It was almost dusk when everyone gathered for the homecoming feast in Bunnie's honor. The residents of The Cove usually ate in family groups, and only gathered for special occasions, and this was more special than most. Percy and Deirdre's family was the largest in The Cove. He had explained to Princess Sally that everybody had an equal voice in running things, but as she watched him interacting with other residents and accepting their congratulations on Bunnie's return it was clear that if Percy wasn't the leader of the settlement his opinion still seemed to carry a lot of weight. The Cove residents were seated in a circle, with the members of Bunnie's family spaced throughout. Pots and plates piled high with simple yet appetizing-looking food were in the center; everyone seemed to have brought something, however humble. Sonic noted, with relief, that the hyena was not part of the circle. "Friends!" Roonie said as he stood, spreading his arms to get the attention of those seated and exchanging conversation. "While we're honored by the presence of Princess Sally and her friends from Knothole with us this evening," [Sally nodded, acknowledging the polite applause], "we've mainly asked everyone here because we want you all to share our joy as we welcome back our long-lost sister and daughter, Bunnie." This time, the applause was louder and more heart-felt, but Sally wasn't going to begrudge Bunnie, who sat blushing between her parents. "Bunnie," Rooney went on, "this may be puttin' you in an embarrassin' position...though that's what big brothers are supposed to do to their little sisters," [laughter rose from the circle], "but we'd be honored if you'd say the blessing over the food." Bunnie looked to her mother, who whispered something to her. "Blessing?" Sonic whispered to Sally, who simply shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it's been a while, but...shore." Roonie then handed Bunnie a large, round loaf of bread and sat back down. Bunnie then began walking around the circle, breaking off pieces of bread and handing them to members of her family as well as to the Freedom Fighters. Sally managed to prevent Sonic from swallowing his piece right away as she noticed that nobody else was eating theirs. Finally, Bunnie returned to her spot and held what was left of the loaf above her head. "The Precept is written," she said: "'Let no Mobian among you know hunger, for to share food is to share love.'" "To share food is to share love," the others repeated, as those with pieces of the bread exchanged their pieces with those seated next to them. Sonic looked to one side and saw Sawyer and Tails exchanging pieces. This meant that Sonic and Sally were meant to exchange theirs; both of them blushed slightly as they did so while repeating the words. With the blessing pronounced, everyone began eating. "That was a beautiful ceremony, Bunnie," Sally said above the sounds of eating and conversation. "Did you always do that at home?" "Uh-huh, though Ah clean forgot all about it once we went to Knothole." "It's how we live here," Percy spoke up, addressing Princess Sally. "With Robotnik out there, it don't seem right to be at odds with one another. We live simply, according to the Tomes and the Precepts, and we live at peace with each other." "Mostly," one member of the family said under his breath. It was a buck deer named Brandon, Percy's oldest son and Brianna's twin brother. He had an interest in communications technology that predated Robotnik's takeover, and he and Rotor were already on the way to becoming fast friends. The same was true for Antoine and Roonie. Antoine had been feeling out of his element in The Cove until he found Roonie happily juggling the details of the feast being prepared in Bunnie's honor. Whereas Antoine might have been more fastidious about the dinner arrangements, Roonie seemed to thrive on the chaos. Yet their shared appreciation of food and its preparation forged a bond between Antoine and the easygoing Roonie. It was when Bunnie's siblings began to ask about what had happened to her during the years she had been gone that Sawyer began gathering together a large plate of food, even though he had eaten a good share of it already. "You still hungry?" Tails asked. "Nah. I just wanna take something to Gearbox. Is that OK?" he asked his mother. "Don't you think it would be rude to walk out on your sister?" "I know what she's gonna say; I heard it back in Knothole. Please?" Deirdre sighed. "I suppose...." Sawyer was on his feet before his mother could finish talking. "Sawyer," his father said, "Ah don't want you stayin' away too long, now." "I won't," he answered, with more than a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Tails, you wanna come along?" "OK." The two boys left, with Sawyer carrying a plate piled indiscriminately with foods hot and cold, sweet and savory, dry and moist. Tails followed close by as they entered the dark woods. "Maybe we should go back and get a flashlight or something," Tails spoke up. "Just follow me; it's not too far away and I know every step." "It's a good thing one of us does," Tails thought to himself. Somehow, the forest surrounding The Cove was even darker at night than the Great Forest. But that's probably because it's all new to him, he told himself. Suddenly there was a slight rustle in the trees above the boys. Before Tails could even look up, something swooped down from the trees and a tall, dark figure loomed before him. Tails yelped in fright and fell backwards onto the forest floor, the pine needles carpeting the ground breaking his fall. It was Gearbox. He sized up Tails at a glance and turned away. "Hi, Gearbox!" Sawyer said brightly. "I brought you something from the party." "What's the occasion?" he said as he took the plate from Sawyer, sat down cross-legged on the ground, and began shoveling food into his mouth with his gloved hand. "The ones who brought me back here, one of them's my sister, Bunnie." "No spraint?" he said with his mouth full. "Yeah! I got as far as Knothole, and they're all freedom fighters. So's Tails," he said as he nodded toward the fox cub who had gotten back up and dusted himself off. "Uh, hi," Tails said hesitantly. Gearbox more or less grunted in reply and kept on eating. "Sonic's like their leader--he's the hedgehog. And Princess Sally is in the group, too." Gearbox suddenly stopped eating and swallowed. He slowly wiped his mouth on the back of his glove, looking intently at Tails through narrowed eyed. "You better get back before your folks start worrying about you," he said to Sawyer. "That's be a switch," Sawyer replied sarcastically. "Hey, I saw them while you were gone; believe me, you had 'em worried sick." "I did?" Sawyer ask, genuinely surprised. "Yeah. Now go on, haul ass." "OK. See ya." Sawyer turned to go. Tails, however, found himself frozen to the spot by fear and fascination. He couldn't take his eyes off Gearbox. "What the yiff are YOU starin' at?" he barked angrily at Tails. Immediately Tails turned and scrambled to catch up with Sawyer, who was walking confidently through the forest back toward the revelers. "Wow! My folks really MISSED me!" "Sawyer, about Gearbox...." "Come on, I'll race ya!" he said as be broke into a run. Tails revved up and flew forward until he was abreast of the young buck. By the time the boys returned to the group, Bunnie had finished her account and was answering questions about what it was like to be partially roboticized. Some of these same questions had occurred to the Freedom Fighters, but they had thought it best not to ask out of respect for Bunnie's sense of dignity. Yet some of the younger residents of The Cove, especially Heather, showed no hesitation whatsoever. And Bunnie, more at ease than Sally had seen her in a long time, answered the questions as they came to her. Yes, they used to itch but she'd gotten used to them. No, she couldn't feel things with her robotic hand in the way she could with her other hand. And it's none of your dang business HOW she went to the bathroom! Sally had hoped that at some point she and Sonic would be asked about being Freedom Fighters, but The Cove residents seemed generally disinterested in them. The Princess told herself that this was really Bunnie's night and that there would be time enough to bring up the subject--Nicole had confirmed that the next scheduled train heading back for Robotropolis wasn't due for another five days. Still, Sally got the sense that fighting against Robotnik was a subject that was being avoided. Instead, as the moon rose slowly in the evening sky and the wind set the pine trees to sighing nostalgically, the residents of The Cove began singing. There were no instruments--only the occasional clapping of hands to keep time. Clearly, with the exception of Lindsey (who had planned to study voice before Robotnik took over) none of the residents was anything like a trained singer. It didn't matter. The purpose was not to make an artistic impression but to enjoy the music and the company. All voices were welcome. Even Antoine, who fancied himself to be quite a singer but whose delivery left something to be desired, wasn't faulted for joining in. The songs were mostly old ones that had come into and passed out of fashion long before the Freedom Fighters were even born. Yet they were dusted off and sung from memory, no matter how faulty that memory might turn out to be. If a singer faltered and forgot the lyrics halfway through, he was as much as encouraged to make up his own words. The spirits of everyone present rose like sparks being carried skyward from a campfire as the group sang the old songs. These were simple memories of past days, remembrances of childhood, or simply old jokes set to music. But most of the songs were old love songs. The Freedom Fighters had only heard Rosie or Julayla sing one or two of them, but the women hadn't sung them often. Here, surrounded by couples and families, it was easier to sing of the days when feelings were awakened and souls were knit together. The songs, with titles such as "Sweet Blossom" and "You Flew To Me," wove their gentle iron spell as they were sung. Couples, no matter how old they were, found themselves gazing into the eyes of their mates with full and happy hearts and it was as if they were young lovers once again. Small children, sensing the goodwill surrounding them, fell asleep leaning into their parents' side or with their heads resting in their parent's laps. The songs grew slower and quieter as the moon sent shadows across the ground. And when the last song of the evening, "More Than Words Can Tell," was sung, it was like a benediction. The residents of The Cove began going their separate ways. Sonic and Tails followed Sawyer to his hut while Antoine accepted Rooney's invitation to share his hut and Rotor accompanied Brandon. Sally and Bunnie were on the verge of re-entering the guest hut when Bunnie stopped. Sally didn't think it was possible for any Mobian to smile as much as Bunnie had smiled that evening, yet Bunnie's smile got broader still as she paused to listen. Within the main hut, Deirdre was putting Hope and Connie to bed, and had started singing a lullaby, "There Is A Road," that Bunnie remembered from her own cradle days. She joined her mother in singing three choruses of the song as the twins drifted off to sleep (Connie with more difficulty). Then Sally and Bunnie finally retired to the guest hut, where Bunnie sat on the bed. "Do me a favor, Sally-girl." "What?" "Tell me Ah ain't dreamin'!" "This isn't a dream, Bunnie," she said as she sat down next to Bunnie and took her by the hands. "And I'm really happy for you." "There's so much about mah family that's comin' back to me now, stuff Ah thought Ah'd forgotten. Everybody's gotten way older than Ah remember, of course, but except for that it's like they ain't changed a lick!" "We'd better go to bed," she said softly. "We don't want to wake up your baby sisters in the next hut." "Ah didn't want to believe it could ever happen!" she said excitedly as she stood up again. "Ah mean, how'd everyone get up here?" "I'm sure your parents will tell you all about it in the morning. Right now, we should get some sleep ourselves." With that, Sally walked to an old chest of drawers that stood against one wall. "Deirdre said we could go through here if we needed any...." Sally's voice trailed off. "Any what?" "Well, I looked through this dresser and I couldn't find any sleepwear: no nightgowns or pajamas or...." Bunnie began to chuckle. "What's so funny?" "You ain't gonna find any." "Why not?" "Ah just remembered something else about mah family," she said with a grin. "Everybody sleeps in the raw!" Sally nodded. "I see," she said. This ran against the way Rosie had brought her up, when she had learned from her earliest days the kind of modesty and decorum expected of a member of Mobian royalty. It was a deeply-ingrained habit, one she had to consciously fight against as she slipped out of her boots and vest and got into bed next to Bunnie. For all her excitement, Bunnie dropped off to sleep surprisingly quickly. Perhaps it was from the feeling that she was "back home" in this place with her family, Sally told herself as she lay wide awake in bed. Sally immediately tried to push the thought from her mind. This WASN'T Bunnie's home, she told herself. Knothole had been their ONLY home ever since Robotnik had taken over. Bunnie HAD to remember that. If she didn't, if Bunnie started thinking of THIS as her home.... Sally's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a whimper from the main hut, a whimper that soon developed into a cry. One of the babies had awakened. She glanced toward Bunnie, who seemed not to have been awakened by it. Then she heard someone walking across the floor in the next hut. It was Percy, who began speaking softly to someone, probably the baby. Unable to resist the temptation, Sally slipped out of bed and edged toward the curtained entrance to hear better. By the time she reached the curtain, the crying had stopped and she could hear Percy getting back in bed. "Connie?" Deirdre asked softly. "Uh-huh," Percy whispered back. "Anything wrong?" "No. Ah reckon she just needed a cuddle." "I'll bet she's not the only one." Sally could hear the grin in Deirdre's voice. "C'mere, Farm Boy." Sally listened uncomfortably as the two moved around in bed. She could only allow herself to imagine them settling into one another's arms. "You happy?" Dierdre finally asked. "Dee, this has to be one of the happiest days of mah life." "I know. I wish it could go on forever." "Maybe..." "What?" "Maybe we can stretch it a little bit." "Tell me in the morning, Farm Boy." For a moment, Sally thought that they'd stopped talking. Then she thought she could hear the soft, moist, smacking sound of lips coming together repeatedly. Sally stole back across the room and slipped back into the bed as Bunnie slept on. * * * Of all the aspects of Mobian society ever studied by an outsider, their rules about clothing and dress seemed to be the most incomprehensible. The simple prejudice of the Overlanders led them to declare that the Mobians were too primitive to understand the concept; that was one of many underestimations that caused so much ruin for the Overlanders during the Great War. But there were rules regarding clothing and dress, unwritten though they were. Clothing served a social function; it indicated rank and standing in some instances. It also indicated one's social role. Then there were the utilitarian uses for clothing: it kept out the damp and the cold in bad weather when fur wasn't equal to the task. In fact, to Mobians their rules concerning dress made perfect sense even when it appeared to be inconsistent to an outsider. This was mainly due to the fact that only in one respect Mobians differed from many other species: they had no sense of bodily shame. To say that a Mobian was naked at any given time made no more impact than saying that water was wet. So it was no real surprise when, early in the morning, Sally was just waking up when an unadorned Deirdre entered the guest room. "Good morning, Princess," she said softly. "Please, 'Sally' is fine." "Is that you, Mama?" Bunnie said sleepily as she stretched. "Good morning, dear," she said as she hugged her daughter and kissed her on the cheek. "Did you sleep well?" "Uh-huh." "Good. We'll have breakfast as soon as I tend to the babies." With that, she removed a small stack of clean diapers that had been on the top of the dresser, and left. "Ah always hoped Ah'd take after her," Bunnie sighed. "What do you mean?" Sally asked as she pulled on her boots. "Ah remember even when Ah was little, Ah always thought she had a beautiful body." "It still is. And you look nice, too." "Yeah, what Robotnik didn't take and ruin." "Let's forget about him," she said as she put on her vest. "I wonder how Sonic and Tails are doing." Sonic, Tails, and Sawyer were late in getting out of bed. They had spent the night talking in excited whispers about the events of the day. To Sonic's consternation, Sawyer had much to say about Gearbox and all of it admiring. Still, it was all Sonic could do to remind himself that this was Sawyer's friend, no matter what he himself might think of the hyena. Breakfast, as provided by Roonie, was simple but satisfying. Tails asked Sawyer how come he hadn't recognized Bunnie to be his sister. "How COULD I? The only picture of her I've ever seen was from when she was like three years old. That's it up there." The Knothole Freedom Fighters went to take a look at an aged piece of drawing paper tacked to the wall of the hut. While the Freedom Fighters had their own memories of Bunnie as a child, it didn't quite prepare them for the drawing. It showed Percy smiling and holding a young Bunnie horizontally at about chest height, as if she were a fish he had just caught. Each wore a smile and nothing else. "Who did that drawing?" Sally asked. "It's very good." "Guilty," Deidre spoke up as she continued to breastfeed Connie. "Oh, yeah," Bunnie spoke up. "Mama's an artist. Do you still draw?" "Not really," Sawyer began. "There's time enough to talk about that," Deirdre said as nonchalantly as possible. Sally could tell from her tone of voice that the topic was a sore point. Percy then began to lead the visitors from Knothole on a tour of The Cove. They were joined by Deirdre, who had left the twins in the care of Brianna. "Bunnie honey," Percy said, "you remember this place, don't you?" "Now that you mention it, there's SOMETHIN' about this place that's been gnawin' at me, but Ah cain't remember what." "Ah'll give you a hint. Family vacation. You were three years old..." "Oh may stars! So THAT'S why this place is called 'The Cove'." "Why?" Sally asked. "What is it?" "This here place used to be a resort, Sally-girl. There were cottages all along here somewhere." "'Used to be,' like you said, Bunnie-honey. A lot of them were fallin' apart when we got here, and we pretty much tore what was left of 'em down so's the place would be harder to spot from the air. Y'all remember that spot?" he said as he pointed to a low, irregular wall with a large table of dark wood on the other side. "Nuh-uh." "That's where we stayed as a family for three weeks. That table's the only stick of furniture left from the place." He walked over to it, stepping over the low wall and onto the flooring. "This here was the dining room, the kitchen was just through yonder, and the bedrooms used to be upstairs. Now there ain't even an upstairs no more." He sat down on one of the eight mismatched chairs that surrounded the large table. "We still use this table, but for meetings mostly." "What kind of meetings?" Sally asked. "Mostly business havin' to do with The Cove. Someone has a problem, we meet here and try to figure out how to solve it. Of course," he added with a grin, "the biggest problem we had thirteen years ago was tyin' Bunnie down. She was havin' so much fun we could hardly get her to hold still for two minutes at a stretch." "That's when you did the drawing!" Bunnie exclaimed as she looked at Dierdre. "Yep. That stretch of beach is still there, though now we don't hardly go there." "Daddy, Mama," Bunnie asked, "how did you all get here? What was it like?" Percy said nothing, and just looked at his folded hands resting on the table. "Daddy?" Bunnie repeated. "Oh, Ah heard you well enough, Bunnie-honey. It's just that...well, you're askin' me to remember somethin' Ah wish Ah could forget." "That was a bogus day for all of us," Sonic said forcefully. "If you don't want to talk about it..." Sally began. "No, no. Bunnie wants to know how we got here, and Ah reckon Ah'm the one to tell the story. "It started like a plain ol' day. First thing was Ah drove Bunnie to the palace and dropped her off with Miz Rosie. How is she, anyway?" "Rosie's still Rosie," Sonic volunteered. "She was a mighty fine person, even back then. Ah'm glad she got away. Anyway, after Ah dropped off Bunnie Ah drove Roonie to his junior high school. It was the last day of class before summer break and he had to clear out his locker. "We got there and there were all kind of kids millin' around outside. It didn't look like they were enjoyin' themselves, though. Ah figured somethin' was wrong. Before Ah could get out and talk to anyone, though, one of the other parents...Ah'd never met him before...came by and said that the school was locked up and somethin' was goin' on back in the heart of town, at the palace. "That's when Ah looked and...Ah've seen some ugly things in mah time, mostly from openin' folks up and takin' a look to see what's wrong with 'em. But weren't nothin' uglier than what Ah saw happen to the palace. Mah first idea was to go back and get Bunnie, but it was too late. Folks were streamin' away from the center of Mobitropolis, and there was no way Ah could fight against them. It would've been like swimmin' upstream. Then we heard about how police bots -- SWATbots they called 'em -- were arrestin' everyone they saw. Ah took Roonie back home quick. There weren't nothin' but silence on the radio; Ah knew that wasn't good. "We got home; the twins--Brianna and Brandon--had been home from their first year in college for a week already, and Lindsey was off of high school. Ah told everyone to head for the storm cellar, then Ah drove our van and parked it a couple doors down from where we lived before joinin' everyone else. "We didn't have much time before the SWATbots showed up. We could hear 'em smashin' every blessed thing they could upstairs above us. To this day Ah don't know why they didn't find us. But they moved on quick like. Guess they had orders to round up as many Mobians as they could and they weren't programmed to waste time lookin' in every corner. We sat it out." "That must've been awful," Bunnie said. "It was," Deidre said quietly. "Yeah, well, you came through it OK," Percy said to Deirdre as he reached over and took hold of one of her hands. "Don't try to con them," she replied, then she turned to Bunnie. "I was a basket case. "When I saw your father and Roonie come back without you, I asked where you were. It was only once we were in the cellar and just before the SWATbots arrived that he told me what he had seen and heard. Right away I wanted to go look for you, on foot if I had to. But your father...the look on his face told me that.... "I didn't know what had happened to you, and later, when we heard War Minister Julian on the radio ordering everyone to surrender in order to facilitate being roboticized, it was more than I could handle. I was convinced that there was no reason he'd want to roboticize a five-year-old. I began screaming and pounding the ground; I didn't care whether the SWATbots could hear me or not. I believed you were dead, and I wished at that moment that I'd died with you." "Oh, Mama," Bunnie said with a wavering voice, "Ah didn't know you believed that. But everyone else was there, Roonie and Lindsey and the twins." Deidre paused to wipe her eyes, and she took her daughter's hand. "That's what Farm Boy said too, but not until later. But he didn't understand, and you won't really understand either until you become a mother yourself. When you lose a child, that haunts you. For always." "We waited it out until night," Percy continued, "then Ah went out to look at what was left. The SWATbots had smashed up the place real good before they moved on. It looked like the rest of our street was deserted. We knew we couldn't stay where we were, so we each got what we could salvage and we left. "We didn't know where to go at first--Ah was just drivin' with no headlights and watchin' for SWATbots. Then Ah remembered The Cove. We'd decided on it for a vacation because it was so isolated. So Ah headed for it. Ah ditched our van and we ended up walkin' the last ten miles. "The couple who ran the place was still there, still tryin' to make a go of it...." "Ah remember them, Daddy! What were their names?" "Louie and Ramona. They'd set up The Cove to run it during their retirement, but when they heard about Robotnik they took us in along with some others who knew of the place. They never turned nobody away." "Are they still here, Daddy?" "'Fraid not, Bunnie-honey," he sighed. "Louie's heart gave out about a year later; dealin' with the sand was just too much for him. And Miz Ramona passed on a couple years ago. She was real bad toward the end--more things wrong with her than even AH thought possible. But she was spunky right up to the end. She always said that so long as Robotnik never got to her, she considered herself ahead of the game." He paused. "We kind of owe those two our lives. "Anyway, we commenced to settin' up a community here. Ah looked after the sick, and Brianna helped me." "That was no surprise," Deirdre spoke up. "She's always been devoted to you, and was a premed at college before we came here." "Yeah, Ah was hopin' she'd learn medicine same as Ah did." "Where did you study medicine?" Sally asked. "Ah learned from MAMA." "Your mom was a doctor?" Sonic asked. "Cool!" Percy broke into a broad smile. "Gotcha! Ah went to the Mobian Academy of Medical Arts. M-A-M-A." "You just made his day," Dierdre said to Sonic with a grin. "He's waited for years for someone to feed him that straight line." "Well, mah mama DID want me to be a doctor; it was 'bout all we agreed on. Mah daddy...mah REAL daddy...made his fortune in retailin'. Reckon that's what killed him. By the time Ah went off to med school, mama was on her third husband. She thought havin' a doctor in the family would be some kind of status thing. She even started insistin' we pronounce our family name 'Rab-BOW.'" Percy chuckled and shook his head. "Ah was glad to get away from all them stuffed shirts she was tryin' to impress." "What's going on?" someone asked from close by. "Hey, Roonie!" Bunnie called out. "Daddy was just givin' us a tour of The Cove." "So what do you think of this here hole in the wall, Princess?" "I'm sorry," Sally said, "what did you say?" "Sal, you OK?" Sonic asked. "I...I guess I'm a little preoccupied. I'm still thinking about what happened back in Robotropolis: about why Robotnik converted that factory and what he could want with that 'green iron'." "Lighten, up, Sal! This is Bunnie's home turf. Besides, this used to be a resort so maybe we should kick back and chill." "Besides," Roonie spoke up, "what difference does it make how Robotnik garnishes his food?" The Freedom Fighters stared at Roonie. "You better hit the rewind," Sonic said, "Sal was talking about this 'green iron' stuff." "Ah know she was. And 'green iron' is an old name for a kind of Mobian grountnut." "It is?" Sally asked. "Ah may not know everything but Ah know that much. Come on back to the lab and Ah'll show you all." "The lab" was a hut attached to Roonie's. The group passed through his own hut, which showed the casual housekeeping of a batchelor, and into what looked more like a kitchen than anything else. There appeared to be some order amid the piles of dirty pots and pans that covered the counters and filled the sink, but it was probably a system known only to Roonie. Sonic paused in the doorway as a familiar scent caught his nose. "Whoa, check it out! Smells like you got some chili on the stove." "Close," Roonie chuckled. He uncovered one pot and let the cloud of steam drift up past his head. "Ah'm just cookin' down some pepper pods." He stirred the contents of the pot, bringing some long, lime green pods to the surface. "I tried those in a batch of chili once; even I couldn't handle 'em!" "No Mobian with a tongue in his head can stand 'em, Sonic. But you just have to boil 'em for an hour or so--a little less if you still want 'em to have a kick. Now let me get that book." He replaced the lid on the pot, then walked over to a low bookcase where some old volumes lay on their sides. "Have to be careful with these," he said as he slowly extracted one book from the center of a pile. "All these went out of print years ago." "Where'd you get them all?" Tails asked. "Found a few, bought some others, mah folks gave me that long red one as a birthday present once. The rest Ah scrounged when folks just threw 'em away. Now let's see here." He opened the book slowly, the spine snapping like a dried branch. Roonie winced at the sound, then slowly began turning pages. "Ah've looked through these volumes enough Ah've practically got...here it is." He elbowed a large kettle into a pile of mixing bowls and laid the open book on the counter. The Freedom Fighters gathered around. "'Marsh Nut,'" Sally read out loud, "'Genus _Zenichius_, species _aquus_. Also known as 'Marsh Granite' and 'Green Iron'." She reached for her palmtop computer. "Nicole, find information on marsh nuts." "SCANNING, SALLY. ONLY INFORMATION AVAILABLE LISTS THE MARSH NUT AS BEING POSSIBLY EXTINCT." "Is there any information on either 'Marsh Granite' or 'Green Iron'?" "NEGATIVE, SALLY." "Man, this is a first!" Sonic said as Sally replaced Nicole in the top of her boot. "Yeah," Tails said, "I thought Nicole knew everything!" "Computers only know what folks tell 'em," Roonie spoke up. "So what's the deal with this 'Green Iron'?" Sonic asked. "Oui. Whyfore it is call-ed that?" "It's green because that's the color of the nut when it's ripe, and it's iron because the cell structure of the nut shell is so tight you need several thousand pounds per square centimeter of pressure to even crack the thing. They're worse than coconuts to get open." "How big are they?" Sally asked. "Not all that big; maybe the size of a marble." "Sonic," Sally began. "Yeah! That roller Sawyer was talking about. That must be part of some mega mondo nutcracker!" "Is what is to be found inside worth the effort?" Antoine asked. "Folks used to think so, Antoine," Roonie said as he turned away from the book. It was clear that he was speaking from memory. "The nut itself had a real strong scent. It says here that the folks who tasted it said it smelled kinda like gasoline. Kind of an alcohol smell that took a while to evaporate. But if you cooked the nut meat it sorta turned to paste--no aroma, no real flavor either. The raw nut used to be chopped up and added to foods for flavoring, but only as a raw garnish. It was supposed to really liven up a bowl of chili." "Now you're talking!" Sonic said. "That's something I gotta try! Where can we find some?" "Sonic," Sally said patiently, "they're supposed to be extinct, remember?" "'Fraid your computer's mistaken again, Sally. Marsh nuts are a real bear to grow. You cain't cultivate them indoors and growing conditions have to be just right for the nuts to ripen; otherwise they just shrivel up until the next growing season." He leaned back against the counter. "But they ain't extinct. Not yet, anyway." "How do you know?" "Ah found a patch two years ago. It's a good piece from here, maybe twenty miles. Big old patch covering an entire bog." "Do you think you could find that place again?" "Uh-huh. Ah took a walking tour out in those parts. That's how Ah take a vacation from The Cove: just get out and walk for a couple days." "Do you have a map of where it is?" "No, but Ah made some notes of where Ah walked--landmarks and such. Ah'll get 'em from mah hut." With that, he walked into the next hut and began rummaging around. "I am not to be getting it. We are still not knowing what it is that Robotnique is wanting with these grounded nuts." "Yeah, Sal. I figure Buttnik will eat just about anything, but..." "Got mah notes, Princess," Roonie said as he re-entered the lab. "Don't have a map, though." "Don't worry about that, I do," she said as she once more grabbed her computer. "Nicole, display map of the region surrounding The Cove, radius of thirty miles." The image appeared hovering in mid-air. Roonie's eyes went wide and he gave a low whistle. "Now don't that beat all!" "OK, Roonie, where was the bog located?" "Lemme see here," he said as he read his handwriting. "Ah went northeast, then east a bit...Ah figure right about...there." He pointed to a spot on the holographic projection. "Howcome it's all in red?" Sawyer asked. "Whatever's in red," Sally said solemnly, "is land that's been occupied by Robotnik." Everyone exchanged nervous glances. "Looks like he knows about the bog," Rotor said. "But Ah was just there two years ago!" "This is more recent data, Roonie, less than a year old. Robotnik's expanded his territory since then. And it looks like he's within ten miles of The Cove." "Guess Ah owe Miz Nicole an apology." "But Sally-girl," Bunnie said, "we still don't know what the hoo-ha Robotnik wants with them nuts." "Nicole, display schematic of SWATbot Factory Number Two." The map slowly dissolved and a technical diagram took its place. "This is the plant that Robotnik recently renovated," Rotor spoke up. "I'm not sure what this is supposed to be," he said as he pointed to one area. "Ah know," Roonie said quietly. "That looks like a cold extraction unit." "What's THAT do?" Sonic asked. "Remember mah sayin' that when you cooked marsh nuts they go flat on you? Robotnik set this up to get something out of them nuts without havin' to cook em." "But we're back to WHAT he wants to extract!" Sonic spoke up. "Hang on," Percy said, "Roonie, let me see that book of yours." He walked over to the book and studied the page. Turning to the next page, he looked at the tables and chemical formulae he found there. "Is there a list of chemicals in that database, stuff that Robotnik was goin' to use?" "Nicole, find inventory of supplies." The text floated off to the side of the diagram, and Percy returned to studying the page. It was clear that he was working out the kinds and amounts of chemicals listed in his head. He looked at the page again, tracing under one line with his finger. Nobody said anything as he read. When he looked up, he seemed to have paled. "Yo, Doc, bad news?" "Yeah, Sonic," he said in a low voice. "Real bad." "Daddy, what is it?" "One of the chemicals that make up marsh nuts...this one here...it cain't hurt you if you eat it as part of the nut. But if this here recipe of Robotnik's is real and he's found a way to extract this substance...." "What?" "Any of you all ever heard of 'stardust'?" "Wait a minute," Rotor said in a hushed voice. "Wasn't that some kind of poison gas?" "Uh-huh. Ah learned about it in a seminar on toxins. Real bad stuff. It was used in a war a couple hundred years back. One drop no bigger than a pinhead could reduce someone's nervous system to jelly -- liquify every blessed nerve and brain cell. It could enter a pore or be inhaled without someone even knowin'...until they started dyin'." Antoine swallowed hard. "That stuff was so awful that when they seen what it did to folks both sides agreed to neutralize the stocks they had and to stop producin' any more. And they were glad to do it. But it looks like Robotnik rediscovered the recipe. And he's realized that one of the chemical components found in marsh nuts is the catalyst that makes it all work. If Ah'm right about the size of that plant based on the diagram, he could make enough of that stuff to...." He let the sentence go unfinished. "Oh my gosh," Sally whispered. "This is the most monstrous thing Robotnik's ever planned!" "Yeah, well, we're gonna take him down! When's the next train back to Knothole?" "Nicole," Sally said, "when's the next scheduled train back to Robotropolis?" "NEXT SCHEDULED TRAIN WILL PASS BY THE COVE IN FOUR DAYS' TIME." "Bogus. Any other ideas, Sal?" Sonic asked. "It looks like Robotnik is depending on those ground nuts to make his plan work. That means we have to find them before he does and destroy the crop." "That's not a bad idea," Roonie spoke up. "I cain't think of anywhere else he'd find em." "You think they might still be there?" "There's a pretty good chance they are. It rained here about three days ago and that retards the ripening process. And if Robotnik harvests them too soon, they'll never ripen at all." "Why doesn't he just synthesize the catalyst?" Rotor asked. "Synthetic versions of the chemical have never been successfully produced," Percy replied. "The stuff's so complex that it won't stay stable. He's gotta use the natural nut extract and he's gotta process 'em the same day he picks 'em." "So what're we waiting for?" Sonic asked. "Roonie," Sally asked, "how far is it to where you saw the nuts?" "'Bout twenty miles." "Uh, Sally..." Rotor started to say. "I know, Rotor. You're not up to traveling that far. You'd better stay back here." "Ah hate to say this, Sally-girl, but if we have to walk through sand Ah'm afraid Ah'll just slow you all down." "So how many will be going?" Roonie asked. "Ah know the way, and you all probably cain't read mah notes, so Ah know Ah'm goin'." "The hedgehog is there!" Sonic announced. "And me," Sally spoke up. "And I shall be accomplicing you to protect your personage," Antoine said rather grandly. Sonic rolled his eyes. "Me, too?" Tails asked. "Wouldn't have it any other way, big guy." "How about me?" Sawyer asked. "Uh, I don't know..." Sonic began. "Ah think it's a good idea," Roonie spoke up. "He knows these parts, too, and we could use the extra pair of eyes. Besides, he probably won't know what to do with himself with Tails gone." "I guess he's in," Sally said. "All right!" Tails said as the boys high-fived each other. "It's be too late to start by the time Ah put some provisions together. We'll head out first thing in the mornin'." As Roonie began taking stock of what was available, the others began leaving the hut. Sally and Rotor walked toward the edge of The Cove. "Rotor, do you think they're right?" "I don't know, Sally; the two of them together know a lot more chemistry than I do. And I didn't know that the one sub- unit was a cold extractor until Roonie explained what it was. We've got to assume they're right about what Robotnik has in mind." "I just wish I knew whether they were on our side." "Why do you say that, Sally?" "I don't know, it's just a feeling I have. Like they know what we're doing but they'd rather not get involved themselves." Rotor looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. "As a matter of fact," he said as he lowered his voice, "I don't think there IS a consensus. "I talked with Brandon about it last night. The Cove is sort of divided into two factions. One group thinks that they ought to do something about Robotnik and how he's trashing Mobius. Roonie's the spokesman for that group. Not only that, but he also cooks up the stuff that goes inside those glass marbles that Sawyer shoots. But Brandon goes along with his father and believes that it's best to stay out of Robotnik's way and live peacefully according to the Tomes. They haven't made a big deal out of it because they haven't had to...at least, not until we showed up." "I didn't think our being here would cause trouble." "Maybe this business with the ground nuts will convince them that Robotnik is serious and NEEDS to be dealt with." Meanwhile Bunnie had silently accompanied her mother back to her parents' hut. Neither spoke of what had been said of Robotnik and his scheme. As Deidre climbed the steps to the door of the hut, Bunnie paused. From where she stood she could see another hut set several yards behind the main hut. Nobody had taken pains to point it out to her or to any of the other Freedom Fighters. She slowly walked toward it. The front, where the doorway should have been, was covered over by a solid wooden door that had probably been salvaged from the old house where they'd just come from. She moved it aside and stepped into the darkened hut. At first Bunnie thought she was inside some kind of storage shed, for boxes of some kind seemed to line the walls. The smell of dust was in the air along with another scent, one that seemed familiar yet as elusive as a memory. As her eyes became adjusted to the gloom she saw something on a low table, something covered with a sheet. She lifted it up slowly. Beneath it stood a bust, a bust of a young doe. It had been cast in a bronze-like substance that gave off a dull glow. Even in the dim light of the hut there was a fire, an intensity, about the piece, a fire that radiated from within. The doe's expression summed up everything a youth could feel and with all the intensity of youth: anger, joy, defiance at the whole world. It was reflected in the look in her eyes, the set of her jaw, the swirl of her hair, the posture of her breasts. It was alive with technique and emotion. Bunnie smiled. She dimly remembered this piece from their old house. It was a self-portrait by her mother. It had stood in the studio at the back of the house, which Percy had built so Deirdre could continue drawing and sculpting. Now Bunnie realized what she was smelling: the oily, heady scent of clay. Nearby, she saw something else, another sculpture, from the look of it. It, too, was covered with a cloth. She lifted the cloth up. She gasped. What she saw were a pair of hands in clay, seeming to emerge from a low wooden slab painted a glossy black. They were small hands, like a child's hands. They seemed to be reaching out with a sense of pleading, almost of desperation. Bunnie had never seen her mother work on anything like this. She started to reach toward the hands. "What do you think?" Bunnie jumped and gave a short scream, then turned toward the doorway. "Mama, you 'bout scared me outta mah skin!" Deirdre walked into the hut and picked up the sheet as if to cover up the sculpture again, then paused. "For the first month we were here, I had the most horrible nightmares. They were about...about losing you. It got so bad I couldn't do a thing. I didn't want to eat, I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to see anyone. Your father, bless his heart, tried everything he could think of. Finally he suggested that I draw or sculpt it out. And there it is. "A lot of my dreams had you vanishing or being swallowed up by Mobius itself. And I couldn't...." She stopped speaking, running one hand across her face. "So I made that. And the dreams stopped. But so did something else." She slowly ran one hand across the glossy black surface that reflected the pair of hands. "Sawyer was right; I haven't picked up a pencil and paper or a piece of clay since then. Some of those boxes back there contain my old sketchbooks going back to before I met your father. I haven't even wanted to look at them. Farm Boy's kept this place up as best he could, coming in here to dust it every now and then, hoping I'll start producing again. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe that's what this is about," she said as she gently touched one of the hands. "It's about me losing my ability to create...." "Mama, Ah never dreamed...." "Hey," Deirdre said with a forced and false cheerfulness, "you didn't come all this way to listen to me talk about my artist's block." She replaced the sheet on the scuplture. "Let's get out of here." That evening, the Freedom Fighters who were going to accompany Roonie to the site where he'd found the groundnuts retired early. It was difficult for Sonic to drop off, because Sawyer and Tails talked excitedly about what was going to happen. "I haven't been there myself," Sawyer said, "but Roonie told me all about the land between here and there when he found the place two years ago. It's not too different from here: pretty sandy but not as much. Kinda swampy in spots, too. He says that's why the rail line doesn't go through there -- if they'd tried, the tracks would be under water." "You think there's quicksand there?" Tails asked. "Yeah, but don't worry about it. Gearbox taught me how to get out of it if you fall in. What you gotta do is...." "Yo, guys," Sonic said, "save it for when we're on the trail tomorrow." "OK. G'night, Sawyer. G'night, Sonic." "Back atcha, big guy," Sonic replied, glad that he didn't have to hear any more about Gearbox. Sonic was asleep so soon and slept so deeply that the next thing he knew, someone was shaking his shoulder. "Let's go, Sonic. We're burnin' daylight here." "Roonie? Man, what time is it?" "'Taint quite dawn yet, but everyone else's ready to go. Our escort figured we'd better get an early start." "Escort?" Sonic asked as he pulled on his sneakers. "Uh-huh. See you outside." Roonie left the hut as Sonic finished lacing up. He stepped outside and his heart sank. For standing near the steps to the hut, along with Sally and Roonie and Sawyer and Antoine and Tails, was the "escort" Roonie had mentioned. He tossed a small knapsack filled with provisions a little too vigorously at Sonic, who managed to catch it. He then turned up one corner of his mouth in a smirk and planted a boot on the bottom step. "About time you got your yiffin' ass out of bed." * * * The group that set out from The Cove didn't change their order of march very much. Gearbox, wearing his arm sling across his back, and Roonie were usually at the head of the group with Roonie consulting his notes and indicating the direction of the journey. The two boys, Sawyer and Tails, followed close by. Like Gearbox, Sawyer had brought his sling along as well. Antoine, Sally and Sonic brought up the rear. Each of them carried a small backpack filled with three days' food prepared by Roonie. It was the kind that didn't require elaborate preparations. The most important thing, everyone knew, was to make time. The group crossed the railroad track and stepped into the forest on the other side. It too was dense with pine trees and afforded cover from the air. Where the forest was dense it also gave the group a chance to walk on something other than sand: a thick carpet of dead pine needles that muffled their footsteps and lent an almost cathedral-like solemnity to their surroundings. The feeling was so deep and profound that even the boys stopped talking for a while as the silence seemed to bear them along. After several hours travel over hilly terrain and with one or two minor changes in direction, the group had gone about six miles. Sonic was in a particularly foul mood. He'd have preferred to simply juice it, to run instead of walk. But he was in unfamiliar terrain and not in the Great Forest that he knew so well. Besides, he also knew that they were soon to be entering a part of Mobius under Robotnik's control, and he didn't know what to expect. So his nerves were strained and he was actually weary when the group broke for lunch. Gearbox excused himself to "recon up ahead" and as the boys sat down to eat by themselves, Roonie joined the others from Knothole. "Man, who invited Gearbox?" Sonic asked, clearly annoyed. "Oui, he is the most distressing personage." "Well, " Roonie said, "whatever else he may be, he knows his way around, and he's quiet as a cat, too." "How did he even become part of The Cove?" Sally asked. "Seems to me like he'd be the last one to fit in." "You got that right, Princess. He's still a pretty poor fit, but he was a sight worse when he first showed up." "When was that?" "Must be about...about four years ago now. He just roared into The Cove on that cycle of his: it's broken down inside his hut. He spends half his time tinkerin' with it. Won't let nobody near it. Exceptin' Sawyer." "Yeah," Sonic spoke up, "what's the story there?" "Don't rightly know. All Ah know is when he showed up, it was like Sawyer never even SAW Gearbox, just his cycle. It looked pretty beat up to me. The paint job was camouflage, like it was army surplus or somethin'. "Right away Gearbox...and that's the only name he ever used for himself...started actin' like cock of the walk. He was rude to just about everybody, but mah Daddy told everyone to keep on as we were livin'. Either Gearbox'd change or else he'd go away. But he didn't do either. It didn't matter to Sawyer. Guess all boys that age need a hero. And then, after about two weeks, it happened." "What?" "Well, we were sittin' down to supper, and like usual he sorta invites himself over and starts eatin' without so much as a 'how do you do'. Then he goes over to mah Mama and...." He stopped and glanced at Tails and Sawyer, still engaged in conversation themselves several yards away. "Well, Ah'd better not say exactly WHAT he said, in case those two are in earshot. And also outta respect for yourself, Princess. "Now, you gotta understand something about mah Daddy. All of us kids have tried his patience at some time or 'nother. But he never so much as talked about raisin' a hand against any of us. Ah'd have thought there wasn't a gentler soul on all of Mobius. "But when Gearbox said what he said, quick as lightning Daddy was on him like a bird on a bug. Ah think he got in a few licks before Gearbox even TRIED fightin' back. Well sir, Ah ain't never seen the like of that fight before or since. It musta gone a couple minutes but it felt like forever. It took me and Brandon and two other fellas to pull Daddy off him. And Ah thought sure as you're born Gearbox'd get the message and leave. But he just said 'Sorry' to Daddy, sorta surly-like, and pretty much stayed outta everybody else's way. He never tried puttin' the moves on anyone else that Ah know of, but he was a little more helpful around The Cove after that. Course, he's still pretty much a loner. And it taught me one thing: ain't nothin' our Daddy cares more about on all of Mobius than family." "That's what I'm afraid of," Sally thought. But she didn't say anything out loud. The group continued on after eating, having to change their course more often now in order to avoid swamps and marshes. That's when Tails remembered what Sawyer had started to say the previous evening. "How DO you get out of quicksand?" he asked Sawyer. It was Gearbox, however, who looked back and answered. "First off, you don't go near it in the first place. But if you do get caught in it, don't panic. You start flailing your arms and legs, it's like swimming straight to the bottom. What you do is lie still. You'll stop sinking at some point. Then just roll or use a slow, swimming motion to get to shore." "Cool!" Tails exclaimed. "Where'd you learn that?" "In the field." "What field?" Instead of an answer, Gearbox simply quickened his stride and left the boys behind to rejoin Roonie. Sally, who had just finished looking up something from Nicole, replaced the computer in the top of her boot. "Sonic," Sally said in a whisper, "something's not right here." "Yeah, Sal, we shoulda left that bad news biker at The Cove." "That's just it, Sonic. Where would someone like that have learned that kind of survival skill?" "Got any suggestions?" "Not yet. I need something more to go on." She was given her opportunity an hour later when they approached the top of a small forested hill. Gearbox was a few steps ahead of Roonie, who had dropped back and was chatting with the boys. "Wonder what Squirt's doin' now?" Roonie asked out loud. "You mean Aunt Bunnie?" Tails asked. "Uh-huh." "How come you call her that?" "Well, when she was born Ah was the next oldest, and Mama and Daddy always believed that we kids should all do our share around the house. But Ah was also younger than Lindsey and the twins so they usually figured out a way for me to get stuck with the worst jobs. So from the day Bunnie was born and for the next couple years Ah don't think Ah made it through a day without havin' to change at least a couple of her diapers." "EEEEEEEWWWW!" the boys chorused. "It weren't so bad," he admitted. "Course, it helped that she was so cute." "Bunnie was a cute baby?" Sally asked, for she'd caught up with the trio. "From day one. She was...." Before he could say anything else, Gearbox paused, dropped prone to the ground, and motioned for everyone else to do the same. The group was travelling so close together that they all heard his hoarse whisper: "Hit the dirt!" "Yo, what's up?" Sonic whispered back. "Everyone stay here, I'll take the point." With that, he began elbowing his way to the top of the ridge and toward the base of a tree. Staying behind the tree, he looked around the side from ground level, presenting the lowest possible profile. There were several tense seconds of silence before he motioned the group to advance. They walked up to where Gearbox was getting to his feet, then stopped. There was a small valley just ahead of them, but the trees that had filled the valley had been stripped away. The jagged trunks that remained indicated that it had been done in a very inelegant fashion, with bulldozers. This left an exposed strip of land about 50 feet wide. And running down the middle of the strip was a chain-link fence topped with coiled razor wire. "Aw, man, this bites!" Sonic exclaimed. "Definitely Robotnik's handiwork," Sally added with disgust. "Now what, Roonie?" "Ah'm not sure. This fence wasn't here two years ago. Gearbox?" The hyena pushed back the bill of his leather cap as he looked up and down along the fence line. "We can't cross here. We'll have to find a spot. I'll recon up north about 100 yards; Roonie, you check out the south for the same distance. Stay in the forest for cover. Everybody else wait here until we get back." "Yeah, well, make it fast, I hate waiting," Sonic said pointedly. "Tough spraint, kid." Sonic might have taken a swing at Gearbox right there if Sally, sensing that Sonic's nerves were getting frayed and that he'd be dealing with the wrong customer, hadn't grabbed him by the upper arm. It was still just sore enough from where Bookshire had removed the schrapnel that the pain checked Sonic. Gearbox and Roonie moved out on their own. "Man, he is asking for it big time!" "Quiet, Sonic. You can settle your differences with him AFTER we wrap up this mission." "It won't be too soon for me." It was a few seconds later that Roonie returned to the group. "Find anything?" Sawyer was the first to ask. "Uh-huh. Something that looks like a gate." "All right!" "Don't go throwin' a party yet, Sonic. Looks like it's locked." Gearbox returned just then and Roonie repeated his news. The group made their way back to where Roonie had seen the gate. Sure enough, the fence was broken by a gate of some sort. Gearbox asked if anyone had brought a rangefinder, and Sally fished hers out of her backpack. He studied the gate for a minute while Sonic tapped his sneakers on the soft soil. "So what's stopping us?" he finally asked. "That isn't just an ordinary lock on that gate. It's like part of an electrical circuit. Those two large boxes near the bottom of the fence; those are sensors that indicate when the circuit's been broken." "What is that meaning?" Antoine asked tremblingly. "It means that Robotnik hadn't bothered to put surveillance bots or cameras along this length of fence. So we don't have to worry about being seen...only about tripping the alarm." "But how are we to be getting to the other side?" "Leave that to me." With Gearbox leading the way, they emerged from the woods and began walking toward the fence. Antoine did nothing to hide his nervousness at being out in the open, making fearful squeaking noises. When they got within two feet of the fence, Gearbox stopped and turned to him. "This is going to be hard enough, kid, so either go back to The Cove or else shut your yiffin' hole!" "Is there not the third choice?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Yeah, I could kick your ass over that fence but I don't think you'd like that, either. You're supposed to be one of these Knothole hot shots; are you in or out?" "Oui, oui, I am in. It is just that...." "Fine. Now shut the yiff up. I've got to deal with this yiffin' lock." "I wish Rote was here," Sonic said in a loud whisper to Sally. "He could undo that lock no prob." "Well, he AIN'T here," Gearbox shot back. "And the trick isn't opening the lock; it's getting to the other side without having to open the gate." "Then why'd we look for a gate at all?" Gearbox turned on Sonic, and Sally gasped. The hyena was more than annoyed with Sonic and Antoine, and she was afraid they'd start fighting. Instead, Gearbox sighed and turned his back on Sonic to look at the fence. Sonic took that as an insult and again was almost ready to attack Gearbox, but Sally stepped in front of him at the last moment. As she did so and as Sonic momentarily cooled down, Gearbox removed something from his vest pocket. It was a metallic disc of some sort, about as wide across as his palm, with an unusual rectangular hole cut into it near one edge. A piece of string was tied to the disc through the hole, and there was a small stone tied to the other end. Holding the string, he dangled the disc above the lock, then slowly lowered it into a space between the two parts of the lock. As it slipped into place and stopped, Gearbox let out a sigh. Holding the string above the lock so that it was slack, he tossed the rock between the top of the fence and the looping razor wire. It went over the fence and dangled down on the other side. Gearbox then let go of the string. "Guess I still got the touch." "OK, what did THAT accomplish?" Sonic asked. In answer, Gearbox grabbed Sonic by the straps of his backpack and pushed his back against the fence. "If I hadn't done that, I'd have set off some alarm just now and we'd all be up to our asses in SWATbots. But it ain't gonna happen. So do us all a favor and stop riding me!" "Hey! Let Sonic go!" Tails protested. "Yeah, Gearbox," Sawyer added, "he's OK." That seemed to be enough for Gearbox, who let Sonic unceremoniously drop to the ground. Sonic just sat there, glaring at Gearbox. "OK, now what?" Sally asked, hoping to come up with a way to diffuse the tension. "Now we dig." "Say what?" Sonic asked. "We dig a hole under the fence. That spot over there looks good; the soil's sandy enough that it'll move easily. Then we crawl under the fence and Robotnik never knows what happened because I've yiffed up his alarm." "Sonic," Sally said, "would you do the honors?" "You got it, Sal!" Sonic positioned himself in front of the fence at the spot Gearbox had indicated. He revved up and in a moment the sand and dirt was flying out behind him. A few seconds later, enough had been dug away to expose a gap beneath the fence deep enough for the members of the group to crawl through. Sonic was the first under the fence, where he stood with arms folded and a look of smug satisfaction on his face. "OK, everyone," Gearbox said, "move out." "Where'd you learn to short that lock?" Sally asked as she emerged on the other side and started brushing herself off. "I used to get gas for my ride from Robotnik's refineries. They all had the same lock set-up. I'd short out the alarm, tap a pipeline, and get the yiff out of there." Gearbox was the last to go under the fence, watching up and down the fence line while everyone else crawled under. Tails, who had flown over the fence, helped pull Sawyer up to his feet. Finally Gearbox was on the other side. "Now, start filling in the hole." "Why, won't we need it again?" Sally asked. "What we DON'T need is for some fly-by patrol to notice that hole under the fence. Fortunately his little stunt," he said as he nodded toward Sonic, "covered our tracks on the other side of the fence. We have to make sure we don't leave tracks on this side as well." In a few minutes, enough loose dirt had been pushed into the hole that it was hard to know that a hole had ever been there. As the rest of the group headed for the forest, Gearbox walked to the gate and, giving the string a tug, flipped the disc out of the lock, over the fence, and into his paw. Then as everyone else waited in the edge of the forest, Sally picked up a pine branch that had fallen to the ground. "Here," she said as she handed it to Tails, "use this to cover our tracks." "OK, Aunt Sally." Tails then revved up and flew to the fence, branch in hand. Sweeping it across the ground, he flew backward until he had wiped away their footprints. "Pretty smooth," Gearbox said as he watched Tails in action. "So was that digging of yours," he said to Sonic. "Sorry about riding you." He extended a gloved paw. "Yeah, well...." Sonic managed to say as he took it in his own. "We could've used you in...." "In what?" "Never mind." He jammed the disc back into his vest pocket, and the group continued on. It was getting dark as the group stopped about three miles after crossing the fence. They were in a small clearing with a thick carpet of needles underfoot. "We'll stop here for the night," Gearbox said. "I'll clear a spot in order to build a fire," Roonie began to say. "No fires. And no lanters or lights of any kind. We'll eat what we have cold then bed down. We'll keep two hour shifts; I'll take the first watch." "And who are you being to give the orders?" Antoine asked. "Princess," Gearbox said wearily, "why'd you have to bring your yiffin' court jester along?" "I am NOT the court jester!" "Excuse me," he said with mock grandeur. "I MEANT to say 'lady-in-waiting'." "That is it! That is the last strawberry! You have insulted my honor for the last time and I am demanding the satisfaction!" "Antoine!" Sally called out. "I apologize, my princess, but this is a question of honor. Now if I were having a weapon...." Without a word, Gearbox reached into the inside of one of his boots, withdrew a knife, and threw it so that it landed point down at Antoine's feet. Antoine let out an "Eep!" and jumped backward. "OK," Gearbox said, "there's your weapon. Let's get it on." "But you are unarmed." "I don't think so," he said as he undid the belt of his jeans which everyone realized was a length of chain. He wrapped some of one end around one paw, letting the rest hang down. "First one to draw blood's the winner, agreed?" To Antoine's credit, he didn't try to talk his way out of this situation. By picking up the knife, he gave Gearbox all the answer he needed. Instantly the hyena dropped into a crouch, swinging the chain slightly from side to side, the way a cobra moves when it seeks to hypnotize its prey. Antoine, his hands trembling, took a hesitant step toward Gearbox. Then it happened. Gearbox snapped his wrist and the chain sailed up in the air like a whip. The end link slapped against the tip of Antoine's nose. He yelped and dropped the knife as he grabbed at his nose. Sonic, Tails and Sally ran to assist him as Gearbox casually picked up his knife. "I have been ambush-ed! I have been cut down like the young sapling!" "More like a sap, if you ask me," Sonic said under his breath. "Relax, Antoine," Sally said, "it looks like a simple nosebleed." "It is not the pain but the humiliation," Antoine wailed. "This was the contest for honor." "There you are, Princess," Gearbox said as he took his arm sling off his back and fitted it on his arm, "chivalry isn't dead; it just ran off and joined the yiffin' circus. If you want me, I'll be over there beyond the clearing, keeping watch." And Gearbox moved quietly away from the others. "That was SO COOL!" Sawyer exclaimed. "Man," Sonic said in a low voice to Sally, "one of these days I'm gonna make that guy eat dirt! He acts like such a...Yo, Sal! You still with us?" "What?" Sally said distractedly. "Oh, right. Sonic, let's just get some sleep." The group ate as the darkness gradually surrounded them, then went to sleep. After several minutes, though, Sally (who had only pretended to go to sleep) sat up, then woke Sonic and Antoine. She then led them to the spot where Gearbox stood, leaning against a tree. He looked at them and smirked. "So what do you want, best two out of three?" "No," Sally said calmly, "we want some answers, and we want you to stop pretending you're some kind of biker." "Yeah," Sonic added, "I'll bet you were never really IN the Nasty Hyenas!" "They don't give out these colors for nothing!" Gearbox snapped back as he grabbed the hem of his vest. "Besides, what makes you think I wasn't a Nasty?" "We've met the Nasties, not too long ago. And you just don't act or sound like one. None of them ever used terms such as 'recon' or 'take the point.'" "So what? I thought the old saying was 'You can't hang a man for his language'." "No, but language says a lot about someone. So do those boots. They're not the engineer boots bikers usually wear. For this trip you changed into a different kind of boot. I checked Nicole's database earlier today. That style is government issue, used by Mobian infantry." As Sally spoke, Gearbox reached down and put a pine needle between his teeth as if it were a toothpick. He pointedly avoided looking at Sally or even acting as if he were paying attention to her. "Gearbox," she asked in a steady, no-nonsense tone of voice, "were you in the Great War?" "Yeah. Yeah, I was in the Great Yiffin' War. Why, you wanna hear war stories? I only got one and I don't feel like...what the yiff. Maybe it'll be good for a laugh." He slid down onto his haunches as the others sat down on the ground. "I don't think I was any older than you when I enlisted. Seems like me and my old man spent all our time fighting anyway, so why not make a yiffin' living at it? So I lied about my age and went through basic training. "I found out that the Army had a bunch of guys like me in it already: real yiff-ups in civilian life. And the Army didn't straighten any of us up, either. We'd only salute officers when we felt like it, and then only if we thought they deserved it. They must've been real hard up for bodies to fight the O's because they never court-martialled any of us. "After eight weeks of learning how to blow someone's ass off while keeping your own in one piece, they shipped us out. We weren't told where we were going or what we were doing. I figured that was standard procedure, you know? Me and six other buds from my old platoon were one of a bunch of squads that were sent into this...what do you call it? It's like a valley that they used to keep water in." "A reservoir?" Sally suggested. "Yeah, a reservoir. Only it was dried up. We came in at dawn from the east, just as the sun was rising behind us. Someone must've figured the O's would have a hard time seeing us coming at 'em that way. There was practically no cover at all: just lots of grass that wasn't all that high, and a couple of large rocks here and there. Our orders were just to head west. We figured that the O's were on the other side of the western slope, if they were anywhere. "There must have been at least two companies of infantry in the reservoir when the O's opened up on us. We couldn't tell too clearly at first where their fire was coming from because everything was nuts. We were all scrambling for cover but there wasn't much cover down there. We were all in the open and the O's began picking us off. "I dived behind a small hill with my guys. We realized where the O's were: they were actually dug into the western slope itself. That gave them a clear view of everything that moved. We only had blaster rifles and sidearms with us, and a mortar with a couple photon rounds. No way was that going to get them out of there. We needed to get out from under their fire, so we started scraping out a trench behind the hill. It was all we could do. "Atticus was the first one to buy it. He was a big, dumb badger who didn't know what the yiff the Great War was about. I don't think any of us did, really. Anyway, he took a plasma hit right across his back and just dropped. Didn't have a chance to say anything. The rest of us couldn't do anything but keep scraping. When we'd dug out enough of a space we dragged his body out of the line of fire. At that point we knew we weren't going anywhere. "We were pinned down for about an hour, with our backs against the hill. We could watch the whole yiffin' show going on in the valley. They were cutting down our guys non-stop, especially anyone trying to make it up and out back over the east ridge. They weren't going to let anyone get out of that place alive. "After about another hour we saw some hover units overhead. They must've thought they could take out the O's position from the air. No good; their emplacement was shielded by some kinda force field. That meant they'd been there for some time, long enough to fortify their position. We saw a couple hover units go down, unable to put anything past their shields. We tried lobbing the few photon rounds we had at them, too; didn't do spraint except remind the O's that we were there. They threw a round back at us that tore the top off the hill, so we had to hunker down some more. That was the round that killed Dunbar. "We waited until night, hoping that we could bug out under cover of darkness. The O's just sent up flares and kept shooting. And more of our guys kept dying. "The rains started before dawn. It was steady and hard and soon you're up to your ass in mud. Raoul thought we should bury Atticus and Dunbar right there--there was no chance Graves Registration would make it into the reservoir. We told him he was yiffin' stupid because we were still under fire. Besides, as soon as you scraped out some dirt the rain filled up the hole. But he kept saying we owed it to 'em and so he started scraping off to the side, thinking he was out of the O's sightline. "A second later there was an explosion and something flew into my eye. I thought it was mud and wiped it off my face. It wasn't mud. I couldn't tell what it was, at first. It was clear, with like red streaks in it. Then I look at where Raoul had been digging. He...." Gearbox fell silent, and the Knothole Freedom Fighters waited. "He'd taken a bolt through the head. I'd been blinded by...by a piece of his brains. "I couldn't do nothing else for the rest of the day. I thought I'd seen every kind of spraint there was in a war until then. Some of the stuff was still on my uniform but I couldn't do a thing; I didn't want it to be there but I just couldn't wipe it off. I just watched as the rain eventually washed it off. I wanted to get out of my uniform right there but we were pinned down so bad we couldn't move. It wasn't until dark, with the rain still coming down, that we managed to drag Raoul's body over to where we'd stacked the others behind the hill. "Even in the rain the O's weren't letting up. They kept sending up flares and kept shooting. They even switched from photon to old-fashioned phosphorus rounds because of the rain. Those yiffin' rounds, they'd burn you to death from the inside. "The rain kept up through the next day, and so did the fire from the O's emplacement. Somehow I figured that they were stuck there the same as we were. We never saw any O support troops arrive, never got the idea that they were being relieved. I think the war was making them as yiffin' nuts as we were getting. "That's how Tsetan got it. Big guy, Tsetan. Wolf. Claimed to be the son of the Medicine Man back in his pack. Whether it was the rain or the shooting or both, he simply jumped up and started charging toward the O's emplacement, yelling like crazy. The O's let him get about fifty feet before cutting him down. Then they picked off Merle, who was stupid enough to stand up so he could watch Tsetan charging up the hill. "The rain let up that night, and a wind moved into the valley. It was cold enough that the puddles of rain water started to freeze. I thought I knew what cold was until I'd spent a night sitting in freezing mud. I was so numb that I actually managed a few hours sleep. "Next thing I knew it was morning and Riff was leaning against me. I met Riff the first day of basic training and we were tight after that. We gave the army a lot of spraint, and logged a lot of discipline on account of it. Anyway, I nudged him to get him off me. That's when he slumped forward. He just lay there face-down in the mud, a plasma burn all over his back. "That was our fourth day in the reservoir. Four days." Gearbox's voice sounded distant, as if he were going into a trance. "Four days for the O's to kill off six of the greatest guys who ever walked on Mobius. Four days...." Suddenly Gearbox exploded with rage. "Four DAYS!! The O's could've done it in four yiffin' MINUTES if they'd felt like it! But no, they had to have their FUN first! They had to show us who was in control. "That's when it was MY turn to snap. I stood up for the first time in four days and started yelling at where the O's were, calling them and their mothers everything I could think of. I didn't care about anything anymore. I knew I was never gonna leave that valley alive. "After they let me yell myself hoarse for a minute the O's lobbed a photon round at me to get it over with." He paused, then smiled a sardonic smile. "Don't ever let anyone tell you kids the Walkers don't have a sense of humor. I saw that round coming and expected it to be the last thing I'd ever see on Mobius. The yiffing thing sailed through the air and landed in the mud about a foot away from me. And it didn't go off! It just lay there. I bent down and picked it up; the yiffing O's hadn't depressed the arming switch! I armed it, grabbed our mortar, dropped the round down it, and sent it back where it came from. I expected it to impact on their shield, but the last thing I saw was the sun coming up in the west. "Three days later I woke up in a hospital bed. Not a batallion aid station or a rear-echelon surgical unit, but a no- spraint stateside hospital! Somewhere in Mobitropolis, they told me. They may have told me something else, but I was slipping in and out of consciousness for the next couple days. "What happened was that the round had gotten past the shielding after all. Maybe the O's got crazy too, or they got careless and never put it back up when they shot at me. Anyway, turns out that the inside of that mountain where they were dug in was the O's primary ammo storage facility. The brass had figured that they'd stashed a lot of ammo because our aerial blockade was working. That one round ignited everything in the place; it even took off the hilltop. The doc told me I was under a couple inches of dirt when they scanned the valley for life signs. They never did tell me what happened to the guys who bought it in that valley. "I got stronger as the days passed but I was being treated like a prisoner. Nobody talked to me except some doctors and nurses, and the ward was being guarded by MPs. I did get ONE visitor, though: the War Minister himself. He gave me this piece of spraint." With that, he took the metal disc out of his vest pocket and tossed it toward the Freedom Fighters. Antoine flinched as it approached; Sonic caught it and handed it to Sally, who looked at it for a second, then gasped. "Oh, my gosh! Sonic, do you know what this is?" she asked in an excited whisper. Sonic looked at the disc, which seemed to have an image of the sunburst carved into it with the word "VALOR" inscribed on it. He shrugged. "This is the Sun Disc! It's the highest military honor on all of Mobius!" "Yeah, that's what Minister Julian said when he gave it to me," he said as he retrieved it from Sally and put it back in his vest pocket. "There used to be a ribbon that went through that hole but it fell apart years ago. Anyway, I didn't pay much attention to what he said. I just knew I'd had my yiffin' fill of the war. "I realized that I was being isolated in the ward, probably because nobody was supposed to know what had happened to the O's ammo dump in the valley. I also knew that a courier arrived every night at the hospital to pick up and drop off lab stuff--I watched him pull up on an army cycle. You couldn't miss the sound: it had to be a Model 45 with a badly-tuned carb. Fortunately my room was only on the second floor. One night after they turned out the lights I unhooked all my tubes, waited for the courier, slipped out the window and swiped his bike. "I spent the next six months on the run. I almost got nailed by the MPs a couple times. I lived wild in the Great Forest a lot of the time, sneaking into towns and villages at night to restock on supplies--if there hadn't been a war on, you could've called it stealing'. The more it looked like the War was gonna end, though, the more I wondered how long I could keep it up." Gearbox paused, picking up another pine needle and placing it between his teeth. "And that's when the yiffin' War Minister went and yiffed all of us. "That made up my mind for me, and I kept on the run after that. The vest is no joke; I really was with the Nasty Hyenas for a time. But it wasn't the same as being back in my old squad. Besides, they weren't exactly ready to listen to anything I had to say. So after they told me to get the yiff out I split and wandered around until I got to The Cove. I've been there ever since. Nice place, really. And that kid Sawyer reminds me of...." "Of who?" Sally asked. "Someone. Anyway, once we get back...IF we get back...I may be moving on again." "Why?" Sonic asked. "You'd still be on the run from Robuttnik." "That doesn't matter. Especially considering her," he said as he nodded toward Sally. "What do I have to do with it?" she asked. "You're the Princess, you figure it out." "C'mon, Sal can probably cut you some slack for going AWOL." Gearbox grinned maliciously. "You don't get it, do you? I didn't go AWOL. I'm a yiffin' deserter." "So?" "So last time I checked there was only one punishment for desertion." With that, Gearbox raised his right arm in Sonic's direction, pointing his sling between Sonic's eyes, just as he had drawn a bead on Sonic that day they arrived at The Cove. He held that pose for several seconds. Sonic was filled with an unnamed dread that kept him from moving. "Pow!" Gearbox whispered as he jerked his arm upward. Antoine let out a yelp of alarm, and even Sonic flinched. "Sal, he's kidding, right?" Sonic asked. Sally started to say something, then bowed her head. "No, he's right," she said with a chilling softness, not even looking Sonic in the eye. "The last time that the Mobian Legal Code was revised over 400 years ago only one crime was kept on the books as a capital offence: desertion during wartime." "So there you are," Gearbox said. "I'm yiffed whether you high school revolutionaries beat Robotnik or not. Just in case you were planning on giving me any speeches about how right and noble your cause is and all that spraint." "Listen, Gearbox," Sally began. "What?" "I...I'll stand watch now. I don't think I can go back to sleep anyway." "Suit yourself," the hyena said as he rose and walked back toward the clearing without a word to anyone. The Freedom Fighters exchanged nervous glances. "I am not believing this," Antoine said in an awed tone. "If what he has been saying is the true, then he is most certainly the hero!" "I think that's the LAST thing he'd call himself, Antoine," Sally replied. "Look, why don't you and Sonic go back to sleep? I'll let you know when my watch is up." The two stood to return to the clearing. "Sonic?" Sally called after him. He turned. "One of these days I may become Ruler of Mobius. Remind me not to get involved in any wars if I can help it." There was no way Sonic could think of a comeback. * * * Just as Gearbox was beginning to recount his experiences to the Freedom Fighters, Bunnie had finished having supper with Lindsey, Colleen and Michelle. The child held Bunnie's delighted attention throughout the evening, being as full of questions and comments as any child her age. After promising to stop by again the following evening Bunnie returned to her parents' hut, only to find it strangely quiet. Inside, Percy and Deirdre were busy straightening up the place. "Mama, where are the babies?" "Brianna is watching them tonight," she replied as she slid the twins' playpen against one wall of the hut. "Is anything wrong?" "No, nothin' like that, Bunnie-honey," Percy spoke up, grinning as he spoke. "Every now and again, we have someone look after Sawyer and the babies." "Why?" "It gives us the chance to spend some time alone." Percy sat down on the tattered remains on an old couch. As soon as he did so, the couch let out an audible squeak. Percy immediately got up, lifted the seat cushion, extracted a toy doll, and tossed it toward the playpen. "Your mama and me, we promised each other we wouldn't neglect that." He sat back down next to Deirdre, taking her hand in his own. "Maybe Ah oughta leave," Bunnie started to say. "Now don't you go thinkin' any such thing. We'd planned this evening for a while now and...well...looks like we haven't had much time alone, the three of us." "That's right," Deirdre said. "You've told us what happened to you; maybe there's something you've wanted to ask us." Bunnie sat down on the floor in front of the couch. "Shoot," she said as she rubbed the back of her neck, "Ah thought Ah'd have a million questions to ask you but Ah can only think of one." She looked up at her parents: "How did you two fall in love?" The couple looked at each other, warm smiles spreading across their faces. Deirdre leaned into Percy's side as he put one arm around her. "That's right," Percy said to Bunnie, "You ain't never heard that story, did you? "Well, it was back when Ah was a student at MAMA. Ah was in mah final term. It was Spring break, it was raining and Ah was bored outta mah mind. Ah couldn't talk to mah roommate, Roy; he was an all right fella, but the class grind. Always had his nose in the books. So Ah put on mah coat and headed out for a walk. "Every now and again Ah'd go down this one side street by the campus. Mostly it was book and antique shops and a couple small galleries. Well, Ah'd never given the galleries much thought but Ah looked in the window of one of 'em. That's when Ah saw her." "Mama?" "First Ah saw that bust of hers." "You mean the one out back in the studio?" "That's the one. Ah'd never seen anything in all of Mobius that Ah thought was more beautiful. Least not until Ah went inside and saw your Mama." "Please!" Dierdre said blushing. "I was a wreck that day. All I was wearing was a sweatshirt and a pair of cutoff jeans." "When Ah went into the gallery Ah seen her in the corner arguin' with these two dogs who Ah figgered must've owned the place." "It was a good guess. I'd brought that bust in there to try to sell it. I didn't really want to, but I was broke and getting desperate. Anyway, I was there because they'd left a message for me that they were going to take the bust off display because it hadn't sold. I went down there and started arguing with them. I told them that they'd said they'd display it for ten days. My point was they should have displayed it for ten WORKING days. The gallery was some high-priced hole in the wall that was only open three days a week; I said there was no way enough people could have gotten to see it and make an offer. I didn't even notice your father had walked in until he'd interrupted the argument we were having." "Ah could tell by lookin' what kind of stuffed shirts those boys were who were runnin' the place. And it was obvious that they were fixin' to throw her and the sculpture out into the street. So Ah sorta just walked up and said it looked like a mighty fine piece of work. Well, those two looked me over and musta figured Ah was a tourist or somethin' 'cause one of 'em says: 'This is NOT any of your concern. We are NOT a souvenir stand.'" "Oh, mah stars!" Bunnie gasped. "Well, Ah took one look at your Mama and said, 'You know, Ah'll bet Ah know why you boys ain't partial to this piece. You don't think it's lifelike enough.' Then Ah turned to your Mama and said, 'Why don't you show 'em.'" "What happened then, Mama?" "I pulled off my sweatshirt." "Mama!!" Bunnie laughed. "Well, you never saw two gents get more agreeable," Percy chuckled. "You see, Ah knew those two would be more concerned about havin' someone takin' their clothes off inside their fancy- dress place than about anything else, so Ah offered to take the sculpture off their hands for what they were askin'." "I got dressed while this big, lankey rabbit started writing out a check," Dierdre said. "So I asked him: 'Do you do this all the time, rescue damsels in distress?' 'Nope,' he said, 'Ah just know what Ah like.' So then I asked him, 'What kind of farm boy are you, anyway?'" "And Ah told her, 'The kind that's studying to be a doctor.'" "I must've blushed four shades of red." "And THAT'S where you got the name!" Bunnie exclaimed. "Uh-huh. Then Ah told her how pretty she was and after Ah gave directions to ship the bust to mah dorm room Ah offered to take her out for a bite or something. She suggested this hole in the wall a couple blocks away. Don't ask me what time it was when we got there; Ah just remember it was past closin' time when we left." "Did you two know you were in love then?" Bunnie asked. "I think Farm Boy may have known, but I needed proof." "What do you mean?" "Well, before I met your father I went through a string of other guys. Nothing felt permanent about any of them. Mostly they were other artists I'd run into. I don't even think you could have called them 'lovers,' really, because there was never a whole lot of feeling there. But it was different with Farm Boy here." "How?" "After we'd eaten he took me up into the hills up above Mobitropolis. I'd never been there on my own. I didn't know which was more lovely: the lights of the city below or the millions of stars in the night sky. We stayed up on the hill a while...and had some really great sex," she added as she looked at Percy and grinned. She didn't seem to notice Bunnie shifting uncomfortably where she sat. "Then we went back to my place, which was this one-room apartment I had at the time. "The next morning I woke up and Percy wasn't there. I guessed that he'd left some time during the night. And it's not like that hadn't happened to me before, but...but I felt horrible waking up and seeing that he was gone. I felt like some part of me was gone with him. "Then, just as I was about to let myself have a good cry about it, I heard someone kicking against the front door. It was Farm Boy with a couple bags of groceries." "When Ah woke up that mornin' she was still asleep so Ah sort of nosed around her cupboards. That's when Ah learned that your mama was into that 'starvin' artist' thing. Didn't have hardly a scrap of food in the place. So Ah went and did some shoppin'. That's when Ah introduced her to mah breakfast specialty..." Bunnie's eyes lit up as the memory awakened: "Chocolate chip pancakes!" "Uh-huh. Of course chocolate's been scarce as hen's teeth since Robotnik, but anyway Ah whipped up a batch and...well...Ah don't think Ah'd have ever admitted to believin' in love at first sight until the day Ah saw Dee in that gallery," he said as he drew her closer to him, "but Ah shore did believe in it that day. Ah up and moved in with her the next day. Our gettin' married was pretty much mah mama's idea: she had her lawyers draw up the longest prenuptial agreement you ever saw in your life! She thought Dee was only interested in the family's money." "I didn't know what Percy's family was worth and frankly I didn't care. Because he'd done the one thing that none of my lovers had ever done: he stayed," she said as she looked at him. She smiled gently. "After Ah graduated and we married we sorta settled down, but it wasn't easy with me in residence. But we made it through that patch, and havin' the twins, then Lindsey and Rooney. It was almost ten years after that and we were both pushin' forty when you were..." Percy's voice trailed off as he saw the serious look on Bunnie's face. Her brow was furrowed, as if she were working out a math problem. She looked up. "Why did it take so long?" "Bunnie," Deirdre said as she slid off the couch and onto the hut floor near Bunnie, "let me tell you about this one night. Roonie was 8, Lindsey was 11, and the twins were 14. After we'd had Rooney your father and I felt that we had to slow down and concentrate on raising the children we had rather than have any more. And we did. But that night, when everyone was in bed I just couldn't drop off to sleep. Your father found me in the studio; it must have been about three o'clock in the morning. "We started talking and he stayed with me as I guess I kind of rambled on. Finally I was able to put what I was feeling into words: that as much as I loved your father and all of our children, I couldn't help but feel that there was still love enough for someone else. That's when Farm Boy put on that big, goofy grin of his and told me that he'd been feeling exactly the same way. And, well, we simply stopped trying NOT to have any more children." Deirdre reached out and took Bunnie's hand. "What I'm trying to say is: your father and I never brought a child into this world who we weren't prepared to love with all our hearts. So you can just forget any idea that there was anything accidental about how you came to be born." "Thanks, Mama," Bunnie whispered as she circled her arms around Dierdre's neck. Then, she stood up. "Would you all mind if Ah turned in?" "Well, it's not all that late, Bunnie-honey," Percy said. "You got somethin' on your mind?" "No," she lied. END OF PART 2