A figure in pearly white clothing climbed out of the Reetion space craft, complete with hood and gloves. A figure with the wrong shape for Von, although Von's voice came from a large medallion it was wearing.
It cried, "Surprise, you retros!"
A crewman shouted, "It's a Reetion!"
The creature raised its arm at Larren, whose clothing and position made him prominent. There was a hiss and a burning smell and Larren fell, writhing on the floor. The creature pointed the wand at its next victim and Farin screamed as he, too, was struck by the okal'a'ni weapon.
H'Reth dropped to the floor.
The crew mobbed the stranger as one, incensed by the rule-breaking attack that threatened their survival.
"This is your doing!" Farin cried, spotting H'Reth. He charged with his sword drawn, the shoulder of his other arm giving off a reek of cooked meat.
H'Reth grasped that Farin blamed him for the Reetion's sin and screamed, "Jarl!"
He was saved by a darting shape that ran Farin through from behind.
The blade gave H'Reth a bad turn, coming right through Farin's body in front of him. Jarl pulled it out and kicked Farin's body over. Miraculously, they were nearly alone on their patch of floor.
"All right?" Jarl asked, just as if he hadn't betrayed him to the paladins by telling them about Von's conscience bond. He grinned despite his bloody mouth. "Looks like you might be in charge again, Lord-Admiral."
The white garbed Reetion thing was being dragged down, twisting and writhing, the laser wand gone from its hand. The suit contained a woman's body. H'Reth was sure of that much. He had a strong suspicion it was the Reetion pilot, Ann. As he watched, her pearly suit repelled slashing attacks by the crew, who were intent on punishing her with the death of a thousand cuts. Her grunts of pain and protest radiated from the medallion on her chest, still modulated to match Von's tenor register.
"Wait!" H'Reth cried, wanting to keep her alive because she was a link to Von. "Wait! Stop!" Jarl waded through the crowd beside him, buoying up his confidence.
The room smelled of fear and ozone around Larren's body. Someone brought H'Reth the weapon Ann had used, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were poisonous.
"Some sort of heat ray, Your Grace," said the disgusted crewman.
"Dispose of it," H'Reth ordered, "and get the Reetion out of that suit."
Jarl dispersed the guards around Ann and knelt on her chest to wrestle with her strange clothes, but he couldn't get them off. People began to close in again almost immediately, dissatisfied.
"Okal'a'ni," said a voice from the back.
Other voices picked it up
"Oh — kal — ah — nee," the assembled men began to chant.
The Reetion had breached the code of honor that made conflict in space habitats survivable. She must pay, or civilization would come crashing down the way it had in Killing Reach two hundred years before. Places in space that supported life were too precious to waste in any cause — this was the one truth all Gelacks held sacred.
H'Reth understood the crew's mood, but he wanted to ask Ann about Von.
He looked from face to face among the Blue Demish nobleborns and near-commoner crew, wondering if they would obey him if he told them to back off. He was nervous about daring too much. He already had an obstacle to overcome getting them to forget the business about Von being a sort of unofficial gorarelpul, which wasn't exactly okal'a'ni — like Ann's attack — nor considered as despicable as being boy-sla, but was nonetheless frowned upon.
H'Reth agonized, but only watched as the chant in his ears grew more ominous.
"Oh — kal — ah — nee!" heard Ann.
The text translation "prone to destroy what is fought over, anti-life," scrolled across the bottom of her hood's hard plastic visor. But whatever the translation, Ann had no trouble grasping the intent of the mob that hauled her from her ship and went at her with knives and swords, bruising her in their vain attempts to pierce her flight suit. She also recognized the guy sitting on her, trying to get her suit off, as the man called Jarl in Von's bad memories.
"If we cannot stab you, we can crush you," Jarl told her, with relish, hauling her up.
She had always known such people existed — she had read about them. Bullies. Psychopaths. People who relished hurting others, however they were explained and whatever they were called. But it took her by surprise to discover Jarl was frightening in the flesh.
She obeyed his order, freeing her hood first, which made it easier to look around. That seemed incredibly important even though it made her vulnerable. Jarl grinned through bloodied teeth at her. He had a gap in one eyebrow where a serious cut had left a scar and his hands, while powerful, were also damaged: muscle had healed in hard knots and a finger was crooked. She noticed these details with a vivid awareness that was new to her.
"What do you want?" Ann asked, her voice still modulated by the medallion on her chest.
Jarl yanked the output unit off and dashed it to the metallic floor, which had no impact on its wireless connection, but still caused her serious alarm.
"If you break that I won't understand what you're saying!" Ann shouted at him, suddenly more afraid of losing the ability to communicate than anything else, and was reassured to hear her words broadcast in Gelack from the detached medallion, still sounding like Von.
Jarl had a sword. He leveled it at her exposed throat and ordered, "Take off the rest of the white armor."
It isn't armor, she thought bitterly. It's a space suit. She wanted to tell him so, as if the clarification would prove that all this violence was plain stupid, but she had just committed murder herself.
"Take it off now," Jarl commanded in translation through her ear lug. "Or I start by crushing toes and fingers."
Ann slowly eased herself out of her protective flight suit, trying to think of something clever.
Beneath the suit she was wearing her usual yellow stretch shorts and halter top. Her breath came heavily, making her chest heave and her stomach tremble. Jarl grinned and she learned what it really meant to feel her skin crawl.
He said, "I've never had a brown woman." His tone, in Gelack, added brutal overtones to the neutral sounding Reetion translation in her ear.
She almost said "Screw you," and caught herself — that was just what he intended. Her panic began giving way to anger, which was better, even if she didn't know how to use it yet.
"Pity there may not be enough left of you by the time the crew is finished," said Jarl, and kicked the medallion towards a startled crewman. "Get this thing off the ship. It's Reetion. For all we know it could be a bomb." Then he stepped back and let the crowd have her, crying, "Reetions are okal'a'ni! All of them!"
A gang of big men seized Ann as Jarl abandoned her. One slapped her, dislodging the ear lug that was receiving translation from the detached medallion. Now she could not understand what they said anymore! Others bound her wrists behind her so tightly that her hands tingled. She found the grit to smile at how nervous her equipment made the Gelacks as they dumped her suit, medallion, and ear lug in the airlock.
Stupid retros, she thought at them, struggling to maintain her anger. It was better than fear. The airlock cycled and all she had with her of Rire was jettisoned. It was a greater loss than she had expected.
Jarl tied her to the grate at the back of the freight room, with its black metal leaves and twisting tendrils. There were tools inside, locked down for acceleration — tools that might make weapons — but they were impossible to reach.
Jarl slapped her thigh and leered at her, telling her something in Gelack, then turned to make a short speech to the men. Ann looked from face to face in the circle surrounding her. There were guards in fancy dress and crew in plainer clothes, all uniformed. Some were grim, some anxious. A few looked squeamish but not brave enough to protect her, or else too fundamentally afraid of what she had done. All of them were men, and for the first time in her life Ann wasn't proud of her clean, firm limbs, but disgusted by her inability to get them out of sight.
The circle closed in with nerve-racking slowness and stopped out of reach of Ann's legs, which were not bound. Their wariness cheered and surprised her. They didn't seem as certain as she expected them to be that a woman would be helpless in this situation.
Jarl pushed through and went straight for her. She kicked. He caught her foot and forced her knee back into her chest as he closed. He seized her jaw in one hand and pressed her cheeks in between her teeth as he put his tongue into her mouth. It was not a kiss — it was a violent proof of dominance. She jerked with her whole body, disrupting his awkward grasp, but he had made his point — the men were no longer afraid of her.
Ann watched, panting, as the excited men broke into an argument. They shouted and pointed. It was maddening not to know what was being said! But her guesses could hardly be less terrifying than the truth. A group of men wanted to kill her fast, like an execution. Others objected, brandishing knives and raising the okal'a'ni chant again that erected her fine body hairs in their follicles. Some of the ones in the slashing camp diluted the religious fervor with suggestions that fetched either gut laughs or disapproving scowls. It helped stave off panic to know that Ranar would be fascinated.
Maybe I ought to be taking notes, she thought.
One of the proponents of rape and knives drew his sword, causing a hush to fall.
Calling the question, Gelack-fashion, guessed Ann. Reetions did that on voting councils when it was necessary to cut debate short. But no arbiter presided over this decision. She wasn't even sure which side she was on — a swift death now, or a little longer to hope while she wished she had died sooner?
The proponents of a quick death wavered and gave up, a few of them fleeing from the room. Now there was nothing between her and the mob. She would have started screaming madly, if the leader of the lynch mob had not made a grab for her and given her something to focus on.