange ones; but there were guns behind, and mad
humans, and they would come in haste very soon.
A human voice rang out far below in the tunnels, echoing up. Bluetooth hissed
and pushed, moved faster in his climbing, and Satin scampered along with all her
might, heated by this exertion, her fur damp and her hands sliding on the rails
where others had grasped them.
“Hurry,” a hisa voice whispered at one of the levels, high, high in the
Upabove’s dark places, and hands urged them up still another climb, where a dim
light shone, making a silhouette of a hisa who waited there. A lock. Satin
tugged her mask into place and scrambled up to the doors, caught Bluetooth’s
hand, for fear of losing him where Old One should lead.
The lock received them. They jammed in with others, and the inner seal gave way
on a mass of brown hisa bodies, hands which reached and drew them out in haste,
other hisa, who stood facing outward, shielding them from what lay beyond.
They had weapons, lengths of pipe, like the men carried. Satin was stunned, felt
backward after Bluetooth, to be sure of his presence in this milling angry
throng, in the white lights of humans. There were only hisa in this hall. They
filled the corridor as far as the closed doors at the end. Blood smeared one of
the walls, a scent which did not reach them through the masks. Satin rolled a
distraught glance in the direction the press was sweeping them, felt a soft hand
which was not Bluetooth’s close upon her arm and lead her. They passed a door
into a human place, vast and dim, and the door closed, bringing quiet.
“Hush,” their guides said. She looked about in panic to see if Bluetooth was
still with her and he reached out to her, caught her hand. They walked nervously
in the company of their elder guides, through this spacious man-place, oh, so
carefully, for fear, and for respect to the weapons and the anger outside.
Others, Old Ones, rose from the shadows and met them. “Storyteller,” an Old One
addressed her, touching her in welcome. Arms embraced her; others came from
beyond a bright, bright doorway and embraced her and Bluetooth, and she was
dazed by the honor they gave. “Come,” they said, leading her, and they came into
that bright place, a room without limits, with a white bed, a sleeping human,
and a very old hisa who crouched by it. Dark and stars were all about, walls
which were and were not, and of a sudden, great Sun peering into the room, upon
them and on the Dreamer.
“Ah,” Satin breathed, dismayed, but the old hisa rose up and held out hands in
welcome. “The Storyteller,” Old One was saying, and the oldest of all left the