"I dunno, beloved. I can't tell whether you have retina damage without proper equipment. We need to get you to Iberica. They have all the gear and can...fit you with artificial retinas if required." Can't leave..." Oh, sure, and what the hell use are you here? Jack and Janet are waiting - she will care for you on the way." No! But, you must leave!" I'm not leaving my babies! Mikele will need a healer back here in any case. Roger, I will sedate the shit out of you and get the guys to load you on. As he pulled the hood over the girl's pretty face, he removed the gag and brought her to her knees with a clank of chain and a the sharp sound of her breath being caught. Linda was beginning to struggle a little now, trying to talk. Adam grinned broadly at the blinded captives. He was smug again at the thought of the velcro mouth hole in the hood. Re-sealable. Perfect.Last two touches. He reached for the weapon of choice and flicked the switch so that the room was flooded in an. Many of them were family owned. She might be the daughter of one of the owners! No wonder she was so sure on the mountain! She’d probably known these mountains since she was a little girl! The guest house where she lived must be on another route off the ridge. That’s why she’d not come with him to the hostel. Alex tried to remember the location of the other guest houses in the region. He’d have to look at the map. Surely there couldn’t be many. He could find her! The thought was enormously. The engine had been running almost non-stop for three days and there was some concern about running out of water for the boilers once they left the river. The engineer figured they could reach Bend without a problem, and in fact they had topped off their tanks hours before while they were still running alongside the river."We should stop here and let everyone off to stretch their legs," the firetender relayed this message back from the engineer."Ask Walt if it can wait until we get to Madras,".