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else. It was Gilbert arriving, drawn like the rest by the noise. His hair was
wild and his eyes wilder. He stared at Gunnlag and Tarel, then demanded to
know what was going on-why they were still alive.
Stephen explained, and Gilbert's eyes turned to me, "An envoy from Guiscard?
From the devil, I'd say. It is the same. Let me see your paper of
authorization!"
I struck my forehead-the front of my helmet actually-
with the heel of my hand. "In my saddlebag!" I said.
I didn't expect him to buy that, but I had to try.
He peered at me then in the pale moonlight. "Don't I
know you from some ..."
He never finished. A floodlight spread around us from above, freezing the
action. Then, as I looked up, the action really froze. Because someone up
above-
Deneen, obviously-was playing a stunner over the crowd. I fell, not
unconscious, but unable to move.
Overhead, an emergency hooter began to sound, probably to spook the Normans. I
hadn't realized the
Rebel Javelin had a hooter; only a honker, I'd thought. It kept on, sounding
as if the scout was settling to the ground. I couldn't see what was happening
because I'd fallen on my side, and someone's body lay almost in my face.
Seconds later I
heard running feet. Someone grabbed me under the arms and raised me partly off
the ground. Then I
saw-Bubba? Bubba looking at me.
Someone started dragging me. I wanted to yell:
Deneen, don't risk the scout, don't . . . She was handling me as if I were a
little kid, dragging me.
None of this felt right, felt real. The stunner must have affected my
perceptions. I hadn't known they did
that.
Then she was pulling me up the ramp into the scout.
And someone else was there, by the ramp, with a blast rifle. That's Deneen, I
thought. Deneen, slender in jump suit. So it had to be someone else dragging
me.
I was laid out in the dark cabin, able to see only upward, and my rescuer ran
back out. The cabin wasn't right either. Everything was weird.
A minute later someone else was dragged into the scout, and a voice said,
"That's it! I've got Tarel too. Close her up and take her up!"
It was dad!
"Wait!"
I don't know how I got it out, but I said it. Slurred and slowly I had
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pronounced the word. And again, "Wait!"
"Hold it," he said. "What is it, Larn?"
"Frien's. Don' . . . leave . . . frien's ... Be ...
killed."
I wasn't sure if he could understand or not.
"Jenoor, blast a couple of bolts against a wall, to keep anyone back who might
be thinking of rushing us." I heard a rifle thud out three bolts.
Jenoor! He'd said Jenoor!
"Help me, Aven," he said. "He's heavy and he feels boneless. I need him up on
my back." Between the two of them, my parents got me onto his back with my
head flopped over a shoulder. He had to move bent over so
I wouldn't fall off.
"Larn," he said as he carried me back down the ramp,
"We're going over among the bodies. Tell me when I
come to the right one. Can you do that?"
"Two," I mumbled. "Two . . . frien's."
"Two," he said. "I got that." We went back among the bodies, pausing over one
after another, seeming to take forever. Most of a minute, I suppose. We'd
looked at eight or ten before we came to Gunnlag.
"Him," I said.
"Right."
The next was Moise. "Him."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
There was growling, then an espwolf barked out
"Down!" We hit the ground, arrows hissed, and the rifle thudded again, and
again. Dad was back on his feet, had grabbed me under the arms, dragging me
hurriedly, roughly, to the cutter and up the ramp. I
hadn't known he was so strong; I'm not sure he had either. He dumped me and
ran back out. I heard shouting in Norman, clashing of swords-clashing of
swords?-more thuds from the blaster, and in half a minute another body was
dragged in and dropped. The confusion of sounds continued outside, but for
then the blaster was silent, and dad was gone again. The blaster thudded twice
more, and a moment later once.
Dad was back with another body, breathing hard.
"In, Jenoor! Aven, close her and lift!"
There were espwolves aboard, too-more than one.
Not Bubba, obviously. Lady and the pups-pups who'd been half-grown when I'd
seen them last, but were near full-size now.
The door shut out the moonlight, and gradually the cabin illumination came on.
We'd be well above the ground now, I knew. The cutter's windows couldn't be
opaqued like the scout's could, but we'd be high out of sight in the night
sky. I didn't know what to think, what to feel, it had all happened so fast.
Then Jenoor was on her knees beside me, crying all over me, and I didn't worry
about it anymore-just lay there with my eyes spilling over. It seemed
impossible that she was still alive, and for an empty moment I was sure I'd
wake up to find I'd been dreaming again.
After half an hour though, she was still there, and I
was functioning well enough to talk better, even though I couldn't move much.
By that time, Tarel and
Moise and Gunnlag were talking, too. Slowly of course. Tarel had explained to
Moise who these people were, and Moise had been explaining to Gunnlag. I was
impressed with how matter-of-fact Gunnlag seemed about the whole thing.
I noticed, though, that Jenoor sat near with her stunner on her lap, just in
case.
"Dad," I said, "there's one more guy we need to get back there." The words
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still didn't flow at normal speed, but they were clear now.
"One more? How do we get him?"
"I'm not sure. But I'd like to try to bring him out, too. I owe it to him.
He's a Varangian, like Gunnlag.
A barbarian warrior. A huge guy, tall, and strong as a gorn."
He didn't answer right away.
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