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After the birth of the baby, though, she had stepped on a landmine of prejudice and

murderous anger.

When a bomb shattered the stone lion statues in front of the library, the pudgy

Mr. Reynolds grabbed two of the flickering candles and gestured for Anthea to do the same.

“Come with me. We have to go to the inner vault. There’s better shelter inside, and an

emergency generator.”

Before leaving, he diligently and conscientiously blew out the remaining candles and led

Anthea through a maze of bookshelves to an office at the heart of the building. Their flickering

lights were like bobbing will-o’-the-wisps.

The walls here were thick and entirely without windows. The baby stirred in her arms, and

she bent down to shush him, holding the candle in her other hand. “Is this the rare book

section?”

“I have the distinct privilege and honor of being the chief librarian at one of the few

designated True Archives commissioned by the government. President Gray himself came for

the ribbon-cutting ceremony fifteen years ago.”

“What’s a True Archive?”

The librarian beamed, delighted to find a willing listener. “During the Slan Wars and

centuries of guerilla warfare and wanton destruction, much history has been lost. Most people

don’t even know what the truth is anymore.”

Anthea looked hard at him. “Do you know the truth? About the slans?”

Mr. Reynolds fumbled a little and turned his back, marching farther down the hall into a

larger, open lobby. “This library is one of the repositories of genuine information about the

Slan Wars and Dr. Samuel Lann. Many of the reports are contradictory, of course. A few are

written by eyewitnesses, while some are rather clumsy government propaganda. But that’s the

way it usually is. With so much information, you have to separate opinion from fact,

exaggeration from documentation.”

He stopped in front of a great metal door and set his candles down on a small table. The

thick hatch was steel-gray, polished to a dull luster, reinforced with riveted panels and a

locking mechanism of gears and dials. The combination wheels themselves were secured with a

steel padlock. The thick door seemed as impregnable as a bank vault.

“Inside this vault are original papers, some of the notebooks of Dr. Lann and actual

correspondence from previous presidents who fought in the Slan Wars.”

Since the birth of her unexpected slan baby, she felt a desperate need to know. All of the

background material in that vault would reveal the answers. “I’d like to see them. I’m sure it’s

fascinating.”

The librarian seemed befuddled. “Oh, I’m afraid that’s not possible, ma’am. Those records

are classified.”

“But if this is a True Archive, why can’t people see the truth?”

“Most people are not ready for it,” Reynolds said sadly. “
Possessing
information and

distributing
it are two different things. Even President Gray wanted to control how much the

public knew.” He shook his head, his jowls sagging like a hound dog’s. “From what I heard on

the wireless this morning, it seems the President has been secretly in league with the slans all

along. What has he brought us to?”

The distant thunderous rumble of more explosions rattled the ceiling.

“I think there’s a great deal we don’t understand,” Anthea said. “But those records might

help us unravel it. Besides, didn’t you say there was a backup generator inside? We’d have

electricity again, and we’d be safe.”

The baby squirmed in his mother’s arms and she saw just a hint of the fine golden tendrils

rising out like long strands of hair from the powder-blue blanket. She quickly tucked them

back.

Reynolds was more agitated now, loosening his necktie. “Only I know the combination to

unseal this door, ma’am. I have strict instructions not to open it for anyone who doesn’t have

Presidential authorization.”

“You’re the only one with the combination? How can you be sure you remember it?”

“Oh, the numbers are very clear in my mind.” Reynolds tapped his forehead.

The baby remained very still as if he had fallen asleep, but suddenly Anthea saw numerals

sharply in her brain, as if someone had painted them in bold ink behind her eyelids. 4 … 26 …

19 … 12. She caught her breath as she realized what must have happened. The slan baby had

easily read those numbers as Mr. Reynolds had recalled them, and the infant had shared them

with his mother’s mind as well. Anthea knew exactly how to open the vault.

Making an excuse, the librarian scuttled back to a long wooden table just outside the

armored vault door. “However, these volumes are available to the general public, though not

often requested, I’m afraid. Many people instinctively hate the slans, but don’t want to

understand anything about the reasons for doing so. The slans did terrible things to human

society, oh yes. The Slan Wars were the greatest holocaust in our civilization’s history, like the

burning of a thousand libraries of Alexandria.”

He heaved a great, grieving breath. “The endless centuries of destruction leveled our cities,

brought us down to the level of barbarism. It took the human race a long time to rebuild, and

even now our society has returned only to the equivalent of the United States of America back

in the 1940s, as calculated in the old-style calendar.” He gestured for Anthea to take a seat and

began arranging books on the table. “Some of the cultural similarities to that time period are

quite striking. It’s as if we’ve been set on a well-worn path. We’re following technology, styles,

and habits that were forgotten long-ago, but are now coincidentally commonplace.”

Anthea arranged some of the books to make a support, like a cradle, in which she could

tuck the blanket-wrapped baby. Then she pulled other volumes toward her. “But these books

are not classified? I can read them?”

“They’re the official records of the Slan Wars. I hope they hold your interest. When all this

messy business outside is over, maybe we can submit a request to whichever government is in

charge next? I would so enjoy having a real scholar look over the True Archives with me.”

“So, you’ve read them yourself?”

He seemed embarrassed. “Not … entirely. Just enough to make a cursory inventory.

There’s always so much to do in the library itself, you know.”

“Thank you very much. These will do fine for now.” Anthea found newspaper clippings,

reprinted letters, and many books describing the “slan peril” and the “terrible threat of the evil

super-humans.” She brought one of the candles closer.

Reynolds made disapproving sounds as he stood in front of a cart full of books. “Some of

these are in sections 820.951 through 825.664, right down here in the sheltered area. Will you

be all right for a little while?” After she reassured him, Reynolds rattled off with his heavy cart,

balancing one of the thick candles to light his way.

Alone now, Anthea opened the books and began to skim them. She had always enjoyed

reading, but now—after having the baby, after realizing who and what she was—a key had

opened in her mind. She was astonished to discover that in only a few minutes she had

completely skimmed—and absorbed, and
remembered
—a full five-hundred-page volume!

The reports carried some surprises, but generally they were the same inflammatory stories

she’d been told all her life. She skimmed the spines of other books, selected a second one, and

raced through the pages as well, flipping them so swiftly she nearly tore the paper. Then she

read a third book, and a fourth. She felt like a dry sponge plunged into a bucket of water.

Anthea learned how the first slan mutations had appeared, babies born with tendrils that

amplified their telepathic abilities. They could read minds, influence people; their bodies were

stronger.

The most prominent figure in all of the records was Dr. Lann. Some portrayed him as a

genius, others as a victim of his own hubris, still others called him an evil mastermind who had

caused an evolutionary avalanche that resulted in the deaths of billions. The records were

unclear as to whether the slan mutations had occurred naturally, or if Samuel Lann had created

a machine or special ray that invoked the changes in his own three children, turning them into

the first slans.

Contradictory reports hinted that tendrilled babies had been born spontaneously all around

the planet, from civilized countries to rough wastelands. Before long, slans began to appear

everywhere. They found each other and bore children. Within a few generations, their

numbers had grown great enough that their leaders quietly made plans. Slans infiltrated

important positions in government and industry, and then they took over the world, insisting

that they were meant to be the masters of “mere humans.”

Anthea shuddered as she continued to read. Nearby, warm and comfortable, wrapped in

blankets, the baby seemed capable of absorbing everything his mother knew, assimilating all

the new knowledge she learned.

Mr. Reynolds, whistling happily to be doing something productive, trundled an empty cart

back into the protected room outside the thick vault door. He took another loaded book cart

and went about his business. Anthea barely noticed him as she eagerly devoured the records in

front of her…

From the point that the slans had made their first move against humanity, the news reports

became much less objective. She doubted any of them was entirely true. Previously, a handful

of conspiracy theorists denounced the slans as freaks and monsters. Then, when one hundred

thousand slans took over the world, they proved to everyone that the paranoid fears had been

correct. The slans
did
mean to enslave humanity.

But the angered humans formed a powerful resistance. The slans might have been

supermen, but one hundred thousand could not stand against a vengeful population of

billions.

The devastation on both sides was horrendous. As the wars flared up, died down, then

burst into flames again, Earth itself was rocked. Eventually, after centuries of bloodshed, the

slans were defeated. The survivors went into hiding, built secret enclaves, protected bases from

which they could continue their insidious scheming (or so the reports claimed). Some said the

slans went out into space, perhaps to Mars, where they bided their time, rebuilt their numbers

and prepared for a further attack. Earth’s technology had been set back so far, the survivors

could not even dream of launching a concerted space program.

Every once in a while, a slan was caught and killed in Centropolis, lending credence to the

fears that hundreds or thousands more remained in hiding. The secret police crowed about

each such victory, proud to be rooting out the evil infiltrators.

It seemed indisputable that those first megalomaniacal slans had indeed meant to dominate

humanity, had tried to take over the world and enslave others. But that was so many centuries

ago. Did the few wild survivors still mean such harm? What about the “accidents,” like her

own baby? Could every innocent child born with tendrils be sentenced to death for the sins of

long-forgotten fathers? She shook her head and looked up, startled to realize that she had

finished reading fourteen of the books on the table.

Mr. Reynolds had come back, having emptied his carts. He now stood smiling, bent over

her baby. He whispered and cooed, stroking the boy’s nose, his forehead. Before Anthea could

react, he pushed the blanket back, revealing the baby’s head. “Look at you. Such a cute

little—”

Then he gasped in horror.

The baby’s tendrils rose like tiny antennae in the air, wafting as if in a gentle breeze.

Reynolds stumbled backward, gaping at the slan tendrils. “Oh, my!”

«
^
»

The tendrilless bombers were already on their final approach.

“Deep underground will be the safest,” Kathleen said. “Jommy, can we get to your vehicle

from there?”

“Yes, there are transverse tunnels.” With his perfect recall, he could envision all the tangled

passageways and routes from the blueprints he had seen. “I know of an old slan passageway