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heart eaten out of the smaller towns, people gathered at the shopping plazas as earlier peoples had gathered at wells or watering-holes or drive-in restaurants, and for the same reasons: to gossip, to court, to meet friends, or just to have someplace to go at night. On a sunny day like this, there could easily be ten thousand people circulating through the complex, and somehow Rowan would have to get by them all.
    He launched himself away from the shelter of a building, like a swimmer kicking off for a race, was jostled repeatedly, and realized that he was trying to buck a stream of pedestrian traffic going in the opposite direction. Obediently, Rowan turned around and let the pressure of that stream sweep him along, trusting that people would make allowances for a blind man and not crowd him too closely. The stream hurried him through the mall and into a covered walkway between buildings. Here, suddenly confined, the murmur of crowd-noises swelled into a roar. Clacking footsteps echoed and re-echoed from the low ceiling, voices reverberated hollowly—all sound became fuzzy and directionless, as though he were in a cave under the sea. Again the air seemed full of invisible wings. He could almost feel them beating around his ears, hemming him in, wrapping him in gossamer.
    Suddenly dizzy, Rowan sat down on a bench. He found that his heart was beating fast with irrational terror. His nerves were giving under the strain, he told himself as he fought down another attack of claustrophobia. He couldn’t take much more. Slowly, he calmed himself. At least his disguise seemed to be working.
    Someone touched his arm. “You’re an escaped convict, aren’t you?”
    Rowan gasped. He would have jumped up and bolted instantly, but now the hand was on his wrist, holding him down. He half-turned, shifting his grip on the cane so that he could use it as a club.
    “Hold it!” the unseen someone said in a low, urgent voice. “Don’t run. Calm down, son—I’m on your side.”
    Rowan hesitated. “This is some kind of mistake—”
    “No it’s not,” the other man said dryly. “You’re pretending to be blind, aren’t you? That’s a good one, it hasn’t been used much the last few years. You might get away with it. But don’t just tap right in front of your feet, the way you’ve been doing. That’s a dead giveaway. Keep your cane swinging steadily from side to side as you tap. Remember, you’re supposed to be feeling your way along with it, like a bug does with his antennas, right? And don’t walk so fast. Be a little more uncertain about it, son, listen more, as if you’re trying for auditory clues. And for God’s sake, stop staring at things. And tracking them! It’s obvious you can see through those damn glasses. You won’t last an hour that way.”
    Rowan opened his mouth, closed it again. “Who are you?” he said.
    “It’s a real stroke of luck, me being able to spot you,” the other man said, ignoring him. “I hoped you’d show up in this area, and I’ve been cruising around for an hour trying to pick you up. Logical, in a way, prisoners making for a place like this, cops don’t seem to think that way though. Luckily for you. Still, we’re going to have to jump to get you out of here. But don’t you worry—you just listen to me, now, and you’ll be all right. I’m on your side, son.”
    “I wasn’t aware that I had a side,” Rowan said wearily.
    “You do now, son, you do now. Whether you like it or not. The enemy of my enemy, right?” As the man was saying this, Rowan had a sudden vivid mental picture of how he must look: a small, intense man of middle years with a foxy, florid face and hair like wire brush. “Listen, now,” the man said, “we haven’t got much time. You know Quincy Park in Beverly? Just down the coast a ways from Dane Street Beach?”
    Rowan realized, to his own surprise, that he did know Quincy Park. He could mistily visualize it, the trees, the long grassy slope down to