Or closer: a world-wrecker would glow incandescent across the curve of a planet, splashing the globe itself like a drop of water, but slow, slow. Those were the images her reading had prepared her for. What she saw now was more like a defect in her eyesight than a vision of war. Powers only knew what the Skroderiders saw, but: "Your main transceivers ... vaping out,
复件 (78) air max, I think," said Blueshell. "Those are light-years out! There's no way we could see --" Another splotch appeared, not even in her field of view. The color floated,
复件 (89) air max1, placeless. Pham Nuwen spasmed again, but weakly. She had no trouble holding him still, but ... blood dribbled from his mouth. The back of his shirt was wet with something that stank of decay. "OOB will be here in one hundred seconds. Plenty of time, there's plenty of time." Blueshell rolled back and forth around them, talking reassurance that just showed how nervous he was. "Yes, my lady, light-years out. And years from now, the flash of their going will light the sky for anyone still alive here. But only a fraction of the vape-out is making light. The rest is an ultrawave surge so great that ordinary matter is affected.... Optic nerves tickled by the overflow.... So much that your own nervous system becomes a receiver." He spun around. "But don't worry. We're tough and quick. We've squeezed through close spots before." There was something absurd about a creature with no short-term memory bragging up its lightning reflexes. She hoped his skrode was up to this. Greenstalk's voice buzzed painfully loud. "Look!" The surf line was drawing back,
复件 (65) air max2, further than she had ever seen it. "The sea is falling,
复件 (42) air max2!" shouted Greenstalk. Water's edge had pulled back a hundred meters, two hundred. The green-limned horizon was dipping. "Ship's still fifty seconds out. We'll fly to meet it. Come,
复件 (8) 复件 air max2, Ravna!" Ravna's own courage died cold that second. Grondr had said the Docks would fall! The near sky was crowded now as dozens of people raced for safety. A hundred meters away the sand itself was shifting, an avalanche tilting toward the abyss. She remembered something Old One had said, and suddenly she knew the fliers were making a terrible mistake. The thought cut through her terror. "No! Just head for higher ground." The night was silent no more. A bell-like moaning came from the sea. The sound spread. The sunset breeze grew to a gale that twisted the trees toward the water, sending branches and sand sweeping past them. Ravna was still on her knees, her hands pressing down on Pham's limp arms. No breath, no pulse. The eyes stared sightlessly. Old One's gift to her. Damn all the Powers,
mbt kaya chocolate! She grabbed Pham Nuwen under the shoulders and rolled him onto her back. She gagged, almost lost her grip. Underneath his shirt she felt cavities where there should be solid flesh. Something wet and rank dripped around her sides. She struggled up from her knees, half-carrying and half-dragging the body. Blueshell was shouting, "-- take hours to roll anywhere." He drifted off the ground, driving his agrav against the wind. Skrode and Rider twisted drunkenly for an instant ... and then he was slammed back to the ground, tumbled willy-nilly toward the wind's destination, the moaning hole that had been the sea. Greenstalk raced to his seaward side, blocking his progress toward destruction. Blueshell righted himself and the two rolled back toward Ravna. The Rider's voice was faint in the wind: "... agrav ... failing!" And with it the very structure of the Docks. They walked and wheeled their way back from the sucking sea. "Find a place to land the OOB."