“Mom,” he whispered, “I’m in danger.”
She held him close to her, and he knew that he had seen something that was going to come soon. When the sun was low in the sky and the bare trees shuddered in the wind, everybody on Oak Road, him and Mom and Dan, Paulie and the Keltons and everybody, even the animals—everybody who lived here—was going to face death.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“THEY’RE FINISHED,” CREW SAID. “I observed it to completion, then took the boy home myself.”
“When did it happen?” Rob Langford asked.
“Last night, just at two. They instilled Adam’s content into the child. It looks like it went well.”
“So Adam is gone?”
Crew heard Lauren’s grief. “You and Adam have a long future together. You’ll find him in Conner. He’ll seem like a sort of shadow, I’d imagine, a little like seeing the ghost of the parent in the child.”
“But he’s . . . in there?”
“Adam is no more. What’s in Conner is his knowledge, and the structures of his mind.”
“Then my friend is dead.”
“I don’t think you really have a word that describes his state. He’s not alive. He hasn’t possessed Conner, he’s given himself to him. But there is so much of him in there, of his personality, his being, his—well, essence, I suppose is the closest word—that you’re going to feel, when you’re with Conner, that you’re also with your friend.”
“Is that reassuring?”
“It’s meant to be.”
“Then that’s how I’ll take it, but what does it mean to Conner? What’s he experiencing? He seems like such a very intense child.”
“He’s confused and afraid, I would think. He’ll have powers he doesn’t understand, and that’s going to really throw him. Knowledge that seems to have come out of nowhere. It’s probably going to be about as stressful as human experience can get. The whole family will be stressed. Extreme stress. Psychotic breaks are possible.”
“Have the grays factored that in, do you think?” Rob asked.
“That’s a hard one. What do you think, Lauren? What sort of insight do they really have into the human mind?”
She thought over her time with Adam, remembered how profound the communications difficulties had been. “Anything might happen,” she said. “My guess is that he’ll go into meltdown.”
“Then you’ll have to help him keep his sanity. He’ll be able to communicate smoothly with you, while he’s going to find fear in every other mind he touches.” Crew glanced at his watch. “I had a little conversation with Dr. Jeffers this morning. Unless this alien sensation is quieted down, Conner’s going to have a really rough time.” He turned on the TV. “That boy has to have the chance to grow up in peace.”
The local station came on, and there sat Dr. Chris Jeffers, blinking into the lights like a disinterred mole. They ran what had become known in the media as the Oak Road Video. It had been on CNN, Fox, even ABC and the BBC. It was all over the Internet, of course.
DAN SAT BEFORE HIS TELEVISION watching Local Edition. After Chris had called him, he’d come straight home to see it. Chris had said that his appearance would be a big surprise, but he scarcely believed what he was seeing, his good friend blithely lying like that on TV. The spot might be on a local afternoon newsmagazine buried at 3 P.M., but it would be picked up worldwide. The media had committed itself a long time ago to the notion that the grays were nonsense. They had not liked being shown to be wrong when the Keltons’ video was broadcast. The backlash would be ferocious.
Their own dear Chris had become a voice of authority, and he was lying. It also made Dan jealous as hell, but that he suppressed. Firmly—or, in any case, fairly firmly. “Hey, Katelyn, you think this’ll get him a better job?”
“Nancy says that CalTech is reconsidering him.”
“Now, that is impressive.”
“You don’t sound impressed.”
“He’s lying for dollars, here.”
“Well, I—”
“Don’t you think that people have some sort of right to know this? My God, he’s dirtying his soul, and look at him smile. It’s revolting, Katelyn.”
“If he tells the truth, what happens to him? The press went to him, remember. They demanded a statement from the head of the physics department. He has no net and a baby to feed.”
“He’s the believer, and now listen to him.”
She went into the kitchen, kicking the door closed behind her. He listened to it swing, and it surely felt like rejection.
IN WILTON, MIKE WILKES BRACED close to the wall of the convenience store. Stinging snow blasted him as he fumbled to make his call. He didn’t want to do this again, but he had to. “Hello, Charles.”
“Mike! Is this line secure?”
“I’m on a pay phone. I tossed my cell. Any word about this investigation, Charles?”
“I don’t see a thing from this end. I’d say that there isn’t one.”
That was wrong. “I saw them, Charles.”
“Well, they weren’t from any investigative body I can tap, and I think I cover pretty much all of them, Mike.”
So the danger was still out there, and it was beyond the ability of Charles Gunn himself to detect.
In that instant, Mike decided that he had to cut off all contact with Charles. Without another word, he replaced the receiver. He would not communicate with him again until the operation was complete.
He glanced at his watch, then stepped away from the phone. Time was wasting. There was work to do.
He drove through the streets of the town. Too bad this car didn’t have tinted windows. A little thing like that could have been so helpful.
He approached the grain elevator carefully. The snow had not been plowed in its drive, only on the road in front. He got out of his car and surveyed the situation. There would be tracks, no matter how he approached the entrance. If a gust of wind blew snow over them, that would simply be a matter of luck. Time was flying, though, and soon these people weren’t going to be concerned about a few tracks in the snow.
IN THE OFFICE AT ALFRED, Lauren considered again what Crew had been saying. It looked as if the grays had won . . . whatever that might mean. “So, if Conner—if he’s now this extraordinary person, does that mean that Mike’s finished? That Conner will always be able to stay ahead of him?”
“Conner is like a newborn baby, confused and frightened and in need of support. Right now, he’s more helpless than he was before it happened.” He glanced at Rob, who said, “I’ve had my team in the Mountain burning satellite time looking for Mike. So far, no joy.”
Crew took a cell phone call, listened for a moment, then disconnected. The two of them waited, but he said nothing.
AT THE CALLAGHANS’, KATELYN RETREATED into the kitchen, largely to get away from watching Chris. He’d warmed to his subject, lying so well that it became agonizing.
Dan came in. “You know, the wonder of the whole thing is that they really are here. I mean, what a thing to know.”
“I wish we knew what they wanted with us and I wish especially that those strange military people weren’t involved. They make me think it’s all terribly dangerous, and Conner is vulnerable in some way that I can’t quite understand and that scares me. It’s affecting him, too, Dan, and it worries me. I almost thought he was reading my mind this afternoon.”
“In what sense?”
“He kept answering my thoughts. It was terrifying.”
“Was it—do you think . . .”
“I don’t know!”
At that moment, Conner appeared. His hair was a mess, his eyes were swollen, he shuffled along in a bag of a T-shirt. Katelyn tried to hug him but he stared at her fixedly for a moment, then shook her off.
He looked from one of them to the other, frowning.
“What?” Katelyn asked.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
“Are we?” Dan asked.
Conner was watching this sort of darkness that
kept flickering between them. He could hear Dad moaning inside himself. Mom’s inner voice was crying and crying, like a little lost girl. The darkness flickered, grew more intense, seemed to come out of them, then toward him like a shadow full of claws.
He clapped his hands to his head and shut his eyes and screamed with all his might.
“Conner!”
“You have to stay married, you have to! Mom, Dad, don’t you end this family, don’t you dare!”
Katelyn stared at him, too amazed even to try to comfort him. His face was bright red, his eyes were swimming with tears, but his voice—his voice!
Dan stood slowly, staring at Conner as if he could not understand what he was seeing. “Hey, there, Conner. Take it easy, son.”
“You’re not leaving me, either one of you. I need you, do you understand? I NEED YOU!”
“Conner, hey! You’re outta line!”
Conner pointed at him. “No. You are out of line. Both.” He turned and ran from the room. A moment later, music came roaring up from his basement.
“Two-thousand-one time,” Dan said. Katelyn came to him. They stood, staring toward Conner’s door, silent. He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid he would feel that coldness again.
From downstairs, Conner’s voice came again, a boy’s voice but full of something else, something that neither of them could really identify—a strident roar, fierce and brooking no opposition. “Do it,” he cried. “DO IT, DAD!”
“How does he know?” Dan whispered.
She shook her head.
Dan kissed her hard and clumsily, like a scared teenager.
She did not close her eyes. When he stopped, he saw tears welling and rolling down her cheeks, and reached up and touched them away.
They embraced, but not like lovers, like people in a small boat in great waves.
IT WAS FREEZING ON THE roof of the grain elevator and Mike was concerned about frostbite, as well as slipping due to numb fingers.
He had waited until the light was leaving the sky to come out here. This time of year, the sun hung low in the west by four, and he hoped nobody would chance to look up and see the figure on the roofline installing an antenna.
When the transmitter was up and running, he got off the roof, sliding badly at one point, so far he thought he’d go over the edge. But he caught himself in time.
Even back inside the structure itself, it was frigid. Also dusty. He coughed a little, and held a handkerchief to his face. Leaving the conveyor running overnight had been more effective than he’d thought possible. He was in a haze of dust, and since the temperature wasn’t much above ten at the moment, the humidity would be effectively zero. He should have picked up a face mask at some hardware store. Well, he hadn’t, so he’d just have to live with it.
He hoped that nobody would make the Volvo. As far as satellite surveillance was concerned, they had probably located his cell phone by now, so they’d be certain he was here.
He wished he believed that this was all going as well as it seemed, but he had been dealing with the grays for too long to be anything but extremely uneasy about doing something they did not want done. If they’d been more open in their opposition, he would perhaps have felt better. This way, he could not know where he stood.
ACROSS TOWN, HIS FIRST LITTLE experiment came to fruition. Gene Ralph Petersen had run Petersen Texaco for thirty-one years, and his dad had run it before him. Before it was a garage, it had been Petersen-Michaelson, a stage stop, livery stable, and smithie. Just now, Gene was in the kitchen of his house behind the station. He was rustling up some coffee and fried ham. Ben, his dog, paced nervously. “You want out again, guy, in all that snow? It’s ten degrees out there.”
Ben stared at him, stared so hard that he stopped what he was doing and stared back. “Ben? Boy?” Was the dog having some kind of a fit? “Hey, Ben!”
When Gene took a step toward his dog, its lips lifted, it let out a window-rattling growl and it leaped at its master like a wolf leaping at a fawn.
Gene was not in any kind of shape at all, and he fell back against the stove, his arms windmilling. He hit the frying pan and the ham flew up in a mess of scalding grease, and he felt fire searing his back as the dog came at his throat.
Like a volcano that had been building pressure, Gene erupted. He grabbed the hot frying pan and slammed Ben with it, but Ben was filled with unstoppable rage, and got a piece of his neck and shoulder before he beat him off.
Screaming, his own teeth bared, he lunged at the dog, and the two of them went down fighting.
They fought and blood flew, and fingers were torn off, and the dog’s muzzle was shattered with the skillet, but finally the dog won. Gene lay on the floor, his eyes glazed, his face gray. Ben, his companion of fifteen happy years, bent down and pressed his bloody muzzle into the face of the master he had adored, and ripped it to pieces.
PART NINE
A CHILD IS DYING
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
—EMILY DICKINSON
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-FIVE-THOUSAND MILES OVERHEAD, an event that would have riveted the attention of every man, woman, and child on Earth—had they known—was taking place. A large and complex satellite, totally black but visible in the brutal light of the sun, was approached by a small, egg-shaped object. This object shone silver, but it was not what it appeared to be at all, a small spacecraft. It shimmered as it approached the satellite, changing into another, much more complex shape. This swung around the satellite and fitted itself neatly over the end that pointed toward Earth.
Inside the satellite, relays sparked, and on its surface tiny rocket nozzles spat bursts of flame. The orientation of the satellite turned away from the snowy center of the United States and toward the line where the land ended, and the coastal waters of the Atlantic began. Then they turned it farther, out over the Atlantic, far from where it could do any harm.
The object released from the satellite became an oval once again, and darted away.
LEWIS CREW BREATHED HARDER THAN he would like, a lot harder. Earth’s air had just a half percentage point less oxygen than home, but that difference had a definite effect. Also, his lungs were not accustomed to the pollution here, and they had been deteriorating for years. Now they boiled and bubbled when he ran. He knew that Wilkes had come in here within the past half hour, the kids in the Mountain had called him and confirmed that. Wilkes’s car had been identified as a rented Volvo early this morning, and located via satellite ten minutes later. Since that moment, his every move had been tracked.
But why in the world was the man in a grain elevator? Crew had tried to understand but he did not understand, and that frightened him badly. He stood gasping, watching Wilkes climbing down a catwalk from far above.
Still trying to catch his breath, Crew squatted, tightening the muscles in his legs and back, concentrating his energy into his solar plexus—then let go, springing up, the wind rushing past his face, leaping at Wilkes.
He grabbed the catwalk, felt it shake, heard it clatter. Wilkes stared from the far end, wary, ready . . .
And then he shook the catwalk violently. A wave came down it, causing it to collapse under Crew’s feet. He tumbled through the air and hit on his back. The catwalk wouldn’t have collapsed like that unless Wilkes had done something to it. It had been a booby-trap and Crew had fallen for it. Wilkes jumped lightly down.
They had been sixty feet apart, one as ready as the other. Now they were thirty feet apart and Crew was on his back, struggling to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him.
Wilkes straddled him. Crew thrust himself to one side and rolled out from under his feet. Wilkes stumbled and shook his head—and moved off, disappearing into the murk of dust that filled the huge chamber.
Crew peered after him. Th
is was a catastrophe. He prepared to be shot. He had lost. He took the warrior’s posture, legs apart, ready. He peered into the dust, tried to listen over the maddening clatter of the conveyor.
Strangely, Wilkes didn’t shoot. But why not? He was alone here. Had Mike not realized that?
“Okay, men,” Crew said just loudly enough so that he would be sure that Wilkes heard him. “If I go down, fire into the flash.”
To his left were the four huge storage vats, each fifty feet high with a diameter of thirty feet. To his right and soaring overhead was the elevator itself, an enormous contraption of pulleys and chains driving the bucket conveyor, which rose to a height of about seventy feet, and could be directed into each of the storage vats. Farther off in that direction was a locked office that contained the elevator’s controls. The conveyor was running. Why was not clear.
Slowly, Crew began turning around. If Wilkes didn’t act, he would head for the door he had come in. The dust would conceal him, too. He was fast, he might make it.
He went deeper into the way of the warrior, gathering his energy along his spine. He had a small pistol in his side pocket, but the grain elevator had been a clever choice, given that he couldn’t see four feet in front of him.
Mike must realize that the longer he delayed, the greater Crew’s chance of escaping.
Then he saw him, and not two yards away. Wilkes’s eyes were baleful, sparkling, rock steady.
Crew leaped at him, extending a powerful punch as he did so. Mike took it in the face and lurched back. But he righted himself, and before Crew realized what was happening, Wilkes’s hands slid around his neck. His fingers felt like steel cables, crushing into his neck, making his head pound, pinching off his breath. He sucked as much air as he could manage, and then his windpipe was closed. Wilkes must have seen him gasping. He had targeted this weakness.
Crew got an arm free from beneath Wilkes’s weight, reached up, and tore at his ear. For a moment, nothing happened. With all the strength he possessed, he pulled harder. Wilkes growled through his bared teeth. His head twisted to one side, slowly, slowly. Then, suddenly, Crew could not breathe. He saw blackness coming around the edges of his eyes, deep, warm blackness.