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from now on. She still felt the emptiness, though he was right there in front of her.

But then she had looked at him with her beautiful eyes, and she kissed him. “At least

you’re alive, Jommy. That’s better than anything I’d hoped.”

Down in the redoubt, Joanna watched the reunion with proud resignation. Jommy could

tell she still had deep feelings for him, but the tendrilless woman knew he would never love

anyone but Kathleen.

President Gray had shadows under his eyes. He looked more defeated now than at any time

since John Petty had exposed him as a slan. At least the slan hunter was no longer with them.

“I’m glad to see you alive, Jommy, but this is a bittersweet reunion, to say the least. The

summit meeting was a disaster. I had hoped to find some common ground, but the tendrilless

had no interest in common ground. I explained about the tendrilless slans and how all of our

babies born within the next few generations will have their tendrils again.”

Both Jommy and Joanna listened eagerly to the story. Anthea also responded with

amazement to hear the truth about the tendrilless, that she and Davis had been among them,

entirely unknowing.

“I take it Jem Lorry didn’t believe you, then?” Joanna said with a smirk. “I’m not

surprised—
there’s
a man who embodies the worst of tendrilless prejudice. A long time ago, he

and I were matched.”

“What does that mean?” Kathleen asked.

“We were genetically programmed to marry each other. The Tendrilless Authority had

studied our parentage, and they selected me for him, and him for me. Fortunately, we both

had to complete many years of service before we were approved. While Jem infiltrated the

government here, I worked with tendrilless operations in the Air Center. Fortunately, I got to

know the man well enough to abhor him. Even though we supposedly had the same goals, if

we’d been married, I would have killed him on our wedding night. I could not stomach Jem

Lorry.”

“Not many of us could,” Kathleen said. “He wanted to … to
breed
with me as well.”

“I would say he’s inhuman, but he’d take that as a compliment,” Gray said. He explained

about Jem Lorry’s treachery, and Petty’s double cross, and the attacking squadrons of

tendrilless and secret police ships. “It was a massacre. We barely escaped with our lives.”

“Granny’s dead, Jommy.” Kathleen lowered her gaze. “She went out trying to defend her

home. She used her shotgun—”

Jommy hung his head. The twisted old woman had forced him to do many terrible things,

but she had also saved him in her own warped way. In the last few years, as he had guided her

away from corruption, she had begun to redeem herself.

Gray continued, “If you hadn’t left your rocket-plane in the hangar, we would have been

part of the rubble there, too. The whole ranch is destroyed. There was nothing left but burning

wreckage when we flew out of there.”

When Kathleen lifted her chin, she looked very brave and Jommy loved her more than

ever. “At least Lorry was killed, a victim of his own treachery—and Petty, too.”

Jommy could find no sadness in his heart upon hearing that news. “One less slan hunter to

worry about.”

Then, from outside the main chamber, they heard a rumble and a crash. Jommy spun

toward the large-bore tunnel that his disintegrator had burned through the ground. A small

armored vehicle with thick tires rumbled down the passage and crashed out into the middle of

the base. Jommy and his companions scrambled for safety as the armored vehicle fishtailed to a

halt. Jommy saw the hammer-and-web insignia of the secret police on its side.

A battered-looking John Petty kicked open the vehicle’s door and barged out. He stood up,

his black jacket torn and bloodied, his face smeared with soot, his hair wild. He glared at Gray

and Kathleen, and when he spotted Jommy, his expression became an even more twisted look

of displeasure. “Doesn’t anyone
ever stay dead
?”

“Speak for yourself,” Kathleen said.

The slan hunter reached inside the vehicle and dragged out another body, dumping it

unceremoniously on the sealed stone floor of the hideout. As the body flopped face down,

arms sprawled out, Jommy could see that the man had been shot in the back.

It was Jem Lorry. Joanna looked at the body, but without grief.

“No, he’s not a present for you,” Petty said. “He’s a trophy for me. Maybe I’ll have him

stuffed and mounted in my own base from which I’ll guide the recapture of Earth—for

humans.

“I killed Lorry while the tendrilless continued to attack the ranch. I shot him just to spite

them! I grabbed one of the secret police vehicles that had already been deployed, but its driver

was shot in the crossfire.”

“So you just drove off?” Jommy asked.

Petty shrugged. “I expect the fighting’s mostly done there, now, though I don’t know who

would have emerged as the winner.”

“Secret police traitors or tendrilless invaders—I’m not sure I prefer either side,” Gray said.

Jommy glared at the slan hunter. “How did you know to come to this base?”

Kathleen turned quickly to Jommy. “I didn’t tell him. And he couldn’t have read your

father’s notes or translated the code.”

Petty seemed amused. “Why go through so much trouble? I’ve always known about this

base. In fact, my secret police and I extracted plenty of useful things from right under your

nose, President Gray.”

Jommy marched toward the slan hunter, who ducked back into his armored vehicle and

emerged holding a powerful pistol. “Not one step closer, Cross. I’ve been aware of your mind

tricks all along.”

“Mind tricks? You don’t have to worry about those anymore,” Jommy said.

Petty noticed his severed tendrils at last and let out a loud guffaw. “Well, there’s a bit of

poetic justice!”

Jommy would not be swayed, though. “This was my father’s lab, and we learned about it

from his notes and records.
So how did you know about this base
?”

Holding his weapon, the slan hunter looked at them coldly. “Yes, it was your father’s lab,

and that’s how I know about it.
I
killed your father.”

«
^
»

The revelation came louder than a gunshot in Jommy’s ears. A crimson static formed around

his vision, closing in like thunder clouds made of boiling blood. He finally forced words out of

his tight throat. “I already had plenty of reasons to hate you, John Petty, but now you’ve given

me more than enough rationale to kill you.” He stalked forward, consumed with a sick rage.

Jommy had never learned the exact circumstances of his father’s death. His mother had

said that he was shot in the back, but she refused to speak more of it. Jommy just remembered

being on the run with her for three years as she tried to keep her little boy alive at all costs.

Peter Cross had made it possible for them to survive.

“Yes, I killed him.” The slan hunter swung the pistol in his right hand, aiming directly

between Jommy’s eyes. He found the young man’s reaction to the revelation hilarious, as well

as his current inability to fight back. “My secret police and I massacred all the slans in this

secret base. It was one of the last mutant nests that we had to eradicate. Why do you think you

found only empty enclaves in all your searches? Because my secret police knew about them all

and wiped them out! We ransacked them, left a few of them as bait. Believe me, any slans still

left alive after the raids—like you and your mother—were basically irrelevant to us.”

Jommy took another step closer, as if Petty’s weapon couldn’t harm him.

Gray was cooler, spoke in a harder voice. “And how exactly did you manage this,

Mr. Petty? As chief of the secret police, you were working for me. Why did you not give

reports to your president?”

“Oh, it must have been in a memo somewhere … or maybe I just forgot.” He grinned.

“Peter Cross knew he was hunted. All slans knew they were hunted, and we spent years trying

to track their movements. We managed to kill the occasional slan loner, which gave us great

publicity, but we just couldn’t seem to capture one alive for a suitable interrogation.” He

looked at Jommy. “But we got wind of your father’s movements and staged an elaborate trap.

We set up an ambush with more than a hundred secret police, because we knew what a

challenge he would be.” Petty’s eyes took on a far-off gaze as he remembered his glory days.

“When we finally spotted him, we closed in, cutting off what we thought were all of his

routes of escape. Finally, when we had a good shot, I ordered one of my snipers to take him

out. But you slans are fiendishly difficult to kill.” He shook his head. “Cross took the bullet in

his shoulder. He was bleeding badly, but he made his way into one of the tall buildings. We

followed him, but he somehow got into the basement levels, then took a lift to a high floor,

then ran back a dozen flights of stairs, found a fire escape.

“At first the blood droplets made him easy to track, but his gunshot wound healed so

swiftly we lost that advantage. Three of my secret police cornered him in a garage just before

he was about to dash into the streets. Cross killed all three of them, broke the necks of two,

stole their weapons, and shot the third. Quite impressive, actually.”

“So my father got away,” Jommy said, grimly pleased.

“In a sense, yes. But that was part of the plan. I was never so gullible as to believe we would

actually catch him so easily.”

“Easily?” Anthea cried. To a woman who had lived a normal life in Centropolis, the brutal

tactics of the secret police were a revelation. “Against a hundred fully armed men?”

“Yes, easily. These are
slans
we’re talking about, lady. That’s why they’re such a threat to

our way of life.”

“
Your
way of life,” Joanna said with a sniff. She still looked willing to fight for Jommy, even

if he did love someone else.

“What do you mean it was part of the plan?” Kathleen pressed.

Still seething, Jommy maintained his silence, looking for an opportunity to spring upon the

slan hunter and disarm him.

“The sniper’s bullet contained a micro-tracer. I intended for him to escape, because as

wounded and frightened as he was, Cross fled to the protection of his other slans. Oh, he

dodged us for more than a day, leaving false leads, eluding the obvious trackers that I allowed

him to see. All the while, though, we had the signal so we could follow him. He went right to

this laboratory base.”

“Even so,” Gray said, “this is a fortress. The slans held it for centuries out of the view of

normal humans. You couldn’t just have walked in.”

Petty smiled again, waving his pistol. “That was when the second fortuitous event

happened. I had decided to make a full frontal assault, even if it cost me a few hundred men. A

small price to pay for eradicating the last slan nest.” He shrugged. “But we didn’t have to do

that. Once we knew where Cross had gone underground, we were able to set up careful

surveillance. After weeks of constant monitoring, a young slan, barely thirteen years old,

slipped away from the hideout late one night. We’d been waiting for an opportunity exactly

like that. We sprang our trap.

“We exploded a canister of sleep gas directly in front of the kid. It would have knocked out

an elephant, but it barely slowed him down. His reflexes were dulled, but still he fought. We

dropped electrified nets on him. More than a dozen of my slan hunters piled on to the fight. It

took three more anesthetic darts to bring him down. A thirteen year old! We whisked the kid

away to our interrogation chambers. Armored vaults, sealed self-contained rooms inside the

grand palace where my scientists could do their classified work. Even President Gray didn’t

know about them.” Petty smiled.

“Yes, we discovered one of the vaults in the rubble.” Joanna Hillory gave him a cold smile.

“We even found people still inside—two-and-a-half of them, to be exact. They weren’t in very

good shape.”

“And what did you do with this captive?” Gray demanded, getting back to the discussion.

“We tortured him, of course. We used every extreme interrogation technique we knew, and