A Myrmidon threw itself on the grenade a second before it went off. For an instant, it lay there, arms and legs waving almost comically. Then the blast came, lifting the massive armored body off the ground, and hundreds of razor-sharp steel fragments sliced through armor to bury themselves in once-human flesh.
Gold-Eye, lying trapped on the ground, saw it happen, felt the rush of displaced air on his face, felt his eardrums push in, heard the fragments strike the train.
The Myrmidon landed near him, a sodden, pulpy mass of blue ichor and shattered armor. Its visor was gone, and Gold-Eye saw a Myrmidon’s face for the first time. It was a remarkably human face, the most human-looking of the Overlords’ creatures. It looked rather like Drum.
Gold-Eye looked at the dead eyes and felt a million miles away, the Myrmidons’ shouts and stamping dulled by his blast-affected ears. He could feel Ninde against him but couldn’t move, couldn’t turn to face her. They were hopelessly trapped.
Then one sound did become apparent above the cotton-wool background roar—the clicking of spider-robot legs. A big spider robot. The loathsome form of Shade, picking its way toward him. Two Myrmidon Masters stood behind him, just watching him stalk over to the trapped children. One Master in black glasslike armor with fluttering squares of shiny darkness on its sleeves. The other bright red from head to foot, a plume of liquid fire trailing from its helmet down its lobster-plated back.
Gold-Eye looked at them, and at Shade, then closed his eyes and tried to wish himself and Ninde dead. Ella and Drum were gone, he knew. Ella had tried to finish them all, tried to save them from the Meat Factory…but it hadn’t worked. Now they would soon be there, lying on the shelves, waiting to be turned into some vile creature…perhaps dreaming, knowing all the while…
Something soft and somehow slightly wet touched his face, tracing a line up his cheek. Gold-Eye tried to ignore it, fearing what it could be—but finally had to open his eyes.
To see the anemone tendrils on the end of one of Shade’s spider limbs and the robot body standing above him. Blocking the view of the Myrmidon Masters, Shade took the delicate wires of the Deceptor crown off Gold-Eye’s head and then did the same to Ninde.
“Good,” said Shade, withdrawing the limb and feeding the Deceptors into a disgusting mouthlike orifice on the underside of his bulbous body. “You are not hurt. I was unaware that Ella had a grenade. It would have been most unfortunate if all of you had been killed.”
“Why?” whispered Gold-Eye, asking many questions with that one word. Shade chose to answer only the obvious one.
“The Overlords want to study you,” he said. “Up till now they have been unaware that human children were developing Change Talents. Your ability…and I advise you to remember this…your ability to get into the Meat Factory unseen has convinced them that those Talents are worth investigating.”
“But not Talent, Decept—” Gold-Eye broke in, only to shut up as a spider limb prodded him painfully in the chest.
“Worth investigating,” continued Shade. “I believe they may want to try to integrate such Talents into future creatures. Red Diamond and Black Banner, that is. I suspect they desire to keep any such special knowledge to themselves, at least for the time being. Fortunately this means you will not be going to the Meat Factory.”
“What do you get out of this, traitor?” Ninde cut in, her voice stiff with hatred. “We’ll just tell them it was your Decept—Ow!”
“Leave her alone!” protested Gold-Eye, straining against the plastic mesh that wrapped him from ankles to chest.
“Really, you children ought to know that I have your best interests at heart,” said Shade. “And I advise you to go along with me. It’s all part of the plan. The Grand Plan, if you understand me.”
“What…what…about Ella? Drum?” asked Gold-Eye painfully.
“Mmmm. Yes, I didn’t expect the grenade or other drastic and suicidal action,” said Shade, almost whispering. “I underestimated both of them, I fear. But I assure you that you will be safe. Provided you do as I say.”
He turned and clicked back to the waiting Myrmidon Masters. They bowed as the spider robot approached, and moved apart to allow him to pass before falling in a few paces behind.
“What hap…happened to Ella and Drum?” whispered Ninde, almost choking. Her view had been blocked by Gold-Eye, but she had heard the grenade.
“Drum jumped. Ella with him,” said Gold-Eye, as gauntleted Myrmidon hands reached down and picked them up.
With a hundred feet to go to the water, Drum exerted his Change Talent. All his strength went into it, all his fury at Shade’s betrayal, all his hope that Ella at least would live.
He’d never lifted anything heavier than a cat before, and the muscles in his arms strained as if he were trying to pull himself and Ella up a rope without using his feet, strained till they felt as if they would burst out of his skin, and his brain explode with them….
But he did slow their fall, perhaps enough…and in the last few seconds he twisted both of them around, shielding Ella as his back smacked into the water with tremendous force.
It was only as her mouth filled with water that Ella realized she was still trying to scream—and that she was still alive. Perhaps knocked out by the force of their impact, Drum was no longer holding her. She felt through the water for him, reaching out through the brown-blue murk, but there was nothing, and her lungs were empty of air and too full of water. Kicking madly, she tried to reach the surface.
But it just wasn’t there, or it was too far away, no matter how hard she kicked. She was swallowing water and starting to sink back down…. Then hands were stripping the pack from her back, freeing her arms and plucking her sword from its scabbard, so the steel vanished into the depths like a fisherman’s sinker. She shot up with sudden buoyancy, retching water and gulping air with frenzied eagerness as she surfaced.
Drum was there too, coughing himself as they half swam, half floated into the shallows. But as Ella tried to climb up the massed smooth pebbles that lined the bank, he pulled her back.
“Just…hrrkkk…lie here,” he said, still coughing. “The Deceptors don’t work anymore…. We’re harder to spot in the water.”
“Thanks,” muttered Ella, laying her face against one round, sun-warmed stone, letting the water dribble out of her nose and ears. The rest of her body was still in the water, but she didn’t care about that. Air was all she wanted now.
After a few minutes the coughing stopped, and she raised her head to look around, looking up at the bridge high above and the steep banks of the river.
“We’d better drift downstream for a bit,” she said reluctantly, spotting Myrmidons making their way down a switchback path from the western bridgehead, the sun sparking from their armor. “Myrmidons on the way.”
Drum nodded and pushed himself a little way out from the bank, half wading, half swimming in the waist-high water.
Ella followed, pausing only to snag a pack—hers or Drum’s—that was floating within a circular eddy nearby.
They didn’t speak as they made their slow way down the river, floating with the current but careful not to follow it to the middle, till Ella saw that Drum was stumbling more than wading and barely able to keep his head up when they swam.
“We’ll stop up there,” she declared, pointing to a thick, tangled line of willows by the river’s edge. “And…and work out…what to do.”
“That’s easy,” whispered Drum, attempting a smile. “It’s still the same thing. Destroy the Grand Projector.”
On the other side of the bridge, the Myrmidons put Gold-Eye and Ninde down and applied some instantaneous solvent to the bonds on their legs. They left their arms tightly stuck and their backs joined together. They also took their swords, packs, and equipment belts.
Both were made to walk then, crablike, till the Myrmidons realized this was too slow and picked them up again. Leaving the railway track, they followed a long line of Myrmidons out across a large open field. Shade was there too, his two Myrmidon Masters following behind him, mixed in with the ever-present entourage of robots.
In the middle of the field the Myrmidons sorted themselves back into their maniples. Six of Red Diamond’s lined up in ranks on one side of the field, faced by six of Black Banner’s. The Masters stayed with Shade, and two Myrmidons from each retinue stayed next to Ninde and Gold-Eye.
Gold-Eye tried to turn toward her, but the web held them firmly back-to-back. Finally he gave up struggling, and they sat down in the long grass.
“I guess…we’re waiting,” whispered Ninde.
“Overlords,” replied Gold-Eye bleakly. He didn’t need to see them in the soon-to-be-now to know they were coming.
“I wonder what they want,” continued Ninde, her voice flat, all the usual curiosity drained out of it. “Do you…do you think they’ll cut us up alive…to find out how our Change Talents work?”
Gold-Eye didn’t reply, but Ninde felt a shiver run up his spine.
“That’s what Shade does to creatures,” continued Ninde, scaring herself but unable to stop talking. “Remember when Drum wouldn’t let us into the sick bay? Shade was cutting up a Winger….”
“Ninde. Stop,” whispered Gold-Eye. “They’re coming. Overlords. Big Wingers.”
He turned, losing sight of them himself but allowing Ninde to see. Two enormous Wingers, flapping in from the east, each with a human-sized figure on its back.
“They are people, after all,” said Ninde hesitantly. “Perhaps they’ll be…better to us…than they are normally….”
Gold-Eye didn’t respond. He was thinking of the dead Myrmidon, ripped and shredded by the grenade, instantly killed.
And wishing that was what had happened to himself and Ninde.