Glancing behind her, Cassidy spotted the girl's father bearing down on them in a sprint that was nothing short of phenomenal for his age. He began shouting with the last few strides and was in full lung when he hurled himself at the fence. "Git! Out! Away! I'll—"
Riva moved back and glanced overhead and Papa, seeing some hidden significance in her gesture, lowered his voice.
"You I'll tear into and apart I'll rip!" he went on in a menacing whisper. "Your limbs I'll scatter like—"
"Papa, it's not afraid of you they are."
"They're not?" He was disappointed.
"The house they want to come in and see."
He began working up a rage again, but caught himself and looked up into his daughter's face. "Mean you—my house they want to see?"
When she nodded Papa seized the lowest strand of wire and lifted the fence high enough for Cassidy and Mason to crawl under. "Why, arranged it can be, I think."
Its architectural prominences rendered shadowless in the tri-solar light, the manor was even more imposing close at hand. Of stone construction, it flaunted millwork and beams whose rich carvings would have been welcome on any mansion in the known Galaxy.
Mounting the steps, Mason observed, "Nice little layout they've got here."