The baron held up a hand. “Not now, Harv. This will require a ville meet. Send the word out soon as possible, I want everyone in the main hall. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“What to do?” Jenna screamed, holding the fur to her. She was acting the part of the outraged baron’s wife well, Ryan had to admit. “What do you mean? This one-eyed bastard is no use to man nor to beast.”
“We will decide that later,” Alien snapped with a harshness to his voice that Ryan hadn’t heard during their stay in Raw.
The baron turned his attention to Ryan. “As for you, Ryan Cawdor, you and your people will attend, by force if necessary.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Alien nodded. “Good. You perplex me, Ryan Cawdor. But we shall see. Yes, we shall see. Now get from my sight.”
Ryan made no reply and walked out of the chamber, passing the baron and the sec chief without looking at them. He didn’t look back at Jenna, either.
Now they were faced with a possible firefight to get out alive, and there was still no sign of Dean.
THERE WAS ANOTHER tight corner in the concrete duct. This tunnel hadn’t seemed as long as those leading from the lab, but Dean had no idea whether this was really the case or whether it was a matter of psychology. In a sense, it was unimportant. All that mattered was reaching an exit.
And perhaps this was it. As he squeezed himself around the corner of the duct, a faint light permeated the gloom. The duct was on a slight incline, which made it harder for him to crawl. His elbows felt as though they were worn to the bone, no longer hurting because the nerve endings had rubbed away. But the growing light gave him the impetus to go faster. The way out was almost in sight, and he couldn’t fail now.
It seemed to take forever, the grille at the end of the duct growing larger, tantalizingly always out of reach. Each shuffling movement took an eternity.
Sound started to leak into the shaft: a buzzing of idle conversation, the clattering of movement. Wherever Dean had landed, it was a heavily populated area. He was relieved. If it was populated, then it had to be central, so it would be easy for him to find his way back to the rest of the party. And if it was central and heavily populated, then it would be hard for Jenna or Harvey to recapture him without giving away their secrets to some degree.
This knowledge spurred him on, and Dean quickened his pace, getting closer and closer to the grille.
When he reached it, he could see why he had traversed an incline. The grille was situated high up in the wall of the tunnel, above the level of the heating and water pipes and the brackets for the lamps. He could see the tops of people’s heads as they went about their business. He was in the central area where trade and commerce took place. Although there were a few people about, there were fewer than he would have expected from previous exploration, and through the hum of conversation he caught something about a raid on Samtvogel.
It was all the more important he find his father and his friends—if they were still alive.
Dean tried to loosen the grille, cursing to himself as his constricted arms found it hard to get the necessary purchase to push the grille out of the wall. But slowly it began to give, with a grating screech.
Two men passing by looked up at the grille.
“Shit, it’s the one-eyed man’s boy,” one of them said. “Quick, Ham, get me something to stand on.”
His companion grabbed a stool that sat by an unattended stall and gave it to the muscular, thickset man. “Hang on, son, hang on,” he said as he placed the stool beneath the grille and climbed up, pulling at the grille to assist Dean’s restricted pushing.
The grille gave way, and the thickset man tossed it to the floor, taking hold of the boy as he slithered from the duct, bunking in the light.