Running his fingers over this almost Chinese symbol, he thought: A creature who lived under the glow of a different sun conceived this mark. What does it mean? NO TRESPASSING? WE CAME IN PEACE? Or is it maybe a plague-symbol, an alien version Of ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER IN HERE?
It was pressed into the metal of the ship like a bas-relief. Merely touching it brought on a species of superstitious dread he had never felt before; he would have laughed if, six weeks ago, someone had told him he might feel this way-like a caveman watching an eclipse of the sun or a medieval peasant watching the arrival of what would eventually become known as Halley's Comet.
A creature who lived under the glow of a different sun conceived this mark. I, James Eric Gardener, born in Portland, Maine, United States of America, Western Hemisphere of the World, am touching a symbol made and struck by God only knows what sort of being across a black distance of light-years. My God, my God, I am touching a different mind!
He had, of course, been touching different minds for some time now, but this was not the same… not the same at all.
Are we really going in? He was aware that his nose was bleeding again “ but not even that could make him take his hand away from that symbol; he trailed the pads of his fingers restlessly back and forth across its smooth, unknowable surface.
More accurately, are you going to try to go in there? Are you, even though you know it may-probably will-kill you? You get a jolt every time you touch the thing; what's going to happen if you're foolish enough to go inside? It will probably set up a harmonic vibration in that damned steel plate of yours that will blow your head apart like a stick of dynamite in a rotten turnip.
Awfully concerned about your welfare for a man who was on the verge of suicide not very long ago, aren't you, goodbuddy? he thought, and had to grin in spite of himself. He drew his fingers away from the shape of the symbol, flicking them absently to get rid of the tingle like a man trying to shake off a good-sized booger. Go on and go for it. What the fuck, if you're gonna step out anyway, having your brains vibrated to death inside of a flying saucer is a more exotic way to go than most.
Gard laughed aloud. It was a strange sound at the bottom of that deep slit in the ground.
“What's funny?” Bobbi asked quietly. “What's funny, Gard?”
Laughing harder, Gardener said: “Everything. This is… something else. I guess it's laugh or go crazy. You dig it?”
Bobbi looked at him, obviously not digging it, and Gardener thought: Of course she doesn't. Bobbi got stuck with the other option. She can't laugh because she went crazy.
Gardener roared until tears rolled down his cheeks, and some of these tears were bloody, but he did not notice this. Bobbi did, but Bobbi didn't bother to tell him.
It took them another two hours to completely clear the hatchway. When they were done, Bobbi stuck out a dirty, makeup-streaked hand in Gardener's direction.
“What?” Gardener asked, shaking it.
“That's it,” Bobbi said. “We're finished with the dig. We're done, Gard.”
Yeah?”
Yeah. Tomorrow we go inside, Gard.”
Gard looked at her without saying anything. His mouth felt dry.
“Yes,” Bobbi said, and nodded, as if Gard had questioned this. “Tomorrow we go in. Sometimes it seems like I started this about a million years ago. Sometimes like it was just yesterday. I stumbled over it, and I saw it, and I ran my finger along it and blew off the dirt. That was the start. One finger dragged through the dirt. This is the end.”
“That was a different Bobbi at the beginning,” Gardener said.
“Yes,” Bobbi said meditatively. She looked up, and there was a sunken gleam of humor in her eyes. “A different Gard, too.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you know, it'll probably kill me to go in there… but I'm going to give it a shot.”
“It won't kill you,” Bobbi said.
“No?”
“No. Now let's get out of here. I've got a lot to do. I'll be out in the shed tonight.”
Gardener looked at Bobbi sharply, but Bobbi was looking upward as the motorized sling trundled down on its cables.
“I've been building things out there,” Bobbi said. Her voice was dreamy.,Me and a few others. Getting ready for tomorrow.”
“They'll be joining you tonight,” Gardener said. It was not a question.
“Yes. But first I need to bring them out here, to look at the hatch. They… they've been waiting for this day, too, Gard.”
“I'll bet they have,” Gardener said.
The sling arrived. Bobbi turned to look at Gardener narrowly. “What's that supposed to mean, Gard?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Their eyes met. Gardener could feel her clearly now, working at his mind, trying to dig into it, and he had again that sense of his secret knowledge and secret doubts turning and turning like a dangerous jewel.
He thought deliberately.
(get out of my head Bobbi you're not welcome here)
Bobbi recoiled as if slapped-but there was also faint shame on her face, as if Gard had caught her peeking where she had no business peeking. There was still some humanness left in her, then. That was comforting.
“Bring them out, by all means,” Gard said. “But when it comes to opening it up, Bobbi, it's just you and me. We dug the fucker up, and we go in the fucker first. You agree?”
“Yes,” Bobbi said. “We go in first. The two of us. No brass bands, no parades.”
“And no Dallas Police.”
Bobbi smiled faintly. “Not them, either.” She held out the sling. “You want to ride up first?”
“No, you go. It sounds like you got a schedule and a half still ahead of you.”
“I do.” Bobbi swung astride the sling, pressed a button, and started up. “Thanks again, Gard.”
“Welcome,” Gardener said, craning his neck to follow Bobbi's upward progress.
“And you'll feel better about all of this
(when you “become” when you finish your own “becoming')
Bobbi rose up and up and out of sight.
Chapter 4
The Shed
It was August 14th. A quick calculation told Gardener that he had been with Bobbi for forty-one days-almost exactly a biblical period of confusion or unknown time, as in “he wandered in the desert for forty days and forty nights.” It seemed longer. It seemed like his entire life.
He and Bobbi did no more than pick at the frozen pizza Gardener heated up for their supper.
“I think I'd like a beer,” Bobbi said, going to the fridge. “How about you? Want one, Gard?”
“I'll pass, thanks.”
Bobbi raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She got the beer, walked out on the porch, and Gardener heard the seat of her old rocker creak comfortably as she sat down. After a while he drew a cold glass of water from the tap, went out, and sat beside Bobbi. They sat there for what seemed a long time, not speaking, just looking out into the hazy stillness of early evening.
“Been a long time, Bobbi, you and me,” he said.
“Yes. A long time. And a strange ending.”
“Is that what it is?” Gardener asked, turning in his chair to look at Bobbi. “The end?”
Bobbi shrugged easily. Her eye slid away from Gardener's. “Well, you know. End of a phase. How's that? Any better?”
“If it's le mot juste, then it's not just better, not even the best-just the only mot that matters. Isn't that what I taught you?”
Bobbi laughed. “Yeah, it was. First damned class. Mad dogs, Englishmen… and English teachers.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Bobbi sipped her beer and looked out at the Old Derry Road again. Impatient for them to arrive, Gardener supposed. If the two of them had really said everything there was left to say after all these years, he almost wished he had never heeded the impulse to come back at all, no matter what the reasons or eventual outcome. Such a weak ending to a relationship which had, in its time, encompassed love, sex, friendship, a period of tense detente, concern, and even fear seemed to make a mock of the whole thing-the pain, the hurt, the effort.
“I always loved you, Gard,” Bobbi said softly and thoughtfully, not looking at him. “And no matter how this turns out, remember that I still do.” Now she did look at Gardener, her face a strange parody of a face under the thick makeup-surely this was some hopeless eccentric who happened to resemble Bobbi a little. “And I hope you'll remember that I never asked to stumble over the goddam thing. Free will was not a factor here, as some wise-ass or other has surely said.”
“But you chose to dig it up,” Gardener said. His voice was as soft as Bobbi's but he felt a new terror steal into his heart. Was that crack about free wiII a
