found them."

"It's your turn, now."

"No, it isn't. You found them. It's your fault, the whole thing. I was
watching."

"You joined in, Slim. You know you did."

"I don't care. You found them and that's what I'll say when they come
here looking for us."

Red said, "All right for you." But the thought of the consequences
inspired him anyway, and he reached for the cage door.

Slim said, "Wait!"

Red was glad to. He said, "Now what's biting you?"

"One of them's got something on him that looks like it might be iron or
something."

"Where?"

"Right there. I saw it before but I thought it was just part of him. But
if he's 'people,' maybe it's a disintegrator gun."

"What's that?"

"I read about it in the books from Beforethewars. Mostly people with
space-ships have disintegrator guns. They point them at you and you get
disintegratored."

"They didn't point it at us till now," pointed out Red with his heart
not quite in it.

"I don't care. I'm not hanging around here and getting disintegratored.
I'm getting my father."

"Cowardy-cat. Yellow cowardy-cat."

"I don't care. You can call all the names you want, but if you bother
them now you'll get disintegratored. You wait and see, and it'll be all
your fault."

He made for the narrow spiral stairs that led to the main floor of the
barn, stopped at its head, then backed away.

Red's mother was moving up, panting a little with the exertion and
smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity as guest.

"Red! You, Red! Are you up there? Now don't try to hide. I know this is
where you're keeping them. Cook saw where you ran with the meat."

Red quavered, "Hello, ma!"

"Now show me those nasty animals? I'm going to see to it that you get
rid of them right away."

It was over! And despite the imminent corporal punishment, Red felt
something like a load fall from him. At least the decision was out of
his hands.

"Right there, ma. I didn't do anything to them, ma. I didn't know. They
just looked like little animals and I thought you'd let me keep them,
ma. I wouldn't have taken the meat only they wouldn't eat grass or
leaves and we couldn't find good nuts or berries and cook never lets me
have anything or I would have asked her and I didn't know it was for
lunch and--"

He was speaking on the sheer momentum of terror and did not realize that
his mother did not hear him but, with eyes frozen and popping at the
cage, was screaming in thin