The azi ducked his head in distress. “Alone, ser. He went alone.”
Morn drew in his breath, eyes flicking over the staff of Moriah, finding them far too many: it was likely truth. Guard-azi. Dark-haired Hana, a female azi who was Pol’s eccentricity, not even particularly beautiful. Tim, like Sam, Pol’s accustomed shadow.
“Where,” Morn asked, “is the Meth-maren based? City? ITAK Central?”
“We don’t know.”
It was truth. Sam was distressed; the whole staff was distraught.
“Stay and hold this ship,” Morn directed his own men. “If Pol shows up, tell him to stay here.”
A stiffing feeling of things wrong assailed him. He thrust his way past them, out, down the ramp again where the other half of one-unit waited. The second shuttle had disgorged its occupants. Thirty more men waited orders.
A long partnership, his with Pol: forty years. They had shared much, had hunted together-and not only in sport. He tolerated Pol’s humour and Pol supported his grimmer amusements.
Pol’s humour. He looked a `bout him, at dead buildings, at a sky void of traffic, the only sound that of the wind tugging at cloth and the popping of cooling metal. It was not a time or place for an exercise of whim, not even Pol’s.
He had sent Pol, in advance of the order which sent him: Pol’s humour, to ask this of him.
Pol . . . who avoided Cerdin of late; who avoided many old connections, and the hold at Ehlvillon—and, avowing her tedious, . . . Moth.
He paused, hard-breathing, looking back at Moriah, Pol avowed he had no sense of humour. Pol contrived, finally, to disturb his self-possession.
He shouted an order to the azi, stalked off toward the buildings of the terminal. Azi hastened to cluster themselves about him, shielding him with their armour and their bodies; he took this for granted, it being their function, and himself conspicuous for the Colour that he wore.
Sun’s glare still reflected off windows, but there was more than one window missing, betokening more than a quiet power shutdown here. That drew him, promising some insight into what had happened in the City.
And in the terminal, scattered over the polished floors, there were dead, male and female, young and old.
With live majat.
“Don’t fire!” Morn snapped. One stepped lightly toward them, in the doorway. He saw the badges on it: it was a red, that had never been trouble for Hald.
“Kontrin,” it moaned, when he held up his fist. “Green-hive.”
“Held. Morn a Ren hant Hald.”
Palps swept forward. “Hhhhald. Friend. Giffftss.”
The tone of that chilled the flesh. But one took allies where one could, when family faded. “I’ll settle with the Meth-maren for you. I need to locate her base. Her-hive. Understand?”
“Yes. Understand.” It shifted forward, and the azi flinched, torn between terror and duty. It extended a forelimb, touched at his chest, and he suffered it, concealing his loathing, reckoning he might have to accept worse than this. “Red-hive knows Meth-maren hive, yes. Blues guard. This-unit will call othersss, many, many, many Warriors, reds, golds, greens, all move. Come kill, yess.”
“Yes,” he confirmed—did not touch it; that risk was one he did not choose to run, and the Warrior did not offer.
Others moved, to a shrilling command only partially in human hearing. They gathered, out of all the recesses of the terminal, a living sea of chitinous bodies.
“Tunnels,” the Warrior said. “Tunnels for beta-machines. Ssubwayss.”
iii
The house stirred and hummed with activity. One could hear it, even in the upper floors, the stir of many feet, the singing of majat voices. Jim sat still in the semi-dark beneath the dome, on the bed, hands loose over his crossed legs, watching the Kontrin who slumped angrily in the chair opposite. They were at a silence, and Jim found that profound relief, for Pol Hald reasoned well, and wounded accurately when he wanted to.
The power was gone, had been for hours; he believed now that it would not return.
There’s no more comp, Pol had advised him. Nothing. If you’d listened earlier, something might have been done. Something still might. Listen to me.
Jim gave no answers. He could not argue with such a fluency: he could only steadfastly refuse. Max, downstairs, gave him the means to refuse. Warrior, standing faithfully outside, was a guard against which even Pol Hald’s reasoning could not prevail.