Shadow World (20 page)

Oh, my God, he's going to die--right here, right now,
Cara thought. The Mizari's death had been planned, and quick. She found that in some ways it was infinitely harder to watch this being struggle for life--and lose. "Isn't there anything we can do?" she pleaded softly.

Mark glanced from the father to the crying child in Eerin's arms, then looked up at her and shook his head sorrowfully.

"There is something hin can do," Eerin said. "Hin has a duty to perform for anyone who is dying."

"What is that?" Cara asked, wondering if Eerin meant promising the hijacker a proper burial or something.

"Hin must dance the Mortenwol," Eerin told them, then rose decisively.

Mark looked down at the Wopind, who lay listening with a look of anxious hope on his face. "Dance the Mortenwol?" He gaped at Eerin. "You mean ...

right now?"

"Yes."

"Uh ... Eerin, that's not a good idea. The human survivors of the crash won't understand why you're trying to comfort one of our captors. They might think you're a Wopind, too. I don't think you'd better."

"Heen wishes to witness the Mortenwol that will attend

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heen's death," Eerin explained, obviously surprised by Mark's protest. "It is necessary that heen's last wish be fulfilled."

"Eerin, the Mortenwol right now could stir up trouble. Remember, humans reserve dancing for times of joy. If any of them see you dancing, they might also think you were mocking their sorrow. Do you understand 'mocking'?"

"Yes. And hin is sorry if any humans are upset. But if our positions were reversed, hin would expect this heen to dance the Mortenwol, and hin can do no less."

Mark glanced over his shoulder. The lounge was empty at the moment.

"Well, maybe you can do it quickly ... and quietly. Do you have to use the kareen?"

"It must be done properly," Eerin insisted.

"The music will draw people, Eerin. This could create bad feeling."

"Hin will dance the Mortenwol," Eerin said firmly.

Mark sighed. "Dammit, Eerin! We've got a lot to do, finding medical kits, searching for other survivors, and, now, caring for these babies." He glanced down at the Wopind, who appeared to have lapsed back into

unconsciousness. "This hijacker won't know whether you dance for heen, or not. He's too far gone to care."

"Heen will know. Heen will care." Eerin looked mulish. It was the first time Cara had seen the Elpind show strong emotion.

"Hin promises to hurry. It will not take long," Eerin declared, and, without further argument, handed Terris to Cara and bounded off.

"Can you manage?" Mark asked Cara, after a single resentful glare sent after the departing Elpind. "Can you handle both babies?"

"Sure," Cara said, settling the again-wailing Terris in her lap. "You go look for the medical kits. And something we can adapt for diapers. I'll stay here."

Mark frowned. "I hope to hell Eerin can get this over with quickly. I guess it's like last rites to hin. But I'm worried that there will be trouble over it."

"I'll explain," Cara said. "Anyone who protests fulfilling a dying person's last wish would have to have a heart of stone. Don't worry, Mark."

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He sighed reluctantly. "Okay. I'll check the forward cabins, find the kits, then be back as soon as I can."

After he was gone, Cara shifted the babies again, trying to get a better grip on the struggling Terris (whose thin, monotonous cries were beginning to get on her nerves), without disturbing the unconscious baby. She gazed around the lounge, her eyes avoiding the four other bodies, one Drnian, one Chhhh-kktu, one a human woman, and, almost buried beneath debris, a blue-and-white-wrapped form. The tip of Sarozz's black and silver tail was sticking out.

Cara closed her eyes, crying softly. After a few minutes, she resolutely wiped away the tears. She looked back down at Terris' father. The Wopind's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and uneven.

"Hurry, Eerin," Cara muttered.
"Hurry."

Sorrow tugged at Eerin's mind, demanding attention even as hin rushed down the warped and broken corridor, but hin forced it down, concentrating only on fulfilling hin's duty. Mark did not understand, and Eerin regretted that, but Elpind tradition must be followed, even at a time like this. The Mortenwol took precedence over personal feelings.

Eerin was angry with the Wospind, angry over the disaster Orim had so maliciously caused, but personal antipathy did not matter when death approached. If Orim hinself had been lying out there dying, Eerin would have done the same for hin.

The Elpind used the manual control to get into hin's quarters. The small living area was relatively intact, and since the Elpind had had the foresight to secure the kareen in the storage webbing whenever it had to be left unattended, the sturdy little music board was unharmed. Gathering it up, hin grabbed the case of feathers and a cushion, then headed back for the lounge.

As Eerin went, hin tried to sort out hin's feelings, in preparation for the dance to come. Anger, guilt, and a great sense of shock were uppermost in hin's mind. These feelings had been present in Eerin since the moment the Wospind boarded the
Asimov
and pointed their guns. That hin's own people should threaten to hurt others, innocent others, and then should actually carry out that threat--!

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Hin was not on Elseemar to see the ruins of the lab, the bodies being carried
out,
Eerin thought.
Perhaps seeing that would have prepared hin ...

And now hin also knew sorrow. Eerin knew instinctively that the crash had been very bad; from the moment the
Asimov
had halted, hin had felt the dark presence of Wo hanging over the ship. Death on Elseemar was an all-too-familiar presence, and not usually frightening. But so many deaths, and-all unprepared for! Eerin knew that hin would be dancing the Mortenwol for
all
the
Asimov's
dead, not just the hijacker. It was the only comfort, the only tribute, hin could render ... even if Mark Kenner could neither understand nor appreciate the gesture.

Eerin also felt sorrow for the impending deaths of the two infants. Why had the Wopind asked hin and the humans to take suckling children? Heen must know there was no chance the babies could survive without food long enough to reach a settlement. Hope, Eerin realized, must live very strongly in a parent's heart. But hin could not share the hijacker's hope; Eerin knew the babies were doomed.

Hin headed back toward the common lounge at a near run, hoping the hijacker still lived--yet part of the Elpind almost wished heen would be dead.

Mark is right,
Eerin admitted to hinself.
Dancing for a hijacker will be seen as
an inappropriate thing to do by those passengers who suffer under a new
and heavy burden of grief.
Hin was learning firsthand how overwhelming sorrow could be when Wo came without warning.

Cara, with both infants in her arms, looked up as Eerin entered the lounge.

"Hurry," she urged. "He's still alive, but barely."

Eerin nodded and went straight to the dying male. "Hin has returned," said Eerin loudly in Elspindlor, kneeling to slip the cushion under the Wopind's head. "The last Mortenwol begins." But neither the words nor lifting his head for the cushion roused the failing Wopind.

"Journey-taker," Eerin said sharply, using the ritual words for the dying and shaking the red-clad shoulder, "behold your last Mortenwol!"

With a moan the Wopind slowly opened his sea-green eyes.

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Eerin sensed heen's gratitude, for the hijacker was beyond speech by now.

Eerin jumped up and, with a quick motion, wove hin's Elseewas feathers into a headband. Moving to the center of the wrecked lounge and checking to be sure of the Wopind's clear view around the fallen cabinet, Eerin nodded with satisfaction to see the hijacker's gaze still fixed on hin. The Elpind laid the kareen at hin's feet, wound it, then touched it into life.

The first note sounded.
Elseemar
... it seemed to sing to Eerin. Despite the circumstances of this Mortenwol, hin rejoiced to be dancing it while breathing the air of home.

Hin sprang into the air, savoring the lighter gravity. Before leaving Elseemar, gravity had been a thing never noticed. Now, after the constant drag of the slightly heavier environment at the Academy at StarBridge and aboard ship, this normal gravity felt like flying itself.

Eerin began the first pattern.
This is for the journey-takers,
hin thought, letting hin's meaning encompass all the others around the broken ship who were, like the Wopind, even now meeting death, letting it reach to those whose breath had already stopped, letting it touch even the babies, soon-to-be journey-takers.

El is life and Wo is death, and each completes the other.
Hin slipped into the second pattern.
In the quick flight of a Shadowbird, El becomes Wo. Let it be,
let that knowledge grace the fullness of each moment ... let it ever be so.
The words of the ancient Telling for journey-takers, their rhythm in harmony with the swooping movements of the second pattern, ran through Eerin's mind.

And it will ever be so!
Eerin leaped up, relieved to feel hin's old gladness at the surety, freed by the total acceptance of that surety.

Eerin rejoiced.

This was only the second time Cara had seen the Mortenwol, and she marveled again at the lightness, the elegant delicacy of the movements.

Gone was the bouncy abruptness she associated with normal Elpind

movements. Gone was her awareness of Eerin's bony frame, each limb marked by knobby, protruding

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joints. Instead, as she watched, the girl felt she saw a long, creamy feather taken by the breeze.

"What's it doing?" demanded a voice. Cara started and looked behind her.

A big, heavy set man was peering through the rent in the
Asimov's
side. He had great smears of red blood on his shirt, but seemed unharmed himself.

As Cara watched, he clambered back in, glaring from the dancing Elpind to the babies in Cara's arms. A doll dangled from one hand, as if he'd forgotten he held it. It, too, was covered with blood. His dark eyes beneath thick brows glittered feverishly.

Cara swallowed, and quickly laid the two babies down on a nearby chair cushion. "Eerin's not one of the terrorists," she said, moving so that she was between the newcomer and the oblivious Elpind. "Hin is fulfilling the last request of that hijacker over there, who is dying. It's kind of like the Elspind version of last rites," she explained, but he ignored her.

"The goddamn bastard is
dancing!
Dancing, because that sonofabitch over there is still alive!" he snarled.

Involuntarily following the man's gaze, Cara glanced down at the Wopind.

His huge eyes, riveted on Eerin, seemed lit with green fire, life in all its raw energy blazing up in them.

But even as she watched, his body suddenly trembled violently, shaking for several seconds, then went limp and still. The Wopind's fiercely exultant stare, still directed at the spot where Eerin had just lifted into a spiraling turn, grew fixed and glassy. Heen's eyes still shone, but now only with the reflection from the emergency lights overhead.

Cara swallowed painfully. "There, he's dead now, you can see that," she said. "Eerin will stop dancing now."

The fury on the man's face made him look barely human. He flexed powerful hands. "My wife is dead," he snarled. "And my little girl." His gaze moved to Eerin, who had just landed after the dance's final leap, and was gazing at them in surprise and consternation. "So every one of those bloody murderers needs to be dead, too. Not
dancing!"

He spat out the last word, hunching his shoulders, tensing like a big cat.

Cara saw the flicker of madness in his eyes.

"Run, Eerin! Run!" she screamed, flinging out her arms in a futile effort to stop him.

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With an inarticulate roar, the grief-crazed man slapped her out of his way as he would have a bothersome insect. The blow to the side of her head made Cara grunt with pain. Lights danced crazily behind her eyes; her ears rang.

The lounge blurred around her as she fell, spinning in an orange-and-white whirl.

Struggling to remain conscious, she screamed again as she saw Eerin go down beneath the man's huge bulk. The Elpind cried out in fear, then was silent.

"Rob," Mahree Burroughs said quietly, "I have news, and I'm afraid it's not good."

It was morning at StarBridge Academy. Rob had showered and changed into a business suit; this morning he faced a trip up to StarBridge Station to meet with an eminent Drnian government official whose son Rob had

encouraged to withdraw from the Academy ... he just plainly wasn't interrelator material. The father was the one who was taking it hard; the youngster had confided that he'd really rather be a physicist.

Now he stared at Mahree, trying to brace himself.
Dear God, what's
happened?
Aloud he said steadily, "Okay, tell me."

"All contact has been lost with the
Asimov,
and the ship seems to have vanished."

"How?" Rob said, baffled. "Weren't they orbiting Elseemar?"

"They were, but they're not anymore. Reports are confused and incomplete. I spoke with the CLS Liaison on Elseemar, and he told me that the ship was in communication with one of the WirElspind leaders, who was stupid enough to threaten the Wospind." She shook her head and sighed. "And then the terrorist leader began yelling threats and orders. Some kind of altercation broke out on the bridge. Mark was shouting that more hostages were going to be killed when communications were cut abruptly--first visual, then audio. For a moment they could hear the sounds of a struggle, and ..."

she hesitated, "weapons firing."

"Oh, God ..."

Mahree sighed, her dark eyes shadowed and weary. "Zahssez told me they tried for over an hour, but couldn't reestablish communications. Their mapping and weather satellites indicate that the
Asimov
is no longer orbiting Elseemar."