Just then Etienne saw a shape approaching them. “Here’s Homat. Maybe he heard something.”
Lyra returned to her studies and Etienne waited until their guide emerged from the glare. “Homat, you were near the boat. Did you hear something?”
“Yes, Etienne.” He sounded odd, Etienne thought, though he couldn’t define the difference. “I heard. It was your lightning thrower dealing spirits.”
Lyra heard that, slowly rose from where she’d been sitting.
Etienne spoke precisely. “The lightning thrower? You mean it went off? How did that happen?”
“The way it always happens.” The Mai was careful to keep his distance from Etienne, despite the severity of the man’s injury. He removed the pistol from the pocket of his thermal suit. Etienne stiffened and Lyra backed toward the metal wall behind her.
“It happened,” Homat continued, his confidence starting to build, “when I touched this place you call the trigger. I touched it and called upon the lightning spirits. I, Homat, did this.”
Etienne struggled to choose the right words. “That’s a very dangerous thing to do, Homat. You don’t know what you’re doing. The lightning spirits can be very unpredictable. You could hurt yourself.”
Homat laughed softly. “You clever humans. You come here from another world, with your wonderful magical devices, and you try to make us think none but you can make them work.” He shook the asynapt at them. “Well, I can make them work!”
“Where is Teacher Tyl?” Yulour asked uncertainly, looking past the Mai toward the hydrofoil.
“Be quiet, simpleton. The meditator is dead. I killed him, with this.” He shook the pistol again.
“But why?” Lyra cried as she looked toward the boat.
Homat’s voice was as icy as the air around them. “To make certain that I did know how to call upon the lightning spirits. Truly it is very easy. You just touch this trigger place here.” One finger eased toward the firing button.
Etienne negotiated a couple of awkward steps backward, leaning on the crutch.
“Don’t be frightened,” Homat told him. “I don’t think I have to kill you. Besides, I need your arms and your backs.”
“What for?”
Homat looked past him, his eyes afire. “To load the spirit boat with the gray metal, the sunk.”
“The iridium alloy? Your people value it too?”
“More than any other thing of this world. It will make me master over much of it.”
“We don’t care if you take some sunit back with you,” Lyra said. “Enough to make you rich, if you wish. We promised you a reward for helping us.”
“The meditator said much the same thing. I take my own reward, Lyra. I want to take back as much sunit as the spirit boat will hold. We will make room by throwing out the useless things you have gathered during this journey, bits of plants and rocks and clothing and cheap trinkets.”
“Homat, you can’t! We need to take samples of your world back for study.”
“You don’t listen, Lyra. What is important to you does not matter now. It doesn’t matter that your civilization is smarter than that of the Mai. It doesn’t matter that you are smarter than me, though I am not so sure of that anymore. It does not matter that you are larger and stronger. This is all that matters now.” He gestured with the asynaptic pistol. “I have not touched it since we fought the Na. It slew the meditator. I am certain it can slay you. This is something even we simple Mai can understand.”
“Irquit wasn’t the Zanur’s representative,” Etienne said accusingly. “It was you all the time.”
“Oh, no, Etienne, she was a representative of the Zanur. We both were. But she was in charge over me, and I couldn’t have that. I did not need her around, watching as I made careful study of your magic. I knew we would fail at Chan-grit.”
“So you’re a traitor then. To your city-state of Po Rabi, to your Zanur, to your Najoke de-me-Halmur.”
Homat dug his toes into the ground, a sign of disrespectful disgust. “From this moment on Najoke de-me-Halmur is nothing. He is become less than the grains of gravel that roll from the mouth of this cave, less than the droppings of the prewq upon the fields. The Zanur is become nothing. Po Rabi itself is as nothing beside the wealth that lies here. If I choose I will buy Po Rabi for a winter home. I will be Moyt over all.”
Lyra fought to restrain her temper. “Now listen, Homat. Maybe you can operate that pistol without burning your foot off, but running the spirit boat is another matter entirely.”
“Is it so? I have watched for a long time now while you thought me shivering and cowering behind you for protection. Already I have steered the spirit boat once. I think truly it is not so complicated to use. A very few controls run it mostly, and one allows the spirits within to run by themselves.”
“Even an autopilot needs occasional instructions.”
“Does it? I think you try to deceive me. We will see.”
“And what happens,” Etienne pressed him, “if we don’t return and our friends come looking for us? They’ll find the boat and they’ll find you.”
“Perhaps. If they do I will shiver and cower some delighted more and explain that you were slain by the Na and that I, Homat, not knowing what else to do, was returning the spirit boat to its rightful owners. I think they will let me keep the sunit and award me honors for my bravery and dedication.”
“Even assuming you could run the boat,” Lyra said, “how can you get it past the Topapasirut without the help of the Tsla of Jakaie?”
“I think they will believe my story also. If they are reluctant to believe, there are other ways.” He gestured past them toward the mountain of metal. “The Tsla are also traders. They are not immune to the promise of great wealth. Not all the hairy ones sit and meditate their lives away. They work hard in their shops and fields and when they come down to the Skar, wealth changes hands. And there is another reason why I know this can be done.”
“Another reason?”
“An elderly merchant of Po Rabi preceded us to this place. Without lightning throwers, without this wondrous delighted clothing you have given me, without a spirit boat, he came to this place, stood perhaps on this same spot, and returned to Po Rabi with proof that he had done so. With all your wonders at my command, I cannot fail to do as well.
“But why this talk of your not returning? I bear you no malice, and I need your strength to load the sunit into the spirit boat. Then we will see. It would be easier if you agreed to help me return to the Skatandah. Perhaps I will even let you keep your boat. You will not have the useless rocks and weeds that you have gathered, but you will still have the magic images you make of them.
“One thing is certain: you have no other choice but to help me. If you do not, it will take longer to load the sunit with the help of only this simple one,” he gestured toward Yulour, “but it will be done nonetheless. And I will surely kill you.”
“Yulour and I will help load your precious sunit,” Lyra said bitterly, “but Etienne cannot. If he does much lifting he stands a good chance of reopening the wound inside him.”
