The guards fell back to let Urko through, and fell back further, giving him the stage, and why not? All exits closed, no windows at the ground floor, and whoever might be on the balconies was smart enough to keep their mouths shut. It was, Burke thought bitterly, a perfect little arena.
Urko lifted the dead ape on his side with his boot, contemplated the pool of blood for a moment, and stepped over the corpse to clap Galen on the shoulder. The smaller ape stumbled, from the impact or surprise.
"Respect, Galen - I wouldn't have thought you'd have that in you," Urko said cordially. "Of course, murdering an officer in the performance of his duties will only add to your sentence."
"I didn't know that sexual harassment is part of an officer's duties," Galen said heatedly, then clapped his mouth shut all of a sudden. He looked dazed, as if overwhelmed by his own daring.
Urko snorted. "I didn't see any harassment happen, did any of you see anything?" Murmured dissent arose, nobody had seen anything. Urko turned to Galen, spreading his arms with an innocent smile. "If it's any consolation, it won't make a difference for your punishment - you'll hang for treason anyway. We can't hang you twice, can we? At least not so that you can appreciate it." His eyes sparkled with amusement.
"Oh, but perhaps we can hang you twice, in a way." He pointed to Zana. "Zana here... well, let's see. Helping an enemy of the state can warrant a death sentence if the case is grave enough, and seeing how she endangered the security of our citizens by defying a direct order," his eyes bored into Burke's, "I think her case is grave enough to have her hanged, too.
"Which means we can let you watch. I heard that's a bit like dying, too."
Burke felt a jolt of electricity firing through his gut. Oh damn, Zana, I'm so sorry. You don't deserve that...
The damn bastard was enjoying himself far too much. He was pointing at them as if counting them down for a game of hide and seek. "So let's see, how are we gonna line you up best? I'd say we'll start with the humans, so that little Zana here can learn how it's done right. You know, the most effective way is to hang them up by the ankles and cut them open from the pubic bone to the breastbone." He made a jutting motion, and Zana flinched. She looked as sick as Burke felt.
Urko stopped in mid-motion, still slightly hunched, as if struck by a sudden inspiration. He straightened. "You know what? Why not start right away?" His teeth shone in a wide grin. "After all, you don't need a trial to gut an animal. And they should already be dead, shouldn't they, Zana?" The doc hiccuped a sob as Galen drew her into his arms.
Urko nodded to someone behind Burke and he felt strong hands clasp his upper arms and draw them behind his back. He stumbled as his warden dragged him at Virdon's side.
So, this was it? His tongue was like paper, sticking to the roof of his mouth.
The yard was silent, the only sound the soft scraping as Urko unsheathed his knife...
"That's my knife, you damn monkey!"
His ANSA knife, damn that ape to hell! He'd be gutted with his own fucking knife!
The gorilla chuckled. "The irony, huh? Well, in that case..." He moved to Virdon, "I'll start with your friend." He gave Burke a sideways glance. "I took good care of it for you. Kept it clean and sharp. See?" He slipped the tip of the blade under the neckline of Virdon's shirt and fished out the chain of his necklace. He held it up for a moment, the pendants dangling from the blade. Then he gave it a tiny flick.
The metal clinked onto the stones at Virdon's feet.
Urko let his hand rest against Virdon's collarbone, the edge of the blade caressing his throat. Virdon stood motionless, pale but unflinching, as a thin red line suddenly ran along the edge and spilled over the side of the blade. Only the rapid blinking of his eyes betrayed his distress.
Then suddenly, the tilting blade stopped. Urko cocked his head as if in deep thought, regarding his work so far. "You know," he said abruptly, "there are breeders up North who would pay a nice sum for you. Of course, they then would make a far greater sum with you afterwards. There are people who select their humans by color, and yours is unusual enough." He ran his other hand gently through Virdon's hair. Virdon didn't move; the blade was still resting against his neck.
"Not that I'd defy the council's orders for such a selfish reason." The blade started to move downwards and came to a rest just under his breastbone at a slightly upward angle; pointing to the heart. Virdon stared straight ahead, his face expressionless.
"Did they tell you where you'd be going? Going North by any chance?"
It was a transparent maneuver, and Burke didn't buy it, not for a second, but it was a good stage prompt. "Don't try that mindfuck on us!" he hissed, throwing himself against his captor's grip; he managed to make the guard stumble, who apparently hadn't anticipated any resistance at all.
Fucking pathetic monkey.
He was jerked back into position, and the grip around his upper arms tightened like a vise, but his hands were still free; humans were no match against apes when it came to raw strength, so their guards were not at all worried that they'd break their grip. Burke continued to squirm and struggle nonetheless.
Urko hadn't even glanced at him. His eyes were boring into Virdon's, who swallowed hard as the blade now lay across his navel. If Urko decided to cut there, it would be a nasty death.
"You see," Urko said softly, "humans caught in the wild cannot be tamed, not really, unless you catch them while they're still very young..."
The blade slid still deeper. Burke froze. Virdon stilled even more, not even breathing.
"So if you want to put an adult wildling to use, you have to cut it down to size."
The knife came to a rest at Virdon's crotch. Urko pressed the blade against the fabric, hitching it up a bit so that the edge slipped under his scrotum. Virdon's eyes widened.
"And that's why," Urko breathed into his ear, "they're usually gelded. I told the staff at the lab that I have dibs on your balls, since they didn't want to give me your heads. I guess now I'll get both them and the sight of you bleeding out at my feet. Ain't I a lucky man?"
Burke didn't think his voice would work, dry as his throat was. It sounded pressed, and hoarse, and much too loud when he ground out:
"Urko. Catch."
The second grenade from Zaius' private collection wobbled between the ape's feet with a metallic scrape; it was hard to throw just with a flick of your wrist.
Urko jumped back, Burke jerked his body around to bring his guard between himself and the explosion. For a second, nothing happened.
This can't be happening, I got a dud...
Then the blast pushed him to the ground.
Zana felt a sharp tug on her collar as Galen yanked her up on her feet again; he pushed her forward, "Go! Go!" and she stumbled, coughing, blind in the swirling dust. When her eyes stopped watering, Peet and Alan were running alongside her, down another winding alley.
Alan finally stopped and pulled them into another archway and Zana sank down into a crouch, winded. Everyone was grimy; Alan spotted a new bruise from his dive to the ground when the blast struck, and the hem of his collar was stiff with dried blood. Both men were caked with dust and sweat. They would stick out from all the clean, groomed apes like pigs in a flower shop.
"We need to get out now," Peet panted. "After this, the city will be on lockdown as soon as Urko stumbles into the nearest watch house. The streets will be crawling with guards!" He took a deep breath. "Damn gorilla still has my knife! Didn't even let go when he dove for cover!"
"You couldn't have thrown that thing a bit sooner?" Alan was leaning forward, hands on his knees, looking as exhausted as Zana felt. "If he'd startled..." he made an upward flicking move with his hand.
"That chimp had my arms pinned behind my back! Took me a lot of wriggling and squirming against his crotch to distract him from what I was doing! But hey, you're welcome. Call me any time your manhood needs saving." Peet sank down into a crouch, too, trying to catch his breath. "We need a new plan, right now." He turned to look at her. "And Zana..." He shook his head. "I'm afraid you're in this with us now. You can't stay here."
She felt new panic bubbling up inside her at his words. "I... I can't leave! My father... he's not been well lately. His heart..."
Peet regarded her with something like pity. "I'd say seeing his daughter hang would be worse for his heart than knowing she's outsmarting the state somewhere out there." He waved in the general direction of the city walls.
Zana buried her face in her hands. She should have stayed back and written those death certificates... but the patrol had found Galen and the humans all the same, and then she'd been in trouble just as well, only she wouldn't have seen it coming - they'd just arrested her at home, or at the institute.
She should've... but what could she have done differently?
Nothing. If she could go back, she'd do it all again.
She lifted her head and nodded. Peet nodded back, and she felt a strange measure of peace at that gesture. Peet was... a friend. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.
Neither would Galen. Or Alan.
"We are all... what did you call it? White hats."
A slow smile spread over Peet's face. "Yeah, that's what we are. The magnificent four."
"Although right now, we probably shouldn't be," he added after a moment of thought. "Two apes and two humans" - he frowned at Alan - "and one of them with a damn unusual hair color... that makes for a terrific 'Wanted!' poster."
Alan wiped the sweat from his face, making dark patches in the dust. "I don't see how we can change our appearance except for splitting up." He ran his hand through his hair. "And perhaps shaving my head..."
"No! No, don't shave it," Zana said hastily. "You'll only get sunburn later." And it was just too nice to cut it off, but she didn't say that aloud. The men wouldn't be understanding of her frivolity in the face of danger. Then she had an idea.
"If we split up, Alan, you're with me. We're near the dyers' quarters - I can smell them, can't you? - and I'll just rub some dye into your hair to make it darker. It probably won't stick for long, but it doesn't have to." She looked askance to Galen, who had been scribbling madly the whole time.
"Here - I'm afraid it's a bit scraggly." He pressed a piece of paper into her hand. She stared at it, confused.
Peet laughed incredulously. "You swiped the paper from Zaius' desk?"
"And the wax, and the seal," Galen confessed. "I thought I might need to switch identities later..."
Alan shook his head in admiration. "You're a forward-thinking ape, Galen. It makes me feel a bit better when I think about our chances out there..."
"Yeah, we need to get out first before we can start tweaking them." Peet stood. "So, we split up, that's a good idea. Where do we meet up again?"
Zana and the others rose, too. "We could meet at my tree," she suggested. Galen nodded. "Galen knows where it is," she explained to the humans. "Whoever arrives first will wait for the others..."
"No longer than nightfall," Alan warned. "We need to get well ahead of them - it won't take them long to expand their search for us beyond the city if they can't find us here. If the other group doesn't turn up after dark, assume that they've been captured. And do not attempt to free them. Save yourselves - and I'll do the same for Zana in the reverse case," he added towards Galen. "I'll keep her safe, I promise."
"How noble of you," Zana said, irritated. Yes, Galen had saved her from that terrible guard, but Alan hadn't looked so superior, either, just moments ago. "Let's go and dye your hair."
They didn't say goodbye - by an unspoken understanding, none of them wanted to invoke bad luck.
The plant dye hadn't taken as well as Zana had hoped, resulting in a strange, reddish-brown mottle that clashed with Alan's skin tone, but at least the dust had been cleaned out of his hair and from his face when he had dunked his head into a water barrel to rinse it out. She was trying to ignore the sideways glances from the other apes crowding the stalls of the main market; at least they always had enough of breathing space, as people were giving them a wide berth.
Zana sniffed defiantly. If anyone asked, she had just come in from a village to the South and yes, the road had been very dusty indeed, and - she glanced at Alan's appearance - there had been an incident with a farmer's cart...
She grabbed his wrist and quickly ducked into a stall selling bright silk scarves; the long fabrics would hopefully hide them from the black figures now pushing through the packed paths between the vendors. She ran a scarf through her fingers that was flecked in various shades of green and yellow and thought of Zibaya; it would conceal her head and even part of her face...
"It's a lovely shade, isn't it?" The Orangutan beside her held up a pink scarf to her face that clashed painfully with her ruddy fur. Zana smiled, grateful at the opportunity to blend in as just another customer.
"It really is. I'll take this one," she said to the vendor. From the corner of her eye, she saw the black uniforms drawing closer. She paid the ape and quickly slung the scarf over her head.
"Oh dear, you really should only wear this on feast days," the Orangutan clucked her tongue and handed her money to the vendor. "It'll probably just catch all the dust and chaff from the barn."
Zana blinked, then looked down her crumpled and dusty robe. Well, she had decided to pose as a poor villager, hadn't she? The other woman's remark still grated on her - very few Chimps lowered themselves to digging in the dirt. Farming was Gorillas' work.
The patrol was slowing down; Zana desperately sought for something to keep the Orangutan around for a moment longer. "Well, I admit, I hadn't even planned on buying it, but the colors are so striking..."
"Down, you!"
Zana looked around, and finally, down. A small, plump Orangutan boy was imperiously pointing to the floor while gazing up at Alan, who, after a bemused glance towards her, sank into a crouch before him.
"Good boy," the child said approvingly. Then he frowned at Alan's bruised face. "Or have you been bad? What did your master punish you for?"
"Umm... nothing. It was an accident," Alan answered, a bit taken aback.
The boy looked to her for confirmation, and Zana nodded. "A farmer's cart toppled on the road and I had Alan help them," she used the story she had thought up earlier.
"Oh. So he's that strong?" The boy eyed Alan thoughtfully. "Can I have him?" he asked abruptly. "Can you buy him for me, Mom?"
"Why do you want to have him?" Zana asked, flabbergasted.
The boy shrugged. "Because. Mom, can I have him?"
Zana started to shake her head in exasperation when she caught the expectant look of the Orangutan she had been chatting up. She couldn't believe it - but apparently, here was one of those parents who never refused any of their child's demands. Zana took a deep breath.
The patrol was outside their stall now, right beyond the scarves swaying in the breeze. Alan was still crouching before the boy, out of sight of the guards. She was partly hidden behind the hangers, partly concealed by her new scarf, amicably chatting with a respectable Orangutan matron.
She just needed a few more moments.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but he's one of my late father's humans. He's one of the few things my father left me, and I can't give him up. He has... sentimental value." At her feet, Alan was ducking his head, probably trying to hide a grin. Or a frown. It was a sensitive topic for him and Peet.
"But I wanna!" The boy was scrunching his face, the prelude to a temper tantrum that Zana knew all too well from her human cubs, although none of them was a spoilt brat like this one. She had to nip this in the bud if she didn't want the guards to turn on their heels and come see what the ruckus was all about.
"Tell you what," she said quickly. "I'm on my way back to my village, and if your mother is also finished with her shopping, you can ride on my human's shoulders, at least until we have to part ways."
The boy sniffed, but nodded and began to climb on Alan's backpack. The human braced his hands against the floor as the additional weight pushed him forward, but struggled to his feet without a word.
Zana felt sorry for Alan, who had to suffer in silence as the boy jammed his heels into his chest and yanked at his hair in an effort to spur him on and direct him around corners (which was completely unnecessary, as Alan was following them anyway), but two ape women chatting and laughing while the little sunshine was riding the - obviously! - Orangutan's human were such a far cry from what Urko's men were looking for that she just couldn't pass up the opportunity.
She had guessed right - the guards didn't even ask for her papers. She kept on walking down the road, not daring to look back even once, and listened with half an ear to the woman's chatter. Behind them, the boy boasted to Alan how he had stolen a cake once and blamed one of his father's humans, who had then suffered a beating for it.
It would be another five miles until they'd come to a fork in the road where she could finally part ways with those two.
"I was so smart, Father never found out. Humans are dumb, come on, say it! " she heard the boy say.
There was a moment of silence.
"That human certainly felt tricked," Alan finally murmured.
"Humans don't feel things like we do," the boy retorted. Zana didn't like where this was going.
But Alan didn't say anything else after that.
"Why the hell do I have to carry all of your stuff now, too? It's not as if my backpack isn't heavy enough as it is!"
Zana's human (he still thought of them as her humans, although technically, she had never owned them) crossed his arms and frowned at him, and Galen fervently wished she'd stayed around. He had never interacted that much with his father's servants, but he doubted that it would have helped him here, anyway; this human had lived in freedom for most of his life and had no concept of his proper place in relation to an ape.
He resorted to authority.
"Because that's how it is here - humans are beasts of burden, and we would just draw unwanted attention if passersby started wondering why I'm not properly using the human I have with me. And soon enough, the guards would start wondering, too." He dumped his backpack into Peet's arms, who took it with a muttered growl.
Galen eyed him warily. He found the humans fascinating - they were extraordinarily intelligent, and expressive, and he wanted to start asking them about the events in the Book as soon as he had the opportunity, but he had been content to leave their handling to Zana, who had been working with humans for years and knew what she was doing. To be alone with one of them all of a sudden made him as uneasy as if someone had put a leash in his hand that was attached to a lion. Or an ostrich. Or any other large, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous animal. He had twice seen Peet attack an ape now, and both times it had ended badly for the ape. Never mind that it had been to help them escape - it had showcased a side of them he had been happy to forget about.
But despite his momentary rebellion, Peet followed him obediently enough after that, and he allowed himself to relax a bit. They turned South towards Farmer's Gate, because hopefully, Urko would assume that they'd take the shortest route, though Galen wasn't too optimistic about that - from what he knew of him, the Gorilla was a smart man, and would have all gates closely guarded.
They now consciously kept to the main streets that were bustling with apes as the day grew longer. It was almost noon, which meant lots of apes were spilling into the streets to grab something to eat in the cafés or from street vendors, or were bringing their lunch to the parks - more people for them to mingle with; hopefully they were blending into the crowd.
"Try to act as if you really were Yuma from somewhere else, and not Galen already expecting the worst as soon as you see a uniform," Peet growled when they spotted the first patrol from afar. "That was a pitiful performance you gave, last time."
"I'm sorry, I have no experience with conning people," Galen said, trying to keep his tone light. "Although studying the law, you'd think they should have made a class for it." He was rewarded by an amused snort.
"Just remember who you're supposed to be, not who you think you really are. Because right now, you can't be Galen anymore."
It wasn't the kind of advice Galen would have expected from the human. From what Zana had told him, they both had sounded like respectable men - a kind of soldier, like... well, Urko wasn't what he'd call 'respectable.' But he couldn't bring himself to put them on the same level with Urko.
Anyway, Galen wouldn't have thought the humans would be so smooth when it came to assuming false identities. These two were frighteningly cunning. He was glad that they were on the same side of this mess as Zana and him.
He fleetingly wondered what would happen if they decided to be on the side of the humans of his world.
The patrol passed them without even glancing at them, and Galen allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief and an equally tiny sliver of hope that this time, they would be lucky. He could already see the gate.
"Well, if that isn't Galen! I thought you were working for the council now - did you take a day off?"
Galen closed his eyes and suppressed a frustrated hiss. How had he become so popular? People had never been as eager to stop him in the streets as today, it seemed.
"And I thought you'd be wasting your time on your father's estate, Melvin," he quipped, turning towards the Chimp who had stopped him in his tracks. Life had been good to Melvin, he noticed; the ape had begun to cultivate an impressive pouch.
"Oh, I am, I am, but you know how it is - sometimes you just need to get out, meet people, enjoy civilisation for a change," Melvin said dismissively. He looked him up and down. "What happened to you? Had a roll in the hay with a secretary?" He wheezed with laughter.
Galen used the momentary respite to grasp for an explanation for his rumpled exterior. "I'm on holiday, and if you must know, I've taken up bird watching."
"Bird..." That prompted another round of ooks; behind him, Peet coughed.
Well. It was the best he'd been able to come up with, and now he had to stick to it.
"What do you think I need all that equipment for?" he waved at Peet who was packed to the hilt with his own and Galen's supplies. "We'll be down in the marches for a week. It will be very... educational."
Melvin was wiping his eyes. "Come on, Galen - what are you really up to?"
Right. Melvin was the son of a councillor, just like himself, of course he wouldn't believe that someone could simply enjoy an innocent hobby. Galen tried to ignore the black clad apes passing them. He was just a simple citizen, chatting with a very obviously well-off ape who'd be seriously pissed to be accosted by Urko's grunts.
That meant he had to keep that conversation going.
"Well, to be honest..." Galen leaned in confidentially, "actually it is Zaius' hobby. I just hope to get him to introduce me to the inner circle by... finding common interests."
"Well, you're certainly ready to make great sacrifices for the sake of your career," Melvin said, still amused. He circled Peet. "Your poor beast is almost breaking down under all that gear." He quickly ran an experienced hand down Peet's legs. "He's wiry, I'll give you that, but really, Galen - you should've taken a heavier one. A whole week, and he'll be ready to be taken in."
With a last clap on Peet's backside, he returned to Galen. "Enjoy your holiday, I guess. Tell me how it goes with Zaius." He shook his head, still chuckling, as they parted ways.
Galen tensed as they ambled towards the gate: the guards were checking everyone's paperwork. A throng of people had already built up as a result, shoving and pushing, impatient to get out. Galen hoped the atmosphere of irritation they created would be distracting enough for the guards. He handed Peet's documents to the ape, together with his own papers. By now he felt so numb with exhaustion that he at least didn't tremble anymore, like he had done earlier that morning.
Oh, how long ago that had been.
The guard scanned the papers, gave their owners a bored once-over, and handed them back. Now Galen's hands were trembling. It couldn't be that easy! Not after all those close encounters...
The crowd behind him pushed him on. He slowly set one foot in front of the other, people pressing into him from all sides, a big, lazy beast swallowing them whole and hiding them in its belly from Urko's searching eyes.
The crowd finally began to thin out, as people were splitting up at the crossroads. He and Peet left the road completely after a turn that hid them from the city's view, and disappeared into the bushes. No need to test their luck - Urko's men could be already searching the area, sending mounted patrols down the roads.
Peet unceremoniously dumped his bag into his arms. "I wish, I really, really wish you apes would stop groping me." He smacked the back of his neck. "Damn mosquitoes!"
Galen hadn't lied to Melvin when he had told him they'd be in the marches, though he hoped they wouldn't spend a week there. A cloud of mosquitoes was swarming both of them with a hungry buzz. But he was too relieved to worry about them, or the human's griping.
So he just shrugged on his backpack and turned to lead the way. "Let's go then, before they eat us alive."
They were several miles south of the city now, and since they would need to stay away from the roads, it would take them the better part of the afternoon to circle back north.
Where they hopefully... no, certainly... would meet Zana and Alan at her tree.
Virdon didn't like the place that Zana had selected for their meeting; the hill's crest was bare, save for a tall holly oak, and while it provided a nice panoramic view of the area and the city below, it was also lacking any kind of cover for him and Zana. So they had set up camp in an overgrown hollow in the slope of the hill; they could still see the oak, and any visitors arriving at that spot, from their hiding place in the thickets.
Zana had taken off her shoes and was digging her toes into the cool soil. Virdon smiled in sympathy; his feet were aching, too. He knew that this wasn't going to change any time soon - they would be walking (and occasionally running) many miles every day from now on - but he refrained from mentioning it to her. She was holding up remarkably well, all things considered, but he knew that sometimes it only needed the proverbial last straw to break the camel's back.
He took a long draw from his water bottle and gestured to her to do the same. "We have a lot of walking ahead of us tonight. Better rehydrate and get as much rest as you can."
Zana followed his example, but shook her head when he encouraged her to eat. Her shoulders were drooping and she was staring down at her hands in her lap. Virdon regarded her for a moment.
"I'm really sorry that you got caught up in all of this," he said softly.
She smiled a wry smile into her hands. "Caught up? I signed up for 'all of this' when Zaius asked me - he knew how long I had applied for working with adult humans and he made me an offer I simply couldn't resist." She shook her head and stared uphill, at the silhouette of the oak.
"You lost your necklace."
He breathed in, slowly, carefully. "It's not important. I keep them here." He pointed to his heart.
"I went up there, after... yesterday," Zana said, almost inaudibly. "I always went there as a child when I needed to get away from the world." She swallowed. "I really thought I had killed you. Even with the anaesthetic, the odds were overwhelmingly against you."
Virdon followed her gaze. "Even if we had died," he said slowly, "there would have been no blame on you. You had at least tried to save us." He looked at her. "Thank you for sparing my life, Dr. Zana."
She smiled at that, a bit tremulously. Her fingers were knotting in her lap.
"All I had is gone, my career, my work, my... my home... my father will never know what happened..." She bit her lip, trying to hold back her tears.
Virdon put his arm around her shoulders then. They sat there in silence for a while, watching the sky go pale and dark, and darker.
Finally, Zana straightened with a sniff. "I don't know about you, but I'll wait here until either Galen or Urko turns up."
He just smiled and tightened his arm around her shoulders.
It was almost midnight when Galen's and Burke's silhouettes appeared under the tree. From their startled reactions, neither of them had expected them to wait around.
"Well I guess you can afford to disregard your own orders, Colonel," Burke whispered sardonically; but he couldn't hide his relief over their presence. Virdon thought that it was unfortunate that he couldn't allow them to get some rest, too, but the waning moon was already high up in the sky - there weren't many hours of darkness left.
"Galen, do you still have some of that paper?" Zana asked after she released him from her hug. Virdon frowned when the other ape took off his backpack and began to dig for the required items.
"What do you need that stuff for now?" Burke asked. "We don't have time for this!" The proximity of the city made him nervous, too.
"I'll write a note for my father," Zana was already scribbling. "And we do have time for this, Peet, at least I have. You can go ahead if you want to; I'll catch up with you in a moment."
"A letter for your father? Now? Why not drop Urko a note where we're going, while you're at it?" Burke said, irritated.
"Eat something, Peet, you're insufferable right now!"
Virdon took a breath. "Zana..."
"I'll hide it in the tree! Only my father knows that I'd go there, and he'll try to find me, and then he'll find the note!" Her pen flew over the page.
"And Urko's men will be following him, hoping he'll lead them to us. They will read that note before your father ever gets it. If he ever gets it at all!" Burke sounded increasingly exasperated.
"I'll just tell him what happened, not where we'll go. They won't learn anything new from it." She looked up. "Don't underestimate my father," she said fiercely. "He isn't stupid, or careless. They'll never know about this."
So they stood there in silence, waiting impatiently for her to finish, and climb up into that tree, and climb down again. Only Galen didn't seem to be in a hurry as he gazed down at the city's lights. Virdon suspected that his thoughts echoed Zana's from before: he had lost his old life, too, in exchange for dangerous knowledge and dangerous company.
But as Zana had pointed out, they had made their choices at that time, wisely or not, because they had felt the price for their acquiescence would be too steep. He had to respect them for that.
He did respect them for that. It was an immensely brave thing to do.
"Come on," he said, when Zana finally dropped out of the tree again. "We still have a long way to go before we can rest."