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ran out of fuel before this storm blew over, the papers might come in handy.
    Meanwhile he pulled the little unit from his pocket and popped in one of the chips from the container Parr had given him.
    A woman with a clear concise voice said in a slightly embarrassed tone, “I do not often sing this but record it now at Sean’s insistence, for the sake of our children. He seems to think there will come a day when they’ll ask, ‘What did you do in the war, Ma?’ and this way I won’t have to sing it again in front of anyone. So here it goes. This is my song about what happened at
Bremport Station.
”

CHAPTER 5
    T HE TWINS AND Sky stayed under Marmion’s house until the grounds were searched, then cautiously, quietly, swam as far out as they could in the direction of the freight lift.
    Very slowly they lifted their heads from the water to hear what was happening on land. The three flitters were still there; guards were posted near the mansion, but there was no evidence of anyone else nearby.
    What do you think? Is it clear?
    Without warning, Sky jumped out of the water and onto the bank, where he stood on his hind feet and shifted his torso and head back and forth, listening.
Men who eat river seals are not here,
he announced.
    With that assurance, Ronan hoisted himself ashore and, propelled forward with flippers and claws, reached the cover of some shrubs where he could shake himself dry and change. When he was once more clad in his dry suit, he stood watch—squatted, actually—while Murel changed, too. Then, while Sky scampered across the fake landscape in his undulating run, the twins crawled to the freight lift, trying to stay out of range of the surveillance cameras. When the door opened, they all leaped inside and Ronan pushed the button for the com center level.
    The door began to open as soon as they reached it. Before they could stop him, Sky bolted through to scout ahead.
    He only had time to say “Hah!” before they heard a sizzle, then a man’s gruff voice: “Got the little bugger. What do you think? Is there enough of him to make a pair of boots?”
    Before the door had fully opened, Murel forced her way out, shouting, “Hey, let him alone, you big bully!”
    She just had time to see a short soldier holding a limp Sky aloft by the scruff of his neck when a hand whipped out and grabbed
her
neck, hauling her away from the lift. “Ow!” she said. “Cut it out. And let the otter alone!”
    “Oh, is this yours?” the soldier asked in the same voice she’d heard from schoolyard bullies.
    Behind her there was a scuffle, and Ronan was pulled from the lift as well.
    The soldier holding her spoke into a handheld com. “This is the last of the children, sir.”
    He listened to the reply, then clicked off the device.
    “Lot of kids for a space installation,” Ronan’s captor remarked.
    “There was a school here. The brass is interested in knowing what exactly these kids were taught.”
    “How about the critter?” the soldier holding Sky asked. The otter wiggled in his grasp, apparently recovering from the stun shot.
    “He’s their pet, apparently. Bring him along. He might be good to eat, or who knows, if these two know anything, they might get extra chatty if it means the animal keeps his skin on.”
    Murel’s captor had relaxed his grip, and she twisted away, rushing at the man shaking Sky. Because he was holding the otter in one fist and his weapon in the other, his front was wide open. She butted him first in the belly and then, when he doubled up, in the nose with her own head. Before she heard the sizzle and felt a jolt of pain shoot through her, she saw the man drop Sky, who twisted in midair and was halfway down the corridor before he landed.
             
    W HEN M UREL CAME to, she had a horrible headache and everything around her smelled strange. She sat up in a tiny room occupied by several other girls. Most of them were preschoolers, too young to have been in classes with her,