Leo Frankowski

spraying those walls that were not yet burning, and got out.
    Copernick’s fauns,
Colleen and Ohura, ran out of the tree house, each carrying a human baby. Most
of Ohura’s black hair was burned off.
    “My
babies!” Mona screamed.
    The fauns handed the
unharmed Copernick children to Mona and Patricia, then turned back to the burning tree house.
    When Colleen and
Ohura ran inside, they found the elevator bouncing rapidly, convulsed with
pain. They ran to the staircase, reaching it just as burning jet fuel was starting to
dribble down. Without hesitation they ran up the stairs through the flames. Their
hoofs provided some protection, but the fur on Ohura’s legs caught fire midway up. She continued
upward to the fauns’ room before throwing herself to the floor and rolling on
the carpet to put out the flames.
    Cradled in soft
niches on Pinecroft’s second floor, the four baby fauns each still lay on its
back contently sucking the treenipple just above its mouth.
    While Ohura flailed
at her smoldering fur, Colleen took the babies from their niches. As Ohura finished she
picked up one of her own children and one of Colleen’s. Each carrying two
fauns, Colleen and Ohura bounded for the corridor.
    The fire and smoke
in the hallway had grown much worse, and the fauns had to crawl, babies clutched to their breasts,
groping then-way to the service stairway, Colleen in the lead. A wall of flames shot
up between them and Ohura gasped, involuntarily inhaling the fire, singeing her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe or speak, and the world started to become dark gray. As she
became unconscious,
she tucked the two children under her, trying to protect them from the heat
with her own body.
    Colleen reached the
service staircase before she realized that Ohura wasn’t behind her. She
hesitated for a second, then turned back to grope blindly for her sister. As she crawled, a
branch that had supported the third floor gave way, smashing the bones of her
left knee and pinning her to the floor. The smoke cleared for an instant and
she saw Ohura a few feet in front of her.
    “Ohura! I’m
over here!” But Ohura didn’t move.
    The log pinning
Colleen down was two feet in diameter and fifteen yards long. Colleen
struggled helplessly, rolling over, trying to rip her own leg off. Anything to save
herself and her children.
    Suddenly an LDU
darted through the smoke, his body silvery white to reflect the heat. His lateral
tentacles
grabbed for Ohura and the two babies were quickly secured to his
underside.
    The LDU turned its
attention to the trapped faun. I’m Dirk, Colleen.” He tried to lift the
log from her leg but failed. “Better give me the children. I can’t move
this log.”
    The flames were
rapidly approaching them as Colleen gave up the baby fauns. The pain in her leg
was unbearable. Death would be welcome.
    “Sorry,
Colleen.” Dirk tapped her behind the head, knocking her unconscious, ending the
pain. Then he wrapped a tentacle tightly around her left thigh and with one whack of a
dagger-claw severed the leg above the knee.
    Dirk placed Colleen
next to Ohura and the four baby fauns and raced down the burning stairway to
safety.
     
    Copernick stayed at
his post in the communications center, giving an almost continuous stream of
rational orders to the CCU, most of which had been anticipated and were being put
into effect before they were received. Guibedo stayed at his nephew’s side,
occasionally making suggestions.
    “Get as many of
the crew out as possible,” Copernick said. “Give them medical treatment in
preference to our own people if necessary. We need the bastards.”
    LDUs waded ankle deep
through burning gasoline, slashing through aluminum and boron-fiber composite with their knife-claws, searching out
every scrap of human flesh in the burning
bomber.
    Tree houses over an
entire square mile were searched for the injured, the dying, and the dead.
    The fire did not
spread past the second subbasement of Copernick’s complex, because of
Pinecroft’s green growing wood and the efficiency of the LDUs.
    Hundreds of injured
people and animals were brought to the third-level medical center. Among
them, near the end of the list, were Ohura, with third-degree burns over eighty percent of
her body, and Colleen, battered but still alive.
    Liebchen was with
them, holding four uninjured baby fauns, the size of squirrels.
    “Dirk pulled you
all out. He says that you’re going to be okay in a month,” Liebchen