"One of them's got something on him that looks like it might be iron or
something."
"Where?"
"Right there. I saw it before but I thought it was just part of him. But
if he's 'people,' maybe it's a disintegrator gun."
"What's that?"
"I read about it in the books from Beforethewars. Mostly people with
space-ships have disintegrator guns. They point them at you and you get
disintegratored."
"They didn't point it at us till now," pointed out Red with his heart
not quite in it.
"I don't care. I'm not hanging around here and getting disintegratored.
I'm getting my father."
"Cowardy-cat. Yellow cowardy-cat."
"I don't care. You can call all the names you want, but if you bother
them now you'll get disintegratored. You wait and see, and it'll be all
your fault."
He made for the narrow spiral stairs that led to the main floor of the
barn, stopped at its head, then backed away.
Red's mother was moving up, panting a little with the exertion and
smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity as guest.
"Red! You, Red! Are you up there? Now don't try to hide. I know this is
where you're keeping them. Cook saw where you ran with the meat."