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probably kill yourself with the shock of realizing there's a real world out here."
Jordan agreed, nodding at Kiondili's look. "If you put as much effort into the
Lightwing as you do into being permanently ticked off, we'd have made light
already.''
But Kiondili did not respond. She sat almost frozen, alternately stiffening and
shivering.
"Stop fidgeting and flexing those fields," Argon snapped. "Jordan is only
telling you the truth. If Poole had pointed it out, we might have at least had a
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laugh at your expense, as well, but it's still true."
But Kiondili's jaw was tight, and her hands clenched. "It's not about the truth,"
she returned through clenched teeth. "If they'd control these friggin' field surges
. . ."
Poole rippled his fur down to his belly. "I wouldn't-" He broke off and stared
toward a table behind Kiondili.
But Kiondili was no longer paying attention. A surge in the free-boost fields
below the Hub had just hit her.
"Trouble," Jordan said urgently, even as Kiondili felt a more powerful surge.
Poole caught the paralyzed look on her face and half rose, his fur rippling
across his chest. "What is wrong?"
 Never mind Kiwi,'' Argon snapped. Check out Waon.''
Tior twisted, her eyes widening at the Ruvian's shimmering form. Her chin
bags tightened, and she lost water, but she ignored the fluids that dripped down
her neck. "Get the medic in here fast," she said.
Poole wrinkled his lips back from his teeth. "Hit the E-damp!"
Argon hit the emergency damp with his fist, and others who recognized the
trouble did the same at their tables. "Get under the local shield while you've got a
chance. Let the chute guards take care of Waon-if they can."
"But look at him." Jordan half rose, and Argon grabbed his arm and pulled him
down, closer to the center of the E-damp's field.
"He's melting," Tior whispered.
Kiondili was released from her thrall as the second surge lessened and the
local damp at the table cut in. She started to turn but was interrupted by a
high-pitched frequency that pierced her temples from under the sonar depressor.
Clutching her ears, she writhed with the sudden surge of power. It was Waon,
she realized suddenly, recognizing the power of that scream with an intensity
that startled her. So close to his Change, he had been pushed too far by the
increased field fluctuations.
There was not enough shielding in the Hub to keep the fluctuations from
tearing at the Ruvian's body mass; the surging of the fields must have set him
off. Had they not warned him? The Ruvian was melting. His field-generated mass
was oozing and pulsing as he tried to re-form into-something. But there was no
shielding to protect him from the outpost systems, no buffer to keep his shape
separate from the fields snapping and shifting in the Hub. In the agony of the
Change, he lashed out, blasting apart everything he touched. E-damps, persona
adapts-everything fried in the power surge. Even under the depressors, Kiondili
could sense thousands of inaudible screams. Aliens and H'Mu collapsed right
and left. Those still standing were already in shock. The tiny E-damp in each
citizen's persona adapt was useless in the strength of Waon's blast. Not even the
table damps were strong enough to stand, and two of them went down, leaving
the people huddled under them to faint or retreat into a coma. Kiondili punched
frantically at the medcom button; she could almost see lances of power stab the
people around him. Why had the esper net not kicked on? In the blast of Waon's
Change,
the net should have automatically killed all esper transmissions in the entire area.
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Across the room, the Ruvian writhed. His fields projected through the floor to
the free-boost chutes below. Then they flexed above him to disrupt the lighting
and circuitry in the Hub. Behind her, a shock and a burst of blankness cut
through her mind, and Kiondili knew suddenly that a Mu had just died. As the
horror hit her, another burst of blankness snapped across her, and her fury
surged. Did Waon not feel what he was doing to these people? Or did he just not
care? Her rage exploded, and Waon's fields encompassed her, pulling on her
nerves, and she realized with a shock that the esper net was not on because
Waon's own out-of-sync fields had jammed it.
'"Waon!" she screamed. "Stop it!"
She leapt in slow motion, buffeted by the fields he had generated. Cells along
her skin and then deep into her body ruptured where the Ruvian's fields pulled
her apart. Had she been wearing her temple jacks, they would have melted onto
her head. No, she would have to use her sensor skills in a more physical way. She
would have to generate her own paths, her own lens for the focus of the fields.
She forced her way forward, beating her own space into his field. There was no
light in this flux. There was no sound except for a roaring that was not in her ears
but her mind. And then a rage surged into her own and fed her, and she dimly
recognized Argon behind her, his presence joining hers and their conflict
strengthening her focus. She forced herself forward another meter, her feet
slipping on a body she could not see. "Waon, control yourself-" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]