hurriedly backed away, perplexed. Every other area of the island seemed to have been knit together by Scopes with such care. Yet the re-creation of his own childhood home was disheveled and empty, with rends in the very fabric of his computerized creation.
At the far end of the balustrade was the door to the garret stairs. Levine was about to ascend the stairs when he remembered a back staircase that led to the widow’s walk. Perhaps it would be better if he took a look into the windows of the garret before broaching it directly.
Fog rushed up to embrace him as Levine moved forward onto the widow’s walk. He swiveled the laptop’s trackball:, looking around cautiously. Ten feet ahead of him, the angular form of the garret jutted from the walkway. Levine moved forward and peered into the oculus window.
A bent-looking figure sat inside the garret, his back to Levine. Long white hair flowed over the high collar of what appeared to be a dressing gown. The figure was perched in front of a computer terminal. Suddenly, a tongue of fire came shooting down out of the fog, plunging into the side of the garret. Without hesitation, Levine moved forward into the stream of color, and in an instant words were flashing across the enormous screen:
... have discussed your price. It is outrageous. Our offer of three billion stands. There will be no further negotiation.
The stream subsided. Levine waited, motionless. Within minutes, a burst of colored light shot up from the tower:
General Harrington: Your impertinence just cost you an additional billion, and the price is now five billion. This kind of posturing is displeasing to me as a businessman. It would be much nicer if we could settle this like gentlemen, don’t you think? And it isn’t even your money. It is, however, my virus. I have it, and you don’t. Five billion would reverse that situation.
The stream subsided.
Levine stood on the widow’s walk, stunned. It was worse than he could ever have imagined. Not only was Scopes mad, but he had in his possession a virus—a virus he was selling to the military. Perhaps even to rogue elements within the military. Judging by the prices involved, the virus could only be the doomsday virus Carson had told him about.
Levine sagged back against the elevator wall, overwhelmed by the enormity of what he was up against. Five billion dollars. It was staggering. A virus wasn’t like a nuclear weapon— hard to transport, difficult to hide, hard to deliver. A single test tube in someone’s pocket could easily contain trillions of them. ...
Sitting up again, Levine maneuvered himself back along the widow’s walk, down the flight of stairs, and along the corridor to the garret stairway. As with all unlocked doors in Scopes’s creation, the garret doorway opened as he collided with it. At the top of the dark stairway was another door. As he ascended, Levine could see light coming from the jamb.
This door was locked. Levine banged into it again and again in frustration and rage.
Then something occurred to him. It had worked with Phido; there was no reason to think it wouldn’t work here.
In capital letters, he typed: SCOPES!
Instantly, the name reverberated from the speaker into the narrow confines of the elevator. A minute ticked by, then two. Suddenly, the door to the garret room burst open. Levine could see a wizened figure looking out at him. What he had taken to be a dressing gown was actually a long robe, sprinkled liberally with astrological designs. Hair fell in streams of white and silver over the jug ears, and the skin that lay across the forehead and along the sunken cheeks was lined with an infinity of wrinkles, but Levine knew the face, as he knew few others. He had found Brent Scopes.
The sun felt brittle, like a rainfall of glass. The water had restored a little moisture to their throats, yet it had only intensified their thirst. And it had made the horses unruly. Beneath him, Carson could sense that Roscoe was panicking, preparing to run. Once that happened, he’d run until he died.
“Keep them on a short rein,” he said.
The Fra Cristobals loomed ever larger, turning from orange to gray to red in the changing light. As they rode, Carson could feel the terrible dryness returning to his mouth and throat. As his eyes grew more inflamed, it became too painful to keep them open for more than a few moments at a time. He rode with his eyes closed. Beneath him, he could feel the horse swaying with weakness.
A cave at the foot of the mountains. Warm water. That meant a volcanic area. So the spring would be near a lava flow, and the cave itself was probably a lava tube. He opened his eyes for a moment. Eight more miles, perhaps less, to the silent, lifeless mountains.
The effort of thinking exhausted him. Suddenly, he dropped the reins and then, disoriented, pawed frantically at the saddle horn with both hands. If he fell off the horse, he knew he would never get back on. He gripped the horn tighter and leaned forward until he could feel the coarse hair of the horse’s mane on his cheek. If Roscoe decided to run, so be it. He rested there, releasing himself to the reddish light that burned behind his closed eyelids.
The sun was setting as they reached the base of the mountains. The long shadow of the rough peaks crept toward them, engulfing them at last in sweet shadow. The temperature dropped out of triple digits.
Carson forced his eyes open. Roscoe was staggering. The horse had lost all desire to run, and was now losing the simple desire to live. Carson turned toward de Vaca. Her back was bowed, her head down, her whole frame seemingly crooked and broken.
The two horses, which had been shambling ahead at their own pace, reached a line of lava at the base of the mountains and stopped.
“Susana?” Carson croaked.
She lifted her head slightly.
“Let’s wait here. Wait to hear the coyotes calling to water.”
She nodded and slid off the horse. She tried to stand but collapsed drunkenly to her knees.
“Shit,” she said, grabbing the stirrup and pulling herself partway up before crumpling back into the sand. Her horse stood on trembling legs, its head drooping.
“Wait, I’ll help you,” said Carson. As he dismounted, he, too, felt himself lose his balance. With a kind of mild surprise, he found himself looking up from the soft sand at a spinning world: mountains, horses, sunset sky. He closed his eyes again.
Suddenly it was cool. He tried to open his eyes but found himself unable to separate the glued lashes. He reached up with a hand and prized apart the lid of one eye. There was a single star above, shining in a deep ultraviolet sky. Then he heard a faint sound. It started as a sharp yipping noise, rising in pitch, answered at a distance. Three or four more yips followed, the final cry dropping suddenly into a long, drawn-out howl. There was an answering call, then another. The calls appeared to be converging.
Coyotes going to water. At the base of the mountains.
Carson lifted his head. The still form of de Vaca was stretched on the sand near him. There was just enough light in the sky to see the dim outlines of her body.
“Susana?”
There was no answer.
He crawled over and touched her shoulder. “Susana?”
He shook her again, a little harder. Her head lolled slightly, black hair spilling across her face.
“Help,” she croaked. “Me.”
The sound of her voice revived a weak current of strength within him. He had to find water. Somehow, he had to save her life. The horses were still standing quietly, reins in the sand, shaking as if with fever. He clung to a stirrup and pulled himself into a sitting position. Roscoe’s flank felt very hot beneath his hand.
As Carson stood, a sudden wave of dizziness engulfed him and the strength drained out of his legs. Then he found himself flat on his back again, in the sand.
He was unable to walk. If he was going to reach water, he’d have to ride to it.
He grabbed the stirrup again and pulled himself up, clinging desperately to the saddle horn. He was far too weak to pull himself into the saddle. He looked around with his single usable eye. A few yards off, he spotted a large rock. Hooking his arm through the stirrup, Carson led the horse to the rock, then clambered onto it. From its
