‘”That will not be,” said Aiela, “unless you stand aside.”
“If my lords will yield gracefully, I shall see that this matter is indeed settled by iduve, by the lord-on-Priamos.”
“You have chosen the wrong loyalty,” said Aiela.
“We had only one knowable choice,” said Gerlach. “We know that the lord-on-Priamos wants this world intact and the lord-above-Priamos wants to destroy us. Perhaps our choice was wrong; but it is made. We know what the lord-above-Priamos will do to us if we lose the lord-on-Priamos to protect us. We are little people. We shelter in what shade is offered us, and only the lord-on-Priamos casts a shadow on this world.”
Aiela thought that was for Ashakh to answer; but the iduve simply stared at the little fellow, and of course it was unproductive to argue. Elethia insisted upon silence where no proof would convince; and Gerlach was left to sweat in the interval, faced with the necessity of moving a starlord who was not in a mood to reason.
“Guard them,” he said suddenly to Toshi. “I have other matters to attend.” And he scurried up the steps to daylight, not without a snarl at Kleph. “Shoot this one on the least excuse,” he told Toshi, looking back. Then he was gone.
“What good do you get from this?” Aiela asked then in human speech, addressing himself to the mercenaries with Toshi. “What’s your gain, except a burned world?”
“We know you,” said the dark-faced one. “You and your companions cost us three good friends the last trip into this city.”
“But what,” asked Aiela, “do you have to gain from Tejef?”
The man shrugged, a lift of one shoulder, as humans did. “We aren’t going to listen to you.”
How do I reason with that? Aiela asked of Daniel.
Forget it, Daniel sent. Tejef’s kamethi chose to be with him.
They have giyre.
Believe this, sent Daniel. They’ll kill you where you stand. If Ashakh drops, that little devil of an amaut will send them for your throat, and you’ll have no more mercy out of them than from her.
Aiela looked uneasily at Ashakh, who with great dignity had withdrawn to the brick wall and leaned there in the corner, arms folded, one foot resting on a bit of pipe. The iduve merely stared at the humans and at Toshi, looking capable of going for their throats, but a moment ago he had been in a state of complete collapse, and Aiela had the uncomfortable feeling that arastiethe alone was keeping the man on his feet, pure iduve arrogance. It would not hold him there forever.
Something was mightily amiss in the ship. Amaut bustled up and down the corridor, and the lights had been dimming periodically. Arle watched from the security of the glass-fronted infirmary and saw the hurrying outside become frantic. The lights dimmed again. She scurried back to the banks of instruments at Margaret’s bedside and wondered anxiously whether they varied because the power was going out or because there was something wrong with Margaret.
She slept so long.
(“You stay, watch,” Tejef had told her personally, setting her at this post and making her secure before the sickening lunge the ship had made aloft and down again; and Dlechish, the awful little amaut surgeon, had been there through that, making sure all went well with Margaret.)
Dlechish was gone now, Arle had had the infirmary to herself ever since this insanity with the lights had begun, and she was glad at least not to have to share the room with amaut.
But Margaret was so pale, and breathed with such difficulty. When the instruments faltered, Arle would clench her hands on the edge of her hard seat and hold her own breath until the lines resumed their regular pattern. Of the machines themselves she understood nothing but that these lines were Margaret’s life, and when they ceased, Margaret’s existence would have ceased also.
The lights dimmed again and flickered lower. Margaret stirred in her sleep, tossing, struggling to move against the restraints and the frames and the tubing. When Arle attempted to hold her still, Margaret tried the harder to rid herself of the encumbrances, and began to work her hand free. Arle pleaded. Margaret’s movements were out of delirium and nightmare. She began to cry out in her pain.