“Chaikhe gave him something to worry about,” said Aiela. “It was over the loudspeakers all over the field. She advised Priamos what it could expect—I don’t doubt it went to the city too. The field emptied quickly after that announcement, except for a determined few. We saw one aircraft try to take off.”
“It hit the shields,” burst out Kleph, his saucer eyes wide. “O great lord, it went in a puff of fire.”
“Tekasuphre,” judged Ashakh. He struggled to sit upright, and it was probable that he was in great pain, although he gave no demonstration of it. He suffered in silence while Aiela made a bandage of Kleph’s folded handkerchief and attempted to wedge it into position within Ashakh’s belt. There was surprisingly little bleeding, but the iduve’s normally hot skin was cold to the touch, and the iduve seemed distracted, mentally elsewhere. So much of the iduve’s life was mind: Aiela wondered now if mind were not being diverted toward other purposes, sustaining body.
“Sir,” he said, “Ashakh—you have to have help, and we don’t know what to do. How bad is it?”
It was badly asked: Aiela realized it at once, for Ashakh’s face clouded and the idoikkhe tingled, the barest prickling. Arastiethe forbade—and yet Ashakh forebore temper.
“I meant,” Aiela amended gently, “that I can’t tell what it hit, or how to deal with it. In a kallia, it would be serious. I have no knowledge of iduve anatomy.”
“It is painful,” Ashakh conceded, “and my concentration is necessarily impaired. I regret, kameth, but I advise you to seek Chaikhe at your earliest opportunity. I remind you I predicted this.”
“I have long since found it is futile to expect explanations between iduve and kallia to make sense,” said Aiela, all the while his asuthi heard and pleaded with him to take Ashakh’s offer. “My interests lie with my asuthi and with you, and once with Chaikhe I can’t do much for either.”
Ashakh frowned. “You are kameth, not nas.”
Aiela shrugged. It was not productive to become involved in an argument with an iduve. Silence was the one thing they could not fight. He simply did not go, and looked up toward Kleph, who, ignored, had begun to creep toward the dark of the tunnel opening.
“Stay where you are,” Aiela warned him.
“Ai, sir,” said Kleph, “I did not—” And suddenly the amaut’s mouth made one quick open and shut and he scrambled backward, while Ashakh reached wildly for the weapon that was no longer in his belt but in Aiela’s, rescued from the outside pavement.
Toshi and Gerlach and two humans were in the tunnel opening, weapons leveled.
Fire! Daniel screamed at Aiela; and Isande sent a negative.
Aiela, cursing his own lack of foresight, simply gathered himself up in leisurely dignity, dropped Ashakh’s weapon and his own from his belt, and bent again to assist Ashakh, who was determined to get to his feet. Kleph shrugged and dusted himself off busily as if his presence there were the most natural thing in the world.
“Sir,” exclaimed Kleph to Gerlach, “I am relieved. May I assist you with these persons?”
Never had Aiela seen an amaut truly overcome with anger, but Gerlach fairly snarled at Kleph, a spitting sound; and Kleph scampered back out of his reach, forgetting to bow on the retreat, his face twisted in a grimace of fright and rage.
“Kleph double-heart, Kleph glib of speech,” exclaimed Gerlach, “you are to blame for this disaster.” He seemed likely to rush at Kleph in his fury; but then he fell silent and seemed for the first time to realize the enormity of his situation, for Ashakh drew himself up to his slim towering height, folded his arms placidly, and looked down at their diminutive captor.
“Prha, kameth?” Ashakh asked of Aiela. Arastiethe forbade he should take direct account of the likes of Gerlach and Toshi.
“Gerlach knows well enough,” said Aiela, “that karsh Gomek would pay dearly should he kill you, sir; they would pay with every Gomek ship in the Esliph and the metrosi. If he were wise at all, he would leave iduve business to the iduve.”
“We want Priamos,” Gerlach protested, “Priamos with its fields undamaged.”