Puna said: "I do not know Dara," and turned away. Another shouted:
"Where are the masters? Where is work?"
Cadnan shouted: "Wait for the masters," and went on, pushing his way through the noise, through the babbling crowd of Alberts. There were no masters visible anywhere: that was a new thing and a strange one, but too many new things were happening. Cadnan barely noticed one more.
At the front of his mind now was only the thought of Dara. Behind that was a vague, nagging fear that he was the cause of all the rumbling and shaking of the building, and all else, by his breaking of the chain of obedience. Now, he told himself, the buildings even did not obey.
Then he heard a voice say: "Cadnan," and all other thought fled. The voice was hers, Dara's. He saw her, ahead, and went to her quickly.
She had not been hurt.
That fact sent a wave of relief through him, a wave so strong that for a second he could barely stand.
"The door opens," she said when he had reached her, in a small and frightened voice. "The masters are not here."
"They return," Cadnan said, but without complete assurance. In this barrage of novelty, who could make any statement certain?
Dara nodded. "Then we must go," she said. "If they are not here, then maybe they do not hear the noise when we open the door: and there is much noise already to hide it. Maybe they do not see us."