hard to express so many days in just a few hours. Then Piecky turned away to look at the thick brown cloud of dust swirling across the sky. He watched, rapt, and something shone in his face, something like bliss, which surely would have amazed Snorg had he seen it.
“Stop rustling that plastic,” Piecky finally said.
They both looked at him.
“Listen, Snorg, I’m talking to you, because Skinny’s eyes are fixed once more on your smug face…” He went on, and the way he spoke was so much like the old times that Snorg grinned with pleasure.
“What I feel… that someday I’ll fly among those clouds, high above the earth, on wings, and it will be the best part of my life.”
“Maybe they’ll make you the controls of a machine, because your body is useless, but your brain, that’s really… But first they have to catch us, and that won’t be so easy for them. No camera saw where we went.”
“What will happen when they catch us?” said Piecky. “Because I am certain they will.” He wasn’t impressed by Snorg’s arguments.
“Shut, Piecky!” It was Tib. Snorg had never heard her talk in that tone. “Less yoo pr’fer thoos jekshins, ther.”
“I say what I think.”
“We should consider,” said Snorg after a moment of thought. “It seems to me that two of us are not in any real danger, since this situation has no precedent. Two of us should be all right, though each for a different reason. Nothing will be done to me, because the preservation of life is a fundamental law for human beings. Once someone is named a person, then he can’t stop being a person, so they would never turn an officer of the Archive of Biological Materials into just another specimen for the warehouse. And Piecky, you too will be all right. Your dream will come true: you’ll look down on us from the height of a mine shoveler. They’ll have to make use of us, you see, to justify all the effort and energy it takes them to catch us.”
“Was that why we left the truck?” Piecky asked.
“No,” answered Snorg after a silence. “There is no place to go… Other than the city, there is nothing… But here, Abe knows where we are, he remembers this little house, he’ll bring us food. Abe is our hope.”
This time the silence was broken by Tib.
“An mee, Sneogg?… Wha ’bout mee?” She bent and fixed her eyes on his mouth.
“You. You’re the only one,” he said, turning fully to her, “a tragic fate awaits… One woman wants your body, another your head and face. They’re rich and no doubt deserving women, but I would die rather than let that happen.”
“So it was thanks to Baldy that I got to see the sky,” Piecky said softly, and said nothing after that. He gazed at the sky, at the swiftly moving clouds.
When the twilight turned from gray to the darkness of night, they fell asleep, huddled together, hungry and cold.
12
They woke to a gray, cold dawn. Tib was more talkative and animated than ever. She amazed him. In his memory she had been beautiful but not that aware of things. He saw that they were all developing mentally, not just he, who had been named a person, Tibsnorg Pieckymoosy.
He thought, “Maybe everyone, if given enough time…”
They waited for Dringenboom to come. Snorg was counting on Abe’s driving up in his giant truck and giving them food, and then all together they would figure out what to do next. Dringenboom was their only chance. They waited and waited, watching the string of vehicles in the distance carrying rocks from the city. Hunger gnawed at them. Around noon, a yellow sun showed through the clouds. It grew dazzlingly bright. Tib and Snorg stood side by side in a ray of sun and beheld the shadows they cast. Such a clean, clear sun. They saw it for the first time in their lives.
“If they made me the control unit of a machine, could I see this often?” Piecky wondered, peering out the window.
“I don’t know. Maybe they would let you keep your eyes,” said Snorg, but doubtfully. “You haven’t been named a person, so they might treat your brain as just material. Only those people have a right to keep their eyes who lost their bodies to an incurable illness. But it’s not impossible that you’d be installed in one of those great shovels… and you’d need your eyes for that. And with your intelligence, who knows?…”
He was interrupted by the roar of engines, a roar that definitely didn’t come from a truck. Snorg paled, understanding that Dringenboom would never bring them food. The roar grew and made the ground vibrate. Multicopters began to land around the building, heavy flying machines of the defense forces.
“One… two… three,” Snorg counted, feeling his face turn numb.
Tib pressed to him with all her strength. “Them… Wha we did mayd n’senss,” she whispered, watching the armored copters land.
Around the machines appeared small figures in gray uniforms, helmets, and bulletproof vests. They jumped nimbly to the ground and waded through the dust to the building. Snorg saw that they were armed with rifles, and a few carried laser guns.
“All those cannons for us?” he thought wryly. “Do they intend to level the house?”
He didn’t even try to count the commandos. There were at least fifty. They quickly took up positions around the house.
“Tibsnorg Pieckymoosy!” boomed a sudden, shrill voice. “You have no hope. Surrender. Surrendering the stolen biological material now will mitigate your sentence. Your accomplice, Abraham Dringenboom, has been placed under arrest.”
Tib was looking hard at him. She seemed to understand. He repeated to her what the loudspeaker had said, making sure she could see his mouth.
“Tibsnorg Pieckymoosy!” the speaker repeated. Piecky said nothing, terror in his eyes.
“Shit… shit…,” said Snorg, standing in the middle of the room and holding Tib.
“Buh wee only wan t’live,” she whispered, looking at him.
“…will mitigate,” the voice was booming, when a noise began at the door. Suddenly a powerful explosion blew the door apart. Two commandos jumped inside, like lightning, and fell to the floor, aiming at Snorg.
“Good maneuvers,” he thought.
They were extremely capable. A third commando appeared in the smoking hole. He had a colorful winged dragon painted on his bulletproof vest, which reached below his hips. The man stood motionless on spread, muscular legs, aiming at Snorg with a revolver that had a long barrel. He held the gun with both hands, arms extended. In place of a nose he had a single black nostril, and he bared his teeth. The teeth, with the lack of eyelids, gave his face the look of a skull.
“You wanted to be first,” Snorg thought. “For this you’ll be able to buy yourself a new face. Unless they consider that the ones on the floor were first…”
Snorg looked at the prone commandos. The one standing followed Snorg’s eyes. More commandos rushed into the room through the broken door and immediately fell to the floor. The one standing, as if reading Snorg’s mind, again swept his eyes over the prone soldiers. He stiffened, reaching a decision. For another brief moment he regarded Snorg through the plastic helmet, regarded him with those lidless bug eyes.
And although none of the three fugitives had moved an inch, a shot rang out, and Tib, who had been shielding Snorg with her body, went limp in his arms. Snorg felt something constrict his throat. He didn’t hear the second shot. The yellow flash before him became a row of bright spots and then went out.
