Page 79 (2/2)

(Check)

"Fire teauely, shook out his robed ar He had alondered about this gesture, which seemed like empty showo when you are," Suresh said

So: the moment at last What a shock the croas in for Guilder slid his glasses onto his face and took a last, long breath

"All right, everyone," he said "Let’s look alive It’s gaht

Chapter 64

"Dani, wake up"

The voice was faed to so this curious, half-remembered name

"Dani, you have to open your eyes I need you to try"

Sara sensed hershape around her She felt suddenly cold Her throat was tight and dry, sweet-tasting She was supposed to open her eyes-that’s what the voice was telling her-but her lids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds apiece

"I’"

Was the voice Lila’s? Sara felt a prick in her arht, violently curling forward at the waist, her heart thudding against her rib cage Air rushed to her lungs, expelled by a dry cough that screeched across the parched lining of her throat

Lila pressed a cup to her lips, bracing the back of Sara’s head with her pales around her began to coalesce Her heart was still racing like a bird’s Bits of pain, real and remembered, jabbed at her extreuely related to the rest of her

"You’re all right," said Lila "Don’t worry I’m a doctor"

Lila was a doctor?

"We need to be quick I knoon’t be easy, but can you stand?"

Sara didn’t think she could, but Lila urney, Lila helping her by the elbow Below the hehs More bandages dressed her lower ar aware of it

"What did they do to me?"

"It’s the marrow they take They start with the hips That’s the pain you feel"

Sara eased her feet to the floor Only then did it occur to her that Lila’s presence was an aberration-that she was freeing her

"Why do you have a gun, Lila?"

Gone was the frail, uncertain woency "Come"

Sara saw the first body when they stepped into the hall: aface-down on the floor, his arement of swift death The top of his skull had been blasted off, its contents splashed over the wall Two h the throat-though the second ainst the wall, his hands encircling his neck, his chest h the hole in his neck, his rapid breathing , he looked at Sara with pleading eyes

Lila was tugging her by the arain More bodies-the splashes of blood and startled postures and expressions of surprise in unseeing eyes-flowed past It was a massacre Was it possible that Lila had done this? They came to the end of the hall, where the heavy steel door stood open A col lay beside it, shot in the head

"Get her out of the building," Lila co I’ll ask of you Do whatever you have to"

Sara understood that she was speaking of Kate "Lila, what are you doing?"

"What should have been done long ago" A look of peace had coloarmth "It will all be over soon, Dani"

Sara hesitated "My naht perhaps it wasn’t Tellthat this was the right name for her to have She took Sara’s hand

"You will be a good mother to her, Sara," she said, and squeezed "I know it Now run"

A hush fell over the crowd as Guilder stepped onto the field, all seventy thousand faces swiveling to look at hi in the stillness as his eyes traveled the grandstands He would make a humble entrance, like a priest’s Time seemed to stretch as he walked to the platfor to cross fifty yards? The silence around him seemed to deepen with every step

He arrived at the platforazed out upon the crowd, first one side of the field, then the other His hand slipped to his waist and located the toggle

"All rise for the singing of the anthelanced toward Suresh, as standing on the sidelines,ly, the crowd took to its feet "Hoe our lives to thee "

Our labors do we offer, without recompense or fee Homeland, our Homeland, a nation rises here Safety, hope, security, fro, Guilder realized that al He heard a few isolated voices here and there-HR personnel and, of course, the staff,the words frohtened the impression that the crowd, basically, was on strike

Hoht of heaven shines upon your beauty rich and rare One mind! One soul! Your love is all we see Let all co and free!

The song didn’t end so n at all The first of several beads of sweat shot froth of his torso Maybe he should have found so to warage the people fully in the evening’s transforlanced toward Suresh oncenod, and spoke