Текст книги "The Red King "

Автор книги: Michael Martin

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

But at the moment, he didn’t particularly care.

SHUTTLECRAFT BEIDERBECKE,STARDATE 57037.7

Lieutenant Commander desYog banked the shuttlecraft Beiderbeckethrough great, columnar roils of smoke and the increasingly frequent bright energy discharges. Pitching the craft sharply upward, desYog narrowly avoided a spectacular airborne conflagration, then angled back downward toward one of the more populated areas of the coastal city.

“Scans show a relative safe landing area to the north side, four point two kilometers away,” Lieutenant Commander Fo Hachesa said, mangling his gerunds and suffixes, as always.

“Got it,” desYog said, his talons clicking on the interface controls of the shuttlecraft. “We’ll be there in two minutes,” he said loudly.

Behind him, he heard Lieutenant Gian Sortollo prepping the other members of the team. DesYog tried to tune him out as he used the ship’s sensors to navigate through the ash-filled afternoon skies. It was hard enough keeping the ship on track without worrying about how the others were going to accomplish their mission.

They neared an open area, which was very near the waterfront. Huge waves of purple-gray seawater crashed against the docks, splintering them. Several Neyel space vessels were docked on top of buildings, while sailing vessels bucked and listed in the suddenly turbulent waters of the harbor. Through the forward window, desYog could see hundreds of beings scurrying to get to the spaceships, even though none of them had begun to take off as yet.

“Scans show those ships are dead in the water, so to speaking,” Hachesa said, looking at the screens on the side of the cabin. “Whoever’s on them isn’t get off the planet.”

“Can we tow them?” Sortollo asked, peering over Hachesa’s shoulder.

“We can’t spare the power,” desYog said glumly.

“Then we stick with our plan and get as many of them out as possible.”

As desYog brought the shuttle in for a landing, the Neyel and others among them on the surface spread out just enough to allow the craft ingress.

“I don’t think we’ll having any trouble get them to board, Lieutenant,” Hachesa said.

Sortollo and the others prepared to open the hatch. The terrified babble of the crowd was audible even through the shuttle’s duranium hull.

The moment the hatch began to open, hands and other appendages began to claw at it. Even before it was a third of the way open, a Neyel had scrambled aboard, his eyes wide and his tail switching like a serpent about to strike.

Should have just used the transporter,desYog thought. Even if we do need to save all the power we can for the hazard-avoidance system.On the other hand, he knew he didn’t want to end up tearing the shuttle to pieces just because he’d shortchanged the Beiderbecke’s ability to swerve clear of interspatial disturbances.

As others quickly followed the Neyel onboard, the Starfleet personnel tried to maintain some semblance of order. DesYog tried to ignore the terrified faces that were pressed against the forward window; he saw Neyel children struggling to stay upright among the larger adults, as well as representatives from at least four other races.

“Oh, shit,”Hachesa said next to him, staring at a screen. The word meant “bride” in desYog’s native Skorrian, but he knew that Fo had picked it up from humans, for whom the term had a far less pleasant definition.

Hachesa turned toward him, his olive-colored nose turning a vivid purple. “There’s a tidal wave about to hitting.”

Over the din of the crowd, Hachesa tried to get Sortollo’s attention to warn him, even as desYog readied the shuttle to take off. Readings showed the swiftly gathering wall of ocean water to be two kilometers away, but closing fast. Too fast.

We have to leavenow, he thought, but a quick glance aft told him that the ship was still not full to capacity. Still, they couldn’t wait any longer.

DesYog punched the red alert button, and a warning klaxon went off, adding to the already cacophonous din inside the shuttle. “Lieutenant, we have to get up now,”he yelled back toward Sortollo, though he couldn’t even see the sallow-skinned Martian in the crowd.

The wave was getting close. DesYog sent a prayer to his goddess, teneYa-choFe; he was thankful, at least, that none of the Starfleet personnel had been pulled outside. Then he tapped the control for the shuttle’s hatch, pulling it closed.

Behind him, he heard screaming, but he couldn’t tell if it was from those in the shuttle, someone caught in the hatch, or those outside.

As he pushed the shuttle upward, a tremendous clamor filled the air. He saw several Neyel and others clawing at the front of the shuttle as it rose, their fingers and tails catching at any crevice they could find, terror etched deeply onto their hard gray faces.

And then the wall of water struck the shuttle with immense force, and desYog felt himself—and the craft—tumbling over and over again, the lowering sun blocked out by brackish purple-gray seawater, all other sound crushed beneath a deafening roar.

Clutching the crash-straps that bound him tightly to his seat, desYog prayed to teneYa-choFe again, that the shields would hold, and that they would be able to save the scant handful of Oghen’s populace they had brought aboard.

Not to mention themselves.

Chapter Sixteen

VANGUARD

K’chak’!’op felt completely at home within the Vanguard habitat. This discovery greatly surprised her. She had been among the first set of Titancrew members to be dispatched to the artificial world, alongside Deanna Troi, Christine Vale, Engineer Crandall, Counselor Huilan, Dr. Cethente, and about a dozen others.

Frane, Titan’s most prominent Neyel guest, had hand-picked a number of the Neyel military personnel who had accompanied them as well, and now everyone was busy trying to revive the sleeping world. The previously uncooperative Neyel commandos had apparently been much easier to convince to help once they had been shown the destruction taking place on Oghen, and the specific plans that Titanand the Romulans had formulated to save as many of its inhabitants as possible by transporting them to the Vanguard habitat.

K’chak’!’op worked steadily at the ancient computers, utilizing her foremost pair of legs, and all twelve of the tentacles that protruded from her head segment. The system was so archaic as to be laughable; it would be up to her and the team of engineers to retrofit the habitat’s internal structure as quickly as possible to make certain it was up to the stresses of towing, warp travel, and passage through the spatial rift through which Titanhad initially arrived here.

According to the chatter on the comm system, another huge wave of Neyel refugees had just been beamed in from Titanand Donatra’s fleet, meaning that probably not many more mass transports would be necessary before the habitat teemed with a million or more sentients. The shuttle teams conducting their targeted rescues, and the transport engineers across the rescue flotilla, appeared to be doing their jobs very well indeed.

K’chak’!’op’s attention was drawn to a cheer she heard coming over the comm system. This wasn’t coming from inside the asteroid habitat, but rather from another source: it appeared that the shuttlecraft Holliday,the shuttlecraft Marcellis,and three Romulan craft had just arrived from the surface, carrying between them scores of Neyel and other natives who hadn’t been reached by the last round of mass beam-ups. The exact information was too garbled for her translator/voder to accurately parse, but she gleaned enough good news from the transmission to buoy her spirits considerably.

She felt a tug against her mid-leg, and turned her head around to view whomever had interrupted her. She was surprised to see the multipartite member of the Seekers of Penance—Lofi, if she recalled the sentient’s name correctly—and the almost bovine-looking companion of the independently-segmented creature.

“We wish to aid you,” Lofi said. “However we can. I have some experience with Neyel computers, and Fasaryl was a cro’loog’fin’shalfor his people before his apprin-dining.”

K’chak’!’op wasn’t quite sure what Lofi had just said, but she assumed she should be grateful for the offer. “Whatever help you can offer will be received gladly,” she said, her undulating tentacles signing her words, which her translator/voder dutifully rendered into what she hoped was passable Neyel.

And though the space around her had become slightly more cramped with the arrival of the two Seekers, K’chak’!’op felt comforted to be working alongside two others whose hearts and minds were sure to be as focused as hers was on the task at hand.

SHUTTLECRAFT BEIDERBECKE

To his credit, Hachesa had managed to activate the navigational deflector and raise the shields just prior to the shuttle’s inundation and submersion. The cockpit bulkhead had automatically sealed as well, protecting the forward cabin both from the elements and the frantic refugees.

Fortunately, the Beiderbecke’s shields had held, keeping the deluge outside at bay; the fact that everyone on the shuttle other than the pilots was also being kept out of the cockpit was a side benefit that gave desYog and Hachesa a few valuable moments to collect themselves.

DesYog scanned the instrument panels, ignoring the murk-filled forward windows in favor of the images on the monitor screens set into the panel below them. What the screens showed was hazy at best, however; all desYog could tell was that multiple indistinct objects were tumbling through the brine toward the shuttlecraft.

“We’re definite upside-down,” Hachesa said, running his hands over the companels again. “That way is up,” he added, pointing toward the deck.

The artificial gravity, which had kicked on automatically when the shuttle had rolled onto its back, was so comforting it almost disoriented him. But desYog knew that the feeling was illusory. He entered some commands into the computer, and felt the ship begin to move around him.

Suddenly, something large and dark smashed into the forward window. It appeared to be a piece of a building, but it was difficult to tell given the dim illumination in the water. Sparks shot out of one of the upper panels, alighting on desYog’s wings, which were folded neatly behind him.

I can’t worry about a few singed feathers,he thought, glad that his outer flocking lacked neural sensation. A quick glance at the console displays confirmed what the sparks had announced: The shields were failing.

“Shields are down to thirty-seven percent,” Hachesa said. “We’ve got to get out of here. I think we can survive long enough to reach the habitat, but we can’t take this water pressure much longer.”

The companel crackled to life. “DesYog, Hachesa, are you there?”Sortollo’s voice was nervous, rattled.

“We’re fine, Lieutenant,” desYog said. “We’re attempting to get the Beiderbeckeout of here now.”

He pushed the controls and felt the craft shudder slightly as it rose through the crushing weight of water. Something dark came at them from ahead, and he pushed the shuttle even harder. They skimmed over the dark thing, narrowly avoiding it.

A bovine body slammed into the forward window with a sickening thud, then vanished into the receding murk. DesYog tried not to think about all the dead and dying they were leaving behind. All the ones they had failed to rescue.

“Ten meters to the surface,” Hachesa said. “Looks like we’ll soon be in the clearly.”

DesYog decided to allow his relief over the team’s survival to distract him from the Kobliad’s irritating abuse of Federation Standard.

The Beiderbeckebroke the surface and pushed upward, into the dusky, smoke-clogged skies of a dying planet.

U.S.S. TITAN,STARDATE 57037.8

Akaar watched the monitors in the aft section of Titan’s bridge as the shuttlecraft Handyhovered near the Vanguard habitat, matching velocities with it. Tuvok’s ship had returned from its third trip with another dozen survivors, after having assisted Titanand the Romulan fleet in locking onto and beaming up thousands more.

The Vulcan also related some surprising news.

“A refugee group we contacted has refused to listen to logic, Captain,”Tuvok said from the main viewscreen at the front of the bridge. “Apparently, their religion forbids them to use any sort of high technology. We were forced to go to another relatively undamaged settlement to rescue others instead.”

“Then there’s nothing more we can do to help them,” Captain Riker said, his voice grave. “Continue toward the next target. Your team has still been more successful than most, even with this setback.”

Tuvok nodded, gesturing toward something behind him. “I consider that due in part to the effect that Mekrikuk appears to have on some of the more emotionally volatile refugees, sir. He exerts an immensely calming influence.”

Akaar gritted his teeth and finally stepped forward. “Commander, what are the coordinates of the religious compound?”

On the screen, Tuvok raised an eyebrow, his gaze moving to the side as he took in the Capellan admiral. “Sending coordinates now, Admiral. However, atmospheric ionization over that region of the planet makes transporter use inadvisable. Would you like us to make another attempt to persuade them? I would have thought you would be in agreement with Captain Riker.”

Akaar sensed in Tuvok’s words something that was almost an accusation. Resentments now more than three decades old stirred again within him, but he tamped them back down. “No. Find another target. If they are determined to die for their cause, we must respect their wishes.”

He turned his back quickly, as his lips began to tremble. The rescue missions were becoming increasingly perilous as the protouniverse’s energy discharges became more frequent; one Romulan ship, the S’harien,had been destroyed, hulled directly through the engine core by a pair of simultaneous interspatial energy blasts that had appeared too quickly to be avoided. Another one of Donatra’s vessels was too damaged to continue, and would have to be taken in tow. Titan’s shuttlecraft had taken a beating as well; the Beiderbeckehad apparently just barely avoided being crushed flat by a tsunami, and had just returned to the main shuttlebay for a quick inspection.

Akaar crossed to an unoccupied bridge console and examined the data Tuvok had transmitted. The coordinates for the religious compound were located in a remote desert area, a place that had so far remained mostly untouched by the ubiquitous calamities happening elsewhere on the planet. Apparently it had been relatively easy for these reclusive people to detach themselves from the dire necessity of taking action. Their decision to refuse assistance seemed ill-considered and selfish.

Was their decision the same one he had made back on Planetoid 437 all those years ago? The decision that Tuvok had thwarted, thereby effectively ending a friendship that had begun more than half a century earlier, aboard Excelsior.

His own rising anger answered the question for him. Howdare they refuse to help save themselves? Their race?His blood burned. We may be sacrificing everything by trying to save them, and yet they refuse to help themselves.

He closed his eyes, made a decision, then opened them again and stalked toward the turbolift.

Once inside, he barked an order into his combadge. “Computer, locate Chief Axel Bolaji.” He hated taking the new father on a mission that would place him directly in harm’s way. But until Titanreturned home, everyonewas in danger.

And right now, he really needed a good pilot.

VANGUARD

Frane slumped exhausted against the wall of a public gallery. The gentle upward curvature of the floor, which conformed to the overall cylindrical shape of the asteroid in which Holy Vangar had been built, wasn’t at all apparent at the moment. This might have been because of the growing, surprisingly orderly crowds of refugees. Or it could have been a result of his own fatigue. At the moment, he neither knew nor cared.

What he didknow was that it had been around six hours since he had taken any nourishment, and his energy level was declining quickly. And yet he wondered how he could stop to replenish himself when so much depended on him.

Hundreds of thousands of Neyel and native Oghen refugees had now been ferried up to Holy Vangar, and he had worked tirelessly, right alongside Harn and his men, in greeting and feeding the newcomers, organizing and prioritizing their many needs, and even enlisting the help of those who weren’t too badly shocked or injured to assist in those same efforts. Frane hadn’t taken much time as yet to consider the irony of the situation, though he was certainly aware of it; he was now actively working against the cause he had supported for so much of his young life, the cause of the Sleeper and the self-flagellating Seekers After Penance.

After all, how could a just god allow the wholesale destruction that was happening now? He hadn’t considered the ramifications of the punishment he had formerly wished upon his own people.

Until now. I was naïve,he told himself. The Sleeper was unworthy of both his worship and his respect if it could make no exceptions for those who were anrorli,innocent of the sin of slavery.

Even as his faith in his dread god crashed and burned around him, Frane knew that his faith in others was being restored. The humans from Titanand the countless Other Races of Men who also crewed that vessel were giving everything they had, risking their lives to save the Neyel and the natives alike. Even the Romulans, who had seemed so devious and treacherous when he had first encountered them, were not only assisting, but were providing most of the power required to make the evacuation of the Coreworld a success.

He felt his legs collapse beneath him, and spots began to appear across his vision.

A human appeared, a slender woman with dark hair and dusky features. He recognized her from the medical chambers aboard Titan.But whatever it was that she was saying was lost in the buzzing that had suddenly filled his ears.

She pointed one of her devices at him, her eyes alternately looking at him and the readout on the device. Then she removed another object from the bag that was slung over one of her shoulders. She pressed it up against his neck, and he felt a tiny sting.

Almost immediately, his vision began to clear and his hearing began to return to normal. He looked up at the woman, and into her large brown eyes.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

Frane nodded. “What happened?”

“Looks like your blood sugar crashed, and all this excitement didn’t help,” the woman said. “I gave you some glucose and tri-ox. That should keep you going for a while, but I’d suggest you get some food into you soon.”

She reached down to pull him up. “I’m Nurse Ogawa, by the way.”

Frane allowed her to help pull him back to a standing position, using his tail as leverage to help steady himself. “Yes, I remember seeing you in Titan’s sickbay. Thank you for your help.”

She made an expansive gesture around them both. “We can’t have one of the heroes of the Neyel miss the rescue of his people now, can we?”

Hero?The word was an explosion in Frane’s mind, one he had never expected to hear in conjunction with himself or his actions.

He shook his head, unsure whether he was agreeing with her or trying to dislodge the very idea from his thoughts.

SHUTTLECRAFT GILLESPIE

Using the bionic hand at the end of his prehensile tail, Cadet Torvig Bu-kar-nguv reached out and tugged on the sleeve of Lieutenant Eviku, trying to capture the Arkenite scientist’s attention quietly.

“Sir, have you noticed how many more Neyel we’re rescuing than any of the other species?” Torvig asked.

Eviku pursed his lips, and looked around the shuttle. The aft section, visible through an open hatchway through which other Starfleet personnel were moving, was crammed full of refugees.

Torvig followed his gaze, mentally counting the many disparate species aboard. This was their fourth trip, and had proved to be the most dangerous one so far. The interspatial energy discharges and related natural disasters occurring on Oghen were making their rescue flights more and more dangerous by the second. It was a good thing that Pazlar’s piloting skills were so strong, otherwise the shuttlecraft Gillespiemight have gone down just like that Romulan warbird had.

“I’m not sure I see your point,” Eviku said after a pause. “We seem to have a goodly number of the various local sentient races aboard.”

“There are significantly moreNeyel here than any other group,” Torvig noted. “And they are human offshoots.”

Eviku looked at him as if he had just grown a new eye. “What are you implying? That we’re showing favoritism to the Neyel because they’re genetically human?”

“I’m merely making an observation,” Torvig said.

Eviku turned away momentarily, and Torvig’s bionic eyes registered a look of disgust on his austere features when he turned back. The Arkenite opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, apparently pondering the question further.

Finally, he said, “Let’s say for the moment that the Neyel aregetting preferential treatment. Could that be because they are more numerous than any of the other species?”

Torvig nodded, ready to concede that obvious fact. “But we could certainly try a little harder to find and rescue more of the indigenous peoples.”

“I don’t think we’re ignoring anyone,” Eviku said. “Have youignored anyone? Has anymember of this crew actively pushed aside an Oghen native in favor of a Neyel?”

Shaking his head, Torvig said, “No. Not that I’ve seen.”

Eviku went quiet for a moment, apparently pondering again. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “I understand your misgivings, Cadet. I know that Titanhas been lauded by many for its crew diversity. On the other hand, I also know that nobody can fail to notice that most of the chief decision makers for the ship are either humans or humanoids that I can’t distinguish fromhumans without a tricorder. And that may indeed influence the way certain decisions aboard Titanget made. But I don’t believe anyone involved in this rescue effort is practicing racial bias. It seems to me we’re all working as hard as we can to save as many of these beings as possible, regardless of where their genes originated.”

Torvig nodded, and surveyed the crowd once more, facing forward again after the hatch had closed the aft section off from the cockpit once again. Upon further dissection of his perceptions, he was forced to agree with Eviku’s conclusion. Still, he felt unsettled.

After all, the Neyel outnumbered the natives because they had enslaved, displaced, and slaughtered them centuries ago. Not because there had been more Neyel originally.

On Oghen and Vanguard, just as aboard Titan,the minority was ruling over the majority.

“You may be right, of course,” he said to Eviku. “I was merely pursuing an interesting avenue of speculation.”

Torvig wondered quietly how those speculations would play out in reality.

U.S.S. LA ROCCA,STARDATE 57037.9

Chief Axel Bolaji pushed the controls forward, sending the captain’s skiff La Roccadeep into Oghen’s distressed, highly ionized atmosphere. Mauve oceans and green-brown continents rose to meet the small craft. Towering columns of fire and smoke colored the dawn sky an angry orange, and quickly grew near enough to force the chief to weave the skiff carefully between them.

Akaar sat beside the chief and brooded on his own recent actions. He had informed Captain Riker only that he was personally joining the rescue efforts and that he was commandeering the skiff, the only Titanauxiliary vessel that hadn’t been committed to the evacuation effort. Until now, the small craft had been held in reserve for use as an emergency lifeboat.

But the current mission met Akaar’s definition of “emergency.”

Accompanying Akaar aboard the La Roccawere Lieutenant Feren Denken, the now one-armed Matalinian who had received his injuries during the raid on Romulus’s Vikr’l Prison, and Paolo and Koasa Rossini, the pair of Polynesian engineers. They were big and strong, which might help if they encountered any resistance.

From the report that Tuvok had made, the people of the town of Lfei-sor-Paric were intent on their own deaths—prepared to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs. And though it went counter to the spirit if not the letter of the Prime Directive, Akaar was determined to prevent them from making that entirely unnecessary sacrifice. The others on the skiff would help him. He didn’t know, nor care whether they were doing it under duress because of his rank, or because they agreed with his line of reasoning.

Denken and the Rossinis had outfitted themselves in the black stealth isolation suits that the security teams had worn during the prison raid on Romulus, and Akaar began to don one as well, though the largest suit available was almost intolerably snug on him. They didn’t need the stealth functions of the suits per se, but the standard environmental suits were all being used at the moment by the engineering crews working on the external retrofitting of the Vanguard habitat. And Akaar’s group needed some kind of protection in order to execute the admiral’s plan.

“Coming up on the enclave, Admiral,” Bolaji said. “Two kilometers ahead.”

Akaar watched the rapidly approaching desert plain, which was now being distorted by flashes of interspatial energy as well as intense heat. Watching the energetic flashes, the admiral thought, Death is indeed coming for you. But so are we.

“Scanning is difficult with all the atmospheric ionization,” one of the Rossini twins said, looking up from a port-side console.

The other Rossini spoke up. “I’m guessing that most of the populace is inside the domed octagonal structure we’ve just picked up. I read at least fourteen life signs there, of various mixed species.”

Akaar pointed toward Denken, who was standing ready at the transporter controls. “As soon as you have the coordinates, Mr. Denken, beam them in.”

A few moments later, Akaar turned toward the aft section and watched the multiple dispersal canisters of anesthezine gas as they shimmered away from the transporter platforms. At such close range, beaming objects down wasn’t difficult, atmospheric ionization notwithstanding. And soon, if all went according to plan, Titanwould be able to lock onto and beam up every living thing in the desert compound.

“Hold position above the enclave,” Akaar told Bolaji. “I will signal you when we have the pattern enhancers in place.”

“Yes, sir,” Bolaji said.

As Akaar and the others beamed into the spacious, cathedral-like enclave, they were astonished at the number of bodies they saw arrayed around them. There were a lot more than fourteen people here. Many were slumped over in chairs, while others lay prone on the floor or in the corridors. An attenuated residue of the anesthezine still lingered in the air.

Denken scanned several of the bodies, then looked over at Akaar. “Most of those in the chairs are dead, sir.”

Akaar felt his hearts drop. Had these people been allergic to the anesthezine? Had he just killed an entire enclave of religious people by trying to save them?

One of the Rossinis spoke up, from an area that surrounded what may have been an altar of some sort, where a large number of people were slumped over haphazardly in several rows of pews.

“Sir, most of thesepeople are still alive. It looks to me like the, ah, sacrament they came here to partake of has been poisoned.”

Akaar looked around him, more horrified now than he had been before. He saw children lying among the bodies, some Neyel, and others representing the many races that once had been enslaved by the Neyel. He didn’t want to check to see whether they were all living or dead, but he knew it had to be done.

“Break out the pattern enhancers,” he said. “Begin scanning and tagging anyone who remains alive, priority to the children. Direct Titanto begin beaming them aboard immediately, medical emergency.”

As Denken and the Rossinis got busy, a small part of Akaar’s mind seethed at the actions of the older believers. In spite of himself, he felt a pinprick of dark satisfaction at the knowledge that at least some of the adults here were not going to be rescued after all.

He heard the floor shift and creak in one of the church’s upper galleries, and whirled to see someone moving swiftly away, blending into the shadows. He vaulted over several bodies, yelling into his combadge as he moved. “Someone else is here, Mr. Bolaji. I am pursuing.”

He followed the running figure up a set of dark green, intricately carved wooden stairs, but he scarcely noticed the craftsmanship. He paused and set his phaser on heavy stun, unsure whether he was chasing down an adult Neyel or someone younger. Indeed, he didn’t know whether his quarry would turn out to be friend or foe.

A step broke beneath his weight, causing his ankle to twist sharply. He ignored the pain. Moving forward, he soon reached the upper level, where he stopped again, pulled out his tricorder, and began scanning. He found a biosign ahead, apparently in the third antechamber that lay straight down the hallway.

Akaar crouched outside the doorway to the antechamber, his weapon at the ready, then scurried inside. A Neyel dressed in bright blue robes was crouched on the floor, its hands holding a book, its eyes closed.

He’s some sort of cleric,Akaar thought. He allowed this mass suicide. Probablyencouraged it.Rage swelled within him.

“Get up!” he shouted at the Neyel.

The creature stood and turned, its hands clasping the book. Akaar noticed only then that this was a female Neyel.

“Why have you invaded our sanctuary?” she asked, her gray eyelids shuttering closed, then open again.

“Why are youwilling to kill your followers?”

“The Lfei-sor-Paric are believers. They go to the next level in peace, unsullied by the machines of Auld Aerth or elsewhere.”

“This world is being destroyed,” Akaar said. “There will be no more Oghen within the next day or so. And your religion will die with you unless you come with us.”