The Forlorn(97)

Keilin shook his head.

"Hell. He said he had some plan in mind. I'd better get Cap." Bey hurried away.

Minutes later that worthy came up, grim and angry. "Your bloody Morkth friend. Has he run, or has he betrayed us?" He shook Keilin violently.

"He'd never go back to the Morkth. It's his worst fear, sir."

Cap was slightly mollified. "Let the bastard run then. He won't get far."

"Sir? I've an idea, sir."

"Talk, boy. Make it good. I haven't time."

"He may be trying to reach the core sections, by himself. Let me touch a core section . . ."

Cap's eyes narrowed. "He's run. But we might as well make sure the things are still here. Might get some more leads now." He took out Keilin's pendant.

Touching the cool surface, Keilin felt a wave of joy. Putting it in his mouth he knew S'kith had not only tried to reach the core sections, but had also succeeded.

"He's in the hive."

"Bloody traitor."

Keilin shook his head.

He knew now what S'kith had done. In the predawn he had slipped from the camp, his head new-shaven, dressed in the black Morkth-man warrior uniform he had had a nimble-fingered tailor make for him. He'd joined the night field crew by the simple expedient of killing one of their guards and replacing him. He had marched past the sophisticated detectors and into the hive. The human cockroach had come home. He'd slipped off into the familiar venting ducts and gone down. Down, down into the lavender and badger smelly heart of the hive. There he knew exactly where he was heading: the most secure and most guarded section of the deep hive. The queen section.

Only killing and speed could get him into this part of the hive. There were no other possibilities. He had used the skills picked up and honed in his time among wild-humans. He used swordsmanship against which the Morkth-man guards had no defense, after he had shot down the two Morkth warriors. That had given him entry into the queen section. But not without the alarm having been given.

The queen section was the holy of holies. Its passages were defended by Morkth warriors. No human ever came here. So S'kith had used the poison Keilin had discovered to tip his arrows. And the fire that Morkth instinctively feared. S'kith's smoke bombs had stirred chaos.

He had reached the core sections where they lay in an unguarded laboratory. He had taken them. But there were now at least a thousand Morkth warrior-primes between him and the way he had come in. He could not have gone back that way. However, he was not planning on retreat. He went on instead . . . to the power and comms nexus.

Here S'kith had been wounded. But not before chopping the comms control boards into electronic spaghetti-trash. He had broken through to the generator room. It had an armored door, which he had managed to close and barricade. The standby emergency generator he'd managed to render unworkable. But the huge main generator was not so easy to incapacitate. Even the output cable was too shielded to be damaged in the time or with the tools that he had to hand. And S'kith had known this before he went in. He had wrapped his body around the cable. And now he waited. He was glad his friend had contacted him. He must tell Cap to wait—at all costs to wait.

Keilin took the wet core section out of his mouth. "He has the core sections. He's destroyed their communications system. He says to wait. He is in the generator room."

"The hell with him. He's dead soon anyway. Beywulf. Sound the advance." He snatched the core section from Keilin's hand.

The minute Cap left, Keilin reached for the ring in his ankle pouch. By the way that Shael was reaching into her bag she too had a similar idea. They huddled together in the guardpost they'd been sent to, and reached out with their minds across the distance.

The happiness greeted them again. They were using heavy energy weapons on the door. It could not last much longer. He was so glad to feel . . . friends. He did not want to die alone.

Keilin realized the strange and lightheaded feelings he was experiencing were S'kith's. The pain of the wounds was seeping past his bioblocks. Death was indeed close.

S'kith knew it would be soon too. He just hoped the bomb would be powerful enough . . .

With shock Keilin understood. The bomb in S'kith's belly. He was planning to use that explosive force to cut the power cable.

Keilin could actually see the heavy armored door through S'kith's pain blurred eyes. He saw the coils of greasy smoke and the sudden arc light. The door was being physically cut away . . . any moment now . . .

Then there was a terrible searing brightness . . . and a last image of Beywulf and his son putting their spoons into the bowl . . . laughter beat away the pain, and then even that disappeared like morning mist into the clear white light.

Keilin huddled in his corner with the tears streaming down his face.