The Omega Point

tops of the tall windows that surrounded the room. Now, meteors.

At the door of the dining room, he paused. Beyond this point, anything could happen. He went out to the broad corridor that led into the beautiful front rooms of the house. It had been a long time since he had been here in the flesh. Except for visits to their shrinks, inmates rarely got past this door.

“Excuse me.”

Standing at the foot of the stairs was a security guy. He was six foot three and fully weaponed.

Mack smiled. “I’ve lost my way.”

“Identify yourself, please.”

He took a step closer, at which moment the guard’s eyes flickered and Mack knew two things. He’d been recognized and the cleaver was spotted.

In the split of an instant, Mack stepped up to him and swung it, and his head went wobbling off, hit the stairs with a wet thud and came rolling down, coming to rest at the feet of the crumpling corpse.

Human bodies contain an amazing amount of blood, and there was no way to stop the ocean of it that was pumping out of this man. Mack picked up the head and took it to the coat closet that was concealed under the wide staircase. He shoved it onto a shelf, then dragged the body in, leaving behind a long, streaked trail of blood.

When morning came, they would certainly find this, but in the night, with all that flickering, it was hard to see exactly what was going on with the floor. So, unless somebody slipped in the mess, he had a reasonable chance that it would not be discovered until morning.

The stairs were open to him, and he thought he might alter his plan and try Dr. Ford first.

He took them three at a time. Surprise was essential.

Hallways led to the left and the right, then a central one, arched, where Mr. and Mrs. Acton’s suites had been. On the left were the old nurseries, now offices.

Moving along the central corridor, he heard nothing. The doors were thick and all were closed. He stopped at the one with the DR. DAVID FORD sign. Behind it lay his office, his reception room, and his private rooms.

He put his hand on the doorknob and twisted it very carefully, so as not to make the least sound. After an eighth of an inch, he met resistance. The damn thing was locked, which was a setback, although a predictable one. He was going to have to find some basic tools, a coat hanger or a long, thin screwdriver, if he was going to get through a thick, well-made door like this silently.

As he leaned against it, trying to see if he could hear the tumblers as he moved the handle, he heard voices inside, faint but intense. The door was so closely fitted that you couldn’t even see a line of light under it. Leaning against it didn’t help, the voices remained indistinct.

For all he could tell, whoever was in there might come out at any moment. His bridges were well and properly burned. If he was found here, something permanent would be done to him. These were kindly people and he could not imagine them killing him. But they were desperate, also, and desperation causes unexpected behavior.

Initiative was slipping away from him. He’d thought it was possible that he would not unlock the secret of this place in time. If so, then his duty was clear: he must prevent it from being used at all. If the purest and best could not continue, the whole species had to go extinct. No third alternative was acceptable, not to him and, he was certain, not to the people in the bunkers.

He went back downstairs and threw open the recreation area doors and went through it to the art room, and there it was in its magnificence, the painting. And the damn thing was gloriously, superbly finished. Caroline Light had painted a great masterwork in a day. He didn’t know a great deal about art, but he knew that the technique was immeasurably accomplished.

Even in this bizarre light, he could see a lovely meadow just after sunset, behind it a woodland, and in the far distance the western sky still glowing orange. Just an amazing thing.

As he peered into it more closely, he noticed that he became physically uncomfortable. He found himself rubbing the dark place on his neck, which seemed to be getting hot.

Swallowing the pain, he continued his examination of the painting… and realized something. For all the realism of this thing, the sky was wrong. Or was it? Yeah, the constellations could be off. He wasn’t aware of exactly how they should look, but it wasn’t like this. Then, as he watched, he saw that the painting appeared to be changing. And that was the damnedest thing he had ever seen. The glow in the sky was fading. That was a sunset.

But then this wasn’t a painting. It was—God, what was it, a window into another world? Because there were no auroras there, no purple sky.

He thought: I could go through. Just climb through. To hell with his goddamn duty, this was a chance to save himself. He extended his hand toward it—and his skin immediately got so hot that he snatched it back.

More carefully this time, he moved his hand closer, and the closer he came, the more the heat in his body increased. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he touched the surface of the thing.

It was like touching the edge of a column of air.

He pressed a little deeper, and could feel, on his palm, a subtle change in temperature.

It was a door, damn right. So he was going through and screw them all.

He extended his arm, and immediately felt such furious agony in the discolored area on his neck that he had to stop. He threw himself back away from the thing, rolling, writhing, forcing his screams back into his throat. The dark area hurt like hell. He could smell burned skin.

Clutching his shirt, he smothered what seemed to be a fire that had started spontaneously in his flesh.

These people were full of tricks and goddamn them.

He raised the cleaver. Then stopped. What would happen if he struck it, would it blow up in his face or what?

He looked more closely at it, being careful not to try to touch it again. You could see the places where the canvas was tacked to the stretcher. The back of it was just—well, he pushed the edge of the cleaver against it and found that there was give there.

No matter how it looked or what it did, this was basically paint on canvas, it had to be. Maybe it was also a damn wormhole or something, and if so, they were certainly about to use it.

That must not be allowed to happen. But he was in no position to steal it. He didn’t know how it worked. He only knew that if he couldn’t use it, they damn well weren’t going to, either.

He went around behind it and positioned himself. He raised the cleaver, aiming for the center of the frame. With an easy motion, he cut the thing into two halves, which flew off in opposite directions. Where the painted area was slashed, tiny sparks flickered.

Again he slashed it, to the left, to the right, again and again, ripping and tearing and cutting until there was nothing left of it but smeared paint and scraps of cloth, and a tiny, shimmering corner not big enough for a finger.

He stood over it and smashed his heel into it and ground it and ground it until there was nothing left at all.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?”

He turned. He looked across the dark, flickering maw of the large recreation area. A shadow stood there.

“Hello, Doctor,” he said, and advanced toward Marian Hunt.

When her eyes went to the cleaver, she took a step back, but he was on her then and before she could turn away he had grabbed her wrist and, with a swift upward swing of the knife, severed her arm.

Blood sprayed from her shoulder, shock and disbelief transformed her face into a gabbling mask, and he swung the severed arm at her and hit her in the side of the head with the ball head of the humerus bone, which struck her skull with a thick crunch.

She fell to her side, landing on the gushing shoulder with a sucking gasp of agony. He slammed her head with her arm again and again, hitting her skull until it was soup.

He didn’t clean anything up, it was too late for that. He needed to get out of here because he didn’t know why she’d suddenly appeared in the first place. He must have made too much noise, and that meant that others would be on their way. Plus, by now that guard had failed to report in and that was going to be investigated.

The painting represented science so advanced that he could not even begin to imagine how it might work, but two things were certain: first, it would not be doing its job now. Second, Light would tell him how it