Part 27 (1/2)

”Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me why you keep backing away,” he said. Then, to her relief, he dropped the subject. ”Where did you get the clothes?” he asked as they walked.

”From someone drying them outside. I guess they're going to get wet.”

”Yeah.”

She swallowed. She had her own questions. And she might have been afraid to ask them, except that she was discovering that nothing was forbidden with this man. ”Back at the convenience store... the man with the weapon... you said there was no violence here.” The sentences came out disjointed and jerky, and she wondered if they sounded like an accusation.

Logan didn't break his stride. ”Not as much as in your world, but there is always violence in any society. Sometimes it comes from inequality. Sometimes from bad people. Or greedy people. So I'd say it was just bad luck that we arrived at the Easy Shopper when we did.”

”The Easy Shopper?”

”That's the name of the place.”

”Oh.” She swallowed. ”That man, the robber. I felt the desperation and the hatred inside him. I think he would have killed the woman who owned it.”

”She probably doesn't own it. More likely she was working for someone.”

”Um,” she answered, a.s.similating that new piece of information. Someone trusted the woman enough to leave her with all those goods.

In her memory, Rinna pictured the scene again. ”Then cars came with flas.h.i.+ng lights.”

He turned his head toward her. ”The cops. That's slang for the police. Like soldiers. They keep order. But I don't think it's like in your world. We have soldiers, too. But they don't operate in the civilian world here unless there's a national emergency.” He sighed. ”That's probably getting too complicated.”

”I know you're trying to give me the... the short course.”

”Yeah. We have laws, and most citizens obey them. If you break the law, the cops come after you.”

”And throw you in a dungeon,” she said promptly.

”Well, not a dungeon. Jail. Which I a.s.sume is a little more humane. And what happens depends on how bad the crime was. You might get caught stealing-and be able to put up bail. I mean, you give them money that says you will stay in town until your trial. You get a lawyer, and you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I get the feeling that in your world, you are presumed guilty unless you can somehow prove you didn't commit the crime.”

”Yes,” she whispered, still trying to process a bunch of new concepts. But there was something else she needed to understand. ”Tell me about the weapon the robber had. I've heard of something like that, but I've never seen it.”

”A gun.”

”It hurts worse than a knife. And you don't have to be close to the person to use it?”

”It may not hurt worse, but can do more damage inside the body.”

She shuddered. ”I think we used to have those.”

He nodded, then asked his own urgent question. ”Can the soldiers figure out where we've gone? Do they have a way to track us? With smell, for example?”

She considered the possibilities. ”If they brought a shape-s.h.i.+fter, he might track us. But shape-s.h.i.+fters aren't all that common. I don't think Falcone has one.”

”That's good.”

”What about that trap that Falcone used? Could he get us with that?”

Again she tried to come up with a logical answer. ”He thought he would find no shape-s.h.i.+fters here. When he caught you, he probably reconsidered the wisdom of using it.”