Vonda McIntyre - Little Faces

The other ships followed her lead, spraying Seyyan's craft with plume after plume: silver, scarlet, midnight blue, ultraviolet, every color but the holographic pattern their defenses covered. Seyyan's craft reacted, but the concerted effort overwhelmed it. It drew inward, shrinking from the touch of the silk to avoid allergic reaction. Gradually it disappeared beneath the layers of solidifying color.

Yalnis listened for a plea, a cry for mercy, even a shout of defiance. But Seyyan maintained a public silence.

Is she secretly giving orders to her allies? Yalnis wondered. Does she have allies anymore? She glanced over her shoulder at Ekarete.

Ekarete, creeping up behind her, launched herself at Yalnis, her teeth bared in an eerie mirror of her angry companion's. She reached for Yalnis's face, her hand pouring blood, and they fell in a tangle.

Yalnis struggled, fending off Ekarete's fists and fingernails, desperate to protect her tiny growing daughter, desperate to defend her companions against Ekarete's, which was after all the spawn of Seyyan and her murderous first companion.

All the companions squealed and gnashed their teeth, ready to defend themselves, as aware of danger as they were of opportunity.

"Why are you doing this?" Yalnis cried. "I'm not your enemy!"

"I want my ship! I want Seyyan!"

"It's gone! She's gone!" Yalnis wrestled Ekarete and grabbed her, holding tight and ducking her head as Ekarete slapped and struck her. The companions writhed and lunged at their opponent. Their movements gave Yalnis weird sensations of sexual arousal and pleasure in the midst of anger and fear.

The floor slipped beneath her, startling her as it built loose lobes of ship silk. She grabbed one and flung herself forward, pulling the gossamer fabric over Ekarete, letting go, rolling free, leaving Ekarete trapped. The silk closed in. Yalnis struggled to her feet, brushing her hand across her stomach to reassure herself that her companions and her daughter remained uninjured. She wiped sweat from her face and realized it was not sweat, but blood, not Ekarete's but her own, flowing from a stinging scratch down her cheek.

Both she and her ship had been distracted. Seyyan's craft struggled against a thin spot that should have been covered by more silver silk from Yalnis's ship. The tangled shape rippled and roiled, and the craft bulged to tear at the restraint. Glowing plasma from the propulsion system spurted in tiny jets beneath the

surface of the silk. The craft convulsed. Yalnis flinched to think of the searing plasma trapped between the craft's skin and the imprisoning cover.

"Finish it," Yalnis said to her ship. "Please, finish it." Tears ran hot down her face. Ekarete's muffled cries and curses filled the living space, and Yalnis's knees shook.

"True," her ship said. A cloak of silver spread to cover the weak spot, to seal in the plasma.

The roiling abruptly stopped.

Yalnis's friends flung coat after coat of imprisoning silk over Seyyan's craft, until they were all exhausted.

When it was over, Yalnis's ship accelerated away with the last of its strength. Her friends began a slow dispersal, anxious to end the gathering. Seyyan's craft drifted alone and silent, turning in a slow rotation, its glimmer extinguished by a patchwork of hardening colors

Yalnis wondered how much damage the plasma had done, how badly Seyyan's craft had been hurt, and whether it and Seyyan had survived.

"Tasmin," she said, quietly, privately, "will you come for Ekarete? She can't be content here."

Ekarete was a refugee, stripped of all her possessions, indigent and pitiable, squeaking angrily beneath ship silk like a completely hidden companion.

After a hesitation Yalnis could hardly believe, or forgive, Tasmin replied.

"Very well."

Yalnis saw to her ship. Severely depleted, it arced through space in a stable enough orbit. It had expended its energy and drawn on its structural mass. Between defending itself and the demands of its unborn daughter ship, it would need a long period of recovery.

She sent one more message, a broadcast to everyone, but intended for Seyyan's former friends.

"I haven't the resources to correct her orbit." She felt too tired even to check its stability, and reluctant to ask her ship to exert itself. "Someone who still cares for her must take that responsibility."

"Let me up!" Ekarete shouted. Yalnis gave her a moment of attention.

"Tasmin will be here soon," Yalnis said. "She'll help you."

"We're bleeding."

Yalnis said, "I don't care."

She pulled her shirt aside to see to her own companions. Three of the four had retracted, showing only their teeth. She stroked around them till they relaxed, dozed, and exposed the tops of their downy little heads, gold and copper and softly freckled. Only Bahadirgul, ebony against Yalnis's pale skin, remained bravely awake and alert.

Drying blood slashed its mouth, but the companion itself had sustained only a shallow scratch. Yalnis petted the soft black fur of Bahadirgul's hair.

"You're gallant," Yalnis said. "Yes, gallant. I made the right choice, didn't I?" Bahadirgul trembled with pleasure against her fingers, within her body.

When Bahadirgul slept, exhausted and content, Yalnis saw to her daughter, who grew unmolested and unconcerned; she saw to herself and to her companions, icing the bruises of Ekarete's attack, washing her scratches and the companion's. She looked in the mirror and wondered if she would have a scar down her cheek, across her perfect skin.

And, if I do, will I keep it? she wondered. As a reminder?

As she bathed and put on new clothes, Tasmin's ship approached, sent greetings, asked for permission to attach. Yalnis let her ship make that decision and felt relieved when the ship approved. A pilus extended from Tasmin's ship; Yalnis's ship accepted it. Perhaps it carried some risk, but they were sufficiently exhausted that growing a capsule for Ekarete's transport felt beyond their resources.

As the pilus widened into a passage, Zorar whispered to her through a message port, "Shall I come and help? I think I should."

"No, my friend," Yalnis whispered in reply. "Thank you, but no."

Tasmin entered, as elegant and perfect as ever. Yalnis surprised herself by taking contrary pride in her own casual appearance. Zorar's concern and worry reached her. Yalnis should be afraid, but she was not.

"Please release Ekarete," she said to her ship.

"True," it said, its voice soft. The net of silk withdrew, resorbed. As soon as one hand came free, Ekarete clutched and scratched and dragged herself loose. She sprang to her feet, blood-smeared and tangle-haired.

She took one step toward Yalnis, then stopped, staring over Yalnis's shoulder.

Yalnis glanced quickly back.

As if deliberately framed, Seyyan's craft loomed beyond the transparent dome of the living space, bound in multicolored layers of the heaviest ship silk, each layer permeated with allergens particular to the ship that had created it. Seyyan's craft lay cramped within the sphere, shrinking from its painful touch, immobilized and put away until time wore the restraints to dust.

Ekarete keened with grief. The wail filled Yalnis's hearing and thickened the air.

Tasmin hurried to her, putting one arm around her shaking shoulders, covering her with a wing of her dress.

"Take her," Yalnis said to Tasmin. "Please, take her."

Tasmin turned Ekarete and guided her to the pilus. The connection's rim had already begun to swell inward as Yalnis's ship reacted to the touch of Tasmin's with inflammation. Tasmin and Ekarete hurried through and disappeared.

Seyyan's former friends would have to decide how to treat Ekarete. They might abandon her, adopt her, or spawn a new craft for her. Yalnis had no idea what they would choose to do, whether they would decide she was pure fool for her loyalty or pure hero for the same reason.