Power fluctuated wildly. In mental symbiosis with the ship’s mechanisms, Chaikhe felt it like a wound and shuddered. We are attacked. And Tesyel cannot control the base ship like an iduve. But while the attack continued, her mind centered on one delicate task, an electronic surgery that altered contacts and began to unite her little ship with Tesyel’s larger one, putting systems into communication so that she could draw upon the greater weapons of the base ship and command the computer that regulated its defensive systems. This would hold as long as her ship retained power to send command impulses. When that faded, she would lose command of the base ship. When that happened, Tejef would hold Priamos alone.
A half-day remained. When the sun stood at zenith over Weissmouth, the deadline would have expired; and Tejef’s ship could force her to exhaust her power reserves well before that time, pounding at her defenses, forcing her to expend the power of her ship simply to survive.
CHAPTER 13
“THEY ARE DOWN,” said Aiela. His mind wrenched from his asuthi and became again aware of Ashakh’s face looking into his in the dim light of Kleph’s wrist-glove, a witchfire flicker of color in the eyes of the iduve. Insanely he thought of being pent in a close space with a great carnivore, felt his heart laboring at the mere touch of the iduve’s sinewy hand on his shoulder. Iduve weighed more than they looked. They were hard muscle, explosive power with little long-distance endurance. Even the touch of them felt different. Aiela tried not to flinch and concentrated anew on what his asuthi were sending now—awareness of engine shutdown, their own frustration and helplessness, locked as they were within their own quarters.
I was not secured until we lifted, Daniel sent him, bitter with self-accusation. I waited, I waited, hoped for a better chance. But now that door is sealed and locked.
And that communication flowed to the tunnels of Weiss-mouth through Aiela’s lips, a hoarse whisper.
“Is Khasif possibly conscious?” Ashakh asked.
“‘No,'” Daniel responded. “‘At least I doubt it.'”
“It agrees with my own perception. But free him, if you should find the chance. Bend all your efforts to free him.”
“‘I understand,'” sent Isande. “‘Where are you?'”
“Do not ask,” Ashakh sent sharply and used Aiela’s idoikkhe enough to sting. Aiela pulled back from the contact, for he was weary enough to betray things he would not have sent knowingly. His asuthi sent him a final appeal, private: Get off this world; if you have the option, take it to get out of here. And Isande sent him something very warm and very sad at once, which he treasured.
“What are they saying?” Ashakh asked, pressing his shoulder again; but the iduve might have broken the arm at that moment and Aiela would still have returned the same blank refusal to say. His mind was filled with two others and his eyes were blinded with diffused light
Get out, Daniel sent him, pushing through his faltering screens, and Isande did the same, willing him to go, warning him of Ashakh and of trusting the amaut. They left a great emptiness behind them.
“M’metane.” Ashakh’s grip hurt, but he did not use the idoikkhe this time. “What is wrong?”
“They—cannot help. They don’t know what to do.”
The iduve’s brows were drawn into a frown, his thin face set in an anger foreign to his harsh but disciplined person. “I sense his presence, whether he senses mine or not—and Chaikhe—Chaikhe—”
Something troubled Ashakh. His eyes were almost wild, so that Kleph shrank from him and Aiela stayed very still, fearing the iduve might strike at any sudden move. But the iduve rested kneeling, as if he were listening for a voice that no other could hear, like a man hearing the inner voice of an asuthe. His eyes stared into space, his lips parted as if he would cry out, but with an apparent effort he shook off the thing that touched, him.
“There is a wrongness,” he exclaimed, “a fear—one of my nasithi is afraid, and I do not know which. Perhaps it is Tejef. We were once of the same nasul and we were takkhe. Perhaps it is his dying I feel.”