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"You can be free"

Ripley said, "Well"

"You can have a new life in e kind of life"

"The life you have now is a strange kind of life"

"True enough," Ripley acknowledged

A ue appeared, but the mouth produced no voice

"Complete control?" Ripley asked

"Complete"

"Absolutely corown a rin returned Werner winked and whispered, "Well, of course I know"

"Why would you grow a mouth in your forehead?"

"Well … as a deo away," Ripley said

In Patrick Duchaine’s voice, the"Ave Maria"

Werner closed his eyes, and an expression of strain overca, licked its lips, and at last disappeared into a brow that appeared normal once more

"I would prefer to set you free with your permission," Werner said "I want us all to live in harmony inside me But I will set you free without permission, if I must I’m a revolutionary with a uish"

"That would be nice"

"You kno you sit in the kitchen, tearing apart hams and briskets with your hands?"

"How do you know about that?"

"I was previously security chief"

"Oh That’s right"

"What you really want to tear apart is living flesh"

"The Old Race," Ripley said

"They have everything we don’t"

"I hate them," Ripley said

"Be free in me" Werner’s voice was seductive "Be free in ether will be the flesh of the oldest living member of the Old Race"

"The Beekeeper"

"Yes Victor And then when the Hands of Mercy staff is all alive in me, we’ll leave this place as one, and we’ll kill and kill and kill"

"When you put it that way …"

"Yes?"

Ripley said, "What do I have to lose?"

"Nothing," said Werner

"Well," said Ripley

"Do you want to be free in entle"

Ripley said, "Okay then"

Suddenly all insect, Werner seized Ripley’s head in chitinous claws and cracked his skull open as if it were a pistachio shell

CHAPTER 14

NEXT DOOR TO THE BENNETS lived Antoine and Evangeline Arceneaux, in a house encircled by a ground-floor veranda with ironwork almost as frilly as that of the LaBranche House in the French Quarter, and by a second-story balcony where much of the equally frilly iron was concealed by cascades of purple bougainvillea that grew up the back of the structure and across the roof

When Janet Guitreau, nude, and Bucky Guitreau, fully clothed, stepped through a neighborly gate between the two properties, most of the s at the Arceneaux house were dark The only light came from the rear of the residence

As they moved toward the back of the house to reconnoiter, Bucky said, "This ti terrible has happened, and you’ll stand aside where they can’t see you"

"What does it ht be put off because you’re naked"

"Why would that put them off? I’m hot, aren’t I?"

"You’re definitely hot, but hot and soether"

"You think it would make them suspicious," Janet said

"That’s exactly what I think"

"Well, I’etin the nude is going to be the best thing ever"