"Take them," the chief said.
A score of Mandmoorans swarmed out through the surf toward the sinking boat. Jane watched as they surrounded it and brought the three soldiers back with them quickly. By then the runabout had gone under, but the flotilla of rescue craft was now only a few hundred yards offshore and coming fast.
"Five hostages," the chief said. "Tell them go."
Voices shouted back and forth across the water, but Jane saw that the chief wasn't listening. Instead, he went to the man who had fallen before the corporal's blaster. He knelt and took the yellow shocked head on his knee and murmured to it. The young Mandmoora's right arm had been all but blasted off at the elbow. Blood was gushing and pumping from severed arteries. The chief raised his head and wailed:
"Grower, healer, Lord Sun! Save the Princeling of your people. Grower, healer, Lord Sun!" he chanted, repeating it. "Grower...."
"Princeling?" Sid said. "The old boy's son, you think?"
"If they just keep chanting and leave him like that, the poor boy'll bleed to death. Can't we do something?"
Just then an amplified voice came across the water toward them, metallic and somehow unreal. "Masters! Miss Crowley. We'll stay here. We won't budge until—until it's too late. Until we have to leave. But we can't come after you. The Mandmoorans would fight. There would be death on both sides and—I'm sorry, Masters, Miss Crowley. We are positively forbidden to use force of arms here. You understand?"