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feet The Captain stepped forward, but now it was Giles who
barred the way.
"No!" shouted Giles, in Basic. He switched to Albenareth. "I
forbid it! He doesn't know what he's doing!"
"This time I end him," said the Captain. She faced Giles and
her powerful club of fingers were aimed at him now. "I gave you
" warning,."
Esteven was starting to scramble up from the floor, but now
Hem was looming over him. Hem raised his left arm, the heavy fist
at the end of it balled into a rocklike shape aimed to descend on
the nape of Esteven's neck.
"Don't kill him!" Giles shouted at Hem.
The blow from the big arbite was already started. Somehow,
he managed to turn it slightly off target. It hit high on the back of
Esteven*s head, instead of in the vulnerable spinal area.
Giles turned back to the Captain, just as she started to brush
him aside. "No? Wait. Think. You are more powerful than any one
of us, but what of all of us, together? If you have no fear for
yourself, what of the new life you carry in you? Will you risk what
all of us together might be able to do to it?"
The Captain checked herself, inhumanly, in mid-motion, and
was suddenly as still as if she had never intended to move.
"J know his sickness now," said Giles, swiftly. "I did not
before. Now I can guarantee he will not come forward in the
lifeship or threaten to touch your book."
Still, the Captain did not move. The adrenaline that had kept
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Giles on his feet since he had been hit on the head by the metal
handle was beginning to die within him. He felt consciousness
seeping out of him.
"Believe me!" he said, urgently. "It is one or the other. I will
not let you kill one of my people!"
For a second Esteven's life, and perhaps the lives of all the
rest of them, hung balanced. Giles forced himself to stand upright,
to stare into the Captain's dark, unreadable eyes. Within he prayed
that the Albenareth would not realize how badly Giles, himself,
was hurt, how Hem was one-armed now, how the other arbites
would be like rabbits facing a wolf without Hem or himself to
spearhead an attack.
"Very well," said the Captain, stepping back. "This last time
I give you the life of this one. No more."
She turned and went in behind her screen, disappearing. Giles
turned, fainting, to find himself caught by half a dozen hands,
Mara's and Biset's among them.
Ill
10
Fifteenth day-16:19 hours
"Feeling any better?" Mara asked.
"I suppose so," said Giles-then reproved himself silently for
giving such a grudging answer. "Nonsense. I'm a lot better. Fine,
in fact."
"Not fine," said Mara, looking at him keenly. "I know better
than that. But you're going to live, anyway."
"Live? Of course I'll live. Why wouldn't I?" he said stiffly.
"Because you probably had a concussion," she said. "When
metal and bone come together, it isn't the metal that gives."
"Well, never mind that." said Giles. He touched his hand to
his bandaged head, pleased in spite of himself by the fact someone
cared how he felt. "I have to admit things have been kind of hazy
of late. How long was I..."
He fumbled for a suitable word.
"How long have you been like this?" she said. "Five days."
"Five days?" He stared at her. "Not five days?"
"Five," she said, grimly.
He was beginning to feel the effort of talking. He lay still for
a second, while she did something or other down near the foot of
the cot he was lying on.
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"This isn't my cot!" he said suddenly, trying to sit up. She
pushed him back down. He was in the rear section of the lifeship.
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"Rest," she said. "Lie still. We brought you in here because
we didn't want the Captain to see how helpless you were."
"Good," he said, staring at the lights overhead. "That was
wise."
"Sensible."
"All right-sensible." He began to remember things. "How's
Hem?"
"All right," she said.
"His arm wasn't broken? I was afraid."
"No. Just bruised. He's got bones like a horse."
Giles sighed with relief.
"Esteven-"
"Two broken ribs, I think. We had to tie him up for a day or
two, while he went through withdrawal from the drug," Mara said.
She came up near the head of his cot and handed him what seemed
to be a small plastic envelope with a few tablespoonfuls of gray
powder in it. "This is what's left of his tank. We thought you'd
want to be the one to keep it."
He took the envelope in a hand that required a surprising
amount of energy for him to lift, and tucked the drug remnant
away into a chest pocket of his shipsuit.
"You had to tie him up?" Giles asked. "But how is he now?"
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