"When it came to the point, I just couldn't," she explained shamefacedly. "I suddenly realized that he's a person. I couldn't let him be taken back to prison."
"Aren't you frightened any more?"
"Not of him." She faced the super-rat squarely. "Look," she said, "if we take care of you, will you get rid of that gang of yours, so we can be free too?"
"That's nonsense, Norah," Philip objected. "He can't possibly understand you."
"Dogs and cats learn to understand enough, and he's smarter than any dog or cat that ever lived."
"But—"
The words froze on his lips. SK540 had jumped to the floor and run to the door. There he stood and looked back at them, his tail twitching.
"He wants us to follow him," Norah murmured.
There was no sign of a hole in the back wall of the disused pantry. But behind it they could hear squeaks and rustlings.
SK540 scratched delicately at almost invisible cracks. A section of the wall, two by four inches, fell out on the floor.