Professor Corbett grabbed for Dan in an effort to stop him, but he was too late. The Professor left the others to battle the fire and raced after Dan.
As he stumbled along in the darkness, he could barely discern Dan's figure racing in the direction from which the shots had come. There was no firing now and the hillside was quiet. Dan had stopped, and Professor Corbett joined him in the darkness. Both men looked frantically in every direction.
"There's no trace of them. They got away, Alan. We held them off, but they've taken Nancy with them!"
Professor Corbett put his arm around Dan's shoulder. His eyes filled with tears and he gripped Dan tightly. For a few seconds neither of them spoke and then Professor Corbett turned to Dan.
"We'd better go back to the house."
The two men turned and walked slowly back to the farmhouse where the others still battled the fire.
Lisa and Brant walked down the street toward the Playground.
"Benton liked your script for the Council show, Brant," Lisa said as they walked along.
"It was a hard card to handle, I'll tell you," Brant said. "No one actually knows anything about the Council. We don't even know how many members there are. It was hard trying to get enough information to fill the show time, so I just reworked the old stories about the Council and added a few new ones."