"Okay."

"There's a town meeting tonight. I think you should go."

"Why?"

"Because... well, there's some stirrings. That's all. About a special committee being set up. A morals committee, to ensure that only the right people live here in Boston Falls."

"And who decides who are the right people?" he asked, finding it hard to believe this conversation was actually taking place.

Henry seemed embarra.s.sed. "The committee and the selectmen, I guess... you see, there's word down south, about some of the towns there, they still got trouble with refugees and transients rolling in from Connecticut and New York. Some of those towns, the natives, they're being overwhelmed, outvoted, and they're not the same anymore. And since you, um-"

"I was born here, Henry. You know that. Just because I lived someplace else for a long time, that's held against me?"

"Well, I'm just sayin' it's not going to help... with what you did back then, and the fact you don't go to church, and other things, well... it might be worthwhile if you go there. That's all. To defend yourself."

Even with the hot weather, Rick was feeling a cold touch upon his hands. Now we're really taking a step back, he thought. Like the Nuremberg laws, in n.a.z.i Germany.

Ensuring that only the ethnically and racially pure get to vote, to shop, to live...

"And if this committee decides you don't belong? What then? Arrested? Exiled?

Burned at the stake?"

Now his neighbor looked embarra.s.sed as he stepped up from the wicker chair.

"You should just be there, Mister uh, I mean, Rick. It's at eight o'clock. At the town hall."

"That's a long walk in, when it's getting dark. Any chance I could get a ride?"

Even with his neighbor's back turned to him, Rick could sense the humiliation.

"Well, I, well, I don't think so, Rick. I'm sorry. You see, I think Marcia wants to visit her sister after the meeting, and I don't know what time we might get back, and, well, I'm sorry."

Henry climbed up into the wagon, retrieved the reins from his son, and Rick called out. "Henry?"

"Yes?"

"Any chance your wife is on this committee?"

The expression on his neighbor's face was all he needed to know, as the wagon turned around on his brown lawn and headed back up to the road.

Back inside, he grabbed his mail and went upstairs, to the spare bedroom that he had converted into an office during the first year he had made it back to Boston Falls.

He went to unlock the door and found that it was already open. d.a.m.n his memory, which he knew was starting to show its age, just like his hips. He was certain he had locked it the last time. He sat down at the desk and untied the twine, knowing he would save it. What was that old Yankee saying? Use it up, wear it out, or do without?

Heavy thrift, one of the many lessons being relearned these years.

One envelope he set aside to bring into Glen Roundell, the General Store owner. Itwas his Social Security check, only three months late, and Glen-who was also the town's banker-would take it and apply it against Rick's account. Not much being made for sale nowadays, so whatever tiny amount his Social Security check was this month was usually enough to keep his account in good shape.

There was an advertising flyer for the Grafton County Fair, set to start next week.

Another flyer announcing a week-long camp revival at the old Boy Scout camp on Conway Lake, during the same time. Compet.i.tion, no doubt. And a thin envelope, postmarked Houston, Texas, which he was happy to see. It had only taken a month for the envelope to get here, which he thought was a good sign. Maybe some things were improving in the country.

Maybe.

He slit open the envelope with an old knife, saw the familiar handwriting inside.

Dear Rick, Hope this sees you doing well in the wilds of New Hampshire.

Down here what pa.s.ses for recovery continues. Last month, two whole city blocks had their power restored. It only comes on for a couple of hours a day, and no a/c is allowed, but it's still progress, eh?

Enclosed are the latest elements for Our Boy. I'm sorry to say the orbit degradation is continuing. Latest guess is that Our Boy may be good for another five years, maybe six.

Considering what was spent in blood and treasure to put him up there, it breaks my heart.

If you get bored and lonely up there, do consider coming down here. I understand that with Amtrak coming back, it should only take four weeks to get here. The heat is awful but at least you'll be in good company with those of us who still remember.

Your pal, Brian With the handwritten sheet was another sheet of paper, with a listing of dates and times, and he shook his head in dismay. Most of the sightings were for early mornings, and he hated getting up in the morning. But tonight-how fortunate!-there was going to be a sighting at just after eight o'clock.

Eight o'clock. Why did that sound familiar?

Now he remembered. The town meeting tonight, where supposedly his fate and those of any other possible sinners was to be decided. He carefully folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope. He decided one more viewing was more important, more important than whatever chatter session was going to happen later. And besides, knowing what he did about the town and its politics, the decision had already been made.

He looked around his small office, with the handmade bookshelves and books, and more framed photos on the cracked plaster wall. One of the photos was of him and his friend, Brian Poole, wearing blue-zippered jumpsuits, standing in front of something large and complex, built ages ago in the swamps of Florida.

"Thanks, guy," he murmured, and he got up and went downstairs, to think of what might be for dinner.

Later that night he was in the big backyard, a pasture that he let his other neighbor, George Thompson, mow for hay a couple of times each summer, for which George gave him some venison and smoked ham over the long winters in exchange.

He brought along a folding lawn chair, its bright plastic cracked and faded away, and he sat there, stretching out his legs. It was a quiet night, like every night since he hadcome here, years ago. He smiled in the darkness. What strange twists of fate and fortune had brought him back here, to his old family farm. He had grown up here, until his dad had moved the family south, to a suburb of Boston, and from there, high school and Air Force ROTC, and then many, many years traveling, thousands upon thousands of miles, hardly ever thinking about the old family farm, now owned by a second or third family. And he would have never come back here, until the troubles started, when- A noise made him turn his head. Something crackling out there, in the underbrush.

"Who's out there?" he called out, wondering if some of the more hot-blooded young'uns in town had decided not to wait until the meeting was over. "Come out and show yourself."

A shape came out from the wood line, ambled over, small, and then there was a young boy's voice, "Mister Monroe, it's me, Tom Cooper."

"Tom? Oh, yes, Tom. Come on over here."

The young boy came up, sniffling some, and Rick said, "Tom, you gave me a bit of a surprise. What can I do for you?"

Tom stood next to him, and said slowly, "I was just wondering... well, that cold stuff you gave me earlier, that tasted really good. I didn't know if you had any more left..."

He laughed. "Sorry, guy. Maybe tomorrow. How come you're not with your mom and dad at the meeting?"

Tom said, "My sister Ruth is supposed to be watching us, but I snuck out of my room and came here. I was bored."

"Well, boredom can be good, it means something will happen. Tell you what, Tom, wait a couple of minutes, I'll show you something special."

"What's that?"

"You just wait and I'll show you."

Rick folded his hands together in his lap, looked over at the southeast. Years and years ago, that part of the night sky would be a light yellow glow, the lights from the cities in that part of the state. Now, like every other part of the night sky, there was just blackness and the stars, the night sky now back where it had once been, almost two centuries ago.

There. Right there. A dot of light, moving up and away from the horizon.

"Take a look, Tom. See that moving light?"

"Unh-hunh."

"Good. Just keep your eye on it. Look at it go."

The solid point of light rose up higher and seemed brighter, and he found his hands were tingling and his chest was getting tighter. Oh, G.o.d, how beautiful, how beautiful it had been up there, looking down on the great globe, watching the world unfold beneath you, slow and majestic and lovely, knowing that as expensive and ill-designed and over-budget and late in being built, it was there, the first permanent outpost for humanity, the first step in reaching out to the planets and stars that were humanity's destiny...

The crickets seemed louder. An owl out in the woods hoo-hoo'ed, and beside him, Tom said, "What is it, Mister Monroe?"

The light seemed to fade some, and then it disappeared behind some tall pines, and Rick found that his eyes had gotten moist. He wiped at them and said, "What do you think it was?""I dunno. I sometimes see lights move at night, and Momma tells me that it's the Devil's work, and I shouldn't look at 'em. Is that true?"

He rubbed at his chin, thought for a moment about just letting the boy be, letting him grow up with his illusions and whatever misbegotten faith his mother had put in his head, letting him think about farming and hunting and fishing, to concentrate on what was real, what was necessary, which was getting enough food to eat and a warm place and- No! the voice inside him shouted. No, that's not fair, to condemn this boy and the others to a life of peasantry, just because of some wrong things that had been done, years before the child was even born. He shook his head and said, "Well, I can see why some people would think it's the Devil's work, but the truth is, Tom, that was a building up there. A building made by men and women and put up in the sky, more than a hundred miles up."

Tom sounded skeptical. "Then how come it doesn't fall down?"

Great, the voice said. Shall we give him a lecture about Newton? What do you suggest ?.

He thought for a moment and said, "It's complex, and I don't want to bore you, Tom. But trust me, it's up there. In fact, it's still up there and will be for a while. Even though n.o.body's living in it right now."

Tom looked up and said, "Where is it now?"

"Oh, I imagine it's over Canada by now. You see, it goes around the whole globe in what's called an orbit. Only takes about ninety minutes or so."

Tom seemed to think about that and said shyly, "My dad. He once said you were something. A s.p.a.ceman. That you went to the stars. Is that true?"

"True enough. We never made it to the stars, though we sure thought about it a lot."

"He said you flew up in the air. Like a bird. And the places you went, high enough, you had to carry your own air with you. Is that true, too?"

"Yes, it is."

"Jeez. You know, my momma, well..."

"Your momma, she doesn't quite like me, does she?"

"Unh-hunh. She says you're not good. You're unholy. And some other stuff."

Rick thought about telling the boy the truth about his mother, decided it could wait until the child got older. G.o.d willing, the boy would learn soon enough about his mother. Aloud Rick said, "I'm going back to my house. Would you like to get something?"

"Another cold treat?" came the hopeful voice.

"No, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, well, tonight I want to give you something that'll last longer than any treat."

A few minutes later they were up in his office, Tom talking all the while about the fishing he had done so far this summer, the sleep-outs in the back pasture, and about his cousin Lloyd, who lived in the next town over, Hanc.o.c.k, and who died of something called polio. Rick shivered at the matter-of-fact way Tom had mentioned his cousin's death. A generation ago, a death like that never would have happened.

h.e.l.l, a generation ago, if somebody of Tom's age had died, the poor kid would have been shoved into counseling sessions and group therapies, trying to get closure about the d.a.m.n thing. And now? Just part of growing up.

In his office Tom oohed and aaahed over the photos on his wall, and Rick explainedas best he could what they were about. "Well, that's the dot of light we just saw. It's actually called a s.p.a.ce station. Over there, that's what you used to fly up to the s.p.a.ce station. It's called a s.p.a.ce shuttle. Or a rocket, if you prefer. This... this is a picture of me, up in the s.p.a.ce station."

"Really?" Tom asked. "You were really there?"

He found he had to sit down, so he did, his d.a.m.n hips aching something fierce.

"Yes, I was really up there. One of the last people up there, to tell you the truth, Tom.

Just before, well... just before everything changed."

Tom stood before a beautiful photo of a full moon, the craters and mountains and flat seas looking as sharp as if they were made yesterday. He said, "Momma said that it was G.o.d who punished the world back then, because men were evil, because they ignored G.o.d. Is that true, Mister Monroe? What really happened back then?"

His fists suddenly clenched, as if powered by memory. Where to begin, young man, he thought. Where to begin. Let's talk about a time when computers were in everything, from your car to your toaster to your department store cash register.

Everything linked up and interconnected. And when the systems got more and more complex, the childish ones, the vandals, the destructive hackers, they had to prove that they had the knowledge and skills and wherewithal to take down a system. Oh, the defenses grew stronger and stronger, as did the viruses, and the evil ones redoubled their efforts, like the true Vandals coming into Rome, burning and destroying something that somebody else created. The defenses grew more in-depth, the attacks more determined, until one bright soul-if such a creature could be determined to have a soul-came up with ultimate computer virus. No, not one that wormed its way into software through backdoors or anything fancy like that. No sir. This virus was one that attacked the hardware, the platforms, that spread G.o.d knows how-theories ranged from human touch to actual impulses over fiber optics-and destroyed the chips. That's all. Just ate the chips and left burned-out crumbs behind, so that in days, almost every thing in the world that used a computer was silent, dark, and dead.

Oh, he was a smart one-for the worst of the hackers were always male-whoever he was, and Rick often wished that the designer of the ultimate virus (called the Final Virus, for a very good reason) had been on an aircraft or an operating room table when it had struck. For when the computers sputtered out and died, the chaos that was unleashed upon the world... cars, buses, trains, trucks. Dead, not moving.

Hundreds of thousands of people, stranded far from home. Aircraft falling out of the skies. Ships at sea, slowly drifting, unable to maneuver. Stock markets, banks, corporations, everything and anything that stored the wealth of a nation in electronic impulses, silent. All the interconnections that fed and clothed and fueled and protected and sheltered most of the world's billions had snapped apart, like brittle rubber bands. Within days the cities had become uninhabitable, as millions streamed into the countryside. Governments wavered and collapsed. Communications were spa.r.s.e, for networks and radio stations and the cable stations were off the air as well.

Rumors and fear spread like a plague itself, and the Four Hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse- called out from retirement at last-swept through almost the entire world.

There were a few places that remained untouched: Antarctica and a few remote islands. But for the rest of the world... sometimes the only light on the nightside of the planet were the funeral pyres, where the bodies were being burned.

He grew nauseous, remembering what had happened to him and how it took him months to walk back here, to his childhood home, and he repressed the memory of eating something a farmer had offered him-it hadn't looked exactly like dog, butG.o.d, he had been so hungry-and he looked over to young Tom. How could he even begin to tell such a story to such an innocent lad?

He wouldn't. He composed himself and said, "No, G.o.d didn't punish us back then.

We did. It was a wonderful world, Tom, a wonderful place. It wasn't perfect and many people did ignore G.o.d, did ignore many good things... but we did things. We fed people and cured them and some of us, well, some of us planned to go to the stars."

He went up to the wall, took down the picture of the International s.p.a.ce Station, the Big Boy himself, and pointed it out to Tom. "Men and women built that on the ground, Tom, and brought it up into s.p.a.ce. They did it for good, to learn things, to start a way for us to go back to the Moon and to Mars. To explore. There was no evil there. None."

Tom looked at the picture and said, "And that's the dot of light we saw? Far up in the sky?"

"Yes."

"And what's going to happen to it?"

He looked at the framed photo, noticed his hands shaking some. He put the photo back up on the wall. "One of these days, it's going to get lower and lower. It just happens. Things up in orbit can't stay up there forever. Unless somebody can go up there and do something... it'll come crashing down."

He sat down in the chair, winced again at the shooting pains in his hips. There was a time when he could have had new hips, new knees, or-if need be-new kidneys, but it was going to take a long time for those days to ever come back. From his infrequent letters from Brian, he knew that work was still continuing in some isolated and protected labs, to find an answer to the Final Virus. But with people starving and cities still unlit, most of the whole d.a.m.n country had fallen back to the late 1800s, when power was provided by muscles, horses, or steam. Computers would just have to wait.

Tom said, "I hope it doesn't happen, Mister Monroe. It sounds really cool."

Rick said, "Well, maybe when you grow up, if you're really smart, you can go up there and fix it. And think about me when you're doing it. Does that sound like fun?"