STEPPING OVER GREASY ASHES

1563 4D

Five guards stood blocking the approach to the ship from Ring Sixteen. This approach, a long narrow ramp, jogged to the left about fifty strides up from the ring street. The jog marked the point beyond which humans had never been permitted. The five guards clustered at that point; Arlen approached them a few steps ahead of the Argazindari. The two men and three women of the guard wore regional military uniforms, green-and-brown speckled coveralls with green panels on chest and belly. Turning and readying their weapons, they stared at Arlen‘s party.

“Anrail called us,” Arlen began, indicating himself and Carchesme. Bargaroth drifted up beside him.

“Forget it,” one of the men said, “Nobody’s home. Go down to the Domehall if you want to meet any of them. And take your friends here with you.” He shifted his weapon, a large toxgun, to center its aim just over Arlen‘s head. “Sir.”

“We’ll just wait here with you. It’s important.” Arlen smiled blandly. The Argazindari drifted up around him almost like children around a father, looking first up at him, then over at the guards.

“No, sir. You’ll wait down there. No one stays up here or blocks this passage. Understand? Sir?”

The Argazindari, Bargaroth nearest the group of soldiers, turned and felt the wall wonderingly as if they had never touched smooth stone before, their eyes wide, murmuring indistinctly to each other in musical accents, spreading along the wall like a dark stain. The guards, uncertain whether to smile or shout at them, stood transfixed. Taking Carchesme‘s arm, Arlen turned to face down the ramp, and heard a brief scuffle and a squeal behind him. When he turned again, the soldiers were gone, and Bargaroth waited for him, pointing at a body at his feet.

“Regrets for the noise she made,” he said, offering Arlen the heavy toxgun to sling alongside his own. “She must have been sensitive.” They moved up, past the jog in the ramp, stepping over the five bodies. Ahead of them lay a long beam-straight corridor upslope, a yellow-lit portal at its end sixty strides away.

“Halt!” A motorlike voice from the portal stopped them. “You are in violation of the Treaty. Return to your city or we will destroy you and take levy from your people.”

Arlen stopped, whispering to Bargaroth, “What do you sense up there?”

The Argazindar leader turned to one of the others, who whispered to him for a long time.

“Come on, Arlen, let’s not—" Carchesme began.

The voice cut in again. “Return to your city now. You are in violation of the Treaty. We have placed weapons in this corridor to destroy you. You have a count of ten to turn and pass the bend. Ten.” A pause. “Nine—“

“Heavy beam gun and smartfleche battery at ship entrance,” Bargaroth said.

“Seven. Six.”

Bargaroth gestured three dark figures up beside him, to jam reflective shields against floor and walls. Any leaks between shield and floor, and the group would die. “Lie very flat, face down, behind us,” he said, his dark eyes raking Arlen and Carchesme, “now. Keep very low. We won’t let the beam through.” They obeyed.

“Two. One.”

The corridor erupted in sun-white splendor. A flash of heat ripped at the nape of Arlen‘s neck. Answering fire from the Argaz: several loud thuds echoed from the distance. Bargaroth‘s voice said, “Come, fast.”

Arlen scrambled to his feet to see the dark shadows of the Argazindari flow out ahead of him toward a flickering greenish light in the distance. He thumbed a hidrenalex jector in his sleeve; the surge hit him just as the first of Bargaroth‘s group reached the end of the slope where the green light danced and spewed pale haze. Carchesme ran after him, calling, “Arlen!”

A smartfleche lit off, ricocheting out of control past Arlen‘s head to smash at the bend behind him. He reached the corridor’s end, stopping quickly; Carchesme collided with him from behind. They joined Bargaroth and the others in an entry chamber in which stood the two ruined weapons: a carriage-mounted beamer, its cerametal radiators crazed and shattered, its platinum barrel slagged out of shape, blazing the heat of its recent destruction; and the smartfleche array, its few remaining launch cradles drooping from a skeletal mounting to touch its wheeled pedestal with blunt snouts.

Stepping over greasy ashes, the invaders eased around the weapons and passed into a short level passageway, windowed on either side. Arlen looked out and down. Lights on a sheer stone wall outside showed him the smooth contours of a huge, gently-rounded shape into which the passageway took him. The outer surface of the shape glowed a dark emerald green. A wail rose, stuttered, fell, rose to cycle again. They entered the alien ship.