She stooped above the bonny face. He gave her a crooked smile. “Goodbye,” she said to the alien.
Seeking Targovi: “All right, let’s scramble out o’ here.”
“—state secrets. Almost as dangerous are their persons, for they are armed and desperate. While capture alive is desirable for purposes of interrogation, killing them on sight is preferable to any risk of allowing them to continue their rampage—”
Targovi heard the announcement out before he switched off the audio transceiver he had brought from the hospice. It was a natural thing to put in Axor’s carrier, along with food, after they had voiced their decision to go on a long tramp through the hills, for the benefit of any electronic eavesdroppers. While the Wodenite recorded a message apologizing for thus cancelling his next appointment with Isis, explaining that he wished to savor the landscape and this was his last chance, his comrade had surreptitiously added a hiking outfit for Diana to the baggage.
Being a Tigery, Targovi skipped banalities like, “Well, now they know.” He did murmur, “Interesting is how they phrase it, the scat about ‘state secrets’. I should think most Zacharians will realize at once what this means. The rest should cooperate without questions.”
“I s’pose the words’re for the benefit of whatever outsiders may catch the broadcast,” said Diana around a mouthful of sandwich. “F’r instance, on watercraft passin’ within range. Not that they’d investigate for themselves.”
The three rested in a hollow in the heights above Janua, well away from settlement. Its peacefulness was an ache in them. Birch stood around, leaves dancing to a breeze in the radiance of westbound Patricius. Prostrate juniper grew among the white trunks, itself dark blue-green and fragrant. A spring bubbled from a mossy bank. Somewhere a mockingbird trilled.
“The Zacharians will be out like a swarm of khrukai—swordwings,” Targovi said. “They’ll use aircraft and high-gain sensors. We’ll need all the woodcraft that is ours. And … we are not used to forest such as this.”
Diana smote fist on ground. “Be damned if we’ll die for naught, or skulk around useless till Magnusson’s slaughtered his way to the throne!” Her head and voice drooped. “Only what can we do?”
Axor cleared his throat. “I can do this much, beloved ones,” he said, almost matter-of-factly. “My size and lack of skill at concealment will betray us even before my bodily need has exhausted the rations. Let me angle off and divert pursuit while you two seek the mountains.” He lifted a hand against Diana’s anguished cry. “No, no, it is the sole sensible plan. I came along because, much though I abhor violence, as a Christian should, yet there seemed to be a chance to end the war before it devours lives by the millions. Also, while I cannot believe the Merseians are creatures of Satan, they would deprive many billions of whatever self-determination is left. It is a worthy cause. Afterward, if you live, pray that we be forgiven for the harm we have done our opponents, and for the repose of their souls, as I will pray.” His neck swayed upward from where he lay till light caught the crest of his head and made a crown of it. “Let me serve in the single way I am able. Lord, watch over my spirit, and the spirits of these my friends.”
This time the girl could not stem tears. “Oh, Axor—!”
“Quiet, you two blitherers,” Targovi grated. “What we want is less nobility and more thinking.”
He jumped and paced, not man-style but as a Tigery does, weaving in and out among the trees and around the bushes. His right hand stroked the blade of his great knife over the palm of the left, again and again. Teeth gleamed when he muttered on the track of his thought.
“I led us hither because I dared not suppose my deed at the command post would go undetected enough longer for us to rustle transportation and reach the mainland. In that I was right. My hope was that the Zacharians would show such confusion at the news, being inexperienced in affairs like this, that we could double back and find means of escape—mayhap forcing the owner of a vehicle to cover for us. After all, they had not been well organized at the post. The hope was thin just the same, and now is not a wisp. I think their … oneness … makes them able to react to the unforeseen as coolly as an individual, not with the babble and cross purposes of an ordinary human herd taken by surprise. You heard the broadcast. Every car and boat will stay in a group of three or more, under guard. Every movement from the island will be stopped for inspection. This will prevail until we are captured or slain.