Escape . . .
He looked to the mountains, the heavy clouds hanging low on them, and the sheets of snow that were driving before a stiff wind that looked as if it might grow more fierce as the storm worsened during the night. That was their escape: the mountains, the wildlands of Demos. With that rep in command of the Alliance police on Demos, there would be no chance of running up the legal flag and battling this in courts. No chance at all. If they could ^not avoid the police, they were dead. They were probably equally as dead if they tried escaping into the mountains at the beginning of the winter, but there was no other proposition open to them. The rep had seen to that.
For the first time, Davis realized that he did not even know the Alliance representative’s name. He had just been a puppet of the government. There had never been initial cordialities. He had not thought to ask, and the Alliance man had not thought to volunteer the information. It was the ultimate proof of the dehumanization of man by bureaucracy. The little ex-soldier with the mustache was no longer an individual, but a cog in the corporate image of the Alliance government, the Supremacy of Man party, adhering to doctrine, driven by dogma, unthinking and uncaring about anything but power and the means of obtaining it.
The radio light continued to blink.
He started the grav car, pulled away from the Sanctuary, and pushed the accelerator all the way down as he followed the road back to the aviary which contained his things, from which they would have to pack their provisions for the, long trek ahead . . .
V
SHE HAD not regained consciousness by the time they reached the aviary, and though he did not feel good about interrupting her sleep, he administered a stimulant to her with a hypodermic and began vigorously rubbing her cheeks and hands. There was so little time to do so much that he required her assistance every step of the way.
She stirred, muttered sleepily, sat partway up without opening her oval eyes. Her wings uncrinkled a bit, strained to open, then settled back and folded into place. She shook her head, made blubbering sounds, and finally looked up at him. There were dark circles under her eyes, but they only served to make her that much more stunning, intriguing.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“At the aviary with my things.”
The wolves . . .”
“I’ll tell you as we pack things,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “You feel up to working a little?”
“I’m tired. But I can manage,” she said.
“The arm?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Let’s hurry then.”
She took time to kiss him, once, long and languidly, then they began rounding up compact food products, concentrates, thermos jugs for water, portable electric torches, everything it seemed likely they might find use for and be able to carry without much trouble. Once, she paused to try to persuade him that he should turn her back to them, try to make amends. He convinced her that such a suggestion not only insulted him and underrated his feelings about her but was totally fanciful since the Alliance rep was now out for blood and revenge and would never accept anything less. The packing resumed at the same furious pace.
“But where are we going?” she asked as they worked the last of the items Davis felt they needed into the rucksacks and the single suitcase.
He started to answer, then only packed more quickly. Several minutes later, he said, “If we can get to the woods, buy some time, maybe they’ll think we died in the mountains during the winter. Maybe we will. But well try like the devil not to. And if we make it, maybe, in the spring, I’ll be able to go into the port city without any trouble, unrecognized.”
“It’s no good,” she said.
He shrugged. He knew it was unworkable as well as she. But what else had been left open to them? They were nothing now but two scurrying creatures caught in the web of the megalomaniacs, the power seekers, mice in the walls of an inconceivably vast social order. Their only chance was to act exactly like mice, living off that order, in the fringes of that order, without being discovered and eradicated. Not the best of lives. But better than being dead.