Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

think you’d better start back now,” she said. “Your time’s running out.”
    “How close are they?”
    “About thirty miles. They can probably see our shuttles by now. But they’re still sticking pretty closely to the inner rim route that their scouts took. So far they’ve shown no sign of veering inland for a look at us.”
    “That’s because as far as they know, all of the goodies are still waiting for them at the digs,” Jao said gruffly. He turned to Bram. “Where would your Rembrandt lover have been headed?”
    “Back to the sports arena, I suppose. That’s where he left the things he wasn’t able to carry.”
    “Serve him right if he got left behind himself,” Jao growled. He made no move to start up the walker again.
    “Bee butchers,” Bram said softly. “That was one of the names for dragonflies. Bees were another kind of insect. They lived in communal hives. Original Man raised them for a substance called honey that they produced. Some dragonflies learned to hang around bee yards and wait for the workers to return with their loads. They’d dismember the bees on the wing, Harld told me, until the ground was littered with bee fragments.”
    “Like the way they massacred us in the arena,” Jao said harshly.
    “Yes.”
    Jao reached to the tiller. “You’re right, of course, chaos take it. We can’t leave the little fellow there.”
    The walker unlimbered its long legs and in a moment was flying at top speed toward the oval of reflected moonlight that marked the central city.
    They came upon the curator a couple of miles farther on. He staggered toward them out of the rubble, carrying a huge portfolio that he seemed unable to lift high enough to keep from dragging, even in the microgravity. Jao came jolting to a halt, and he and Bram climbed down. The curator stared dully at them through his helmet, his face gray. They hustled him into the walker and cracked his helmet, while Bram checked his tanks.
    “His air’s almost gone,” Bram said. “He never would have made it back on foot.”
    Jao tossed the portfolio into the back of the inflated compartment. “I hope these were worth it,” he snarled at the curator. “You risked a shuttleful of lives for them.”
    Through blue lips, the curator said defiantly, “They’re irreplaceable.”
    “So are we,” Jao snapped.
    The walker’s long strides ate up the miles. Through the radio, the pilot’s strained voice kept them informed. “Year-Captain, the main body of the dragonfly force just passed our position. But several vehicles have separated from it and are crossing the plain toward us. The other remaining shuttle is going to take off now.”
    Ahead, flame boiled from the landscape and climbed the black sky. Bram looked across at the rim road and saw a line of tiny specks heading toward the city.
    “I can see the vehicles,” Bram said. “We should reach your position in about ten minutes.”
    “I’m warming the engines. Please hurry.”
    “Oh, oh,” Jao said. “Take a look at that.”
    The walker’s movement had attracted attention. On the rim road, four of the specks left the dragonfly cavalcade and headed inland.
    “Trying to cut us off,” Jao said. “But a walker can outrun one of those rolling travel tubes without half trying.”
    “Don’t be too sure,” Bram said. The tilted cylinders were picking up speed, streaking across the surface like gigantic writing pens guided by an invisible hand. Now their speed was too much for the low gravity. They began to jounce into the air, higher and higher, between the brief scrabbling of the wheels at the ground. One of them bounced a good thirty feet and came down upright, still moving. The passengers within must be shifting their weight around to keep it stable. Wingless the nymphs might be, but they still had the instincts of fliers.
    Bram could see the shuttle now, a minuscule dome on stilts. A haze of escaping gas covered its skirts. Beyond, a wave of the angled tube vehicles rolled toward it.
    “It’s going to be close,” Jao said.
    “Too close,” Bram said. “We’re drawing them toward you,” he told the pilot. “It’s no good. You’d better lift off now !”
    “No,” the pilot said. “I can see you now. The outside air lock door is open, and everybody’s in a suit and helmet just in case. I’ll hold for you until the last minute. Jump for the door, hold on to the ladder or a strut—anything—if you have to. I’ll use the docking jets to get us