the sudden silence, she looked at Telzey who had followed her across the room.
“And now,” she said, drawing a deep breath, “it’s done! Every section in the circuit has been sealed. No portal can open until it’s released from this room. Wherever the Elaigar were a moment ago, there they’ll stay.” She smiled without mirth. “How they’ll rage! But not for long. Now I’ll reset the Vingarran, and the Gate will open and my people will come through to remove our captives from section after section, and take them and their servants to our transports.”
She went to another instrument console, unlocked it, bent over it. Telzey stood watching. The Alatta’s hand moved to a group of controls, hesitated. She frowned. The hand shifted uncertainly.
Kolki Ming stiffened. Her hand jerked toward the gun at her belt. The motion wasn’t completed.
She straightened then, turned to stare at Telzey. And Telzey felt the Alatta’s mind turning also, wonderingly, incredulously, seeking a way to escape the intangible web of holds that had fastened on it, and realizing there was no way—that it was unable now even to understand how it was held.
“You?” Kolki Ming said heavily at last. “How could—”
“When you killed Stiltik.”
A mind blazingly open, telepathically vulnerable, powers and attention wholly committed. Only for instants; but in those instants, Telzey, waiting and watching, had flowed inside.
“I sensed nothing.” Kolki Ming shook her head. “Of course—that was the first awareness you blocked.”
“Yes,” Telzey said. “It was. I had plenty of time afterwards for the rest of it.”
The Alatta’s eyes were bleak. “And now?”
“Now we’re going to a planetary exit.” Telzey touched a point in the captive mind. “That hidden one you