on its wizened face.
Kendi turned the dermospray over and over in his hand. “I need to go back in.”
“Out of the question,” Harenn said, sounding a lot like Ara. “It might be even more dangerous now than before. Besides, you are still weak.”
“I feel fine now,” Kendi objected. “And we need to know what’s going on.”
Ben tightened his arm around Kendi’s body hard enough to make Kendi wince. He’d forgotten how strong Ben was, though it was wonderful to be reminded. It had been so long since Ben had held him.
“You aren’t going in there without me,” Ben told him firmly.
“We don’t even know what drug dose you need,” Kendi said. “And you haven’t had any training.”
“I did all right before,” Ben replied gruffly.
“But you were only working with me,” Kendi said. “You’ve never had to move around the Dream when it was dangerous.
They argued further, but Kendi ultimately won out, though he promised to exit the Dream if anything looked even vaguely dangerous. He also had to concede it would be better if he lay on the bed instead of standing propped up in the corner.
“Besides, you didn’t bring my spear,” he groused, then tousled Ben’s hair to show it was a joke. Ben gave a small smile, and Kendi’s heart sang. They were together again. He lay back and let Harenn administer the dose. It would be harder for him to enter the Dream without using the proper ritual pose of the Real People, but he could do it. He breathed deeply. After a long moment, the familiar colors swirled. Kendi reached for the Dream, and opened his eyes.
Everything looked wrong. Instead of being in his cave, he was far above the ground. The world spun crazily before he realized he was a falcon flying high in the air, though at the moment he was actually plummeting to his death. He regained control with frantic beats of his wings and leveled out. Below, the Outback looked thin and wavery, like a spirit version of the land. Above, the sky was pitch black, and it was laughing.
Why was he a falcon? This had never happened before. Though Kendi knew Silent who changed shape in the Dream, Kendi himself couldn’t do it. The falcon was a manifestation of part of himself, but never the main part. What was going on?
A black tentacle shot down from sky to earth, followed by another and another. One of them skimmed past Kendi’s right wing and he banked in panic. Wherever the tentacles touched the ground, a black pool oozed outward. Screams of pain erupted from the earth. Suddenly Kendi was so tired of a Dream filled with pain and screams. He longed for the time when he could go there for peace and serenity.
Kendi clacked his beak in annoyance with himself. There were real problems to concentrate on now. It was obvious the thing in the Dream was swallowing minds again. Sejal’s attack may have pushed it back, but Sejal had been yanked out of the Dream. Kendi cast his mind outward, and felt a few Silent, but only weakly, as tenuous as the Outback below.
Feeling frightened and alone, Kendi continued to fly until a tentacle flashed downward and slammed him into the ground.
“We have found nineteen people,” Arsula told Vidya from the doorway. “One of them, a woman with dark hair, is unconscious. Do you know why?”
Vidya shook her head. “That is Dr. Say, and I do not know.”
“Did you signal the alert?” Arsula said.
“What alert?” Vidya replied, deciding to play stupid.
Arsula leaned casually against a wall, though his body was tightly coiled. His expression remained calm and relaxed. Vidya found herself admiring his poise.
“The guard received a recorded emergency alert that gave us the location of this base,” he said. “We had to divert a ocean battleship to investigate. No one at any level of government claims to have any idea that this place existed, and we had a hell of a time finding an airlock through all that camouflage. Who’s in charge here?”
Sejal’s eyes were open and he looked like he was trying to speak. Vidya willed him to remain quiet.
“Dr. Say is in charge,” Vidya replied. “The woman who is unconscious.”
“What is this installation doing?” Arsula demanded. “Who are these…children? Why are all those people out there taped up? I want answers, dammit!”
Sejal turned his head very slightly, bringing the guard and their pistols into his line of sight. Vidya flung up her hands to ensure the guards were watching her instead of him. “I know very little. I am a mere slave who only does as she is told.”
“Bullshit,” Arsula growled. “Someone had to tape those people up and someone had to sound the alert. That someone had to be you. You can start by telling me your-”
He stopped in mid-sentence. His feature froze, as did the other five guard. Sejal stared at them with glassy eyes. Vidya all but leaped across the room and snatched the pistols out of their unresisting hands. Then she slammed the outer Nursery door shut and locked it. Katsu got dizzily to her feet. Vidya shoved aside the concern she felt and turned to her son.
“Sejal,” she said, “can you make these men help us put the children into the cryo-units?”
Shouts rose from outside the Nursery door and something banged against it as Sejal nodded. The five guard and Lieutenant Arsula stiffened, then moved swiftly toward the beds. Vidya checked Prasad. His breathing and heartbeat were steady.
“Hurry, Sejal,” Katsu said. “The children have re-taken several planets, and they will soon devour Rust.”
“I’ll try,” Sejal said.
“I’ll try,” all the guard echoed, and the sound made Vidya’s skin crawl. Something slammed against the door again.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Sejal said.
“…to do this,” echoed the guard. They and Sejal were staring at her. Vidya would have expected them to have glassy eyes and glazed faces. They didn’t, but they did look odd somehow. It was their expressions. Every one of them had the same facial expression, and it looked vaguely like Sejal’s face.
“Hurry, Mom,” Sejal said. “Come on.”
“…come on.”
Vidya went to the nearest bed. The Child lay motionless. Only its breathing and the sickening smile on its face said it wasn’t dead. She disconnected the first lead.
The thudding at the door was becoming rhythmic. Vidya disconnected the rest of the tubes and slid the cryo-unit out from under the bed. Two of the guard lifted the the child into the unit. It slid shut and hissed into activation. The door was beginning to buckle under the repeated buffeting.
Fourteen left. The guard spread out, two to a bed, and went to work. Sejal stood to one side, watching. Eleven left. The door shuddered hard and Vidya could see light leaking through from the other side. Katsu, still looking dazed, fumbled for one of the pistols Vidya had gathered from the guard and put on a table. Vidya dashed across to the door and pulled the cattle prod from her waistband. Eight left.
Vidya set the prod at its highest level and placed the business end against the door. When the next thud came, she thumbed the trigger. Electricity snapped and there were howls of pain from the other side. Vidya nodded in satisfaction. The door was a poor conductor, but the prod put out enough power to cause some damage.
The possessed guard finished another set of children. Five left. The thudding resumed on the door, and Vidya assumed they had found another, non-conductive battering ram. The prod was drained in any case. She hung it from her belt and, like Katsu, took up a pistol. On the floor, Prasad stirred and sat up. Two left.
The door smashed open. A stone-topped table-the new battering ram-wedged itself into the doorway. Vidya crouched behind one of the beds and fired blindly in the direction of the door. Katsu did the same, and the guard outside returned fire.
“Sejal!” Vidya barked. “Take cover!”
But one of the bright beams caught Sejal’s shoulder. He screamed once and dropped. Every guard in the room cried out in unison and collapsed in an eerie parody of Sejal. The last two children continued smiling on the beds.
