“Get back,” Ashakh hissed, barring the corridor to her with his arm.
Aiela felt the idoikkhe and doubled; but Ashakh’s will held that off too, and he shouted at the both of them to run for their lives.
Aiela stumbled aside, Jsande’s hand in his, Mejakh’s harsh voice pursuing them. He saw only closed doors ahead, a monitor panel at the corner such as there was at every turning. He reached it and hit the emergency button.
“Security!” he cried, dispensing with location: the board told them that. “Mejakh—!”
Through Isande’s backturned eyes he saw Ashakh recoil in surprise as Mejakh threatened him with a pistol. It burned the wall where Ashakh had been and had he not gone sprawling he would have been a dead man. His control of the idoikkhei faltered. Isande’s scream was half Aiela’s.
The weapon in Mejakh’s hand swung left, drawn from Ashakh by the sound. Down! Aiela shrieked at Isande and they separated by mutual impulse, low. The smell of scorched plastics and ozone attended the shot that missed them.
Ashakh heaved upward, hit Mejakh with his shoulder, sending her into the back wall of the corridor with a thunderous crash; but she did not fall, and locked in a struggle with him, he seeking to wrest the gun from her hand, she seeking to use it. Aiela scrambled across the intervening distance, Isande’s mind wailing terror into his, telling him it was suicide; but Ashakh maintained a tight hold on the idoikkhei now so that Mejakh could not send. Aiela seized Mejakh’s other arm to keep her from using her hand on Ashakh’s throat.
It was like grappling with a machine. Muscles like steel cables dragged irresistibly away from his grip, and when he persisted she struck at him, denting the wall instead and hurting her hand. She swung Ashakh into the way, trying to batter them both against the wall, and Aiela realized to his horror that Isande had thrown herself into the struggle too, trying vainly to distract Mejakh.
Suddenly Mejakh ceased fighting, and so did Ashakh. About them had gathered a number of iduve, male and female, a dhisais in her red robes, three dhis-guardians in their scarlet-bordered black and bearing their antique ghiakai. Mejakh disengaged, backed from them. Ashakh with offended dignity straightened his torn clothing and turned upon her a deliberate stare. It was all that any of them did.
The door of the paredre opened at the other end of the corridor and Chimele was with them. Mejakh had been going in that direction. Now she stopped. She seemed almost to shrink in stature. Her movements hesitated in one direction and the other.
Then with a hiss rising to a shriek she whirled upon Ashakh. The ghiakai of the dhis-guardians whispered from their sheaths, and Aiela seized Isande and pulled her as flat against the wall as they could get, for they were between Mejakh and the others. From the dhisais came a strange keening, a moan that stirred the hair at the napes of their necks.
“Mejakh,” said Chimele, causing her to turn. For a moment there was absolute silence. Then Mejakh crumpled into a knot of limbs, her two arms locked across her face. She began to sway and to moan as if in pain.
The others started forward. Chimele hissed a strong negative, and they paused.
“You have chosen,” said Chimele to Mejakh.
Mejakh twisted her body aside, gathered herself so that her back was to them, and began to. retreat. The retreat became a sidling as she passed the others. Then she ran a few paces, bent over, pausing to look back. There was a terrible stillness in the ship, only Mejakh’s footsteps hurrying more and more quickly, racing away into distant silence.
The others waited still in great solemnity. Ashakh took Aiela and Isande each by an arm and escorted them back to Chimele.
“Are you injured?” Chimele asked in a cold voice.
“No,” said Aiela, finding it difficult to speak in all that silence. He could scarcely hear his own voice. Isande’s contact was almost imperceptible.
“Then pass from this hall as quickly as you may. Do you not see the dhisais? You are in mortal danger. Keep by Ashakh’s side and walk out of here very quietly.”