Their mother, her face utterly still and intent, grasped Mina's hand convulsively; they both stood up together.  Her bare feet moved soundlessly on the floor, her padded robe flapping around her calves.  Mina, sniffling and scared, trotted alongside.  Leiber-sensei would have looked silly with his arms up like that, as if he were playing some toddler's rhyming game about touching your nose and ears and head, if he weren't so grim and pale and shivering.  Jin waited for the grip on his hair to slacken, the knife edge to press less deeply, so that he could twist away and run, but the big fists holding him didn't ease.

They followed the others out into the corridor, Jin's feet barely touching the floor as he was yanked along, and turned right.  They took maybe three steps toward the end stairs.

A bellow from behind them, Armsman Roic's deep voice: "Halt!"

Chief Hans whirled, still holding Jin in front of him.  Up the corridor from the other end-stairs strode Roic-san, with Miles-san running at his elbow and Raven-sensei sort of dodging behind him.  Roic raised his right arm, something in his fist too blurred for Jin's pain-teared eyes to make out.  His expression was very strange, cool and remote, like no expression at all.

Jin felt his captor flinch.  The knife edge bit harder.  Hans yelled back, "You again!  Drop that damned stuh—"

A white light flared from Roic-san's hand, and a strange buzzing noise.  The world, or maybe it was Jin's head, seemed to explode in a jagged shower of colored rain.  The rain turned black, and drowned him deep.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

To Roic's surprise, he was actually aided in his capture of the remaining NewEgypt security fellow by Dr. Leiber.  Oki had grabbed the scientist when Roic had shouted, presumably to keep him from bolting, but then found him harder to get rid of; Leiber hung on to the thick left arm that was trying to shake him off, turning and twisting and evading what looked to be a heavy-duty shock stick, just long enough for Roic to close the distance and aim his stunner between Oki's eyes at point-blank range.

"Give it up, Oki," Roic advised genially.  "It's been over ever since I sent your confessions off in a bottle.  I'd have thought you people would have realized that."

Caught and nailed by Roic's steady and implacable gaze as much as by the weapon aimed at his head, Oki reluctantly held his right arm wide and released his shock stick, which fell with a clatter.  As he slumped, Leiber stood away from him, wheezing but with his spine actually straight for a change.  Unasked, Oki folded his hands atop his head and stood looking downright miserable.

Madame Sato, distraught, slid to the floor to gather up her son's limp body.  The unconscious boy was pale, but Roic saw with satisfaction that the cut on his neck was a mere shallow scratch, barely bleeding.