instincts, and you’ll be fine.”
“You’re me,” Mary said. “You’re saying what I want you to say.”
“I’m saying what you know.”
She looked at him pointedly. “What I see is a man who couldn’t live up to his dreams.”
“What do you mean?”
“You had this all in your hands. The whole thing. You had Jacob Clarke. You had him and you let him go.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“He scared you,” Mary told him. “That little boy scared you so badly that you let him go.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You saw something that scared you, and you ran.”
“You want to know what scared me so badly, Mary?” Owen asked. “Is that what you came to find out?”
“Yes, damn it,” Mary exclaimed. “That’s what I want to know.”
Owen smiled thinly, a dark purpose crawling into his eyes. “Then look at me, Mary.” His eyes narrowed darkly. “Look at me.”
The soldier opened the door of the trailer and pushed Charlie and Lisa inside.
“We found these two in the woods not far from the farmhouse,” the soldier said.
Charlie glanced up, taking in the wall of flickering monitors that rose just behind General Beers and Wake- man.
“My God,” Wakeman said.
“You know these people?” the general asked.
“They’re Allie’s parents.”
The general glared at Wakeman, then turned back to the soldier. “Find some place for them where they won’t get in anybody’s way,” he commanded. His eyes shifted to Wakeman, then back to the soldier. “Take him, too,” he said.
Within minutes they were in a small shed, an armed guard posted at the door.
“So, you’re Charlie,” Wakeman said with a strange smile. “You don’t use the last name Keys, do you?”
Charlie said nothing.
“My name’s Wakeman. And I happen to know that a great deal of money and technology went into looking for you.”
Charlie glared at him.
“You’d like to knock me on my ass, wouldn’t you?” Wakeman asked. “That’s what they liked about the Keyses. That you guys had ‘tude.”
Lisa moaned and Charlie turned toward where she lay, dazed, beside him.
“All these voices,” she said exhaustedly. “More and more… it’s too hard… just a little longer.”
He could see that Lisa was in some other place, far away, and that in some impossible way, she was with Allie.
“A lot of work,” Lisa said, almost frantically. “This is too hard!”
Mary sat in front of a wall, soldiers all around her, but keeping their distance, afraid to move in. Her eyes were eerily vacant, the light that had once danced in them, now part of the larger and more brilliant light that encircled her. She sat in silence, utterly indifferent to the subtle movement that rippled through the surrounding light like ghostly fingers beneath a luminous veil. She could see the soldiers shrink back as the radiant walls began to weave and churn, giving birth to the thousands of small creatures that hung on the luminescent walls, wriggling like neon worms on hooks of light. She sensed the terror in the fleeing men… and she smiled.
Lisa could feel the desperate concentration of Allie’s mind. “Very hard,” she repeated softly. “She is doing something very hard.”
Charlie brought his face close to hers. “What are you seeing, Lisa?”
She seemed not to hear him. “Come on,” she whispered urgently, and with a strange note of encouragement, as if offering the full measure of her own will to the fierce needs of her daughter. “Come on, come on.”
“Jesus,” Wakeman said as he looked out the small window of the shed.
Charlie rushed to the window and stared out.
The soldiers who’d been guarding the shed were now frozen in awe, as the craft, glowing brightly, began to lift out of the scarred earthen pit that held it, inching backward and upward… rising!
“There are men in there,” Wakeman said.
The craft continued to rise into the enveloping darkness, rising and rising until it reached high above the farmhouse and the awestruck men who surrounded it. Then it paused, as if to enjoy the view from the high aerie of its power, and leveled off, all its lights whirling rapidly, a vast engine brought back to full throttle, a wounded craft miraculously restored.
“Allie,” Lisa whispered.
The craft continued to hover silently. Then a beam of light, brighter than any emitted before it, fierce and blinding, shot down to the farmhouse with laser-sharp perfection, carrying a crystalline beauty to the earth, sweeping around the farmhouse and tugging it upward from its ancient foundation.
Lisa moaned, as if the weight of the farmhouse were on her shoulders. But Charlie knew that Lisa’s burden was only a reflection, light and unsubstantial, compared to the vast weight Allie bore upward, huge and crushing, as Atlas bore the world.
He stepped outside the shed, his eyes fixed on the unreal and impossible vision beyond it, a farmhouse tearing away from its foundations, rising slowly upward as if drawn into the sky by huge, but invisible cables.
“They’re taking it,” Wakeman breathed.
And instantly they did, the farmhouse now encased in a shimmering wrap of light that suddenly coalesced into a single, fiery ball and vanished into the upper sky, away and away, fleeing the earth as if it were a dark stranger of terrible intent.
Lisa moaned again, then collapsed in utter exhaustion.
Charlie hurried over to her and drew her into his arms.
“It’s all right,” Lisa said. “It’s all right.”
She struggled to her feet, and with Charlie’s help, gazed out at the dark field, a few figures now standing, dazed, beneath the very place from which the craft had disappeared: Mary, surrounded by soldiers, all of them thunderstruck and staring about, as if looking for what was missing.
Chapter Two
Mary sat inside General Beers’ trailer, holding a blanket snugly around her shoulders. Outside, the entire base was being dismantled. She knew what that meant. Soon there would be no sign that anything had happened here. It would all be explained as a “toxic spill” or some other such idiotic explanation the public would no doubt accept.
“Want to tell me what this is?” Beers asked, pointing to the alien artifact.
She nodded. “It’s theirs,” she said.
“No kidding,” the general said facetiously. “What else do you know about it?”
Mary shook her head.
“You won’t tell me?”
Mary stared at him silently.
Beers nodded crisply then turned to the MP beside him. “Get me Wakeman,” he said.
Wakeman came into the room a few minutes later, an MP on either side.
“Mary, you all right?” he asked. “What happened? What did you see?”
Beers interrupted him. “What can you tell me about this, Doctor?” he demanded.
Wakeman looked at the scrolling artifact. He smiled.
