“Lewis pushed us out. Like garbage. You know what that means. There were Runners. Most of us didn’t get away. I hope the Runners get in there.” He gestured with his good arm at the Redoubt across the plain. “Eat every one of those shiptit bastards!”

The dwarf slid off the treatment table as she finished. He headed toward the exit.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to help where I can.” He stood with the fabric flap held back and she stared out the opening at the Redoubt. Blue flashes filled the air there. She could hear distant shouts and screams.

“You’re in no condition to . . .”

“I’m well enough to carry the wounded.”

“There are more?”

“Lots of ’em.” He lurched out the opening, the fabric falling closed behind him.

Hali closed her eyes. In her mind she could see a mill of people. It changed to a crowd and the crowd became a mob. Foul-breath and the salty stink of blood were on the wind. The tiny lips of cuts and the great smears of burn wounds filled her imagination. A pair of broken knees blurred through her memory—the men on the crosses.

“That’s not the way,” she muttered. She took up her pribox and an emergency medical kit, stepped to the opening, flung it back. The dwarf already was a small figure in the distance. She strode after him.

“Where are you going?” It was Ferry’s voice calling after her.

She did not turn. “They need me out there.”

“But what about Waela?”

“You’re a doctor.” She shouted it without taking her gaze off the smoke billowing in the distance.

Chapter 67

Chapter 67

When humans act as spokesmen for the gods, mortality becomes more important than morality. Martyrdom corrects this discrepancy but only for a brief interval. The sorry thing about martyrs is that they are not around to explain what it all meant. Nor do they stay to see the terrible consequences of martyrdom.

—“You Are Spokesmen for Martyrs,” Raja Thomas, Shiprecords

LEGATA SWITCHED the big screen from sensor to sensor, trying to make sense of what the instruments reported. Images blurred, re-formed in different perspective. Cutter beams slashed across the plain, she could see bodies, odd movements. Alarm buzzers signaled damage to a section of the Redoubt’s perimeter. She heard Lewis dispatch repair and defense teams. Defense cutters beamed into action, directed by key people in the Center. She kept her attention on the mystery in the screens. In the split-screen images an occasional blur slipped past—as though some outside force were confusing the instruments.

She wiped a sleeve across her forehead. The two suns had climbed high while the confused battle went on, and the Redoubt’s life-support had been reduced to minimum, shunting energy to weapons. It was hot in the Command Center and the nervous movements of Oakes at her elbow irritated her. In contrast, Lewis appeared unaccountably calm, even secretly amused.