Part 24 (1/2)

Were they afraid to come out? ”Hand me Swelk's computer. Come out. You will not be harmed.” The computer emitted the vowelless noise with which it always spoke to Swelk-at a low volume that could not possibly be heard inside the s.h.i.+p. ”Computer, maximum sound level.” It babbled back, no louder than before. ”Computer, as loud as possible.” Repeated paraphrasings had no effect.

What else could he try? Yelling. Perhaps it would translate louder if he spoke louder-and so it did.

”Come out! You will not be harmed!” The Krulchukor equivalent, a vowelless eruption, burst forth.

Moments later, two metal containers were flung from the open airlock.

”Don't shoot!” hissed Kyle to the startled commandos. The devices were clones of Swelk's bioconverters. The translation of these words, hopefully, was too soft to be heard inside. ”Come out!” he screamed again.

* * * Rualf struggled to remain upright, dazed by the latest explosion to rock the Consensus. Smaller blasts sounded throughout the s.h.i.+p. Smoke thickened even as he marveled, stupefied, at the disaster. The hatch into the heart of the s.h.i.+p flapped between half- and full-open, its motorized mechanism thudding in abrupt reversals, unable to respond to fire both inside and out. With a spectacular tearing sound, the machinery stopped.

A gale whistled through the hold, sucked through the gaping airlock and stoking the spreading blaze like a bellows. The open airlock . . . that was his only hope of escape. He had a vague recollection of someone telling him so. Had one of the crew, or of his troupe, already come through here? No-whoever it was had gone into the s.h.i.+p. Some foolish hero type. He stumbled, limbs still quivering from what must have been a human weapon, toward the lock.

An impossibly loud feminine voice shouted from outside. ”Come out. You will not be harmed.” Had humans learned to speak like Krulirim? How could that be? Somehow, the thundering voice was familiar.

Swelk! The Krul who had gone past him, gone deeper into the s.h.i.+p . . . it was she. She was the reason the humans knew to stage a scene he could not resist filming. To bait a trap. The impossibly loud command, doubtless synthesized by Swelk's computer, nearly paralyzed him with fear. What would the humans do to him if he fell into their power?

A wave of coughing came over him. He was dead if he stayed here. But if he were the only survivor . . .

the humans would not know he was the one responsible for directing their photogenic self-destruction.

He waded through smoke to the interior hatch with its broken motorized controls. The hatch that had inconveniently frozen half open. There was an access panel beside the controls; he flipped it open to get at the manual crank. Wheezing, he worked until the heat-warped door was fully shut-then he jammed the mechanism. The wind whistling inward from the lock, due to fire-fed suction into the s.h.i.+p, died abruptly as the hatch slammed shut.

Time for his escape. He groped toward the beckoning airlock, low to the deck where the air was slightly fresher. Fodder, animal s.h.i.+t, the Girillian ferns they had started synthesizing for the animals to s.h.i.+t on . . . stuff was piled everywhere, and more and more of it was burning.

He was forgetting something. Escape to what? He could not survive without Krulchukor food. These beasts ate synthesized food, surely. Behind a cage he spotted what must be bioconverters. Gripping with one limb the handles of two heavy synthesizers, he dragged them, awkwardly, to the airlock. He flung them outside, and went for more.

”Come out!”

Something monstrous emerged from the smoke, as though summoned by the imperious demand. A bilateral head on a thick neck towered over him, like a ghost of the F'thk. Rualf had just recognized it for a Girillian creature when it knocked him over. Ma.s.sive hooves pressed him into the metal deck. Agony washed through him-but to lose consciousness now was to die. As he tried to lever himself upright, a

Girillian carnivore ran over him. It was smaller than the first animal, but its feet were studded with talons. Rualf collapsed, screaming, to the floor. Thick smoke filled his lungs.

As Rualf lay quivering, limbs splayed, bleeding and coughing, battered and bruised, apparition after

apparition burst from the smoke and flames. The biggest were deep within the hold, as if herding the rest. He sprawled, helpless, as creature after creature stomped and slashed him, each encounter inflicting new anguish.

The last thing Rualf ever saw was the huge flat foot of a swampbeast descending upon the center of his torso, directly over his sensor stalks.

The commandos flinched as a six-legged creature leapt from the open airlock. Only that moment of surprised nonrecognition saved the animal. ”Hold your fire!” yelled Kyle. As Swelk's simulated voice reverberated from stars.h.i.+p and hangars, he searched for and found on the computer what he hoped was its microphone. He covered the aperture with his thumb. ”Hold your fire!” m.u.f.fled, the repet.i.tion went untranslated. He'd seen such a creature before-in a hologram projected by this very computer. ”It's a zoo animal. There may be more.”

Animal after animal appeared out of the smoke and flames. They retreated in confusion from burning s.h.i.+p and human building, lost and confused, huddling together. If the Girillian menagerie included predator and prey-and Kyle was almost certain from Swelk's tales that it did-the xen.o.beasts were too overwhelmed to care. He'd never quite believed the stories of terrestrial predators and prey fleeing peacefully side by side from forest fires-now all skepticism vanished. ”Call the National Zoo. We need gamekeepers, p.r.o.nto.”

”Swampbeasts. They're beautiful.” Darlene's voice was quietly awestruck. She pointed, quite unnecessarily, at two magnificent, web-footed animals that stood about eight feet tall. They were the last to emerge from the airlock now impenetrably thick with smoke.

She gently took Swelk's computer from Kyle's hand. Walking slowly toward the knot of s.h.i.+vering animals, she crooned, ”Smelly. Stinky. Smelly. Stinky.” The computer repeated something after her, softly. The swampbeasts pushed forward. Bowing their heads, they approached cautiously, eyes wide and staring. They brushed their enormous heads against Darlene's outstretched hand, then settled to their knees beside her.

Swelk's computer did not translate ”humph,” but that was okay. They understood what it meant.

* * * Swelk coughed and spat, splattering a smoke-blackened clot of blood against the bulkhead. The clot sizzled. Despite the fire-suppressant sprays, fire was everywhere. Her skin was blistered. Her extremities had been so repeatedly scorched that she no longer felt them.

The initial fireball had burst through the open hold where Rualf and his troupe had been working, killing

everyone. She had no idea why the hatch to the s.h.i.+p's interior, never unlocked when she was aboard, was now wide open. The s.h.i.+p's corridors had channeled the fire and blast, catching most of the crew at their posts. The draft from the second airlock had deflected the fireball from parts of the s.h.i.+p, sparing the bridge from the worst of it.

And saving her Girillian friends.She had explored the Consensus from end to end, and there were no survivors. She omitted Grelben from her tally. He would surely refuse to leave the s.h.i.+p. Captain's prerogative. Captain's curse. Captain's penance, too, she considered, still unable to wish upon him, or anyone, death in this manner.

She had been lost repeatedly in the smoke, been saved more than once by providential discoveries of

emergency respirators. Their capacity was limited, and she'd left a trail of empties behind her on her trek. She finally found her way to the hatch that led to the zoo hold and safety.

The entrance was shut and inoperative.

Frantically, she tore open the access panel to get at the manual override. The crank stuck after a quarter