Chapter 30
THE PROPHECY FULFILLED the demons from Outer Space destroyed, Delur and Samz ascended to Heaven. They left, as saviours so often do, quite a mess behind them. The Desabans were not as grateful as they might have been and were inclined to harp upon the fact that their capital city had been devastated and to cast doubts upon the divinity of Grimes and Tamara. And in Taraplan, now that there was no longer any danger of Shaara domination, only a handful of fanatics preached the Old Religion. The trouble was that the Darijjans had become accustomed, over the years, to visits from outside and knew that they themselves could build spaceships once they got around to it. Meanwhile there was a period of anarchy until a successor to the late President Callaray could be found. There was a paying off of old scores. There were rioting and arson.
Grimes—who had always evinced a weakness for taking sides—would have liked to stay to help Lennay and his adherents. Tamara, however, insisted that the voyage be resumed at once, that the precious consignment of parcel mail be carried to its recipient without further delay. She talked menacingly about the penalties for breach of contract. Grimes could not but listen to her. He insisted, however, that he perform one last service for his devotees—the rounding up of the Shaara survivors. These, not having been aboard Baroom at the time of her destruction, had fled to an island off the south coast of Desaba where they had killed or enslaved the native inhabitants. They had three blimps, automatic projectile weapons and lasers. The ammunition for their machine guns was limited but, as each of the airships possessed its own generator, the power cells of the laser pistols could be recharged as required for a long time to come.
There were princesses, drones and workers—females, males and neuters. Possibly breeding had commenced already.
The raid on the island was a short and bloody business. Little Sister, no longer in disguise, pounced at first light. Somehow the Shaara were expecting her. The blimps were already airborne and around each of them was a squadron of drones. They made no attempt to flee but attacked at once. A pinnace built of normal materials would have been overwhelmed by the ferocity of the assault. Looking back on it all Grimes was inclined to think that it was deliberately suicidal. The blimps bored in, their machine cannon flaming. The streams of tracers converged on the pinnace and the bursting shells blotted out all vision from the forward viewport. The drones were above Little Sister, around her, below her. Skin temperature gauges went mad.
Grimes fired the twin lasers and, at the same time, swung the ship’s head to port, then to starboard, slashing with the double beam. The cannonade abruptly ceased and he could see ahead again, watched all three blimps fluttering groundward, their descent barely slowed by the charred rags that had been their envelopes. The crews—those who were still living—flew out from the cars to join the battling drones. Grimes slashed again and bee bodies burst smokily.
But the drones surrounding Little Sister were keeping well out of the field of fire of her lasers. Even if they could not hurt her—although they were searching frantically for a weak spot—they could not be hurt themselves. But they were singleminded, concentrating their fury on the obvious enemy. Perhaps they did see the native dirigible that came drifting above the battle; if they did, they ignored her. She could be dealt with at leisure. They were not expecting the invisible vapor that was discharged from her gondola, that fell slowly, that blinded and poisoned.
Sickened, Grimes watched the last of them, with wings twitching feebly and ineffectually, plunge to join their dead companions on the rocky ground.