Dark Of The Woods

hell."
    "You're repeating yourself. You gave me that direction only a short while ago."
    "So all you can do is run," the rep said, managing to smile again. "And with winter setting in, how far will you get? You can't leave the planet with her. And I think you're stupid enough to stay here rather than leave her behind."
    Davis did not respond, except by tearing down the last two panels of drapes and ripping them up to bind the two prisoners more thoroughly. He finished the job with two tight and effective gags, then dragged them to a supplies closet behind the reception desk. He loaded the rep into the cubbyhole, then decided he might as well have as much information as possible with which to make their escape. He removed the gag from Matron Salsbury.
    "When will you be missed?"
    "Supper's over. Not until breakfast. I don't always make a room check at night anymore."
    "Where are the other girls?"
    "Upstairs, in the game room."
    He stuffed the gag back in her mouth, wrapped the band around her face to keep it in, knotted it tightly behind her head. She was harder to move than the man had been, heavier and more hysterical. When he had her wedged into the closet, facing the rep, he closed the door and hurried back to Leah. She was still sleeping, but he could not afford to wait for her to wake. He lifted her, carried her outside, down the steps, and across the flat parking area to the grav car that the rep had driven up from the port in.
    He placed her in the passenger's seat, strapped her in, waited until Proteus had clambered in the back, then slipped behind the wheel and reached for the controls. It was then, that he first noticed the blinking amber light above the radio that indicated a call was being made. He contemplated answering it and trying to fake it out, but knew that would end in dismal failure. Better to let it ring. Eventually, they would begin to worry, but perhaps not for an hour or two. And by that time, he and Leah might be too far along in their escape for it to matter.
    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…

Chapter Five
    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 hex to her feet. "You feel up to working a