"We need to talk to you," said Field. "Please let us come in."

Not knowing what else to do, Altman did. They filed solemnly in, one by one, standing in place or sitting on the bed, filling the room.

"We've come to ask you to lead us," said Field.

"Lead you? Lead you in doing what?"

"You've seen it," said someone from the crowd, Altman didn't see who.

"Seen what?"

"The Marker," said Field. "You've spent more time around it than anyone else. We know what happened on the bathyscaphe. When it killed others, it left you alive. We know that it converses with you. You have been chosen."

"How do you know what happened on the bathyscaphe?" Altman asked.

"We have brethren not only among the general population," said Field. "We have many close to Markoff. You understand, more than anyone else. You must guide us. You are our prophet. It is the Marker 's will."

"Let me get this straight," said Altman. "You want me to lead you as the prophet of your religion?"

A rumble of a.s.sent shivered through them. For Altman, time seemed to have slowed to an excruciatingly slow pace. He moved back until he was touching a wall.

"Did Ada put you up to this?" he asked.

"Please," said Field. "Tell us what to do."

"No way," said Altman.

A collective groan arose from the crowd. "Are we not worthy?" asked Field. "What must we do to be worthy?"

"I liked you better when all you did was sit at your desk for eight hours a day," said Altman. "And I didn't like you much then."

"You shall lead us," said Field. "You cannot abandon us."

"I don't believe in the s.h.i.t you do," said Altman.

They stared at him, astonished. When he looked back at Field, he saw a crafty expression had fallen over his face.

"This is a test," he said. "He is testing us."

"I am not testing you," he said evenly.

Field smiled. "We understand," he said. "Now is not the time. We shall watch and wait. When the moment comes, we will be ready to come to your side."

"I'll say it again," said Altman. "I am not a believer."

"But you will be," said Field. "I know. You may be a reluctant prophet, but you are a prophet nonetheless. I have seen it in a vision."

"Now is not the time," said Altman. Get the h.e.l.l out."

They filed slowly out, each stopping to lay a hand on his arm or shake his hand, touching him as if he were some sort of good luck charm. His skin was crawling.

46 He watched from the bathyscaphe as the robotic units finished threading the Marker in cables. There it lay before him, bound and trussed, but somehow still imposing despite its metal net. This is the cause of my problems, This is the cause of my problems, he thought. he thought. And now my problems are only going to get worse. And now my problems are only going to get worse.

He watched from five meters above it as the larger cable, the one running curved up into the darkness and to the ship above, grew taut. The MROVs had dug around the base, but there was no telling if it would come up. In a way, he hoped it wouldn't. He held his breath. The Marker sagged lower in the net, and for a moment he thought the net would not hold. It creaked and swayed slowly in the darkness, and they came up with a large grating sound, oddly distorted by the water, and began to rise.

He followed it up, relaying messages and corrections to a series of submarines, which, in turn, relayed them upward and to the surface. At first the Marker twisted as it rose, the water naturally channeling around the two spirals of the Marker and making it turn, creating an invisible whirlpool in its wake. It could, Altman realized, soon become a problem, tangling the cables, so he slowed the towing down to a snail's pace and it stopped. After a while, it was moving regularly, ascending slowly but straight upward.

This is it, thought Altman. thought Altman.

Slowly it rose through the darkness. Only once they were halfway to the surface did he realize he hadn't experienced any hallucinations. His head, for the first time in months, didn't ache. He checked the readings, found that the signal had stopped broadcasting around the time it began to rise.

Maybe we've disconnected it, he thought. he thought. Perhaps we're doing something right, perhaps this was what we were supposed to do. Maybe it was transmitting so that we would find it and bring it to the surface. Maybe that was its purpose. Perhaps we're doing something right, perhaps this was what we were supposed to do. Maybe it was transmitting so that we would find it and bring it to the surface. Maybe that was its purpose.

For a moment he felt rea.s.sured, and then unanswered questions began to a.s.sail him. If that were really the case, then why would there have been any hallucinations at all? And why would they affect people most strongly when they were close to the Marker itself? It's almost as if it wants to keep us at a distance. And what do the dead's warnings of Convergence have to do with any of it? It's almost as if it wants to keep us at a distance. And what do the dead's warnings of Convergence have to do with any of it?

Maybe we've done something right, he thought, he thought, or maybe we've done something very wrong. or maybe we've done something very wrong.

Soon they would get close to the surface, and the Marker would be drawn onto the freighter itself. Already the water had changed, the darkness receding, and he could see the Marker more clearly than he'd ever seen it before. In the light, it was even more impressive, covered with symbols and laterally striated by dark lines cut into the rock. He still could see no evidence of joints or cracks. It still seemed like it was formed out of a single large rock.

When the station was five hundred meters above them, Markoff ordered the ascent stopped.

"What's wrong?" asked Altman over the audio channel. "This wasn't how it was planned."

"Thank you for your help to this point, Mr. Altman," said Markoff. "A deepwater craft is no longer required. Return to the submarine bay."

"What? I think I'll stay here, Markoff, if you don't mind," said Altman.

There was silence for a long moment and then the vidscreen crackled into life. He saw Markoff's face.

"You've been an a.s.set to me to this point. Now you risk becoming expendable."

"What's going on?" Altman asked.

"That is none of your concern," said Markoff.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Markoff, he knew, was capable of having the bathyscaphe torpedoed. Perhaps it was time to flee, dive deep and head for somewhere safe.

As if he could read Altman's mind, Markoff added, "Do you need something tangible to convince you to behave? Your girlfriend?"

For a moment, he hesitated. In a way, he had already lost Ada to the Marker, to her desire to be one of them. It was just a matter of time before he lost her completely.

All the same, he still loved her and couldn't live with her being dead because of him. With a sigh, he cut the signal and began to head for the surface, leaving behind the Marker, hanging in its gigantic metal net. On the way up, he pa.s.sed a trio of submarines dragging a new cable. It led back, he could see, to the gigantic below-water chamber of the floating compound, the chamber that had been off-limits to everybody except for Markoff's inner circle ever since they'd arrived. What Markoff had planned, Altman had no idea.

47 As soon as he had left the bathyscaphe, he made for the chamber that he knew would house the Marker. Centrally located and the biggest of the below-water chambers, it had four ways in. But three of those ways, he discovered, had been welded closed, permanently sealed. The fourth, the main entrance, already had two guards stationed in front of it. He tried to bluff his way in.

"I'm supposed to be in there," he said. "To bring the Marker up."

"Do you have a pa.s.s?" asked one guard.

"n.o.body gets in without a pa.s.s," said the other.

"I left my pa.s.s back in my room," he said. "I don't want to be late. I'll bring it back and show it to you later?"

"No pa.s.s, no entrance," said the guard.

Another man, a scientist, sidled past him, flashing his pa.s.s, and was nodded through. Altman watched as the doors slid open, but saw only an airlock on the other side. The man stood there waiting, and the door slid shut.

"Please," said Altman. "I need to-"

"We already told you," said the first guard. "No pa.s.s, no entrance. Now move along or I'll have you thrown in the brig."

He went back down the corridor. He couldn't get in, but maybe he could at least get some idea of what was happening. He went from lab to lab, trying doors until he found one that also had a window facing toward the chamber.

Looking out, he saw the Marker hovering just below the chamber, being slowly drawn up and in. But he couldn't see into the chamber itself. Something had been done to render the gla.s.s semiopaque. He could see vague shapes and the sense of movement and then, as they began to reel it in, the shadowy rising shape of the Marker, but little more.

"You see," said Field, "we knew you would come around to the truth."

Altman hadn't come around. He still thought that Field and his believers were insane, but saw no point in telling Field that. The Marker had been in the station less than twenty-four hours, but ever since the Marker had been raised and secured, the whole feel of the station had changed. Even before he'd entered the submarine bay, a series of researchers had been declared inessential and had been shipped back to the DredgerCorp land compound, which rumor had it was serving now less as a research facility and more as a holding tank for scientists for whom Markoff had no use but whom he didn't want to release into the larger world. Ada had been among them, which meant he hadn't gotten a chance to see her and make sure she was okay. Altman suspected he, too, might have been among them if the bathyscaphe had arrived slightly earlier. As it was, he'd been told to pack his things, that he'd be among a batch of researchers to be shipped out early the next morning.

"I need a favor," he claimed, his hand on the chunk of Marker that he carried in his pocket. "There's something the Marker wants from me. I have to see it."

Field's face fell. "It's being guarded," he said. "It's very hard to see it."

"You said the other evening that some of the believers were in Markoff's inner circle."

"Yes," said Field, "that's true. But-"

"It's important," said Altman. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't." He took the chunk out of his pocket and showed it to Field. "This is a piece of it," he said. "It needs to be returned."

Field reached out and very gently touched it. "Can I hold it?" he asked, his voice filled with awe. Altman handed it to him. He took it delicately in both hands, like he was holding a newborn child, his face lit up with a joy it frightened Altman to see. He crooned to it, a soft chant, something that Altman couldn't make out, and then reluctantly handed it back. He knelt before Altman.

"Stand up," said Altman. "And not a word to anybody about what I plan to do."

But Field refused to stand. "Thank you for choosing me," he said, his head bowed. "I will do all I can to help you make the Marker whole again."

Around three in the morning, a knock came at his door. It was Field, and another man with him wearing the black garb of one of Markoff's inner circle. He was carrying a package under his arm. Altman vaguely recognized him. "This is Henry Harmon," Field said. "Mr. Harmon, Michael Altman."

"I know who he is," said Harmon dryly. "You're sure this is absolutely necessary?"

Altman nodded. Harmon tossed him the package. He tore it open, saw an outfit identical to Harmon's own. "Put that on," he said.

Altman stared at it. "How's this going to help?" he asked. "Won't they recognize me, in any case?"

"Maybe," said Harmon, "but they won't try to stop us. They won't question the pa.s.s as long as you have the uniform. If we have trouble, it'll be afterward, which is a risk I'll have to take."

He put it on and they set off.

Field followed them, but Harmon turned briefly, shook his head, and Field, a look of disappointment on his face, disappeared.

He checked his chronometer. "There are four guards total, two at the door outside the chamber and two inside, all armed. We're lucky: the two guards inside are with us, though that's far from being generally known. The two outside, though, aren't. Shift changes in about fifteen minutes and all bets are off. If we stay longer than ten, chances are good that one of the guards will get curious and place a call to check on our authorization. Understood?"

"Yes," said Altman.

"Here's your pa.s.s," he said. "It's not the best, but the guards outside should only glance at it. The men inside will go with whatever I say."

Harmon was right. The guards outside the room seemed hardly surprised that someone was coming to see the Marker in the middle of the night. They looked at Harmon then glanced at both pa.s.ses and waved them in. The guards inside didn't even bother with that, withdrawing discreetly to the other side of the room as soon as they entered.

There it was. A series of catwalks had been built up along the walls to make it easy to get a close look at any part of it. Ma.s.sive and towering, it dominated the whole chamber. Seeing it out of the water, he got a fuller sense of its bulk and strangeness. It was like nothing he had ever seen, a kind of impossible object that was nevertheless there. A power seemed to emanate from it. It was dangerous.

At the same time, he felt his scientific impulses kicking in. It was amazing, and he genuinely wanted to study it. A piece of extremely advanced technology, something predating humanity.

He took out his holopod and began to vid it.

"What are you doing?" whispered Harmon. "n.o.body is allowed to vid it."

"That's what I came for," he said.

"But it's not allowed."

Altman shrugged once, then ignored him. Either Harmon would stop him or he wouldn't. He filmed the whole structure at first, then ran the lens in close-up over the sides closest to him. As he did so, he tried to spot the place where the piece of rock he had in his pocket was from, but couldn't find it.

He felt like he'd only just begun when Harmon grabbed his arm. "We've got to go," he whispered.

Altman nodded. He slipped the holopod back into his pocket and headed for the door, Harmon pulling him along. Harmon nodded once to the guards on the inside and they resumed their stations. The guards on the outside he saluted.

"Why do you need a vid of it?" asked Harmon as they walked away. "I have half a mind to turn you in."

"It's important," said Altman. "Trust me. You'll see."

Five minutes later, he was back in his room, hastily packing. The hunk of rock he kept on his person. He backed up his holopod onto a memory stick, which he hid in the lining of his jacket, just in case. And then he lay down on the bed and waited.

But sleep wouldn't come. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see the Marker there, towering above him. It was powerful, it was dangerous, it wanted something from them. Why did Ada worship it? To worship it would be just to put yourself even more fully at its mercy. And it was not the sort of thing, Altman felt, to grant mercy.

Soon, in an hour or two, a knock would come at the door and he'd be escorted to the launch and sent back to the land compound. He stared up into the darkness, thinking. Once there, he could forget all about this, pretend like the Marker was no longer his problem and let Markoff do with it what he would while he went back to his life. Or he could figure out a way to smuggle out the vid that he'd taken of the Marker, make it available to the general public, and try to make the Marker a matter of international scientific inquiry rather than a toy for the military.

The first possibility would mean safety, a chance to lead a more or less normal life. Probably he could patch up his relationship with Ada. Maybe with time, miles away from the Marker, separated from the hallucinations of her mother, she would begin to come to her senses. She would stop thinking about it, would regain her sanity. Everything could turn out okay. That is, a.s.suming nothing went wrong with the Marker.

The second might mean danger, even death. Markoff and his goons wouldn't hesitate to kill both him and Ada if they became, as Markoff liked to say, expendable.

He already knew which one he would take. He'd never been the sort to take the safe route. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get the news out.

48 Markoff went from holofile to holofile, looking for some good news. So far nothing. So far the Marker had remained unresponsive and mute.