The attack resumed. Overheated metal stank. Light went out and dimly returned. A whining of almost harmonic sound pulsed through the ship’s structure. Power was dying altogether.
Chaikhe mind-touched the doors through to the airlock, desperately seeking air. Reserve batteries were fading too, and she fought to reach the door in the dark and the roiling smoke, choking. She fell.
Long before she knew anything else she was aware of Rakhi’s frantic pleading, trying with his own will to animate her exhausted body.
And then she knew another thing, that someone trod the inner corridor of the ship, and m’melakhia drove her to her feet, graceless and stumbling as she sought a weapon in the dark.
“Chimele forbids,” Rakhi told her, and that stunned her into angry indecision.
Forbids? What is she about to do?
Her senses reeled. Her eyes poured water, stung by the smoke, and she hurled herself blindly down the corridor.
A squat amaut shadow stood outlined against the smoke-filled light from the airlock. Chaikhe had never felt real menace in a non-iduve before: this being radiated it, a cold sickly m’melakhia that came over her crisis-heightened sensitivity. It was repugnant. She had received from kalliran minds before, particularly in katasukke; it was a talent suspect and embarrassedly hidden, e-chanokhia. Kallia held a cleanly muddle of stresses and inhibitions, cramped but intensely orderly. This creature was venomous.
“My lady,” it said with a bow, “Bnesych Gerlach at your service, my lady.”
Chaikhe felt the almost-takkenes of the child in her. Her lips quivered. Her vision blurred at the edges and became preternaturally clear upon Gerlach’s vulnerable self. She could crack his brute neck so easily, so satisfyingly. He would know it was coming; his terror would be delightful.
No! Rakhi cried. Chaikhe, rule yourself. Control. Calm.
M’melakhia focused briefly upon her asuthe, sweet and satisfying, full of the scent of blood.
I am you, he protested, horrified. It is not reasonable.
He suffered; then- arastiethe was one, and to live they each must yield. The situation defied reason.
Leave me, she pleaded, aware of Gerlach’s eyes on her, a shame that Chimele’s orders left her powerless to remedy.
He lacked the control to break away. Their joined arastiethe made him fear her fear, suffer shame with her, dread injury to the child, feel its takkhenois within his own body— things rationally impossible.
Is this what m’metanei mean by m’melakhia one for the other? Rakhi wondered out of the chaos of his own thoughts. Au, I am drowning, I am suffocating, Chaikhe, and I am too weary to let go. If he touches you, I think I shall be ill.
Gerlach was beside her. Fire had leapt up in the corridor, control room systems too damaged to prevent it, smoke choking them as the ship deteriorated further. Gerlach seized her arm and drew her on. The collapse of systems with which her mind was in contact dazed and confused her.
Let go, Rakhi urged her, let go, let go.
Her mind went inward, self-seeking, dead to the outside. She saw the paredre of Ashanome briefly; and then Rakhi performed the same inwardness and that vision went. She knew her limbs had lost their strength. She knew Gerlach’s coarse broad hands taking her, a loss of breath as she was slung across his shoulder. For a moment she was in complete withdrawal; then the pain of his jolting last step to the pavement jarred her free again.
Kill him! Rakhi’s voice in her mind was a shuddering echo and reecho, down vast corridors of distance. Chimele’s strong nails bit into his/her shoulder, reminding them of calm. Other minds began to gather: Raxomeqh’s cold brilliance, Achiqh, Najadh, Tahjekh, like tiny points of light in a vast darkness. But Chaikhe concentrated deliberately on the horror of Gerlach, his oiliness, the grotesqueries of his waddling gait and panting wheezes for breath, learning what m’metanei called hate, a disunity beyond e-takkhe, a desire beyond vaikka-nasul, a lust beyond reason.
Dhisais, dhisais, Rakhi reminded her, Chimele’s incomprehensible orders twisted through his hearing and his mind. Be Chaikhe yet for a little time more. Restraint!
She had never been so treated in her life. Not even in the fierceness of katasakke had she been compelled to be touched against her will. Did m’metanei suffer such self-lessening in being kameth, in taking part in katasukke? The thought appalled her.