Nuala, screaming. And Rudra—gloating!
Rudra!
Travis lifted his tanned face. His eyes burned savagely, staring across the tower toward the dials and levers that controlled those forces that only Rudra and Nuala understood. Travis moved his hands, getting to his feet. He looked at his hands, balled them into hard fists. He whispered, "I wanted something to come to grips with. I needed something to put my hands on, to hit, to batter!"
Travis snarled, "Rudra!" and slammed his hands on the levers. He had watched Nuala move them. He knew how to move the tower through the dimensional paths Nuala had guided it.
Under his feet the tower swayed, reeled sickeningly.
And then—
The two towers met with a jarring crash. Travis was already in midair, leaping through the gap. Stones met and tumbled. The roof of Rudra's blackened tower was caving in. Travis swept through the air, aimed for a crumbled section of roofing. His hands went out to fasten on smashed tile. Through the rent, he saw Rudra at his visiscreen, laughing at the twisted, helpless thing that was Nuala in the calyx—
Travis went mad. He leaped for Rudra, leaped from the roof. His fist caught him beside the cheek, drove his head back. His knees hit the man's chest as he fell, toppled him backward. Sobbing, Travis went for him even before he hit the floor.
They rolled across the tiling, bounced off the metal leg of a table, rammed into the base of the great visiscreen. Travis fought with the strength of a hundred men, thinking of the crumpled loveliness of Nuala. His fists were as ten. His endurance seemed drawn from a bottomless well of energy. He fought and hammered and sobbed, a red haze of fury floating before his eyes.