Quest for the King Read Online Free PDF Page A

him."
    Kurt sighed. "I know. I wish I had half her brains. She's an absolute
whiz at computer studies. The teacher says her programs are `models
of elegance and economy,' whatever that means. She's way ahead of
anything they teach us at school. And as for hacking..."
    He didn't have to complete the sentence. Mary had once hacked
her way into the University main computer, and left a number of
insulting messages about the sloppiness of the computer's security
system.
    For a time the three children continued to climb in silence, commenting occasionally on the few flowers and blossoms that remained here and there. They had long since left the stream behind, and for
a time were unable to see anything of the hill above them, shut in as
they were by two walls of bushes and trees.

    Kurt felt uneasy. "I wish this feeling would go away," he said. "But
it's getting worse. Something's going to happen."
    "Something nice?" Lisa asked.
    "N-no. Something drastic. It's a scary feeling. It began when we got
on the train."
    "You said it had to do with Anthropos." Wesley frowned.
    "Why should Anthropos be scary?" Lisa asked.
    "It's not that Anthropos is scary-though lots of scary things happened when we were last there-the scary part somehow has to do
with Lion Rock ... I don't know what I mean. But I'm scared."
    They continued to climb. The air was still, and the only sounds they
heard were the sounds of their own footsteps and their own heavy
breathing. Eventually they stopped to rest, squatting on the side of the
path.
    But Wesley, who was anxious to get there, said, "Let's hurry on a
bit. We can rest later." They quickened their pace as they resumed
their walk, and quite suddenly the sounds of traffic below began
again. They rounded the shoulder of the hill and the vegetation
dropped away sharply.
    "This is the dry side," Wesley said. "The prevailing winds hit the
side we've just come up. That's why there's more vegetation there."
Ahead of them the lion Rock itself towered majestically. Kurt had
never seen it close up before. "Wow, is that ever something!" he cried.
"Though it doesn't look too much like a lion now. But how do we get
up? Y'know, I really am scared. It looks horribly open and exposed."
    Wesley said, "What's got into you, Kurt? You're not usually like this.
Look, the path we follow is easy. It winds behind the rock again. You
have to scramble a little bit at the end, but it's kid stuff, really."
    Kurt said nothing.
    Their trail now ascended more steeply, sometimes with cement
steps to help, and at other times not. The terrain was almost bare, but here and there low bushes bloomed with a fiery red blossom.

    No one spoke for a moment or two. Lisa gasped, "My musclesfeel-like water. Can't we-go-a bit slower?"
    "Sorry," Wesley apologized, slowing his pace. Kurt, secretly glad that
he had not needed to complain, made no comment.
    At last they reached the foot of the rock and began to scramble up
a gully, then behind the rock along a narrow pathway, and finally, at
its far end, a place where they could climb up fairly easily. A cement
fence, molded so as to look rustic, protected them from the face of
the rock, and a notice warned them of danger. Before long they stood
at the summit. Wind chilled them, so that they began to pull on their
sweaters again.
    "Look down there-the airport-and oh, just look-there's an aircraft coming in to land-an' it's below us!" Lisa cried. For several
minutes they looked on the scene beneath them. Wesley and Lisa
began to point out the landmarks. Below them crowded apartment
buildings jutted vertically like clusters of white and gray dominoes.
They could see the main streets and avenues, watch the traffic crawling along them, see the harbor beyond and Hong Kong Island on the
far side of the channel. Lisa was fascinated with the planes, especially
those taking off. "You hear the roar of the engines several seconds
after they actually begin to barrel down the