Null-field. She bit her lip, her head wasn’t working right, field must be operating still, on low power to keep the lid clamped down.

Kikun. The Null hadn’t affected him. Odd. What’s happening? Who’s doing this? Ginny? He went down, I saw him go down. That means diddly. He killed Lissorn. Why’d he kill Lissorn if…

The corridor was empty. She was surprised at first, then annoyed at herself. Kikun wouldn’t be taking her along here crippled up like she was in her head and leg if the way wasn’t clear. Clear for now, but not for long… There was a powerful urgency in him, he was almost carrying her. Shayss damn, my head’s not working. She couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything, mind skittering about hibbity dibbity.

He hauled her out onto the gallery, dragged her a few feet along it and pushed through ragged draperies into a room thick with rat droppings and cobwebs and the kind of smell you get down an alley on any skidder road.

“Egya cill’haiya, Rose. Missuk shai gavan cillahai’.”

She stared at him, the syllables sliding off as if her brain were waxed to a high gloss and impermeable. Slid off and fell dead-echoes were paralyzed in here, like everything else in this catafalque of a room.

He hissed and shook her. “Dyslaer,” he breathed. “You know it.”

“Oh.” She forced herself to concentrate. “Say again.” She stumbled over the Dyslaer words, repeated them. “Say again.”

“We have to have a ship, Rose. We have to get out of here.”

She rubbed at her head. The stench was hideous, every breath gave her stomach spasms, and her knee was hurting more by the minute. She shifted her stunned, leg; moving eased it a little. Think, Rose, think. “Shadow…”

“She was too far in.” His eyes glazed over. “I had to leave her. If we’re taken, there’s no one to follow…”

“Follow who?”

“Does it matter?”

She brushed at a bit of dusty cobweb clinging to her hand, shuddered as she saw the desiccated corpses of half a dozen spiders. She loathed spiders. “There’re the Capture Ships out beyond the Limit. We could call one in.”