Part 35 (2/2)

But the flying disc flared ruby flame, and it was falling. Louis had a last glimpse of Teela before she dropped behind the strange, lacy trees.

She had spread a tiny paraglider.

So a.s.sume she's alive and unhurt, and move away fast. Economically, Louis went over the crest of the hill and watched from the other side. It could work, and his tail of superconductor thread was still in the pond.

Where was she?

Something leaped from the crest of the next hill over. Green light speared it in midair, and held while the thing flamed and died. So much for Chmeee's s.p.a.cesuit. But a flight of hand-sized missiles flew toward the base of the green laser beam. Half a dozen white flashes from behind the rise, and the snap! of lightning striking close, showed that Chmeee had succeeded in turning puppeteer-made batteries into bombs.

Teela was close, and she was using a laser. And if she was circling the pond, just beyond the crest ... Louis adjusted his position.

Chmeee's burnt suit had fallen too slowly. A protector would know it was empty. Cthulhu and Allah! How could anyone fight a lucky protector?

Teela popped up, lower down the hillside than Louis had expected, speared Louis on a lance of green light, and was gone before Louis's thumb could move. Louis blinked. The flare s.h.i.+elding in his helmet had saved his eyes. But, instincts or no, Teela was trying to kill Louis Wu.

She popped up again elsewhere. Green light died on black cloth. This time Louis fired back. She was gone; he didn't know whether he'd hit her. He'd glimpsed pliant leather armor a little loose on her, and joints swollen hugely: knuckles and finger joints like walnuts, knees and elbows like cantaloupes. She wore no armor except her own skin.

Louis rolled sideways and down the hill. He started crawling, fast. Crawling was hard work. Where would she be next? He'd never played this game. In two hundred years of life, he'd never been a soldier.

Two puffs of steam drifted above the pond.

To his left, Harkabeeparolyn suddenly stood and fired. Where was Teela? Her laser didn't answer. Harkabeeparolyn stood like a black-robed target; then she ducked and ran down the hill. Flattened out and started to crawl left and upward.

The rock came from her left, and how could Teela have been there that fast? It smacked Harkabeeparolyn's arm hard enough to smash bone and to rip the sleeve open. The City Builder woman stood howling, and Louis waited to see her cut down. Futzfutzfutz! but track the beam -- No beam came. And he shouldn't be watching; he should be acting. He'd seen where the rock came from. There was a cleft between two hills, and he crawled as fast as he dared, to put hillside between himself and Teela. Then around ... Tanj, where was Chmeee now? Louis risked a glance over the crest.

Harkabeeparolyn had stopped screaming. She sniffed. She dropped her flying belt and tore the black cloth away, one-handed. Her other arm flapped loose, broken. She began trying to take off her suit.

Teela had been there. Where would she move? She was ignoring Harkabeeparolyn.

Harkabeeparolyn's helmet wouldn't come loose. She reeled down the hill, straining to rip the fabric one-handed, then smas.h.i.+ng at the faceplate with a rock.

Too much time was pa.s.sing. Teela could be anywhere by now. Louis moved again, to a notch carved by a brook now dry. If he tried a hilltop, she'd be watching it.

Could she actually guess his every move? Protector! Where was she now?

Behind me? Louis felt spiders on the back of his neck. He spun around, for no good reason, and fired at Teela as a small metal tool slashed along his ribs. The missile ripped his suit and flesh, and jarred his aim. He clasped his left arm across the torn fabric while playing the ruby beam where Teela had last been. Then she popped up and was gone before the beam could reach her, and a dense metal ball sprayed chips from his helmet.

He rolled downhill, holding his suit shut with his left arm. Through the starred helmet he saw Teela coming at him like a great black bat, and he held the ruby beam on her faster than she could dodge.

Tanj dammit, she wasn't dodging! And why should she? Harkabeeparolyn's suit of black superconductor cloth was now worn by Teela Brown. He held the beam on her with both hands. She'd get warmer than she liked before she killed him. The armored demon bounded toward him with black cloth shredding around her like wet tissue.

Shredding. Why? And what was that smell?

She veered and threw the laser like a missile, sideways, at Chmeee. Disintegrator and flashlight-laser spun away from Chmeee's hand. They crashed together.

The smell of tree-of-life was in Louis's nose and in his brain. It was not like the wire. Current was sufficient unto itself an experience that demanded nothing further to make it perfect. The smell of tree-of-life was ecstasy, but it sparked a raging hunger. Louis knew what tree-of-life was now. It had glossy dark-green leaves and roots like a sweet potato, and it was all around him, and the taste-something in his brain remembered the taste of Paradise.

It was all around him, and he couldn't eat. He couldn't eat. He couldn't eat because of his helmet, and he tore his hands away from the clamps that would release his helmet, because he couldn't eat while the human variant of a Pak protector was killing Chmeee.

He steadied the laser with both hands, as if it might recoil. The kzin and the protector were inextricably tangled and rolling downhill, leaving shreds of black cloth. He followed them down with a thread of ruby light. First fire, then aim. You're not really hungry. It would kill you, you're too old to make the change to protector, it would kill you.

Tanj, the smell! His brain reeled with it. The strain of resisting it was horrible. It was every bit as bad as not resetting his droud every evening of his life for these past eighteen years. Intolerable! Louis held the beam steady and waited.

Teela missed a disemboweling kick. For an instant her leg stack straight out. The red thread touched it, and Teela's s.h.i.+n flashed eye-searing red.

He saw another clear shot that disappeared as he fired. Part of Chmeee's nude pink tail flared and fell away, writhing like an injured worm. Chmeee didn't seem to notice. But Teela knew where the beam was. She tried to throw Chmeee into it. Louis moved the wand of red light clear and waited.

Chmeee had been slashed; he was bleeding in several places; but he was on top of the protector, using his ma.s.s. Louis noticed a sharp-edged rock nearby, like a carefully flaked fist ax, that would crush Chmeee's skull. He released the trigger and aimed at the rock. Teela's hand flashed out for it and burst into flame.

Surprise, Teela!

Tanj, the smell! I'll kill you for the smell of tree-of-life!

A hand gone and a lower leg: Teela should be handicapped by that, but how badly had she damaged Chmeee? They must have been tiring, because Louis caught a clear glimpse of Teela's hard beak in Chmeee's thick neck. Chmeee twisted, and for an instant there was nothing behind Teela's misshapen skull but blue sky. Louis waved the light into her brain.

It took Louis and Chmeee pulling together to open Teela's jaws where they were locked in Chmeee's throat. ”She let her instincts fight for her,” Chmeee gasped. ”Not her mind. You were right, she fought to lose. Kdapt help me if she had fought to win.”

And then it was over, except for the blood leaking into Chmeee's far; except for Louis's bruised and possibly broken ribs, and the pain that twisted him sideways; except for the smell, the smell of tree-of-life, and that went on and on. Except for Harkabeeparolyn, now standing in pond water up to bar knees, mad-eyed and frothing at the mouth as she fought to pound her helmet open.

They took her arms and led her away. She fought. Louis fought too: he fought to keep walking away from the rows and rows of tree-of-life.

Chmeee stopped in the corridor. He undogged Louis's helmet and pulled it away. ”Breathe, Louis. The wind blows toward the farm.”

Louis sniffed. The smell was gone. They took Harkabeeparolyn's helmet off to let the smell out of her suit. It didn't seem to matter. Her eyes were mad, staring. Louis wiped foam from her mouth.

The kzin asked, ”Can you resist? Can you hold her from returning? And yourself?”

”Yeah. n.o.body but a reformed wirehead could have done it.”

”Urrr?”

”You'll never know.”

”I never will. Give me your flying belt.”

The straps were tight. They must have hurt, cutting across Chmeee's wounds. Chmeee was gone only a few minutes. He came back with Harkabeeparolyn's flying belt, his own disintegrator, and two flashlight-lasers.

Harkabeeparolyn was calmer, probably through exhaustion. Louis was fighting a terrible depression. He barely heard Chmeee say, ”We seem to have won the battle and lost the war. What shall we do next? Your woman and I both need treatment. It may be we can reach the lander.”

”We'll go through Needle. What do you mean, lost the war?”

”You heard Teela. Needle is in stasis, and we are left with nothing but our hands. How can we learn what any of this machinery does without Needle's instruments?”

”We won.” Louis felt awful enough without the kzin's pessimism. ”Teela isn't infallible. She's dead, isn't she? How would she know if the Hindmost was reaching for the stasis switch? Why should he?”

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