His own gun lay accessible. When he found Ashakh’s, it looked unscathed too, and he brought it up into the daylight and put it into the iduve’s hand.
“Damaged,” Ashakh judged regretfully. His indigo face had acquired a certain grayish cast, and his hand seemed to have difficulty returning the weapon to his belt.
“Chaikhe,” he said, and could tell them little more than that. He shook off Kleph’s hand with a violence that left the little amaut nursing a sore wrist, and stumbled forward, unreasoning, heedless of their protests. There was nothing before them but open ground, the wide expanse of the port, Chaikhe’s ship with its ramp down and the base ship beyond: closest was Tejef’s ship, hatch opened, and a smallish figure toiling toward its ramp.
“Come back,” Kleph cried after Ashakh. “O great lord, come back, come back, let this small person help you.”
But Aiela hesitated only a moment: mad as the iduve was, that ramp was indeed down and access was possible. There would not be another chance, not with the sun inching its way toward zenith. He ran to catch up, and Kleph, with a squeal of dismay, suddenly began to run too, seizing the iduve’s other arm as Aiela sought to keep him from wasting his strength in haste.
Ashakh struck at Aiela, half-hearted, his violet eyes dilated and wild; but when he realized that Aiela meant only to keep him on his feet, he cooperated and leaned on him.
And after a few meis more, it was clear that Ashakh could summon no more strength: arastiethe insisted, but the iduve’s slender body was failing him. His knees buckled, and only Kleph’s strength saved him from a headlong collapse.
“We must get off this field,” cried Kleph in panic. “O lord nas kame, let us take him to the other ship and beg them to let us in.”
Ashakh pushed away from the amaut. His effort carried him a few steps to a fall from which he could not rise.
“Let us go,” cried Kleph.
Self-preservation insisted go. The base ship would lift off before Ashanome struck. Daniel and Isande insisted so; but before them was Ashakh’s objective, and an open hatch that was the best chance and the last one.
“Get him to the greater ship,” Aiela shouted at Kleph, and began to run. “He can mind-touch the lock for you, get you in—move!”
He thought then that he had saved Ashakh’s life at least, for Kleph would not abandon him, thinking Ashakh his key to safety; and the bandy-legged fellow had the strength to manage that muscle-heavy body across the wide field.
Aiela, Aiela, mourned Isande, oh, no, Aiela.
He ran, ignoring her, mentally calculating a triangle of distance to that open hatch for himself and for the amaut that struggled along with his burden. He might make it. His side was splitting and his brain was pounding from the effort, but he might possibly make it before one instant’s notice from the iduve master of that ship could kill him.
Distract Tejef, he ordered his asuthi. Do anything you can to get free. I’m going to need all the help possible. Keep his mind from me.
Daniel cast about for a weapon, seized up a chair from its transit braces, and slammed it into monitor panel, door, walls, shouting like a madman and trying to do the maximum damage possible.
Only let one of the human staff respond to it, Daniel kept hoping. He meant to kill. The ease with which he slipped into that frame of mind affected Aiela and Isande with a certain queasiness, and stirred something primitive and shameful.
Isande began to pry at the switchplate, seeking some weakness that could trigger even the most minor alarm, but Aiela could not advise her. He could no longer think of anything but the amaut that was now striving to run under his burden.
Then his vision resolved what Ashakh’s takkhenois had told him from a much greater distance.
That bundle of green was a woman, indigo-skinned and robed as a katasathe.
Aiela had his gun in hand: though it was not designed to kill, firing on a pregnant woman gave him pause—the shock and the fall together might kill her.