~~~
After a few miles, I had to stop running, as my side hurt where the bullet had entered it. Lona and I went to ground in a deep, dry ditch and huddled together.
Lona was trembling like someone on the verge of a breakdown. "Do you think that those men killed Don? Do you think that they killed Brenda?"
It seemed to me only too likely that the artifact-hunters had killed Lona's adoptive father after they'd learned of the Tan from him. In my shell-shocked state, though, I failed to grasp Lona's second question. "Why would they have killed Brenda?"
"They knew your earth-name, Mira. They knew where I was staying. Don couldn't have told them those things. Brenda, though..."
I pondered Lona's words. The hunters could've tortured my name and Lona's location out of Dr. Ventnor before they killed him, but Donald would've given the hunters Brenda's name and location as well as Dr. Ventnor's.
"Can we go to my house and learn whether Brenda's safe?" Lona said plaintively.
Sadly, I shook my head. "The police will be watching for us there. Besides, we need to meet Kuma and Un-Thor at the gravesite to let them know what's happened. I'll tell you what we can do. I have some phone cards; we can stop on the way to Ohio to call Brenda's house from a pay phone. We may just learn that she's OK."
By now, I was starting to doubt that she was, but Lona needed all of the encouragement that I could give her. She and I circled well south and west of Paducah and crossed the Ohio River into Little Egypt. By a gas station and convenience store just north of Cairo, Lona and I found a pay phone out of public view, and Lona called home the last time.
My heart leapt when I heard Brenda's voice answer the call. "Brenda," Lona said in a breathy whisper, "are you all right? Did the gunmen come there?"
"Lonnie, what's happened to you? The police have been here. They said that you killed three men. Did you?"
"Did those men come there?"
"No, Lonnie, but you've got to turn yourself in --"
I pressed down the phone's hook.
Lona gave me a look that I bet she gave the three gunmen in their life's last seconds. "Why did you hang up, Mira?"
"We don't have time to spend here. You know that Brenda is safe. Now, we need to get moving before someone sees us. We're fugitives, remember?"
Behind the gas station, a ravine led into woods. When I pointed along the ravine, Lona glowered at me some more, but set off running. I followed her.
She and I cut sharply northwest across southern Illinois and south-central Indiana. I had to stop several times for the pain in my side, but it got less at each stop. Resting, I tried to pirate some WiFi with my laptop. Once, I got lucky, and learned from news services that the suspected murderers of Dr. Ventnor, whose body had vanished from police custody, had been killed in Paducah, Kentucky, by a pair of teenage girls, Lonnie Stormgren and Mirabelle Gordon, who were wanted for questioning by the Columbus Police Department and the McCracken County Sheriff's Office.
"Guess there's no going home now," Lona moaned.
"Maybe, the others are safe for the time being," I murmured. "There's no mention of them in the news. We need to hurry, and catch Kuma and Un-Thor."
Lona and I reached the quarry just before sunset. I'd feared seeing it thick with police, but it was empty as I peered down into it from cover.
I nearly jumped into the quarry when I heard a rustle, and Kuma appeared by me. When she swept her gaze over Lona and me, her eyes got big. "Wow! You two look awful. What happened to you?"
I sighed. "Take us to Un-Thor. I don't want to tell the news twice."
Kuma led Lona and me to a deep ravine where Un lounged by a long, tarpaulin-covered bundle that I guessed was Dr. Ventnor's body. Quickly, I told Kuma and Un my news. They hugged Lona and me; then Un said, "What should we do now?"
"Have you seen any police activity around here?" I asked him. When he shook his head, I went on to say, "Let's do the funeral; then we'll need to hide for the night."
The four of us carried Dr. Ventnor's body into the quarry, removed the shingle covering the burial tunnel's entrance, and laid Dr. Ventnor's body into the second of the tunnel's two open niches. Kuma, I learned, had secured Dr. Ventnor's book while Un had secured the body.
Kuma had also, to my relief, secured a sleeping-crystal that Dr. Ventnor had hidden with the book. Dr. Ventnor had told me that he had the crystal, but in my grief and terror I'd forgotten it. Who knows how much damage it could've done in wrong hands?
Kuma handed me the book. In his last months, Dr. Ventnor had taught me the characters of Sethiparnen writing. It had just thirty characters, as it was phonetic. I could sound out the book's words, even if I didn't know their meanings.
Thus, in a shadowy tunnel, as Kuma held a light-crystal beside me, I read over Dr. Ventnor the words that he'd read over the Colonel. I wished that I could do more for one who'd been the next to the last of his kind. As I read, my eyes strayed to the empty niche awaiting the last of his kind. I wondered whether we Tani would find him and lay him to rest. It saddened me to think that we might not.
When the words had run out, the four of us Tani said the Lord's Prayer and sang "Amazing Grace" together; then we sealed Dr. Ventnor's body into its niche and replaced the shingle over the tunnel's entrance. Shaking my head, I said, "We need to find shelter --"
"While you were on your way," Un said, "I did some scouting. About a mile west of here there's an old cellar in the side of a hill. The cellar isn't much, but it's dry and out of view. With some light-crystals and heat-crystals, the cellar should be OK."
"Sounds like heaven," I murmured.
The four of us slipped through dark woods to the cellar and made it livable with crystals. Once we'd shared water and food that Kuma and Un had brought in their own backpacks, we lay down.
With no warning, I broke down and blubbered for hours. My companions -- even Lona, who had as much reason to cry as I had -- held me and comforted me till my tears ran out, and the four of us lay in a ball and slept.
Even after the Homeworld's destruction, I'd never felt as bad as I felt that night. In the morning, though, I rose and returned to duty. May Holy Light send that no Tan ever again feel so bad!