Survival (63 page)

Wu tossed aside his teacup and secured the neck fastenings of his helmet. Lights flashed and dimmed, flashed and dimmed. The
Guan Yu
lost atmospheric integrity. One or more seals had failed.

“Don't worry, I'll take you with me,” Wu promised his unwanted guests.

As the first feeder, clothed in silver, drifted down her corridors, the
Guan Yu
screamed her way through the atmosphere and stabbed into the weakest part of Ascendis' crust. Shock waves rippled across the continent, setting off quakes and volcanoes.

The air itself burned.

The great journey must continue until home is attained. That which is Dhryn has remembered. All that is Dhryn shares that goal.

There will be danger.

There will be hardship.

It is the way of the journey, that most will not reach its end.

So long as that which is Dhryn achieves safe haven, all sacrifice is joy.

 

 

“I told you to go,
lamisah
. Why didn't you listen?” A soft, reasonable voice. The voice of friendship, of trust.

The words. It hadn't been those words. Those—were wrong.

She'd go, but she couldn't see.

Mac shoved her hands outward, pushing at the darkness.

The darkness
burned
.

She screamed as her fingers dissolved, as the backs of her hands caught fire, as the bones within her palms curled like putty and dripped away.
Drip. Drip.

She screamed as the drips were sucked into mouths—into mouths that insisted, in their soft, reasonable voices, voices of friendship, of trust:

“We told you to go,
lamisah
. We warned you. Didn't we?”

Her arms went next . . .