Читаем A Fire Upon the Deep полностью

If Shreck was close to breaking, then the siege of Starship Hill was nearly at an end. Just a little longer, that is all I ask now. Steel forced a confident expression upon his members. "I understand. You have done well, Shreck. We may still win. I know how these mantises think. If you can kill the child, especially before their eyes, it will break their spirit — just as puppies can be broken by the right terrors."

"Yes, sir." There was dull incredulity in Shreck's eyes, but this would hold him, a plausible excuse to continue the charade.

"Light the oil beyond the walls. Move the troops in front of where you think Amdijefri will exit. The Visitors must see this if it is to have proper effect. And — " and blow up the refugee ship! The words almost slipped out, but he caught himself in time. The explosives built into the Jaws and the Starship dome would bring down everything interior to the outerwalls and would kill most of the packs within. Ordering Shreck do that would make Steel's real goal all too clear. "— And move quickly before Woodcarver's troops can close. This is the Movement's last hope, Shreck."

The pack bowed its way back down the steps. Steel maintained an expansive posture, boldly looking across the battlefield until the other was out of sight. Then he reached across the battlements and slammed the radio into the stone walkway. This one didn't break, and now the Ravna mantis's voice came querulously from it. Steel bounded down the stairs. "You get nothing," he shrieked back at her in Tines' talk. "Everything you want will die!"

And then he was down the stairs and running across the courtyard. He ducked out of sight, into the hallway that circled the Jaws of Welcome. He could blow those easily, but very likely the main dome and the ship within would survive. No, he must go to the heart. Kill the ship and all the sleeping mantises. He stepped into a secret room, picked up two crossbows -and the extra radio cloak he had prepared. Inside that cloak was a small bomb. He had tested the idea with the second set of radios; the receiving pack had died instantly.

Down another set of stairs, into a supply corridor. The sounds of battle were lost behind him. His own tines' clatter was the loudest noise. Around him loomed bins of gunpowder, food supplies, fresh timber. The fuses and set charges were only fifty yards further on. And Steel slowed to a walk, curled his paws so the metal on them made no noise. Listening. Looking in every direction. Somehow he knew the other would be here. The Flenser Fragment. Flenser had haunted him from the beginning of his existence, had haunted even after Flenser had mostly died. But not until this clear treason had Steel been able to free his hate. Most likely the Master thought to escape with the children, but there was a chance that Flenser schemed to win everything. There was a chance that he had returned. Steel knew his own death would come soon. And yet there might still be triumph. If, by his own jaws and claws, he could kill the Master… Please, please be here, dear Master. Be here thinking you can trick me one more time.

A wish granted. He heard faint mind sounds. Close. Heads rose from behind the bins above him. Two of the Fragment showed themselves in the corridor ahead.

"Student."

"Master." Steel smiled. All five of the other were here; the Fragment had smuggled himself all back. But gone were the radio cloaks. The members stood naked, their pelts covered with oozing sores. The radio bomb would be useless. Perhaps it didn't matter; Steel had seen corpses that looked healthier than these. Out of sight, he raised his bows. "I have come to kill you."

The death's heads shrugged. "You have come to try."

Jaws on claws, Steel would have had no trouble killing the other. But the Fragment had positioned three of himself above, by cargo bins that looked strangely off-balance. A straight forward rush could be fatal. But if he could get good bow shots… Steel eased forward, to just short of where the cargo bins would fall. "Do you really expect to live, Fragment? I am not your only enemy." He waved a nose back up the corridor. "There are thousands out there who hunger for your death."

The other bobbed its heads in a ghastly smile. New blood oozed from the wounds that were opened. "Dear Steel, you never seem to understand. You have made it possible for me to survive. Don't you see? I have saved the children. Even now, I am preventing you from harming the starship. In the end this will win me a conditional surrender. I will be weak for a few years, but I will survive."

The old Flenser glittered through the pain and the wounds. The old opportunism.

"But you are a fragment. Three-fifths of you is — "

"The little school teacher?" Flenser lowered his heads and blinked shyly. "She was stronger than I expected. For a while she ruled this pack, but bit by bit I forced my way back. In the end, even without the others, I am whole."

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