the Dark Light Years (21 page)

The old boy shook his head with
vigor
, scattering tears.

"Trouble is, after all these years I'm out of touch. Why, I don't think I'll ever be in contact with anyone properly any more.”

Moved. Quilter cleared a lump from his own throat. Forty years! You didn't wonder the old guy felt as he did. How the grokkies would lap up the story!

"Why now, that's a pack of nonsense. You and I have soon got things straight between each other, haven't we, Melmoth?”

"Yes, yes, that certainly is so. Captain Quinto.”

At last the military vehicle bumped away from the stockade. Limbs deretracted, the two utods stood on the edge of the middenstead and watched it until it was out of sight. Only then did the younger turn to look at the older. Speech inaccessible to human ears passed between them.

The younger one moved into the deserted building. He examined the
armory
. The soldiers had left it untouched, as directed by the one who had spoken about the deaths of so many utods. Satisfied, he turned back and walked without pause through the gate of the stockade. He had remained patiently captive for a small fraction of Ms life. Now it was time that he thought about freedom.

Time, too. that the rest of his brothers thought about freedom.