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he had a realistic reason. Kickaha had some neurotic failings, and neurotic virtues—no way to escape those, being human—but inappropriate guilt was not among them. He was not responsible in any way for her death. She had entered this business of her own will and knowing that she might die.
There was even a little gladness reaped from her death. He could have been killed instead of her.
Kickaha went down a series of shafts after food and drink. Anana did not want to be left behind, since she feared that he might not be able to find her again. She went with him as far as the tube which led into the ceiling of a home, where the family snored loudly and smelled loudly of wine and beer. He came back with a rope, bread, cheese, fruit, beef, and two bottles of water.
They waited again until night sailed around the monolith and grappled the city. Then they went on up again, outside when they could, inside when they could. Anana asked him why they were going up; he replied that they had to, since the city below was swarming inside and outside.
VI
IN THE MIDDLE of the night, they came out of another house, having entered by the air shaft, and stepped past the sleepers. This house was on the street just below the emperor’s palace. From here on, there would be no internal shaft connections. Since all stairways and causeways were guarded, they could reach their goal only by climbing up on the outside for some distance. This would not be easy. For forty feet, the mountain face was purposely left smooth.
And then, while they were skulking in the shadows at the base of the wall, they came across two booted feet sticking out of a dark alcove. The feet belonged to a dead sentry; another man lay dead by him. One had been stabbed in the throat; the other, strangled with wire.
“Nimstowl has been here!” Anana whispered. “He is called the Nooser, you know.”
The torches of an approaching patrol flared three hundred yards down the street. Kickaha cursed Nimstowl because he had left the bodies there. Actually, however, it would make little difference to the patrols if the sentries were dead or missing from their posts. There would be alarms.
The small gate set in the wall was unlocked. It
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could be locked from the outside only; Kickaha and Anana, after taking the sentries1 weapons, went through it, and ran up the steep stairway between towering smooth walls. They were wheezing and sobbing when they reached the top.
From below, shouts rose. Torches appeared in the tiny gateway, and soldiers began to climb the steps. Drums tboomed; a bugle bararared.
The two ran, not toward the palace to their right but toward a steep flight of steps to their left. At the top of the steps, silver roofs and gray iron bars gleamed, and the odor of animals, straw, old meat and fresh dung reached them.
“The royal zoo,” Kickaha said. “I’ve been here.”
At the far end of a long flagstone walk, something gleamed like a thread in the hem of night. It shot across the moonlight and was in shadows, out again, in again. Then it faded into the huge doorway of a colossal white building.
“Nimstowl!” Anana said. She started after him, but Kickaha pulled her back roughly. Face twisted, white as silver poured out by the moon in a hideous mold, eyes wide as an enraged owl’s, she snapped herself away from him.
“You dare to touch me, leblabbiyT*
“Any time,” he said harshly. “For one thing, don’t call me leblabbiy again. I won’t just hit you. I’ll kill you. I don’t have to take that arrogance, that contempt. It’s totally based on empty, poisonous, sick egotism. Call me that again, and I’ll kill you. You aren’t superior to me in any way, you know. You are dependent on me.”
“I? Dependent? On you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Do you have a plan for escape? One that might work, even if it is wild?”
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Her effort to control herself made her shudder. Then she forced a smile. And if he had not known the concealed fury, he would have thought it the most beautiful, charming, seductive, etc., smile he had seen in two universes.