The topography of the region magnified the effects of the already awesome disaster. In dooming its own, however, it to a great extent shielded the rest of Canuche Town as the high, sharp slopes deflected much of the force of the explosion back down on the already shattered communities below and caught the bulk of the debris it had set in deadly flight.

Pieces thrown high enough did get through, bringing fire, destruction, and terror wherever they came to ground.

Jan, who was senior officer in Jellico's absence, at last turned his back to the screen, unconsciously straightening his powerful shoulders as he did so. "There may be some new fires or an odd blast or two, but I'd say the worst's over. Those people need all the help they can get and need it fast if a lot more aren't going to die who should make it.

"Steen, Johan, Tang, stay with the Queen. Keep her ready to lift fast again if you must, though I doubt that'll be necessary now, and hold the transceiver open. The rest of us'll see if we can't make ourselves useful."

The Canuchean refugees had set up their camp, a small city in itself, a good half mile north of the starship's emergency berth.

The s.p.a.cers found little confusion there, and Dane Thorson had not been long within its bounds before he felt a fierce pride in these people.

He was seeing the spirit that had carried Terra's offspring to the stars and won them their place there, on planet after planet where survival itself should have been inconceivable. The refugees had a headstart in that everything was well ordered thanks to Adroo Macgregory's preparations, the training he had insisted upon giving his people, who, with their households, made up the vast majority of those currently a.s.sembled here. Those who had actually endured the blast itself had not yet begun to arrive in number.

There was grief and fear, but the Canucheans were responding with the determination to fight, not permitting themselves to sink into despair. The very young and those otherwise unable to give aid were gathered together in the keeping of appointed caregivers. The rest were already heading back to their stricken city and seaport.

The Stellar Patrol was visibly active. Rael's warning had reached them in time. They, too, along with the city's police and emergency services whom they, in turn, had alerted, had evacuated and gotten far enough out that they now had personnel and gear to send back in.

The Queen's crew found Ursula Cohn at a makeshift command post seemingly surrounded by communications equipment and an ever-changing sea of grim-faced men and women, civilians and members of the various services alike, all either bringing reports to her or awaiting her orders.

Her strained eyes swept those around her. They stopped when they came to rest on Van Rycke and Thorson. "You people probably gave this town its life. You've certainly cut down on the amount of dying. Help's already on the way from communities all up and down the coast. By nightfall, we'll have mostly everything we'll need in terms of supplies, equipment, and manpower."

"By nightfall, a lot of people alive right now are going to be dead if they're left where they are that long," the CargoMaster stated flatly. "We're here to lend a hand. The rest of the s.p.a.cers'll probably be following pretty close on our heels."

"We can use you." Her expression clouded. "Any word from your Captain or Doctor Cofort?"

"No."

"We've commandeered every functional flier and transport we can find. I'm giving you and your crew priority status behind my people and medical personnel. I can't send you all back into the town on one vehicle, but every one of you'll be at work within half an hour."

"That's all we want."

"That transport over there is refueling for another trip in. You and Mr. Thorson can go with it."

"We appreciate that, Colonel. Thanks."

The two Free Traders hastened to claim their promised places, squeezing in so that as many others as possible would be able to board.

Dane kept his eyes lowered, not wanting to meet those of his chief. Van Rycke and Jellico went far back as a team, and they were a close one . . .

Suddenly, another thought pierced him. Poor Queex!

Only two people in all the ultrasystem had loved him, and he had lost them both in one black instant of destruction.

23.

Miceal turned his flier perpendicular to its former course, threw it into hover, and flipped it onto its side so that its undercarriage faced the sea and the blow that was to come.

Even as the invisible fist of energy slammed into the machine, he leapt from it, yanking Cofort after him as he sprang.

The vehicle gave one jerk, as if it had truly been struck by a ma.s.sive solid object, but the man was only dimly aware of that or of the way in which it was hurled against the building beside them. The flier had given them a fraction-second of shelter, and by launching themselves into motion, traveling with the blast wave instead of meeting it with their bodies in the full grip of inertia, they had won a measure of freedom of action. It would not last long, but if they moved fast and luck was with them, they might improve their chances of surviving reasonably intact-if his reasoning was in any way correct.

Jellico stumbled as he struck the pavement but managed to keep his feet. Shoving the woman before him, he dove into the nearest of the dark, refuse-littered entrances to the buildings' subterranean levels and slammed her to the ground.

Rael gave a sharp cry as she landed hard against a broken stone block and went limp.

The Captain knew she was hurt but could "not pause to attend to her. They were too far in, and their time was almost gone despite his having moved almost instantaneously in response to the explosion's a.s.sault. Desperately, he jerked her inert body out toward the light, positioning them directly beneath the arch, close to but not actually leaning against the seaward wall.

Only a superhuman effort of will enabled him to do that much. The world around them was chaos, an insane whirl of sound, flying, crushing debris, and fire. The Trader Captain felt as if he were being pummeled by a crew of Malkites specifically trained to reduce a human body to dismembered pulp.

He set himself to endure. They were nearly three long blocks from the site of the explosion, far enough to blunt some of its initial force, and their hastily claimed hiding place provided some shelter. This much they could survive if fortune did not go back on them.

The same could not be said for the structures around them, utterly exposed and inflexible as they were. With the precision of a planned mechanical demonstration, one after another collapsed under the seemingly irresistible impact of the blast wave striking them head-on.

Jellico's stomach twisted in pure terror as a deep, crushing rumble told the fate of the building in whose entrance they cowered. Spirit of s.p.a.ce! Had they escaped being crisped or torn asunder or shredded by shrapnel and flying gla.s.s only to meet their ends in this rat's hole?

He hunched over Rael, striving to shield her, to give her whatever protection his body could provide . . .

It had begun in an instant; it was over in seconds. The physical torment ended abruptly, and the infernal din subsided, lessened by distance. Even the shouts and cries of the injured survivors outside became less immediate.

There had been no move or sound from his companion since he had flung her into this place, and Miceal hastily turned to her. Immediately, all his fear returned, closing his throat, very nearly stopping his breath. She was lying perfectly still, her eyes closed, the thick lashes looking ominously dark against the uncommonly pale skin. Was she dead? Could such beauty remain in dying, or was it merely that death had not yet had time to lay its full mark on her?

He reached out to touch her neck in search of a pulse, but in that moment, Rael moaned softly, and her eyes opened.

It was comforting to find the Captain bending over her, alive and apparently unscathed.

The open, albeit rapidly fading, dread on his face scattered that nascent sense of well-being even as it formed.

She hastened to sit up but fell back again with a sharp cry of pain she was not quick enough to quell.

Jellico's arm was under her shoulders in a moment.

"What's wrong, Rael?" he demanded tensely. "How badly are you hit?" Just because he had managed to weather the blast wave's hammering without taking significant harm was no guarantee his comrade had been so fortunate. Internal injuries could take a while to kill . . .

"This business of having one's life saved has its disadvantages," she grumbled. "I think I must be one prize-winning bruise. I'll probably scare the starlight out of myself every time I go under the steam jets for a while. - Give me a pull up, will you? I should be mobile on my own after that."

He complied. The woman winced as she gained her feet but then straightened. "I'll live," she a.s.sured him after taking several quick, experimental breaths.

She eyed him curiously. "What made you dump us in here?" she asked.

"I remembered that the arch is one of architecture's strongest structures, and these ones were all solidly built out of good natural materials. Each of them also extended enough beyond the main part of the buildings that they might not necessarily be dragged down as well if the big structure went, especially if the brunt of the shock wave pa.s.sed above them, as was possible since all of the arches are low to the ground. I just hoped I was reading it right and that it would be enough."

Jellico was hard pressed not to shudder openly. Any turn of chance, any frown of fortune at all, and they could both have been dead or worse. "What about the rest?" Rael Cofort asked suddenly, sharply, "the other poor folk fleeing with us?"

As she spoke, she was already whirling toward the entrance, bracing herself as she did so. She did not antic.i.p.ate seeing the gross primary injuries that would be encountered closer to the dock, those caused by the sudden, violent change in air and tissue pressure. The shock wave itself and the even more vicious blast wind had weakened and dispersed enough at this distance from their point of origin to spare them that-they could not otherwise have come through its a.s.sault so well themselves-but the area could not hope to have escaped the rest. Secondary injuries would abound, wounds resulting from flying shrapnel and gla.s.s and from falling masonry. Much tertiary damage had probably occurred as well. Their flier had been caught and tossed. Human beings had doubtless been thrown as well, and flesh and bone shattered when slammed into solid metal or stone at high velocity. When she left this place, she would be walking into pure horror.

As the Medic tried to fortify herself, she stepped out onto the narrow street.

Former street. It was now but a depression in a sea of high-mounded debris. The buildings on both sides had been flung down. Only a few of the arches remained standing, still marking the entrances to the now rubble-filled understories.

Precious few even of those had survived, she saw with an inner shiver. She and Jellico had been fortunate indeed in his choice of shelter.

The air was foul. She was aware of the stink of it even through all the numbing horror of the scene spread out before her. The odor of burning was everywhere, burning wood and synthetics, cloth and chemicals, the stench of burning flesh. A lot of people had been working in the shattered buildings that had become their tombs, and a great many of the ruins were afire.

Corpses lay everywhere, not in the windrows she had feared to see-the warning had been given soon enough to prevent that-but still with terrifying prominence. Most of those that she saw appeared to have been felled either by debris from the explosion itself or by material from the falling buildings.

Rael quickly ascertained which bodies she pa.s.sed were no more than sh.e.l.ls and paid them no farther attention; there were still some of the living here as well, not many of them, and they desperately needed help.

She was bitterly aware of the pitifully little care she could provide. In living and dead alike, most of the injuries she saw were ghastly-eyes gouged out, noses sliced off, people with their entire faces gone. Here were amputated or shredded limbs, bodies torn open or pinned to the solid pavement ^in grim testimony to the power of the force driving the missiles that had struck them down. One poor devil had been bisected by a huge, thin spear of metal, apparently one of the drilling stems stowed aboard the Regina Mavis.

Nearly all the living who had been hit in the head, face, or arms bore other grave wounds as well. Those even marginally capable of walking alone or with the help of friends or strangers had already staggered or been a.s.sisted out of the area in search of aid in other, hopefully less devastated districts of the stricken city.

The Captain, drawing upon his own considerable knowledge of first aid, was similarly occupied. He knelt beside the body of a woman. Flying gla.s.s had gotten her, and she had not died instantly.

Sighing, he came to his feet again. "I've seen wars, everything from primitive through interstellar, but I don't think I've ever run into anything as bad as this." They were not looking at the worst, either. Those caught much closer to the seat of the explosion would have sustained even heavier injuries, and this was, at least, a commercial area.

The victims, though pitiful and tragic, were all adults.

From the little he could see above the mountains of rubble, the destruction appeared to be equally horrendous on the primarily residential slope above. There were, or had been, children there, a lot of them.

The two s.p.a.cers worked together more or less in silence.

There was so little that they could do. They were survivors themselves, without supplies or gear of any sort. All they were able to offer was first aid, utilizing the victims' own clothing for bandages and whatever other materials they were able to glean from the wreckage around them. In each case, they did what they could and then moved the sufferer into the middle of the street, as far as possible from the threat of fire from the collapsed buildings on either side.

After that, they had to leave him with the poor comfort of their a.s.surance, which they both prayed would prove accurate, that rescue teams would soon be penetrating the shattered area and would collect the injured then.

The final case they handled was a big man deeply comatose as a result of a ma.s.sive head injury. Jellico and Cofort lifted and carried him to the center of the street and placed him with the other living victims, although neither of them believed he would survive very much longer.

Rael slipped on the rubble as they were settling him. She fell heavily, barking both her knees, but she was scarcely aware of doing so as waves of agony ripped through her side and chest.

Despite herself, she cried out, and it was several long seconds before she could make the attempt to stand.

Miceal steadied her. His eyes were dark with concern as they searched her face. "That was the last one," he said gruffly. "Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here. You need a doctor yourself, and I'll be more effective with some equipment . . ."

The woman pulled away from him. She turned on him in fury. "I'm a Medic, and I'm on my feet. You can help me, or you can go back to the ship, but d.a.m.n it, don't try to interfere with my work!"

Jellico started to protest but stopped himself. "I'm with you," he said quietly.

She eyed him for a moment, as if not trusting him, then nodded. "Thank you, Miceal."

"Where to, Doctor? You're the Medic. This is your line. You call it."

"To the docks," she responded without hesitation. "The worst cases will be closest to that, and they may have to wait the longest before any real help can reach them."

"Most there will have been killed outright," he pointed out.

Rael nodded. "We'll work our way back inland again until we start finding a few we can try to aid." Or comfort a little if nothing else.

"All right. It's as good a plan as any."

Neither of them looked at the crumpled remains of their flier as they moved away from it. By the grace of whatever G.o.ds ruled this accursed planet, it had apparently not killed or seriously injured anyone, but neither of them could take credit for that fact. Not that they could have done anything had they stayed with the' machine, apart from very probably dying in it.

The off-worlders worked their way down the street until they came to the place where it intersected with what had been the avenue.

Because the place was that much closer to the blast site and more open besides, the proportion of the dead to those still alive was greater than they had encountered near their shelter. A larger number of people had been caught here, however, and those who survived tended to be even more severely injured than their earlier patients, and the pair found themselves hard-pressed on every side by victims desperately in need of aid.

They had no choice but to triage those they discovered still alive, treating first the ones whose chances for survival were the greatest, leaving the most hopeless cases for last.

The choosing fell to Rael Cofort. It was a bitter task, especially so when one of those she ordered set aside was still conscious, but more lives would be saved in the end by ordering their efforts in this manner, and so she grimly held to the policy need had dictated that they adopt. Her strength was such that it kept Jellico firm in his determination to abide by her decisions, that and the seemingly unerring correctness of them.

Cofort had told him that she had proven capable at triage work when she had done her emergency room practical training, but he quickly realized that she was more than merely good. It was as if she were somehow reading her patients' bodies and selecting those in whom the spark of life was burning the strongest.

Her skills, too, were superb. With all the limitations under which they had to operate, that was still apparent even to a layman like himself. Rael Cofort was practicing actual medicine with the first aid they had to offer.

The Medic's side hurt abominably, but she strove not to visibly favor it as they clambered along the rubble-strewn remnant of the street. She would have been ashamed to do so even had she not been determined to conceal as much as possible of her continuing pain from Jellico. What right had she to study herself for so little in the face of the ma.s.sive agony all around her?

She had little opportunity to dwell on her own difficulties. Conditions worsened with every step closer to the water that they took. Survivors were few, and they were not always easy to locate among the mountains of rubble and the mangled corpses of their fellows. Rael leaned on her talent, used the sickening unease that told her someone nearby was in trouble to locate those still able to receive help. It was difficult to pinpoint a particular source of suffering with the collective misery of the district pouring into her, but she forced herself to concentrate as she had aboard the Mermaid. Usually, it worked. Usually, but not in every case.

Sometimes, they located the victim but could not reach him. Sometimes, they could help a little but could not free their patient and had to leave him pinned or partly buried with only a cairn of debris raised nearby to alert properly equipped rescuers to his presence, markers whose meaning they would have to communicate to the appropriate authorities as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Jellico's hands balled into tight fists by his side. He felt sick with frustration and the seeming hopelessness of their efforts. He could do little for the people they found accessible in the streets and nothing for the handful of buried victims. He could not even be of much help to Rael Cofort as she faced and made decision after wrenching decision.

All he could do was stick with her, that and offer no protest in face or stance, do or say nothing to add to the weight she already carried.

They had traveled more than a third of the ruined street when suddenly both Free Traders stopped walking. They listened intently, their heads turning toward one of the remaining arches, the only one still standing on this block.

They spotted him quickly, a man sitting braced against its farther, seaward side, sobbing aloud. It was that sound which had caught their attention.

The pair hastened toward him. Rael's eyes closed momentarily as they drew nearer. He was clutching a human leg to his breast. It had been severed at midthigh, and the material still clinging to it matched the blood-stained trousers he was wearing.

"I'm a Medic," she said by way of introduction as she knelt beside him. "What happened?"

He stared at her blankly for a moment but then answered coherently enough. "I was walking along kind of fast when the explosion came. It knocked me down, but I got up again and started running. Then something, that metal thing over there, hit my leg. It was a red-hot ... It hurt . . ." He squeezed the limb still tighter. "I fell, but I didn't see for a minute . . ."

While he had been speaking, the woman was examining both parts of the wound. "You were lucky," she declared, making herself speak matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the result of a minor stumble. "The cut is straight and clean, and the missile was so hot that it cauterized as it sliced through."

"Lucky .. ."

"Hold on to that leg. They'll want to put it back."

"It's too late!" For the first time, emotion, anguish, broke through the numbness that had seemed to envelop him.

"It'll be too late! There're too many hurt. They'll all need first-time treatment just to live before anyone'll be able to do a fix-up job like this. The leg'll be dead . . ."