SPIN

grave diseases, among other things, and I should know) ought to be corralled for national advantage, even if releasing it poses other problems.

Lomax and his tame Congress clearly disagree. So I'm dispersing the last fragments of the archive and making myself scarce. I'm going into hiding. You might want to do the same. In fact you may have to. Everyone at the old Perihelion, anyone who was close to me, is bound to fall under federal scrutiny sooner or later.

Or, contrarily, you may wish to drop in at the nearest FBI office and hand over the contents of this envelope. If that's what you think is best, follow your conscience; I won't blame you, though I don't guarantee the outcome. My experience with the Lomax administration suggests that the truth will not, in fact, set you free.

In any case, I regret putting you in a difficult position. It isn't fair. It's too much to ask of a friend, and I have always been proud to call you my friend.

Maybe E.D. was right about one thing. Our generation has struggled for thirty years to recover what the Spin stole from us that October night. But we can't. There's nothing in this evolving universe to hold on to, and nothing to be gained by trying. If I learned anything from my 'Fourthness,' that's it. We're as ephemeral as raindrops. We all fall, and we all land somewhere.

Fall freely, Tyler. Use the enclosed documents if you need them. They were expensive but they're absolutely reliable. (It's good to have friends in high places!)

The 'enclosed documents' were, in essence, a suite of spare identities: passports, Homeland Security ID cards, driver's licenses, birth certificates, Social Security numbers, even med-school diplomas, all bearing my description but none bearing my correct name.

* * * * *

Diane's recovery continued. Her pulse strengthened and her lungs cleared, although she was still febrile. The Martian drug was doing its work, rebuilding her from the inside out, editing and amending her DNA in subtle ways.

As her health improved she began to ask cautious questions—about the sun, about Pastor Dan, about the trip from Arizona to the Big House. Because of her intermittent fever, the answers I gave her didn't always stick. She asked me more than once what had happened to Simon. If she was lucid I told her about the red calf and the return of the stars; if she was groggy I just told her Simon was 'somewhere else' and that I'd be looking after her a while longer. Neither of these answers—the true or the half-true—seemed to satisfy her.

Some days she was listless, propped up facing the window, watching sunlight clock across the valleyed bedclothes. Other days she was feverishly restless. One afternoon she demanded paper and a pen… but when I gave it to her all she wrote was the single sentence Am I not my brother's keeper, repeated until her fingers cramped.

'I told her about Jason,' Carol admitted when I showed her the paper.

'Are you sure that was wise?'

'She had to hear it sooner or later. She'll make peace with it, Tyler. Don't worry. Diane will be all right. Diane was always the strong one.'

* * * * *

On the morning of the day of Jason's funeral I prepared the envelopes he had left, adding a copy of his last recording to each one, stamped them, and dropped them into a randomly selected mailbox on the way to the local chapel Carol had reserved for the service. The packages might have to wait a few days for pickup—mail service was still being restored—but I figured they'd be safer there than at the Big House.

The 'chapel' was a nondenominational funeral home on a suburban main street, busy now that the travel restrictions had been lifted. Jase had always had a rationalist's disdain for elaborate funerals, but Carol's sense of dignity demanded a ceremony even if it was feeble and pro forma. She had managed to round up a small crowd, mostly longtime neighbors who remembered Jason as a child and who had glimpsed his career in TV sound bites and sidebars in the daily paper. It was his fading celebrity status that filled the pews.

I delivered a brief eulogy. (Diane would have done it better, but Diane was too ill to attend.) Jase, I said, had dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge, not arrogantly but humbly: he understood that knowledge wasn't created but discovered; it couldn't be owned, only shared, hand to hand, generation to generation. Jason had made himself a part of that sharing and was part of it still. He had woven himself into the network of knowing.

E.D. entered the chapel while I was still at the pulpit.

He was halfway down the aisle when he recognized me. He stared at me a long minute before he settled into the nearest empty pew.

He was more gaunt than I remembered him, and he had shaved the last of his white hair into invisible stubble. But he still carried himself like a powerful man. He wore a suit that had been tailored to razor-tight tolerances. He folded his arms and inspected the room imperially, marking who was present. His gaze fingered on Carol.

When the service ended Carol stood and gamely accepted the condolences of her neighbors as they filed out. She had wept copiously over the last few days but was resolutely dry-eyed now, almost clinically aloof. E.D. approached her after the last guest had left. She stiffened, like a cat sensing the presence of a larger predator.

'Carol,' E.D. said. 'Tyler.' He gave me a sour stare.

'Our son is dead,' Carol said. 'Jason's gone.'

'That's why I'm here.'

'I hope you're here to mourn—'

'Of course I am.'

'—and not for some other reason. Because he came to the house to get away from you. I assume you know that.'

'I know more about it than you can imagine. Jason was confused—'

'He was many things, E.D., but he was not confused. I was with him when he died.'

'Were you? That's interesting. Because, unlike you, I was with him when he was alive.'

Carol drew a sharp breath and turned her head as if she'd been slapped.

E.D. said, 'Come on, Carol. I was the one who raised Jason and you know it. You may not like the kind of life I gave him, but that's what I did—I gave him a life and a means of living it.'

'I gave birth to him.'

'That's a physiological function, not a moral act. Everything Jason ever owned he got from me. Everything he learned, I taught him.'

'For better or worse…'

'And now you want to condemn me just because I have some practical concerns—'

'What practical concerns?'

'Obviously, I'm talking about the autopsy.'

'Yes. You mentioned that on the telephone. But it's undignified and it's frankly impossible.'

'I was hoping you'd take my concerns seriously. Clearly you haven't. But I don't need your permission. There are men outside this building waiting to claim the body, and they can produce writs under the Emergency Measures Act.'

She took a step back from him. 'You have that much power?'

'Neither you nor I have any choice in the matter. This is going to happen whether we like it or not. And it's really only a formality. No harm will be done. So for god's sake let's preserve some dignity and mutual respect. Let me have the body of my son.'

'I can't do that.'

'Carol—'

'I can't give you his body.'

'You're not listening to me. You don't have a choice'

'No, I'm sorry, you're not listening to me. Listen, E.D. I can't give you his body.'

He opened his mourn and then closed it. His eyes widened.

'Carol,' he said. 'What have you done?'

'There is no body. Not anymore.' Her lips curled into a sly, bitter smile. 'But I suppose you can take his ashes. If you insist.'

* * * * *

I drove Carol back to the Big House, where her neighbor Emil Hardy—who had given up his short-lived local