NINETEEN
Shibo fell before the first volley.
The Cybers opened up from the shattered ridgeline above. Their timing was perfect. His Supremacy’s escort was still startled, confused, scrambling for cover.
Killeen had just started to get up when he felt the stinging bolt go by his leggings and saw it strike Shibo a glancing hit. She toppled forward from her knees. No visible damage on her suit. A tech-disabling shot, then. He grasped her shoulder and rolled her over.
“Close… that time,” she gasped.
“Can you feel your legs?”
“Yeasay.”
“Arms?”
“Yea… yeasay.”
“Move ’em.”
The pulse had knocked out most of her exskell. It heaved and jerked in a dying spasm. The riblike frame wheezed, purred, and went dead. Without it she had less strength than even the simplest augmentation of leggings and shocks gave. She would not get far if they had to run.
And it looked like they would. The Cybers were cutting up the escort guard.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“Don’t know. Head’s li’l wobbly. Here—”
She got up onto one elbow and grunted with the effort of rising to her knees. A pulse ripped by with a loud whoooom.
Killeen started to help her further and into his mind came a sharp, pointed imperative. Something was narrowing down on his back. He felt it as a circle of compressed heat. It rasped against his sensorium.
He spun away. A bolt frayed the air where he had been.
For the first time in their long battle with the Cybers Killeen had a sudden, sure knowledge of where the fire came from. His sensorium Dopplered back along the bolt path and found among the rocks a smudge of greasy fog.
He knew immediately that this was his enemy. Unbidden, he felt its raw immensity. It was a mind that came from a place of shining movements, from moist dark spaces, from velocities bleak and hard. All this sudden, crisp certainty came streaming from the gravid wedge that rode in the back of his mind.
He rolled to his left. The enemy probed for him through the thickening haze of electrodeception that flurried across the rugged slope. A blizzard of flickering images cycloned by. It swirled through the milling mob of humans as they scattered.
He fumbled for his last projectile weapon. Clicked it into place. Sighted carefully —
—and felt intruding a feathery streamer of sorrow and hesitation. Not his.
The somber emotion washed through him, stilling his hand. Reasonless, it spoke only of regret.
Killeen sucked in air to break free of the heavy, choking mood.
Shibo gasped nearby, “Leave me. Get clear. I’ll be—”
He fired. The bolt hit just where he had known to aim.
Instantly the air cleared. The snow-squall of flitting electrodeceptions was gone.
Through a compacted instant Killeen felt a sad spike of longing. Again it came as a flowing, many-streamered emission, from the shadow-blue weight behind his mind.
He saw Besen was well sheltered downslope. Toby—
His son was firing carefully from slight cover nearby. Killeen called to him, “Fall back!” Toby came running.
“Come on,” he grunted, hauling Shibo to her feet. She wobbled weakly.
Hissing bolts refracted through the nearby air. Splashes of infrared strobed running figures into flash pictures of desperation. Microwaves rattled.
And something else boomed down from the vault above.
He and Toby got Shibo down the steepest slope. They were making for the shelter of a dry wash when Killeen felt rather than heard the hammering sound of pursuit. A massive thing bore down on them. He barely had time to turn and glimpse the crusted, warty hide.
It loomed even larger this time. The barrel-chested trunk had a glazed ceramic cast. Great shanks of carbo-alum worked noisily to carry the thing forward. He could not clearly see the head. Encrusted antennae and projectors sprouted like gleaming weeds on the wrinkled, fertile hide. A shimmering protection enveloped it. It moved to block shots coming toward them.
Then it was upon them.
A hurtling jolt. Scrabbling haste. Many-ribbed fingers snatching at them.
They slammed into resilient webbing. Jostling shadows heaved them roughly. Oh no, Killeen thought. Again.
They were inside the Cyber. A cutting reek swarmed in his nostrils. Again he felt the mucous-moist compartment close about him. Shibo’s grasp eased and she lay back into the foamy stuff. A blur of mad acceleration took them away.
Killeen saw that Shibo was bleeding. It hadn’t been only a tech hit, then. He cursed himself.
