The Capture

entire white face seemed to glow with the yellow light. "My favorite -- 12-1. Isn't it sublime! It's a very special number, and I am sure that you will discover your own very specialness as an owl."

    "Thank you," Soren said, still slightly mystified but relieved that the fierce owl had apparently not told Finny anything bad about him.

    "Thank you, what?" Finny giggled. "See? I get to ask questions, too, sometimes."

    "Thank you, Finny?"

    Finny inclined her head toward him again. There was a slight glare in the yellow glow. "Again," she whispered softly. "Again ... now, look me in the eyes." Soren looked into the yellow light.

    "Thank you, Auntie."

    "Yes, dear. I'm just an old broody. Love being called Auntie."

    Soren did not know what a broody was, but he took the mouse meat and followed the owl who had been in front of him into the glaucidium. Two large, ragged brown owls escorted the entire group. The glaucidium was a deep box canyon, the floor of which was covered with sleeping owlets. Moonlight streamed down directly on them, silvering their feathers.

    "Fall in, you two!" barked a voice from high up in a rocky crevice.

    "You!" A plump owl stepped up to Soren. Indeed, Soren's heart quickened at first, for it was another Barn Owl just like his own family. There was the white heart- shaped face and the familiar dark eyes.
    And yet, although the color of these eyes was identical to his own and those of his family, he found the owl's gaze frightening.

    "Back row, and prepare to assume the sleeping position." These instructions were delivered in the throaty rasp common to Barn Owls, but Soren found nothing comforting in the familiar.

    The two owls who had escorted the newly arrived orphans spoke to them next. They were Long Eared Owls and had tufts that poked straight up over their eyes and twitched. Soren found this especially unnerving. They
    each alternated speaking in short deep whoos. The whoos were even more disturbing than the barks of Skench earlier, for the sound seemed to coil into Soren's very breast and thrum with a terrible clang.

    "I am Jatt," said the first owl. "I was once a number. But now I have earned my new name."

    "Whhh -- " Soren snapped off the word.

    "I see a question forming on your disgusting beak, number 12-1!" The whoo thrummed so deep within Soren's breast that he thought his heart might burst.

    "Let me make this perrr-fectly clear." The thrumming of the owl's sound was almost unbearable. "At St.
    Aggie's such words beginning with the whh sound are not to be spoken. Such words are question words, a habit of mental luxury and indulgence. Questions might fatten the imagination, but they starve the owlish instincts of hardiness, patience, humility, and self-denial. We are not here to pamper you by allowing an orgy of wwwhh words, question words. They are dirty words, swear words punishable by the most severe means at our disposal." Jatt blinked and cast his gaze on Soren's wings. "We are here to make true owls out of you. And someday you will thank us for it."

    Soren thought he was going to faint with fear. These owls were so different from Finny. Auntie! He silently corrected himself. Jatt had resumed speaking in his normal whoo. "Now my brother shall address you."

    It was an identical voice. "I am Jutt. I, too, was once a number but have earned my new name. You are now in the sleeping position. Standing tall, head up, beak tipped to the moon. You see in this glaucidium hundreds of owlets. They have all learned to sleep in this manner. You, too, shall learn."

    Soren looked around, desperately searching for Gylfie, but all he saw was Hortense, or number 12-8. She had assumed the perfect sleeping position. He could tell by the stillness of her head that she was sound asleep under the glare of a full moon. Soren spotted a stone arch that connected to what he thought was another glaucidium. A mass of owls seemed to be marching. Their beaks were bobbing open and shut but Soren could not hear what they were saying.

    Jatt now spoke again. "It is strictly forbidden to sleep with the head tucked under the wings, dipped toward the breast, or in the manner that many of you young owls are accustomed, which is the semi-twist position in which the head rests on the back." Soren felt at least seven when sounds die mutely in his throat. "Incorrect sleeping posture is also punishable, using our most severe methods."

    "Sleep correction monitors patrol the glaucidium, making their rounds at