"My people are to burn me in the pit for the kaksmas with lamp oil. I will order it. I would have been Queen of the World." Making no effort to escape from his arms, she burst into rage at him; a rage pitiable, not dangerous: "Why have you come, you sky people, you speakers of new words? We had our life, no need of you. We were brave--you weaken us with words, with words. Your friendship is the green-flower weed that kills the self. You make children of us. You break our beautiful image of the god and tell us she never lived. You say that now?" She slashed her fingers down her side, drawing blood. Firing? Firing at the camp? She clung to him, wailing: "And now you carry me. I cannot even hate you. You steal our strength. The priests were right--the priests----Ismar, help me! _Ismar!_" Paul forced himself into a run. It was firing, rapid and sharp, pistols and rifles. The ammunition would melt fast at that rate. He could hear yelling. Catching up with the running soldiers, leaving them behind, he could see Mijok, far ahead, swerve to the left. And the lifeboat was in action. It curved grandly from near the surface of the lake, which was dim with smoke. It circled over jungle, descended in another swoop at the canoes. Red bodies tumbled overside; the silver nose tilted as if in disdain; the jet spoke for one second, blasting the near canoes into nothing, sending up the further ones in yellow fire, driving the lifeboat into its seeming-careless leap. But there was still firing from the gray stone fortress, a human tangle on the beach before it, a high long screaming. Forward detachments of the lake fleet must have passed in the dark. Paul ran on, only his arms remembering Pakriaa. She slipped down, grabbed a spear as her soldiers caught up with her, and ran straight for the beach. That part of the agony was almost done. No more boats were coming in--Ed Spearman's sky weapon had seen to that. There were more canoes, many more, but they were holding off, grouping clumsily at a distance. Paul waited for the lifeboat to slip over him and waved to the south. Spearman altered the course of the glide, dropping after one more group of panicked boats but heading south. A longer burst of the jet, and Spearman's weapon lifted, straightened, shot out of sight across the meadow. Paul could picture the big man's intent and mirthless grin, the cold gray eye alert on the fuel gauge. And when this fuel was gone--no more. It might stand for a while, somewhere, a decaying artifact.... Those left alive on the beach were bringing in casualties. The boats were still withdrawing. Christopher Wright was in the fortress with the wounded, his narrow face tight in the misery of a doctor who can do almost nothing. "Doc--how many have we lost here?" "You! I had almost--Oh, Mijok, what've you got there...? Paul, they jumped us at first-light. No time even to remind Ed to go after you----"