“They’re running,” the young Upcoaster said, leaning against the glass and pressed to it, staring up the outside con course.
“Don’t!” another cried, when he pushed the door open.
There were no shots, only a breath of cold air of the docks.
“Come on!” Itavvy cried at his wife, snatched Meris from her arms; and the Upcoasters sprang for the doors too, all of them starting to run, baggage left, everything left.
The floodlights on the vast docks were flickering, red lights gashing warnings, sirens braying. Itavvy sucked a lungful of the thin cold air and pelted after the artist, cast a look over his shoulder to see that Velin followed. Tears blurred the lights when he looked round again, a flickering that spelled out Phoenix. The ramp was ahead of them, through a tangle of lines. Someone fell behind him, scrambled up again. The artist took the ramp; Itavvy did, Meris wailing in his ear, and for that, for her he did not fall, although he felt pain in his side and his chest. They ran the frozen ramp, over the plates that should have moved to help them.
And the hatch was shut.
“Let us in!” he screamed at it. Others caught up with him, hammered at the metal with their fists. Itavvy wept, tears streaming his face, and Velin flung her arms about them both, him and Meris.
It was the oldest Upcoaster who found the intercom recessed in the ramp housing. He shouted into it. “Shut up!” he yelled back at them when they added their voices; and from the intercom: “Stand by.”
The hatch hummed, parted. Azi crewmen, their faces sober and unamazed, stood waiting to help them aboard.
They stood inside, with trembling hands proffered tickets, evidence of passage.
The hatch sealed behind them.
“Brace where you are,” a voice grated from the intercom overhead. “We’re disengaging and getting out of here.”
ix
The shrilling was louder, front walls, back walls, on all sides of them, and what had begun in the dark of night refused to go away by day, when light streamed over the garden. It should dispel the nightmare. It instead made it real, picking out the shapes of poised Warriors, the husks and bodies of the dead piled in the corner of the garden, and the cracks in the outer wall where assault had already been made and repulsed.
Jim wiped at his face, crouching by Max’s side among the rocks. Pol was by him: they spared one young azi to keep a gun in Pol’s ribs constantly, for whatever the Kontrin was, he was a born-man and old in such manoeuvrings, able to forewarn them what the hives might do . . . most of all what the human mind among them might do.
He’s there, Pol had said, when the last assault had nearly carried to them, when cracks had appeared in the wall and fire from the gate had distracted them. That’s Morn behind that. The next thing is to watch our backs.
And that proved true.
“He’s delayed over-long,” Pol said after a time. “I’m surprised. He should have tried by now. That means he and his allies are up to something that takes a little time.”
Jim looked at him. The Kontrin’s accustomed manner was mockery; Pol used little of that in recent hours. His gaunt face was yet more hollowed, his eyes shadowed with the exhaustion which sat on them all. The high heat would come by mid-morning; they wore sunsuits, but neither masks nor visors in place, and the sleeves were all unfastened for comfort. Azi rested in their places, slumped against rocks or walls, seeking what sleep could be gotten, for they had had little in the night. Pol leaned his head back against the rock that sheltered them, eyes shut.
“What would take time?” Max wondered aloud.
‘Tunnels,” Jim said, the thought leaping unwanted into his mind. He swallowed heavily and tried to reason around it. “But Warriors don’t dig and Workers don’t fight.”
Pol lifted his head. “Azi do both,” he said, and shifted around to face forward. “Look at the cracks in that wall. They’re wider.”
It was so. Jim bit at his lips, rose and went aside, where one of the Warriors crouched . . . touched its offered scentpatches.