Jemmi had no answer to that.
She released her pressure on Roycer, and he fell backwards towards her across the invisible floor. Instead, she reached out to Sara. She had to grope because she no longer knew where to find her, but at last they touched, and Jemmi's urgency roused Sara's attention. Jemmi concentrated all her awareness on the launch bay, dead Albiorix, and Yee standing next to the shuttle.
He's the one! She flung the rage and fear towards Sara. He killed Albiorix! And now he'll do worse—
The thought suddenly bloomed in Jemmi's mind that the most clever and crucial thing she could do was get down on her knees and bow her head. She welcomed the idea as an inspired stroke of brilliance, and rushed to kneel in submission. She heard Yee's footsteps snap against the crystal floor as he sauntered towards her, and it did not trouble her.
They felt the rumbling through the walls and the floor then. It started hushed and far off, a sustained roll of thunder that rushed up and overtook them.
Yee cocked his head and frowned, and then his eyes widened as he identified the sound: Sara had spasmed her entire boneless body in a long rolling wave, like a rope snapped across miles of ground. It was the roar of an earthquake, focused and aimed right at him.
Jemmi grabbed Roycer and spurred him with an intensity that sent him scrabbling maniacally past her into the cover of the stairwell. She dove in after him.
Yee dropped the canister and extended his arms overhead, not to fend off Sara's body, but to reach into her mind. He stood there for the space of a heartbeat, but there was no time to learn to contact her, and he abruptly broke and fled for the stairwell, all gangly arms and legs.
He snatched at Jemmi's ankle, and from somewhere she found the wherewithal to shout, "Your nanos!" throwing all the weight and urgency she could into the thought. Yee stared at her and hesitated a moment—perhaps it was the power of her suggestion, or perhaps it was the age-old habit of cherishing his burden—and then spun back into the launch bay.
At that moment the living ceiling of the chamber lurched high up with a great solid heave that pulled the air screaming past their ears and whiplashed back down into the launch bay. It hammered against the invisible floor in an paroxysm of violence that obliterated Jemmi's scream. The shuttle and its equipment, which could bear the forces of vacuum, fire and ice and had stood unmarked for centuries, were instantly pulverized into a thin stratum of wreckage. Yee, standing among them, was mashed into nothing.
The wave rolled off again just as quickly, trailed by the sound of receding thunder. A stunning silence stretched for several minutes, punctuated as bits of unrecognizable debris rained down towards the stars from where they were embedded in Sarasvati's side, clattering or splatting to a stop against the crystal.
Jemmi pressed her face hard against the stairwell wall and waited until the world had stopped reverberating. It took a long time before she judged it was safe to move.
"Let's go, then," she said to Roycer—no compulsion, just an order. "Ah, wait."
She threaded her way into the launch bay and picked through the anklehigh detritus until she found Yee's canister. It was dented and scraped, but almost none of the paste had been spilled. She took it.
"Now we can go." She led Roycer back into Sarasvati, and up the long stairs. She was careful not to touch his thoughts again. Near the top of the climb, he stumbled to his knees, and clear-minded for the first time in weeks, sobbed with horror and loss. Jemmi sat several steps above him with her arms wrapped around her shins and waited patiently, mindful of all the things Roycer had seen and done, allowed no feeling but solicitude for Yee's needs. He doubled over and retched. When he began glaring at her during his pauses for breath, Jemmi picked herself up and continued climbing. He hurried to follow.
Jemmi stepped out through the ragged hole at the surface and climbed to the top of the mound. The air tasted to her as if it were filled with pain and righteous fury. A raw pink line now ran from the end of Sarasvati, crossing over the stairwell, and continuing deep into her interior. A strip of ground more than a hundred paces wide had wrenched itself clear, exposing the bare flesh beneath it. Trees, stones, earth and bits of homes lay tossed and scattered to either side for as far as she could see. In the hazy distance, a series of aftershocks or convulsions raised dust clouds and sent ripples running back towards them. Jemmi's own body burned in aggrieved empathy. She would never let anyone hurt Sara again.
Roycer joined her on the rubble and surveyed the destruction.
"What are you?" he asked.
Jemmi blinked for a moment, and while she considered, he shifted his weight and raised his fists to strike her. She flicked his mind and he went still. And that gave Jemmi her answer.
"Bow down," she told Roycer. "Get on your knees and bow down before me. I am the priestess of Sarasvati. I have come, and everything will change now."
With that, as her boy knelt with earnest awe and reverence, Jemmi walked to the place where Sara's wound was the worst, and poured the contents of Yee's canister out into it.