"It killed Kipuna and two of your guards," Cania gasped. "Cut them up! I saw it. God preserve us!"
Tuek's mind was a maelstrom. Both the chute and the suspensor-drop system were enclosed wormholes through the tower. They could be sabotaged. The attack on the roof might be only one element in a far more complex plot.
"Put me down!" Sheeana insisted. "What's happening?"
Tuek eased her to the floor but kept one of her hands clutched in his hand. He bent over her, "Sheeana, dear, someone is trying to harm us."
Sheeana's mouth formed a silent "O," then: "They hurt Kipuna?"
Tuek looked up at the roof door. Was that an ornithopter he heard up there? Stiros! Conspirators could take three vulnerable people into the desert so easily!
Cania had regained her breath. "I hear a 'thopter," she said. "Shouldn't we be getting away from here?"
"We will go down by the stairs," Tuek said.
"But the -"
"Do as I say!"
Keeping a firm hold on Sheeana's hand, Tuek led the way down to the next landing. In addition to the chute and suspensor access, this landing had a door into a wide curving hall. Only a few short steps beyond the door lay the entrance to Sheeana's quarters, once Tuek's own quarters. Again he hesitated.
"Something's happening on the roof," Cania whispered.
Tuek looked down at the fearfully silent child beside him. Her hand felt sweaty.
Yes, there was some sort of uproar on the roof - shouts, the hiss of burners, much running about. The roof door, now out of sight above them, crashed open. This decided Tuek. He flung open the door into the hallway and dashed out into the arms of a tightly grouped wedge of black-robed women. With an empty sense of defeat, Tuek recognized the woman at the point of the wedge: Odrade!
Someone plucked Sheeana away from him and hustled her back into the press of robed figures. Before Tuek or Cania could protest, hands were clapped over their mouths. Other hands pinioned them against a wall of the hallway. Some of the robed figures went through the doorway and up the stairs.
"The child is safe and that's all that's important for the moment," Odrade whispered. She looked into Tuek's eyes. "Make no outcry." The hand was removed from his mouth. Using Voice, she said: "Tell me about the roof!"
Tuek found himself complying without reservation. "A seeker towing a long shigawire. It came over the parapet. Kipuna saw it and -"
"Where is Kipuna?"
"Dead. Cania saw it." Tuek described Kipuna's brave dash toward the threat.
Kipuna dead! Odrade thought. She concealed a fiercely angry sense of loss. What a waste. There must be admiration for such a brave death, but the loss! The Sisterhood always needed such courage and devotion, but it also required the genetic wealth Kipuna had represented. It was gone, taken by these stumbling fools!
At a gesture from Odrade, the hand was removed from Cania's mouth. "Tell me what you saw," Odrade said.
"The seeker whipped the shigawire around Kipuna's neck and..." Cania shuddered.
The dull thump of an explosion reverberated above them, then silence. Odrade waved a hand. Robed women spread along the hallway, moving silently out of sight beyond the curve. Only Odrade and two others, both chill-eyed younger women with intense expressions, remained beside Tuek and Cania. Sheeana was nowhere to be seen.
"The Ixians are in this somewhere," Odrade said.
Tuek agreed. That much shigawire... "Where have you taken the child?" he asked.
"We are protecting her," Odrade said. "Be still." She tipped her head, listening.
A robed woman sped back around the curve of the hallway and whispered something in Odrade's ear. Odrade produced a tight smile.
"It is over," Odrade said. "We will go to Sheeana."
Sheeana occupied a softly cushioned blue chair in the main room of her quarters. Black-robed women stood in a protective arc behind her. The child appeared to Tuek quite recovered from the shock of the attack and escape but her eyes glittered with excitement and unasked questions. Sheeana's attention was directed at something off to Tuek's right. He stopped and looked there, gasping at what he saw.
A naked male body lay against the wall in an oddly crumpled position, the head twisted until the chin lay back over the left shoulder. Open eyes stared out with the emptiness of death.
Stiros!
The shredded rags of Stiros' robe, obviously torn from him violently, lay in an untidy heap near the body's feet.
Tuek looked at Odrade.
"He was in on it," she said. "There were Face Dancers with the Ixians."
Tuek tried to swallow in a dry throat.
Cania shuffled past him toward the body. Tuek could not see her face but Cania's presence reminded him that there had been something between Stiros and Cania in their younger days. Tuek moved instinctively to place himself between Cania and the seated child.
Cania stopped at the body and nudged it with a foot. She turned a gloating expression on Tuek. "I had to make sure he was really dead," she said.
Odrade glanced at a companion. "Get rid of the body." She looked at Sheeana. It was Odrade's first chance for a more careful study of the child since leading the assault force here to deal with the attack on the temple complex.
Tuek spoke behind Odrade. "Reverend Mother, could you explain please what - Odrade interrupted without turning. "Later."
Sheeana's expression quickened at Tuek's words. "I thought you were a Reverend Mother!"
Odrade merely nodded. What a fascinating child. Odrade experienced the sensations she felt while standing in front of the ancient painting in Taraza's quarters. Some of the fire that had gone into the work of art inspired Odrade now. Wild inspiration! That was the message from the mad Van Gogh. Chaos brought into magnificent order. Was that not part of the Sisterhood's coda?