"What the."What the...?" I grabbed for the rung recessed into the lip of the tube, grabbing for the rung above it with my other hand. "Dave!" I shouted again. Still nothing. Hand over hand I dragged myself up to my living room. "Ken!" I heard P'nyssa shouting. "What's wrong?" "I don't know!" I shouted. I ran for the door, expecting it not to function this time. It didn't. I reached for the manual lock and hit the 'open' button. It slid to the side. We obviously still had power or I'd've noticed when the Castle fell out of the sky. "What's going on?" I shouted as I ran for the G-tube. I knew it wasn't going to be working. I ran into M'Riah as he came out. "I don't know!" he replied. "It's was on the roof, whatever that scream was!" "Let's get going," I said, in a much calmer tone. Somebody had to keep their head on, guess it had to be me. That's my one personal ability. When everyone else panics, I tend to be calm. I swung into the G-tube and climbed for the first floor. Riah grabbed another set of rungs and began following me. People were congregating around the tubes, wondering what was going to happen. "Somebody check Dave!" I shouted down to whoever was down there, hoping it was one of the Mahns, our resident AI experts. There was a scramble as Riah and I ran down the hallway. Lights came on as we headed for the door, and Dave's voice said, "Ken?" "Dave! What's going on?" "I don't know," he said. "Get to the roof. We have a problem." I ran for the G-tube at the end of the corrider. Putting these accesses at the cardinal ends and the main tube in the center had made sense a few decades ago. Now they were only hindrances. The tube here was floored, so I ran in fully expecting the tube to be non-functional, but it carried me up to the roof. I ran out into the rooftop garden. There were lights coming from the walkway to the left, by the round table. "Ken!" a voice shouted, and a huge arm clamped over the front of my chest. "No!" he said. "Dammit, Fritz, what?" The Uncia held me and said, "Calm down." I heard voices. |