And even the babies were quiet. There were other sounds: the heavy thrum of fans somewhere lower in the building, the street noise that they had heard before… but now the staccato sound of many feet, running up steps.
“That’s close,” said Brent.
“Th-they’re coming for us.”
“Yes.” Brent paused, in his usual dull way. “And I hear others coming, quieter or farther away.”
It didn’t matter. Viki ran to the doorway, hoisted herself up after Gokna. What they planned was pretty pitiful, but the worst and the best of it was that they didn’t have any other choice. Earlier, Jirlib had argued that he was bigger, that he should swing down from above. Yeah, but he was only one target, and someone had to keep the babies out of the line of fire. So now Gokna and Viki stood against the wall, five feet above the doorway on either side, bracing themselves against Brent’s clever ropework.
Brent rose, ran to the right side of the doorway. Jirlib stood well off to the side. He held the children tight in his arms, and didn’t try to quiet them anymore. But now, suddenly, they were quiet. Maybe they understood. Maybe it was something instinctive.
Through the wall, Viki could feel the running steps now. Two people. One said something low to the other. She couldn’t hear the words but she recognized the leader of the kidnappers. A key rattled in the lock. On the floor to her left, Jirlib gently set the babies down behind him. They stayed quiet, totally still—and Jirlib turned back to the door, ready to pounce. Viki and Gokna crouched lower against the wall. They had twisted all the leverage they dared out of the twine. A final look passed between the two. They had gotten the others into this mess. They had risked the life of an innocent bystander to try to get out. Now it was time for payback.
The door slid open, metal slipping across metal. Brent tensed for a leap. “Please don’t hurt me,” he said, his voice the same sullen monotone as always. Brent couldn’t act to save his soul, yet in a weird way that tone sounded like someone scared into abject mindlessness.
“No one’s going to hurt you. We want to move you someplace better, and get you some food. Come on out.” The boss kidnapper sounded as reasonable as always. “Come on out,” a bit more sharply. Did she think she could bag them all without even mussing her jacket? There was quiet for a second or two… Viki heard a faint sigh of irritation. There was a rush of motion.
Gokna and Viki dived as hard as they could. They were only five feet up. Without the twine, they would have crushed their skulls on the floor. Instead, the elastic snapped them back, heads down, through the open doorway.
Gunfire flashed sideways, seeking Brent’s voice.
Viki had a glimpse of head and arms, and some kind of gun. She smashed into the leader at the rear of her back, knocking her flat, sending her gun skittering across the floor. But the other cobber was a couple of feet behind. Gokna hit him in the hard of his shoulders, scrabbled to hold on. But the other bounced her off. A single burst of fire from his gun smashed Gokna’s middle. Shards and blood spattered the wall behind her.
And then Brent was upon him.
The one under Viki bucked upward, smashing her into the top of the doorway. Things got very dark and distant after that. Somewhere she heard more gunfire, other voices.
THIRTY-TWO
Viki wasn’t badly hurt, a small amount of internal bleeding that the doctors could easily control. Jirlib had taken a lot of dents and some twisted arms. Poor Brent was worse off.
When that strange Major Thract was done asking his questions, Viki and Jirlib visited Brent in the house infirmary. Daddy was already there, perched beside the bed. They had been free almost three hours; Daddy still looked stunned.
Brent lay in deep padding, a siphon of water within reach of his eating hands. He tilted his head as they came in, and waved a weak smile. “I’m okay.” Just two split legs and a couple of buckshot holes.
Jirlib patted his shoulders.
“Where’s Mother?” asked Viki.
Dad’s head swayed uncertainly, “She’s in the building. She promised she’ll see you this evening. It’s just that so much has happened. You know this wasn’t just some crazy people who did this, right?”
Viki nodded. There were more security types in the house than ever before and even some uniformed troops outside. Major Thract’s people had been full of questions about the kidnappers, their mannerisms, how they acted toward each other, their choice of words. They even tried to hypnotize Viki, to squeeze out every last driblet of recollection. She could have saved them the trouble. Viki and Gokna had tried for years to hypnotize each other without any success.
Not a single kidnapper had survived the capture; Thract implied that at least one had killed herself to avoid capture.
“The General needs to figure out who is behind this, and how it changes the way the Accord looks at its enemies.”
“It was the Kindred,” Viki said flatly. She truly had no evidence beyond the military bearing of the kidnappers. But Viki read the newspapers as much as anyone, and Daddy talked enough about the risks of conquering the Dark.
Underhill shrugged at her assertion. “Probably. The main thing for the family is that things have changed.”
“Yes.” Viki’s voice cracked. “Daddy!Of course things have changed; how can they ever be the same?”
Jirlib lowered his head till it rested limply on Brent’s perch.
Underhill seemed to shrink in on himself. “Children, I am so sorry. I never meant for you to be hurt. I didn’t mean for…”
“Daddy, it was Gokna ’n’ me who snuck out of the house—Be quiet, Jirlib. I know you are the oldest, but we could always tweak you around.” It was true. Sometimes the sisters used their brother’s ego, sometimes his intellectual interests—as with the Distort exhibit. Sometimes they simply traded on his fondness for his little sisters. And Brent had his own set of weaknesses. “It was Gokna and me who made this possible. Without Brent doing his ambush at the museum, we’d all be dead now.”
Underhill gestured no. “Oh, Little Victory, without you and Gokna the rescuers would have been a minute too late. You would all be dead. Gokna—”
“But now Gokna is dead!” Suddenly her armor of unfeeling was broken, and she was swept away. Viki shrieked without words and raced from the room. She fled down the hall to the central stairs, weaving round the uniforms and the everyday inhabitants of the house. A few arms reached out for her, but someone called out from behind, and she was let past.
Up and up Viki ran, past the labs and the classrooms, past the atrium where they always played, where they first met Hrunkner Unnerby.
At the summit was the little gabled attic that she and Gokna had demanded and pleaded and schemed for. Some like the deepest and some like the highest. Daddy always reached for the highest and his two daughters had loved to look down from their lofty perch. It wasn’t the highest place in Princeton, but it had been enough.
Viki ran inside, slammed the door. For an instant, she was a little dizzy from the nonstop climb. And then… She froze, staring all around her. There was the attercop house, grown huge over the last five years. As the winters got colder, it had lost its original charm; you couldn’t pretend the little critters were people when they started sprouting wings. Dozens of them flittered in and out of the feeders. The ultra and blue of their wings was almost like a wallboard design on the sides of the house. She and Gokna had argued endlessly over who was the mistress of that house.
They had argued about almost everything. There by the wall was the artillery-shell dollhouse that Gokna had brought up from the den. It really had been Gokna’s, yet still they argued about it.
The signs of Gokna were everywhere here. And Gokna would never be here again. They could never talk again, not even to argue. Viki almost turned and bolted back out of the room. It was as though a monstrous hole had been torn in her side, her arms and legs ripped from her body. There was nowhere left for her life to stand. Viki
