“Frank?”

  He forced himself to focus on Jessica’s face.

  “I looked in the back, Frank, and I can’t see anyone. I saw light, though, reflecting somewhere. I think maybe something’s burning.

  “The clinic,” he said simply and hurried an explana­tion of what he had done.

  “Got to hand it to you, clerk,” Ike said. “I don’t think I would have had the nerve to stick around. We heard that singing, or whatever you call it, and we spent most of the time trying to dig holes in the floor.”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t nerve. I don’t even remember what made me do it. I just did it and ran.”

  “Well, you took one of them with you and that evens the odds a bit.”

  “One,” Parric said, “is one too many.”

  “Frank,” Jessica said, “what do we do now?”

  “Leave. Fast,” Ike said, moving away from the window to the chair he had settled by the barcab. “I’d rather take my chances with those gun-happy creeps than those things out there now.”

  “No.” Parric said. “We can’t go. It’s too dangerous outside the Town. We could get shot, the plague—”

  “Damn it, I don’t understand you, Parric,” Ike said. “I mean, how can there be any choice in the matter? Those androids of yours have gone absolutely out of their brains, if they have any, and we don’t stand a chance at all.”

  Jessica waited until Parric had pushed the lounge out of his way and had stretched his legs along the floor before sitting back on her heels, the streetlamp glow barely reflecting her face, making it seem as if it were floating; a strand of hair fell, caught the light, and glimmered until she brushed it back. The comunit had been switched off, and there was not even the whisper of static to cover the silence that crept in from the Town.

  Parric closed his eyes, a hand gripping his right thigh in hopes of strangling the ache that lurked there. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  He wanted to say yes, shook his head instead.

  “He’s thinking,” Ike said. “Don’t you know men like him have to think before they do anything?” There was the scarcely audible click of teeth against glass, then a bubbling that followed another drink ordered.

  Outside, the explosion of a shattered window.

  “That does it,” Ike said. “Jess, go into the kitchen and turn on the main switch. I’ll need light to get our gear together.”

  Parric watched Jessica disappear from the glow, saw his own shadow against the wall: a head framed between thick black bars. Penitentiary. Penitent. Had he imprisoned himself in a soulless Town, a solitary con­finement that elevated him above a world that scorned commitment? Or had he locked the world out because he had felt helpless, too helpless to believe that an individual could do more than make a feeble gesture, and afraid that gesture would be received with indiffer­ence?

  Nonsense, he told himself. Safety first, damn it. The lights flickered on, erasing the prison image, and he blinked as Jessica returned to dial the room dark again, leaving only a slash from the back room. He turned his head and saw the three androids had not moved. Dix he could see nowhere and, after a minute’s confused thought, realized he hadn’t seen Keller’s eldest girl child since the pressure began. Using the sill for balance, he pushed himself to his feet, swaying until his legs stiffened.

  He heard Ike swearing.

  He heard another window shatter.

  “Frank, what are you going to do?”

  She was standing beside him, close but not touching. “I was thinking of staying, actually—”

  “But you can’t, not with—”

  “—but I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Why?” Quietly.

  He thought: because if it looks like I’m going to die, I’d just as soon die with people around me, even if it’s the people who kill me.

  He said: “Because you still haven’t answered my question.”

  She smiled, touched his arm briefly, and turned as Ike came out of the bedroom festooned with his equip­ment.

  “Help,” he said.

  “Forget it,” said Parric, and Jessica nodded.

  “He’s right, Ike. We can’t take it all with us.”

  “Do you know how much this stuff costs?” Ike almost yelped at the painful thought and crammed a wad of gum into his mouth. “And most of it isn’t even mine, for crying out loud.”

  A rock interrupted him, smashing through a front window. Parric shoved Jessica to one side before drop­ping to the floor. Ike was motionless, his eyes wide, his jaw still as the stone struck the wall next to him and rebounded against his foot.

  “How fast can you move?” Parric said.

  Ike stared at the floor as if he were looking at his reflection in the angles of broken glass. Then he kicked the rock to one side and littered the area around him with cases and cameras.

  “One,” he said, fixing a small tricorder to his belt. “For history.”

  “If there is one,” Parric said, “and assuming there is, for us at least, I suggest we move to the back where we won’t get brained.”

  A moment later, Jessica was at the back door, shak­ing her head to Lupozny’s unasked question after she made a quick reconnaissance of the yard.

  “Consider,” Parric said, his fingers stroking the thumbslot of the door, “our hunter friends are still out there probably, and most likely sticking close to the north end of Town, assuming that’s the way we have to get out. I remember when I first came here, I thought the casings had something to do with the way you got in and out. But with the patchkey we can leave from anywhere, and I suggest down by the clinic.”

  “Good,” Ike said. “Then we’ll head for whatsits­name, Oraton, and find the first comunit that works. We can call out from there and let someone in charge know we’re all right.”

  “No,” Jessica said. “That’s the worst thing we can do. If that place is up in arms, we wouldn’t last a very long time.”

  She looked to Parric, who nodded.

  “So what do we do? Find a cozy mountaintop and turn into hermits or something?”

  Another pane splintered and something heavy thudded against the front entrance.

  “Out,” Parric said. “Our time’s up.”

  Without waiting for comment, he slid open the door and pushed Jessica out, followed quickly with Ike’s hand in the small of his back for guidance. There was a moon, but faint, and they could see where they were going though only enough to successfully avoid those objects large and substantial in the gray light. At the edge of the house, he looked toward the main street and saw Mrs. Warner walking away from her post. He shook a cautioning hand until she had passed from sight, then grabbed Jessica’s wrist and started running. He heard nothing but their feet thudding into the dirt and grass, tympani to the cracking of wood. He cursed, thinking the sudden increase in bodies would alert the hunters, but still hoped the men would be used to seeing the clinic yard cluttered with androids; they had prob­ably not counted them and wouldn’t notice three more, if they were given the time to move slowly.

  Ike passed him, slowed, and matched his pace. Par­ric wanted to give him a reassuring smile, but his mouth was wide open, sucking in air that seemed not to be sufficient for his burning lungs. He stumbled once, shook off a hand at his elbow, and instantly regretted it when he saw Jessica grin.

  A scream diffused the silence, more now like a protracted wailing. Jessica faltered and he shoved his hand against her shoulder, spilling her when they reached the back of the clinic.

  The three of them fell, then, rolling onto their backs, their mouths into funnels as their chests heaved. A minute later, still unable to understand the source of the scream, Parric twisted to his stomach and began a crawl to the barrier, his eyes intent on trying to keep the hill’s cover from swaying. His hands reached out, grabbed like talons while his feet pushed, slipping, once kicking Ike on the shoulder. Again his hand stretched out, and was stopped. Pulling himself up to sit, he reached into his pocket.

  “Oh, damn,” he whispered as Ike and Jessica came up beside him. “I must have lost my key back there on the street.”

  “To the rescue,” Jessica said and pulled out the patchkey that had given her access the day before. “No,” she said when he reached for it. “I’ll do it.”

  He wanted to argue, decided against it when he realized their forms were more than suspiciously huddled together should one of the hunters look their way.

  Stung that his brief period of leadership had stumbled at a crucial point, he slid to one side and let Ike pass when Jessica inserted the key into the barrier, causing the momentary disturbance that allowed them to pass it freely. Twice more, and his skin was tingling, his hair feeling as if it were standing on end. He shook himself as he scrambled across the cleared section of the perimeter, his hands automatically kept away from his sides in unreasonable fear that a touch would electro­cute him.

  An explosion he could feel through the ground, and he stood, not thinking, watching as his house ignited in a fire rain. The trees prevented him from seeing it all, but his imagination told him the androids were dancing around the flaming ruins, singing Dix’s song.

  And he offered no resistance when Ike roughly grabbed at his arms and yanked him to shelter behind a sprawling bush. In spite of his running, a cowering hope had remained that the androids would not harm the Town, had only been demented enough to want to get at him. When the house next to his flared, died in the same fashion, he turned away and cradled his head on his upraised knees.

  Chapter 7

  It was a satin dark under the wide-set trees and rambling brush, yet light enough for each to see dimly the other’s still form, and it wasn’t long before Ike and Jessica had crowded close to Parric, who would not move.

  “Now what?” Ike said, almost in disgust, as he shook Parric’s shoulder, trying to get him to lift his head.

  “Leave him alone. Can’t you see he’s hurt?” She pushed at him until he stopped, but made no comforting gestures of her own.

  “Hurt? How? Where?”

  “Not that way,” she said angrily. “Just leave him alone for a minute. We’re safe enough for the time being.”

  Parric remained silent, his eyes closed and adding to the black that returned as the second house’s fire faded to a glow. There was an outburst of summoning yells at the far side of the Town, from the outside and growing fainter as they moved away. A shot that might have been a signal, renewed calling and two shots more. Footsteps, and several running men, heedless of their noise, approached and passed them without pausing in the wakes of erratic beams of flashlight. Parric stiff­ened at the sounds, listened to the mindless crashing, and imagined the crush of giants kicking at anthills. He saw the Town as it had been, probably would have been had not those ants aspired to become more than they were. He gulped for air and choked, raising his head to look between the leaves at the sky. A sustained hush of wind brushed branches aside and the moon stared back at him, a bulging half, flanked low by a solitary star. For a moment he thought it had moved, closer perhaps, becoming larger, swelling into the ungainly, compli­cated beauty that comprised the Alpha’s component superstructure. He blinked, then, and the star was only a star.

  Wrong again, he thought, not ants, and he was sud­denly chagrined that he should have demeaned those who had built the starship, insulted those who lived within her. Not ants, but children.

  “Hey, listen,” Lupozny said impatiently, “do you think maybe we can get out of here now, or are we waiting for a sign?”

  Jessica’s hand moved faster than either man could see, and the retort of her slap turned them into statues, startled Parric, who immediately strained to search out the possible betrayal of stalking men. A minute later, he allowed himself to breathe when he heard nothing but the nocturnal staccato of invisible insects and the rus­tling of a handful of stirring birds in the foliage above him. The shouting had completely died away, and the shots’ echoes reverberated only in his mind.

  He cleared his throat and the two reporters huddled closer.

  “The question is not, if you’ll excuse me, whether or not we go, but where we go once we get started.” He hurried then when he felt Ike shift to interrupt. “Some­how or other those men were lured away. They prob­ably thought the explosions were diversions or cover of some kind and we’ve already slipped out. They were probably just shooting at shadows.” He stopped, swallowed the bile that rose toward his mouth before con­tinuing. “And I still think it’s a bad idea to head for Oraton.”

  “Why?” Ike said. “There’s people there.”

  “Exactly, and that’s why we can’t go. Look, Ike, Oraton is the nearest regular town to us, and if those men knew about what we were doing, thought they knew rather, then it stands to reason that the whole town believes the same thing. We’re strangers, Ike, and can’t take the chance of getting ourselves into more than we can handle.”

  “He means killed, whitehead,” Jessica said. “Come on, you’ve seen what happens in a riot. Remember that food thing we went to in MexiSector a couple of years ago? What did that mob do to those men they thought were ContiGov agents?”

  Parric didn’t ask. Since his troubles had begun, his imagination had been working too much overtime.

  Ike grunted. “All right. Then what do we do about the plague?”

  “If we’re infected,” Parric said, “there’s nothing we can do. But Floyd said the odds were good that we’re all right, and I agree with him.”

  “Listen, I thought that doctor stuff was all for show. How can you tell?”

  Parric reached out and slapped his left bicep. Ike hissed and shoved the hand away. “I can’t for sure,” he said, “but first, you’ve been favoring that arm since you got here. I know your camerapak was heavy, but not so much that you had to carry it the way you did. You got shots before you came, right? And I’ll bet a year’s credits there was an antidote in them, and I’ll double that if you two aren’t damned special for some reason that you got it.”

  “But that was days ago,” Ike protested, “Coates didn’t tell us about the plague until yesterday.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t know about it,” Jes­sica said. “It stands to reason they’d want to protect the government as soon as they got wind of the details of the plague and the war news, which obviously the top had before it broke it to the public. They were hedging, just in case. Remember, he said antidotes were popping up all over.”

  “And,” said Parric, “you two got it because you’d already been chosen to come into a Town where androids would be particularly sensitive to the virus, or whatever a plague is.”

  “Okay,” Ike said. “I’ll assume for the sake of my bad heart that you two are right. Then what about you, brother Parric?”

  He would not answer immediately. He had been talking without thinking, mainly in an effort to calm himself as much as to quiet the others. The mention of the possibility of his own infection, however, did not have the anticipated reaction; he was not afraid, not as much as resigned to yet another struggle.

  “I’m not sure,” he said when Jessica prodded him, “but I suspect it’s pretty much run its course. You see, Floyd was wrong when he said the plague had passed over day before yesterday because I had already noticed several bits of behavior that were unusual as early as yesterday morning before I went to the clinic. I didn’t make the connection until just now. If effects show up in something less, but not much less, than forty-eight hours and are almost always fatal, then by rights, if I have it, I should be dead.”

  He grinned, not that they would see him in the near-total darkness, but because he suddenly felt a dozen years younger. He wasn’t at all positive that his conclusions were correct, but at the moment they were all he had.

  “I hate to keep playing the rat,” Ike said finally, “but how do you know you won’t contract it out here? Maybe there’s some of it still lying around.”

  “The birds,” Parric said. “They’re warm-blooded and still very alive.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “All right,” Jessica said sharply. “Enough, please! We could go on like this all night and we won’t have to worry about the damned plague—we’ll either get shot or starve to death.”

  In spite of himself, Parric laughed and found it was difficult to stop.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Ike said. “We still have to get out, you know. I believe you were about to tell us humble reporters how.”

  “A Town,” Parric said. “Like mine, that is. Jess is right about Oraton, and I’d guess that holds for nearly every other human community around here. None of them are very large, mostly holdouts against the cities. If they haven’t been wiped out, they’re immunized and more than likely fortified. And we, as strangers, are prime targets for the hatred you saw this afternoon. I suggest heading for Cam McLeod. He’s more lev­elheaded than me and will be bound to know what to do next, especially until we contact Floyd again.”

  “And what if we can’t?”

  “Later,” Jessica said. “First things first. We’ve wasted too much time already, and those men will be back when they see it wasn’t us they were shooting at.”

  There was a hesitation born of reluctance to leave what had proven to be, however temporary, a haven, and to abandon what had once been a landmark of a world unchanged by disaster. Parric was tempted to slip back inside, hide from men and androids until he was either killed or rescued, but the moment proved resist­ible and he slipped between them to begin the climb.

  The underbrush was less of an obstacle than he had feared. Though heavy, it was for the most part clumped, and he was able to walk rapidly without too many sidetracks. The cloudless night made it easier, outlining his brief glimpses of the summit to give him direction, occasionally finding a break in the cover large enough to aid him in avoiding thrashing through thickets that would give them away as surely as if they had carried torches. Absently, as he walked, he checked his watch, noting it was still lacking midnight, and not until later did he understand how much had happened in so short a time.

 

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