The Forlorn(101)

Keilin turned to look at him. "I'm going after them. And I'm taking Bey to the only place that might be able to save his life. I'm going to summon transportation too. And that'll bring the Beta-Morkth. Your father wants you to live. Now go. Go on. Get down at least five levels."

He was met with a long, flat stare. Then Wolfgang shouted, "Johann, Gerda, Hamesh, Sula." Four young Gene-spliced turned from harrying people back down into the hive. "I need some help to carry my father. And to avenge him."

Keilin didn't even see them any more. He had his hand in the bulging ankle pouch. He allowed the fear and desperation to surface. He allowed his suppressed feelings about Shael to flow. He wanted transport. To Compcontrol at the South Pole.

He expected a flying carpet. Or a giant bird. Or a Morkth antigrav plate. But he must have had Beywulf's condition in mind. What he got was a long white flyer, with a big red cross on the front and sides. The back opened, and a wheeled stretcher rolled out. A mechanical, toneless voice said, "Mechambulance unit 16. Load the patient."

* * *

They were flying high and fast. Bey was in a metal cocoon. Wires and tubes attached to him were superstitiously eyed by the five Gene-spliced and the three stark-naked women who had come wandering out onto the roof just as they were loading Beywulf onto the stretcher unit. There seemed little choice but to take them along. Keilin himself however viewed the entire setup with mere acceptance, and nothing more than a desire for haste. He hoped that the Beta-Morkth response had not killed too many people. He had no way of knowing that the response he expected hadn't occurred. All he knew was that the land below had dwindled rapidly and then changed to a blue sheet of sea. Surely soon they must be there?

Finally, Wolf's questions pulled Keilin out of his reverie. "We're bound for a mountain on the South Pole. I don't know much about it, except that it is very cold. Full of snow and ice. No, I don't think Cap has joined the Morkth. He's just using the craft of a few that were killed, by me and my partner."

He looked at the three naked girls who were shivering on one of the empty stretchers. "We'd better contrive some kind of clothes for you ladies. The outside world is not temperature-controlled like the hive."

Wolf nodded. "Yeah. I looked around in here. There are some blankets in there." He pointed to a drawer. He was his father's son however. "Shame to spoil the view, though." He turned for a last look at it. And turned away rapidly. Two of them were touching each other. Quite intimately. "You . . . you can't do that here!"

"Why not?" asked one of the three.

"What is wrong with what we are doing?" another asked with genuine puzzlement.

With a quiet smile, Keilin went to the drawer and left the five young Gene-spliced to their explanations. Despite Beywulf's situation, the whole thing was not without humor. The folk of Dublin Moss had thought their morals the most flexible in the world. All the same they were failing dismally in their attempt to explain sexual taboos to the three girls, at least one of whom was showing a distinctly rounded belly. He snorted a chuckle to himself. Hell, he'd grown old in the last couple of years. Most of the words the Gene-spliced were using were beyond the hive girls. Well, at least it would keep young Wolf from worrying about his father for a while.

He intervened with three rough ponchos a few minutes later. "I'm sure Wolf and one of his companions will be delighted to give you a demonstration of what they mean by normal sex . . . some other time. But before you get to the practicals you so badly want, I think you should try these. You are turning blue. I agree it is lovely to be able to see each other, but the blue makes you look like Morkth."

They couldn't have donned those ponchos any faster if they had known just what they were supposed to do with them.

When they were dressed, one of Wolf's companions, Sula, began to laugh. "How many of you," she paused delicately, "warrior brood sows are there?

"Thirty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty-two . . . if you count us," said the girl who called herself Faime.

Looking at her companions with a broad smile, Sula continued, "Do you realize what will be happening back at the hive? The Gene-spliced trying to cope with that mess . . . and thirty-seven thousand three hundred and nineteen like these wandering around looking for a feel-up." She raised her eyes heavenward.

The thickset Johann sighed. "To think I'm here where the ratio is a lousy 4:5 when I could be there at a happy 1:10. Wolf, you no-good bum!"

* * *

The flight continued. They devised leggings for the girls, and bound strips of blanket around their feet. They also solved the toilet arrangements for a party of nine, three of whom had never had to learn bladder control. Bey stayed warm, his heart beating, as fluids ran into him. The chest and stomach wounds had been cleaned by little metallic arms. Keilin suspected the machine had drugged him, as his friend lay so still. Time passed, and talk continued. Keilin had to tell his side of the story. He had his entire audience sniffing and then openly weeping at his recital of S'kith's defeat of the hive. They ate some of the smoked beef and journey biscuits that the fear-of-starvation Gene-spliced had inevitably carried into battle. The expression on the hive girls' faces as they tasted the food filled Keilin with nostalgia, remembering S'kith in earlier days. Below now was a gray sea occasionally dotted with white gleaming shapes. The craft was undoubtably losing height.