He felt the savor of blood. Of heat.
“No!” he said to the dusei. They grew calm.
He stopped within easy hailing of the security personnel.
“Get out of there,” one called to him. “Get out of there!”
“Go back inside,” he said, “and seal all the corridors except the ones that go down to the holds. Give me a way to a safe compartment for them. Make it quick.”
They did not stay to argue. Two went inside, to consult with authority, doubtless. Duncan stayed with the dusei, a hand on either broad back, calming them. They sensed Niun and Melein. They knew. They knew.
He was safe with them. It was the men with the guns that were to be feared. “Go away from the door,” he wished the remaining security men. “They are no danger to me. They belong to the mri.”
“Duncan?” That was Boaz’ female voice, high-pitched and anxious. “Duncan, confound it, what’s going on?”
“They’ve come for Niun. They’re his. These creatures are halfway sapient, maybe more than halfway. I want clearance to bring them inside before someone sets them off.”
There was a flurry of consultations. Duncan waited, stroking the two massive backs. The dusei had settled down, sitting like dogs. They, too, waited.
“Come ahead,” Boaz shouted. “Number one bow hold, equipment bay: it’s empty.”
Duncan made to the dusei the low sound he had heard Niun make, started forward. The dusei heaved themselves to their feet and came, casually, as if entering human ships were an ordinary thing. But no human stayed to meet them: even Boaz fled, prudence overcoming curiosity, and nothing greeted them but sealed doors and empty corridors.
They walked, the three of them, a long, long descent without lifts, down ways awkward for the big dusei passed with a slow, measured clicking of claws on flooring. Duncan was not afraid. It Was impossible to be afraid, with the like of them for companionship. They had searched him and had no fear of him: though at the back of his mind reason kept trying to urge him that he had been right to be afraid of the beasts, he began to be certain that the beasts were utterly at ease with what he was doing.
He came down into the hold, and caressed the offered noses, the thrusting massive heads that, less gentle, could stave in ribs or break his back; and again came that blurred feeling, that surety that he had given mem something that pleased them.
He withdrew and sealed the doors, and trembled afterward, thinking what he had done. Food, water, other needs they had none, not at the moment. They wanted in. They had gained that, through him.
He fled, fear flooding him. He was panting as he ran the final distance to the medical wing. He saw the door that he wanted closed, like all other doors during the emergency. He opened it manually, closed it again.
“Sir?” the sentry on duty asked.
“Are they awake?” Duncan asked, with harsh intensity. The sentry looked confused.
“No, sir. I don’t think so.”
Duncan shouldered past him, opened the door and looked at Niun. The mri’s eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Duncan went to the bedside and seized Niun’s arm, hard. ‘ “Niun. The dusei. The dusei. They have come.”
There was a fine sweat on the mri’s brow. The golden eyes stared into infinity.
“They are here,” Duncan almost shouted at him. Niun blinked.
“Yes,” said Niun. “I feel them.”
And thereafter Niun answered nothing, reacted to nothing, and his eyes closed, and he slept, with a relaxed and tranquil expression.
“Sir?” the sentry asked, invading the room contrary to standing orders. “Do you want someone called?”
“No,” Duncan said harshly. He edged past the man, walked out into, the corridor, and started for the upper levels of the ship. The intercom came on, the whole ship waking to the emergency just past. He heard that Boaz was paging him, urgently.
He did not remember the walk upstairs, the whole of it a blank in his mind when he reached the area of the lock and found Boaz anxiously waiting. He dreaded such lapses, remembering the dizzy blurring of senses that had assailed him before.