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St Milo’s Day
The crumbling spires of the crippled city loomed above the hills before the three travellers, two fugitive astronauts from another time, and a talking chimpanzee. The broken towers looked very much like those of the half dozen other cities the three had visited in their search for answers and possibly a way back to the planet’s late 20th century. Little distinguished it from Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Rosa or San Jose. It was, like all the others, desolate, scorched, gutted, and likely irradiated.
But the wanderers needed to know what secrets the city held. Colonel Alan Virdon, leader of the group, still held out hope that this sprawling rubble would yield the knowledge he sought, and provide a way to return to his beloved family, now so long dead. His human colleague, Major Peter Burke, was less hopeful, but dedicated to his commander’s – his friend’s – mission.
Their chimpanzee friend Galen approached each city with more trepidation than hope. He had been raised in a simian society which taught that such areas as these were forbidden: deadly remnants of a past best forgotten. He recalled maps displayed in classrooms and government buildings, marked with lines of skulls and Xs to delineate the parts of the world too terrible to approach. But his devotion to his human companions, and his own insatiable curiosity, compelled him to accompany them wherever they decided to venture.
They trudged into the city near nightfall: the overcast sky gave little light, hampering their passage through the dead streets, but at least the surrounding wreckage did not emit any sort of glow. Perhaps this city had avoided the fallout that shrouded so many others, centuries ago.
‘We’d better find shelter,” said Virdon; “This place might not be as deserted as it seems.”
“Yeah,” agreed Burke; “We wouldn’t want a repeat of that mutant business in Frisco.”
Some months earlier, in the ruins of San Francisco, the three had been attacked by a pack of unidentifiable beasts, each about the size of a German Shepherd; indeed, these animals’ ancestors may well have been dogs, but now, after centuries of radiation mutation, it was impossible to say with certainty what they had once been. Galen had received a vicious scratch from one of them, and once the creatures had been disposed of, there was much concern about infection in the chimp’s wound. Virdon was able to cauterize the injury, and Burke did his best to sterilize the cut with salt and the acidic juice of some oper fruit he’d foraged outside the city a few days earlier. Galen’s forearm would forever bear a scar, but at least the chimp didn’t develop sepsis, or worse.
The trio took shelter in an old store front, barricading the doors in case of unwanted visitors. Their first night in this lost city passed without incident.
***
On that same evening, miles away, on the other side of the scarecrow row that bordered the fallen city, a signal light was seen by the sentry of a gorilla outpost stationed there. Flashed from other outposts, originating from the distant village of Hathor, the message relayed that the three renegades had been in that village a few days prior. Further, it said that Security Chief Urko himself was on the trail of the three, and was heading to the Frez-No Forbidden Zone to continue his search.
“Urko, coming here?” marvelled one of the enlisted apes.
“When will he arrive?” asked a second gorilla.
“Tomorrow or the day after,” answered the sentry.
“Then we’d better get this place in shape,” growled Captain Sulla.
While the rest of the garrison fell to tidying up the dishevelled outpost, Sulla shut his office door and rummaged through the pile of notices on his desk. He found what he sought: a wanted poster with three crude drawings on it: two non-descript humans, and a chimp. Both men had the same face; the only real difference was the colour of their fur: one was yellow, and the other black. The chimp’s face showed more detail, enough that he could be recognized from the sketch. Under the drawings were their names and a list of crimes: Galen the chimpanzee was charged with treason, heresy, aiding fugitives, and murder. The two humans, Burke and Virdon, were simply given the titles “Political criminals.”
Sulla sat back in his chair with a sigh but not of relief, more one of concern: Urko would expect him, and his troopers, to go into the Frez-No ruins to hunt down these lawless humans and their ape accomplice. Sulla had heard tales of Frez-No: an ancient metropolis inhabited by feral humans, unsafe for any ape who ventured within its limits. The line of scarecrows did its job, fending off the superstitious apes; but Urko would not be deterred by scarecrows, or wild humans, or anything else. Urko would be determined not to leave empty-pawed. He would capture the fugitives or die trying, and would certainly be willing to sacrifice members of an unimportant outpost in his quest.
The sentry watched through the night and into the next morning, as signal posts flashed updates on Urko’s progress. He was 30 miles away. He was 20 miles away. He was 10 miles away. Just before noon, when the notice was received that Urko was within the last 5 miles of his ride, the sentry blew his bugle as instructed and summoned the squadron.
Sulla had the camp’s cook prepare a table for Urko’s reception, loaded with fresh fruit and bread and wine. Usually at mid-day the garrison dined on porridge and a little dried fruit, but Sulla planned to make Urko’s arrival an impressive event.
Soon, Sulla’s sharp ears heard galloping hooves, and moments later, Urko astride his white horse came into sight. The sentry again blasted his bugle, and the gorillas scrambled into a straight stiff line with Sulla at its head. As one, the apes saluted as their Chief rode into their encampment.
“Where is your commanding officer?” growled Urko, not bothering to return the salute.
“Here,” said Sulla, his voice raspy with nervousness. He cleared his throat. “I’m Captain Sulla, sir. Welcome to –-“
Urko dismounted and tossed the reins to the closest gorilla. “Water my horse,” he barked, “and see that he is fed.”
“Yessir!” snapped the young gorilla holding the reins, and he scrambled off with the sweating horse in tow.
Urko strode past Sulla, and said without ceremony, “Food. Drink. Now.” Sulla fell into step behind him quickly. “Right this way, sir, we have been expecting –”
“What’s all this,” asked Urko with a sneer as he sighted the long table spread with delicacies, and the aproned cook beaming behind it.
“I had the cook prepare a luncheon for –“
“A luncheon?” Urko said with mockery in his voice. “This isn’t a females’ social club. No wonder you garrison commanders are so fat and lazy.”
Before Sulla could object to the insult, Urko continued: “Bread. Wine. Some greens. Now!”
Sulla turned to the cook. “You heard Chief Urko! Move!” He saw the remainder of his soldiers still standing in a row. “The rest of you! Get to work!”
“Yes, sir!” a few of them replied, and they headed off severally, unsure of what work exactly Sulla wanted them to do.
Urko thumped himself down at one end of the table. He undid his vest and pried off his boots, and set his helmet on the table. He cook returned with a modest plate of fairly fresh vegetables, a half loaf of coarse bread and a skin of wine. Urko snatched up the wine and gulped it down, and then began to eat his simple meal.
“I’m following three fugitives,” he said between mouthfuls.
“I know: the renegade Galen and the two astro-nauts,” said Sulla, a little too eagerly.
“So you at least have read the notices from Central City,” responded the Chief. “Good. I’ll need two of your best soldiers to accompany me in the forbidden city. That’s where they have gone, I am sure. The one called Virdon would insist that they go searching… for what exactly I cannot say. But I know that he would lead them straight into such a place.”
“Two of my best. Yes sir.”
“And you, too, will accompany me,” said Urko.
Sulla felt a sudden rush of nausea. “Me, sir?”
“You, Captain. Get yourself and your troopers ready. We’ll leave in 5 hours, once my horse has fed and rested. In the meantime, I require a bed myself. Take me to your quarters.” Before Sulla could respond, Urko continued: “I am sure your quarters will be suitable.”
***
That day, Virdon, Burke and Galen had begun their search through the city, but the question was, “Where to begin?” Without a guide, Virdon had hoped to find some clue to the location of buried knowledge: in Oakland, they had found, and lost, a vault full of computers, each one stocked with the accumulated brilliance of a long-dead world. A hologram had stated that several such vaults were embedded in concrete in various cities scattered around the world, but had not indicated which cities, or even which continents. It had, though, confirmed Virdon’s fear, that the collapse of humanity and the rise of the apes was a world-wide horror.
“That book the old man had showed that New York was still standing in the 26th century. That’s the best bet for where to find information, in a place that held out longest against the apes,” suggested Burke.
“And how in hell are we supposed to reach New York? Fly?” asked Virdon with uncharacteristic bile. His tone softened. “Who knows how the terrain between here and there has been altered over the centuries. On foot, or even if we could steal horses, we’d be old men by the time we found what was left of the Big Apple.”
“Big Apple?” queried Galen. “We have apples here, too, you know: orchards full of them. My cousin Augustus and I stole apples as kids –”
Burke smiled and said, “Not the kind of apple we mean, Galen. New York was a city, even bigger than the ones we have seen. It was called the Big Apple. A nickname.”
As they wandered through the broken streets, the trio became aware of this city’s other inhabitants: here and there ragged, emaciated humans could be seen rummaging through the debris, digging up roots and gathering tough vegetation. One, they noted, had a sack stained with the blood of some small animal; another carried a spear and a pair of scrawny rabbits on a rope.
There would be no use asking any of them where there might be a vault, or a library, or a computer lab; even if they recognized these terms, humans in these desolate places stayed to themselves, more or less. It was safer to avoid any interactions.
Around midday, Galen froze in his tracks.
“What is it,” asked Virdon.
“Someone in pain. Not quite a scream, but something stifled and –“ he sought for the right word; “-- raw.”
Despite not having heard anything, neither man questioned him: like all of the apes, Galen’s hearing, like his sense of smell, was stronger than that of a human. Indeed, before this, Galen’s sharp ears had saved them from many dangers on the road.
“I think it’s a female,” he said. “In agony.”
“You mean a woman,” asked Burke.
Galen responded, “Uh-huh. I doubt any female apes would be in this awful place.”
Burke knew what Virdon, always the hero, would say next: “Take us to her.”
But Galen still stood unmoving. “She’s not alone. There’s a male with her. A human, I think.”
“Is she in danger?” asked Burke.
Galen listened more closely. “I can’t tell, I can’t make out what they’re saying… but his voice seems tense.”
And with that, Galen started off in the direction of the mysterious voices, with the two astronauts hurrying behind.
***
In the garrison, Urko, Sulla, and two brawny enlisted apes, Damok and Zolan, mounted their horses, and began the trek to the Frez-No ruins. The two non-com gorillas were more frightened than they let their commanders see: their jobs here at the outpost had been to prevent anyone from entering this Forbidden Zone, and to prevent any of the Zone’s inhabitants from getting out.
And now, here they were, trotting off into an area thick with superstition and mystery. The fur on their necks stood up and their mouth were dry with fear of the unknown ahead of them. Each was well-armed with a rifle and club; Urko himself carried a holstered pistol as well. But the uneducated soldiers worried that such material weapons might not be of use against the imagined monsters of the Forbidden Zone.
Sulla rode beside the Security Chief, but Urko paid him little attention. Once or twice, The captain attempted conversation, but was shut down with glares from the helmeted ape. Instead, they rode in relative silence for several hours, out of the green area of the outpost, into the scrub, past the line of looming scarecrows, and along a buckled highway into the rough and savage land of Frez-No. Once in the city’ remains, they guided their horses around collapsed building walls and twisted girders. Urko was especially aware of the dangers of the crumbled roads and streets, having himself nearly been killed in another ruined city when the earth opened up beneath his boots. He had had to rely on the help of one of the two human fugitives on that occasion, a truth which still caused him some embarrassment. The aftermath of that event should have been the end of his hunt, had Captain Zako followed his orders as given.
As the four mounted apes rounded a corner, an aged, bald-pated human darted past them and into an open doorway.
Urko turned abruptly in his saddle, and snarled at the troopers, “Why didn’t you shoot?”
The two underlings stammered, and one of them, Damok, said, “But Chief Urko, that human was hairless. You told us one was yellow and the other one black. You showed us the poster.”
“Idiots. From here on, you shoot any human, on sight, with or without hair. Clear?”
“Yes, sir!” they both barked back. And with that, they ventured further into the city.
***
Burke and Virdon went trotting after Galen as he scrambled over the broken pavements and sidewalks, until he finally turned into a doorless entrance and hurried up the nearby staircase. By now, they could hear the sounds too: distant at first, then nearer, the unmistakable voice of a woman in pain. On the third floor of the building, Burke called out in a hoarse whisper to his chimpanzee friend.
“Hey, hold on, Galen. You better let us go first. We don’t know how the humans in this place might react to an ape rushing at them.”
The two men crept toward the battered door to one of the rooms, the source of the sound. Cautiously, they pushed the door open. It swung drunkenly on its hinges.
Inside what appeared to have been an office of some sort, on the filthy floor in front of a burnt and rotting sofa, sat a young woman, raggedly dressed and cradling her swollen, clearly pregnant belly. Beside her knelt a young man, no better dressed, bathed in sweat.
“Oh dear God,” said Virdon.
The disheveled man, little more than a youth, looked wide-eyed at the two strangers. His expression grew more panicked when the chimpanzee came into sight.
“Don’t hurt us,” he whimpered, trying to sound brave. His words faltered: “She – she’s -- I don’t know –" His face revealed the torrent of emotions he was trying vainly to hide. “Help us?” he finally whispered.
The men and the chimp stood still in the doorway for a moment. The man on the floor looked pleadingly at the newcomers. The woman, wincing in pain, did not react to the presence of a simian in the room.
“Hold on,” said Virdon; “We’re not going to hurt you. He won’t either,” he continued, waving his hand at Galen.
The young man seemed to relax a little at this, but then the woman beside him let out an agonized moan. He looked to her, and then, back to the strangers, his face pale and wet.
Burke wiped the sweat from his lip. “Go ahead, Alan, you know what to do.”
Virdon’s expression was a mixture of panic and disbelief. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Well, back on Polar’s farm –” began Burke, but Virdon was quick to interrupt.
“That was a cow! Not a woman! They’re not even close to the same thing!”
From the doorway, Galen spoke up. “Maybe I can help.”
“You?” asked Virdon; “Galen, you’re no doctor.”
“That’s true,” admitted the chimp, “but I did help when our servant Loomis’ wife had a child. Well, I really watched more than helped. But I think I remember how things went. First, we need to get her up off the floor. Then I’ll need some clean linen and some fresh water.”
The men helped the woman up onto the sofa. Virdon was quick to begin searching the office and adjacent rooms for the required linen, but Burke hesitated.
“Should I boil the water?” asked Burke.
Galen gave him a quizzical look. “Whatever for?”
“I don’t know,” said Burke; “that’s what the always did in the movies.”
The woman gave a loud cry. Galen, rushed forward and knelt.
“Enough of this nonsense. Now go: linens. Water. Now!”
Burke bolted out of the apartment’s front door. The woman’s male companion looked at the stranger ape. “What should I do?”
Galen answered wryly, “You, young man, have done enough already.”
***
Urko, Sulla and the two troopers turned another desolate corner and rode down another shattered street, slowly navigating around rusted girders and tangled wire. Evening was fast approaching: they had been at it for hours; Sulla thought it seemed like hours wasted, but Urko was sure he could smell them in the area. By now he was familiar with the scent of the two humans, having been trapped in a subway station with Burke, and having overseen the torture of Virdon. It was also easy to pick up the scent-trail of an out-of-place chimpanzee in this blighted city. He intended to track them all down; whether he returned to Central City with the alive had yet to be determined.
Without warning, Urko drew his horse to a halt. Sulla and the soldiers followed his lead.
“What is it, Chief Urko?” asked Sulla in a hushed voice.
“They’re here. They’re near here.” Urko sniffed the air. “I can smell them.” He sniffed again, and grimaced. “And there is another smell….” He paused again. “Blood.”
Sulla inhaled deeply. “Is one of them wounded?”
Urko’s voice was quiet, tense. “No. Not wounded. Not one of them. A different blood.”
Urko turned quickly in his saddle. “They are here. In one of these buildings,” he added with a sweeping hand at the ragged apartment complexes ahead of them. “Split up. Find them. Bring them here to me. I want them alive – for now at least.”
Sulla dismounted and barked at the troopers, “You heard the chief. Damok, you take this building on the left. Zolan, you take the one in the middle. I’ll look in the one on the right.”
“Yes, sir” snapped both troopers, and the leapt from their mounts and loped into the doorways before them as instructed. Sulla turned to Urko. “We will find them, Chief. I give you my word.”
“You’d better, Captain Sulla,” replied Urko coldly.
Sulla turned, swallowed hard, and hurried into the leaning building.
Inside, the hallways were dark and dusty, all cracked plaster and shattered tiles. Sulla shuffled along, past locked doors unopened for centuries, and others, open, with tracks worn in the grime on the thresholds. The place stank of decay, char, rust and death. He could smell human as well, but since these cities often held nests of feral humans, it was not surprising. But unlike Urko, Sulla could not identify the humans whose scent he had inhaled.
***
In the ancient office, Virdon stood ready with a bundle of cloth sheets he had found in a closet next door. “Not exactly linen,” he said, passing it to Galen, “but at least it’s clean.”
“Where’s Pete with that water,” asked the ape.
“Likely still trying to find some,” answered Virdon.
“He’d better hurry,” began Galen, but he was cut off by a cry from the woman on the sofa before him. “It’s coming,” he whispered. Galen looked into the woman’s eyes. “I need you to push,” he said, and to her male companion he added, “and I need you to hold her hand and keep her breathing.”
***
Damok, one of the two soldier gorillas, prowled through the ground floor of the building. He heard noises, worrisome sounds, mostly unidentifiable. Once, the tiles on the floor crumbled and gave way to his boot, opening into a dusty gash he barely missed falling into; another moment, a patchy-haired rodent squealed and scuttled across the hallway, giving the soldier reason to catch his breath in a startled gasp. But as he climbed the tilting stairs to the building’s third floor, Damok made out voices. He froze, rifle in hand, and listened. Words. Whispers. A cry of pain. Then a wailing. Voices, clear, male and female. Damok clutched his ready weapon, and crept down the hall to the source of the sounds.
He turned into an open doorway, and there before him found what he sought after, and more: the fugitive chimpanzee Galen, recognizable from the wanted poster Sulla has circulated, and with him, two human males, presumably the pair Urko was hunting. With them, sprawled on a tattered piece of furniture, was a human female, drenched in sweat, holding to her breast a child, wrapped in cloth. All of them froze at the sight of the gorilla in the door.
Damok aimed his rifle. “Captain Sulla,” he shouted, but he was cut short by a sharp blow to the back of his hairy head. Damok slumped to the floor. Standing behind him with a wet, broken clay vessel in his hands was Peter Burke.
“Sorry about the water,” he said.
Virdon hurried to bind up the soldier with a length of the cloth he had provided. “Come on, Pete,” he said as he gagged the unconscious gorilla, and the two men dragged the slumped beast into the nearby custodial closet, and blocked the door shut behind him.
Back in the office, Virdon handed Burke a brittle folded paper. “I found this,” he said, as his partner gingerly opened it to find a map of the territory once called the United States of America, printed in the early 23rd century. “It shows the subways systems, which seem to connect a lot of the cities. If we can get our bearings, we have a better chance to explore this part of the planet, out of sight of the gorillas.”
As Peter Burke scanned the delicate paper, Galen spoke up. “We need to get moving. He called for his captain. He’s not alone here.”
In agreement, the two men hurried out of the office, followed by their simian friend, and leaving the man and woman alone on the sofa with their new child. They scrambled out a window onto a rusting fire escape, just as the hulking figure of Captain Sulla cleared the stairwell at the hall’s opposite end. But the gorilla did not see them; his attention was drawn by the sounds coming from the office where to new family lay. He stalked into the room and saw them there, huddled on the careening sofa.
“You,” he barked at the man who sat holding the woman’s shoulders. “Two men and a chimpanzee. Where are they?”
“Two men and –” began the young man before the stopped, feigned confusion, and asked, “What would a chimpanzee be doing here, sir?”
“They were here, boy, I can smell them,” growled Sulla, bringing up his rifle. “Now, where are they?”
***
On the fire escape, Galen gripped Burke’s arm sharply. “Look,” he barely breathed, and jerked his head to the ground below. There, on his white horse, facing away from them, was Urko, Security Chief of Central City and commander of all the gorilla garrisons in this part of the world. Galen, Virdon and Burke all three froze against the sooty brick façade of the building and behind the twisted iron uprights of the fire escape, hoping the dim light of the hour would help to hide them.
Just then, three gunshots rang from the adjacent building. Urko spun on his horse. He leapt from the saddle, and hurried into the ground floor doorway.
Sulla heard it too, and rushed out of the office and back into the now-dark street.
As soon as Urko passed out of sight, the chimpanzee and the two astronauts ducked in from the fire escape and through the window.
***
Urko rushed to the source of the shots and the smell of gunpowder. In one of the apartments, he found the soldier Zolan, rifle in hand, standing over the bloodied body of a human male. Urko peered at the dead figure: it was the bald-headed man who had dashed past them in the street.
Zolan looked at his high commander with a mixture of pride and fear. “You said shoot any humans on sight.”
Scowling, Urko grabbed the rifle from Zolan’s grip. “You fool. Now they’ll have heard your gunshots. They’ll know we’re here. They’ll be on their guard. They’ll be that much harder to find. Because of you.”
Zolan swallowed hard, and Sulla, who had arrived in the room in time to assess the scene and to hear the reprimand, slumped against the door sill with a disgusted sigh.
Urko shoved the rifle into the arms of the worried soldier, and with only a sneer at Sulla, he plodded back to his horse outside.
***
The three fugitives found the new family where they had left them. They were quiet now: the infant was silently nursing. The woman was dozing, as the young man hummed to her, softly. On hearing the trio return, the exhausted mother opened her eyes.
Virdon asked gently, “What will you name --?”
Galen finished his question: “Him.”
Virdon’s smile broadened. “Him?”
The woman looked down at the tiny being at her breast. After a moment, she said, softly, “Milo. His name will be Milo.”
The quiet announcement caused Galen to grin. “How appropriate.”
At that moment, a commotion was heard from the closet in the hallway.
Virdon jerked open the door, to find the gorilla Damok struggling against his improvised bonds, and grunting into the cloth gag.
“Now you hear me,” he said in a tense whisper. “If you make another sound, even so much as a sigh, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and leave your hairy corpse to the rats.”
Over his shoulder, Burke added, “And the buzzards.
Virdon continued in his tough-guy tone: “Do you understand me, ape?”
Wide eyed, the bound Damok nodded vigorously.
“Good,” said Virdon, as he closed the door and propped a chair under the knob. He returned to the couple with their child, and whispered, “Once we’re gone, wait about half an hour before you open that closet door, and then run. Leave him tied up: he’ll make enough noise I’m sure to draw the others, while you three make your way to safety.” He handed the trooper’s rifle to the man. “Do you know how to use this?”
“I think so,” the responded. “I’ve seen apes use them before.”
Virdon understood the gravity of this simple phrase. He and Burke gathered their own modest possessions, along with the newly found map, and moved to the hallway.
Galen placed beside the young man a canteen and a parcel of food. He looked into the eyes of the new mother, and said softly, “Take care of our little Milo, and of yourself.” He leaned down and tenderly kissed the top of the baby’s downy head. And with that blessing, he and his companions made their way down the stairs to the building’s back door, away, they hoped, from Urko’s view.
“What did you mean, the name Milo is appropriate,” asked Burke as they picked their way through the alley.
“Well,” began the chimpanzee, “of course I can’t be certain of today’s date, but right around this time of year is St Milo’s Day. A very important simian celebration.”
“And who was St Milo?”
“St Milo was the ape who began our lineage, really. Our saviour. He led us out of bondage and made us lords of the planet.”
Virdon was curious. “Bondage? Under whom?”
“That part isn’t quite clear…. The Sacred Scrolls can be a bit dodgy with details. But based on what I have seen and heard and learned since getting mixed up with you two, I suspect the oppressors were human.”
“That sounds very likely,” said Burke.
“Anyway, there’s some confusion over whether his name was Milo or Caesar or both. There seems to have been another Milo, before this Milo, this one who may or may not have become Caesar, another one who set everything in motion with a voyage to a strange land, but that could be apocryphal. But we kind of let the details remain obscure, and instead simply celebrate the rise of the apes with a holiday commemorating both Milos sort of lumped together. The children get the day off from school, most offices and shops close, and there are feasts and gifts and music and special songs. My mother used to bake the most wonderful pies –”
Galen’s voice suddenly failed him. The silence that followed was cruel. It only abated, slightly, when Peter Burke put his hand on the chimpanzee’s shoulder.
“We get it.”
“I know,” sighed his simian friend.
Virdon drew his mouth in tightly. “Come on. We need to find a place to bed down, away from here. Urko won’t give up the search.”
Peter Burke broke the tension. “And,” he said, “neither will we, especially with this in our hands.” He waved the subway map in his hand.
They hurried through the jagged street as quickly as the darkness would allow, and finally veered into low building about half a mile from the office where the human child Milo had been born. As always, they barricaded the doors, blocked out the windows with make-shift blinds, and settled down for a meager meal and much-needed rest. They did not risk a fire that night, with Urko and the other gorillas still in the area.
“I wonder,” quietly mused Virdon, “if this new Milo might do for humans what the other Milo did for the apes, all those centuries ago.”
The three lay in silence, in darkness, in thought.
“Hey, Galen,” whispered Burke finally; “When we’re clear of this place, maybe you’ll favour us with one of those St Milo’s Day songs you mentioned.
Galen smiled with a certain sadness, unseen by his friends. “Of course. I’d be happy to.” And with a deep sigh, he let himself drift into sleep.