protest, though Quinn held her tightly, but she kept her large exquisite eyes on Rowan, except for occasional glances at Oberon who never stopped staring at her with a look of pure venom.
Rowan stepped cautiously inside the freezer as I'd done before. She examined the bodies minutely. She touched the stains of frozen fluid on the floor. She studied patches of discoloration on their skin. Her hands returned to their heads. Then finally she withdrew and let the team do its work of taking the bodies to the plane.
She looked at Mona:
"They're dead," she said. "They died a long time ago. Most likely right after they first lay down together here."
"Perhaps not!" said Mona desperately. "Maybe they can survive temperatures that we can't." She looked frail and worn in her black feathered dress, her mouth shuddering.
"They're gone," Rowan said. Her voice was not cruel. It was solemn. She was fighting her own tears and I knew it.
Miravelle began to cry again. "Oh Mother, oh Father. . . ."
"There's evidence of widespread decay," Rowan said. "The temperature was not consistently maintained. They didn't suffocate. They fell asleep as people do in the snow. They were probably warm at the end, and they died peacefully."
"Oh, that is so lovely," said Miravelle with the purest sincerity. "Don't you think, Mona? It's so very pretty. Lorkyn, darling, don't you think it is very sweet?"
"Yes, Miravelle, dear," said Lorkyn softly. "Don't worry anymore about them. Their intent has been fulfilled."
She had not spoken in so long that this warmth took me by surprise.
"And what was their intent?" I asked.
"That Rowan Mayfair know of their fate," said Lorkyn calmly. "That the Secret People not vanish."
Rowan sighed. Her face was indescribably sad.
She opened wide her arms and shepherded us out of the kitchen, a doctor leading us away from a deathbed.
We went out into the warm air, and the landscape seemed peaceful and given over to the rhythm of the waves and the breeze-cleansed by violence and mercilessness.
I looked beyond the lighted buildings to the huge mass of hovering jungle. I scanned again for any presence, human or Taltos. The dense growth was too thick with living things for me to detect any one creature.
I felt soul sick and empty. At the same time the three Taltos were worrying me in the extreme. What precisely was going to happen to them?
The crew with the frozen bodies ran past us to board the plane, and we made our way slowly to the metal steps on the tarmac.
"Did Father really ask for this, this freezing?" Oberon wanted to know. He had lost all of his scornful manner. "Did he go willingly to this death?" he asked sincerely.
"That's what Rodrigo always said," replied Miravelle, who was now in Stirling's arms, weeping piteously. "Father had told me to hide from the bad men, so I wasn't with him. They didn't find me until the next day. Lorkyn and I were together, hiding in the little house by the tennis courts. We didn't see what happened. We never saw Father and Mother again."
"I don't want to board this plane as a prisoner," said Lorkyn very politely. "And I'd like to know where I'm going. It's unclear to me, the source of authority here. Dr. Mayfair, would you please explain?"
"You're the victim of concern right now, Lorkyn," said Rowan in the same mild tone that Lorkyn had used with her.
Rowan reached into her pants pocket, pulled out a syringe and, as Lorkyn stared in horror and desperately struggled, sank a needle into the arm by which Quinn held her. Lorkyn went down clawing at Quinn and then finally totally collapsed, all hips, knees and spidery hands, kitten face asleep.
Oberon watched with narrow eyes and a chilling smile.
"You should have slit her throat, Dr. Rowan Mayfair," he said, with the rise of one eyebrow. "As a matter
of fact, I think I can break all the bones in her neck if you'll kindly allow me to try it."
Miravelle spun around out of Stirling's loving grip and glared at Oberon: "No, no, you can't do such a horrible thing to Lorkyn. It's not Lorkyn's fault she's wise and knowing! Oberon, you can't do mean things to her, not now."
Mona gave a short bitter laugh. "Maybe you've got your prize specimen, Rowan," she said in her frail voice. "Hook her up to every machine known to science, vivisect her, freeze her in fragments and on slides, make her lactate the marvelous Taltos milk!"
Rowan stared so icily at