“Luke.” She said it aloud, testing the sound of his name against this startling new reality. “Luke.”

The door crashed open. She was grasped by the shoulders and her head pushed roughly forward. A hard hand brushed across the back of her neck. She was turned around. “All right now. Who are you? Where d'you come from? What d'you want with us?”

This was a very different person from the scared youth she had met on the stair. This was a man, as Treefeller was, knotted and hardened by age and injury into something at last almost indestructible. An old laser burn across one cheek twisted his face into a mirthless grin.

She looked into cold grey eyes flecked with brown. She tried to keep her own steady. “My name is Ruth. I am from Ark Three- a place like this, but different. Far away. I'm here to find out about my friends. I want to get them out if they're imprisoned. And you too,” she added.

He laughed, though his eyes were not amused. “You rescue us?”

She glared back, goaded by his mockery. “It has to start sometime, doesn't it? Though you wouldn't be the first to escape. To get away with it. You must know that.

“Other men had crowded in behind the first. They filled the little room. In the silence that followed Ruth's last remark one of them began to sing under his breath.

“So the Freedom Man danced out of the Ark,

Singing, oh slaves, follow me.

Down the river of death to light or dark:

Either way you’ll be free.”

“Shut up.” Scarface turned on the singer.

“There's no harm, is there?”

“You want the Three-eyes to hear about ...?”

“About your freedom path?” Ruth interrupted. “You don't have to go that way any more. Not down the river of death. There's another way, a safe way. For all of you. If you want. “

“What are you talking about?”

“It's too complicated to explain just now. Please trust me. There is another way out of this city, the way my friends came in. “

“Then the soldiers’ll know all about it.”

“My friends wouldn't tell.”

“You can't keep secrets from Three-eyes, not if they really wants to know,” Scarface said grimly.

Ruth shivered. “You could check it out,” she forced herself to go on. “Or don't you want to be free?”

A hand like a tree trunk was raised against her. She flinched but stood her ground. The arm fell and the big man laughed reluctantly. “You've got guts at least. But how do you know about a way out, when we don't?”

“Ark Three, our home, is built on the same plan as this. I'm sure we'll find the way out in the same place.”

“It could be a trap, Eight-Forty-Two.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Ruth clutched his arm. “Please believe me. Why would I risk coming in here, if I didn't want your good? And the good of my friends.”