Hollus spoke up. “They” “are” “real.” “We” “all” “are.” A satisfied smile spread across J. D.’s face. He shouted to the police. “The aliens aren’t projections,” he said. “They’re real. We’ve got six hostages here. I want all of you cops to withdraw. At the first sign of any trick, I will kill one of the hostages — and it won’t be a human.”

“You don’t want to be a murderer,” called the cop over the megaphone.

“I won’t be a murderer,” J. D. shouted back. “Murder is the killing of another human being. You won’t be able to find anything to charge me with. Now, withdraw fully and completely, or these aliens die.”

“One hostage will do as well as six,” called the same cop. “Let five of them go, and we’ll talk.”

J. D. and Cooter looked at each other. Six hostages was an unwieldy group; they might have an easier time controlling the situation if they didn’t have to worry about so many. On the other hand, by having the six form a circle, with J. D. and Cooter at the center, they could be protected from sharpshooters firing from just about any direction.

“No way,” shouted J. D. “You guys — you’re like a SWAT team, right? So you must have come here in a van or truck. We want you to back off, far away from the museum, leaving that van with its motor running and the keys in it. We’ll drive it to the airport, along with as many of the aliens as will fit, and we want a plane waiting there to take us” — he faltered “well, to take us wherever we decide to go.”

“We can’t do that,” said the cop through his megaphone.

J. D. shrugged a little. “I will kill one hostage sixty seconds from now, if y’all are still here.” He turned to the man with the crew cut. “Cooter?”

Cooter nodded, looked at his watch, and started counting down. “Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”

The cop with the bullhorn turned around and spoke to someone behind him. I could see him pointing, presumable indicating the direction to which his force should withdraw on foot.

“Fifty-six. Fifty-five. Fifty-four.”

Hollus’s eyestalks had stopped weaving in and out and had instead locked at their maximum separation. I’d seen her do that before when she had heard something that interested her. Whatever it was, I hadn’t heard it yet.

“Fifty-two. Fifty-one. Fifty.”

The cops were moving out of the glass vestibule, but they were making a lot of noise about it. The one with the bullhorn kept speaking. “All right,” he said. “All right. We’re withdrawing.” His magnified voice echoed through the Rotunda. “We’re backing away.”

It seemed to me he was talking unnecessarily, but —

But then I heard the sound Hollus had heard: a faint rumbling. The elevator, to our left, was descending in its shaft; someone had called it down to the lower level. The cop with the bullhorn was deliberately trying to drown out the sound.

“Forty-one. Forty. Thirty-nine.”

It would be suicide, I thought, for whoever would get in the car; J. D. could blow away the occupant as soon as the metal doors split down the middle and started to slide away.

“Thirty-one. Thirty. Twenty-nine.”

“We’re leaving,” shouted the cop. “We’re going.”

The elevator was coming back up now. Above the doors was a row of square indicator lights — B, 1, 2, 3 — indicating which floor the car was currently on. I dared steal a glance at it. The “1” had just winked out, and, a moment later, the “2” lit up. Brilliant! Either whoever was in the elevator had known about the balconies on the second floor, overlooking the Rotunda, or else the ROM’s own security guard, who must have let the police in, had told him.

“Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.”

As the “2” lit up, I did my part to muffle the sound of the elevator doors opening by coughing loudly; if there was one thing I did well these days, it was cough.

The “2” was staying lit; the doors must have opened by now, but J. D. and Cooter hadn’t heard them. Still, presumably one or more armed cops had now exited onto the second floor — the one that housed the Dinosaur and Discovery Galleries.

“Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven.”

“All right,” called the ETF officer with the megaphone. “All right. We’re leaving.” At this distance I couldn’t tell if he was making eye contact with the officers on the darkened balcony. We were still by the elevator; I didn’t dare tip my eyes up, lest I give away the presence of the people on the floor above.

“Nine. Eight. Seven.”

The cops moved out of the vestibule, exiting into the dark night. I watched them sink from view as they headed down the stone steps to the sidewalk.

“Six. Five. Four.”

The red lights from the roofs of the cruisers that had been sweeping through the Rotunda started to pull away; one set of lights — presumably from the ETF van — continued to rotate.

“Three. Two. One.”

I looked at Christine. She nodded almost imperceptibly; she knew what was happening, too.

“Zero!” said Cooter.

“All, right,” said J. D. “Let’s move out.”

I’d spent much of the last seven months worrying about what it was going to be like to die — but I hadn’t thought that I would see someone else die before I did. My heart was pounding like the jackhammers we use to break up overburden. J. D., I figured, had only seconds to live.

He arranged us in a semicircle, as if we were a biological shield for him and Cooter. “Move,” he said, and although my back was to him I was sure he was swinging his large gun left and right, preparing to fire in an arc if need be.

I started walking forward; Christine, the Forhilnors, and the Wreeds followed suit. We stepped out from under the overhang that shielded the area by the elevator, went down the four steps into the Rotunda proper, and started crossing the wide marble floor leading toward the entryway.

I swear I felt the splash against my bald head first, and only then heard the deafening shot from above. I swung around. It was difficult to make out what I was seeing; the only light in the Rotunda was what was spilling in from the George Weston gallery and from the street through the glass-doored vestibule and the stained-glass windows above it. J. D.’s head was open, like a melon, and blood had gone everywhere, including onto me and the aliens. His corpse jerked forward, toward me, and his submachine gun went skittering across the floor.

A second shot rang out almost on top of the first, but it hadn’t quite been synchronized; perhaps in the darkened balcony above, the two officers — there seemed to be at least that many up there — hadn’t been able to see each other. Short-haired Cooter moved his head just in time, and he was suddenly diving forward, trying to retrieve J. D.’s gun.

A Wreed was in the way; Cooter knocked him over. With the alien splayed out and flailing around, the sharpshooters apparently couldn’t clearly see Cooter.

I was in shock; I could feel J. D.’s blood dripping down to my neck. Suddenly the Wreed who was still standing flew up into the air. I knew it had been wearing a device to help it walk comfortably under Earth’s gravity; I hadn’t realized that it was strong enough to let him fly.

The other Forhilnor kicked the large gun, sending it spinning farther out into the Rotunda. Cooter continued to scramble toward it. The Wreed who had fallen was pulling himself to his feet. Meanwhile, the flying Wreed had now risen three meters off the ground.

Cooter had made it to the gun and rolled onto his side, shooting up into the darkened balconies. He pumped the trigger repeatedly, spraying out an arc of lead. The bullets hit ninety-year-old stone carvings, sending debris raining down upon us.

The other Wreed took to the air as well. I tried to get behind one of the freestanding wall segments that partially defined the edges of the Rotunda. Hollus was moving quickly — but going in the opposite direction, and soon, to my astonishment, she had reached the taller of the two totem poles. She flexed her six legs and leapt the short distance from the staircase onto the pole, wrapping her various limbs about it. And then she started shimmying at a great clip up the totem. Soon she was out of sight; she could go all the way to the third floor. I was glad she was apparently safe.