He dissected carefully, so that there would be no evidence of anything when he returned. He'd seen the look in Glen McNamara's eyes, baleful, the look of somebody who was just about an inch away from d.a.m.n well blowing Mack Graham away. Sam, too, for that matter.

Had Caroline Light secretly taken over? She had to be above the terrified Dr. Davey-boy in the pecking order. That guy was a wet-behind-the-ears fool.

One nurse-Katie, that one-might not be on the side with them. She had a black spot, too; he'd seen it under her turned-up collar. He did not want to think about the d.a.m.n things, though. What were you going to do about cancer now? And yet ... something deep within him told him that this was not cancer. It told him that he'd be better off with a melanoma the size of a pie plate.

Then a welcome interruption to his thoughts: the grill came loose. Working carefully, he took it off and laid it on the desktop.

He had his route traced with measured care, every turning calculated, including the ones so tight that pushing too hard might snap his bones.

No doubt to save fuel, they'd turned off the air-conditioning an hour or so back, so the ducts would be stifling and he would have to hurry or potentially face heat stroke.

He lifted himself and raised his arms, drawing his shoulders together until his bones sighed. To get his head into the s.p.a.ce, he had to turn it to one side with his arms straight out before him. Then he worked the rest of him in, twisting his hips until they were at a diagonal, which gave him just enough room to wriggle forward.

He felt his claustrophobia acutely now. If he got stuck in here he did not know how he could bear it. Just inches in, he knew that he was already essentially trapped, in the sense that he could only squirm ahead, not back. Lying along the duct, he began working his way around the first bend he had seen in the blueprints.

If he was successful, as far as the clinic was concerned, Caroline Light and David Ford would just disappear. Before they died, though, they were going to learn some new things about themselves, and what the human body can endure. If he failed, he would either suffocate in the ductwork or get back here and reseal his vent and n.o.body would be the wiser.

At the first turning, impossibly sharp, he felt his body growing warm from the effort of the stretching, then growing hot. He pushed against the aluminum corner in the smothering dark, and knew that his skull was being compressed really severely, because a storm of crazy images-a girl with a mouth like a cave laughing, a man dancing slow and burning, a dog serenading a dead child-began gushing through his mind's eye as his brain was constricted, and bands of pain whipped his temples.

He lay along the duct gasping, his body an agony of muscle knots and popping cartilage.

A push with his toes brought some release to his head and his twisted hips. Another inserted his upper body into the larger feeder duct, giving him a pulsing rush of blood to his brain and a surge of relief.

He edged ahead now, pushing with his toes, thinking only of his objective. Another turn and he was above the nurses' station. He worried that his movements would make too much noise until he heard the faint scratching of Fleigler's iPod, which she was playing at its usual deafening level over her earphones. She must be trying to drown out reality. Good for her, good for him.

Finally, inching along, sweating, his eyes closed tight to minimize the feeling of being trapped, he reached the even wider sloping duct that led down to the air-conditioning system itself. Here, he could move easily and therefore go much faster. But when he pushed himself into the duct, he went into an unexpected slide, which resulted in a series of booming sounds. Worse, he went slamming headfirst into the fan, and would have been sliced to meat if it had been turning. As it was, he ended up with a painful gouge in his forehead.

The blueprints showed an access hatch here that was used to clean the fans, and he felt for it, his sense of confinement growing as his fingers sought edges that were not there.

Unless he found it, he would be trapped. There was no going back up that slope, which was far steeper than it had appeared in the blueprint. His heart sped up and he began to need to take deep breaths, but the air was foul. Without the system running, he thought he was in danger of suffocation, and it was not just his fear of confinement working.

He fluttered his fingers along the smooth duct, seeking for edges, finally touching a seam. Yes, oh, yes, he felt along it, felt hinges, felt the simple flat latch, pushed it-and it was tight, too tight to move. Wriggling, twisting, too frantic now to care about the noise he might be making, he got a quarter out of his pocket and slid it along until it stopped against the tongue of the latch. Pushing, he finally felt a shift, heard the rasp of it, felt it moving more.

Cool air rushed in and he found himself almost weeping with relief. Carefully, making as little noise as possible, he slipped out of the ductwork and into the dim bas.e.m.e.nt.

Listening, looking around him, he detected no other human presence. Very well. With a predator's quick and silent stride, he moved toward the stairs and ascended them.

Here was the supply room, its shelves mostly empty. Good, this would outrage the townies. Hopefully, they'd tear the place apart. He went to the door, then paused. He was watching the strip of light beneath it, because it was flickering.

So was somebody there, or was it the flickering of the sky tricking his eyes?

No choice but to find out, so he grasped the door handle and turned it slowly, making certain that the door did not creak as it opened.

Before him spread the kitchen, with its long row of gleaming stainless steel ranges, its ovens, its broad cutting tables. Stepping softly and quickly to the knife wall, he pulled down a cleaver, a nice one, beautifully weighted, sharp as sin. So he would be the cla.s.sic madman with a cleaver. Except he knew how to use things like this.

What little of him that might have been decent, might have felt mercy or relented, now slipped into memory, became unreal to him, and finally went out like a dying candle.

He felt full of the dark, and was in a curious way comfortable in it, like a man who has entered a cave that appeared dreadful from the outside, but who, once inside, becomes used to its terrors.

He strode across the kitchen, pushing through the double swinging doors into the dining room. Here, all was elegance, the crystal stemware flaring with the wild light from outside, the silver seeming to jump on the place settings from the glowing sky.

It was different tonight, the auroras pulsating rather than flashing, and there were long streaks of light in the tops of the tall windows that surrounded the room. Now, meteors.

At the door of the dining room, he paused. Beyond this point, anything could happen. He went out to the broad corridor that led into the beautiful front rooms of the house. It had been a long time since he had been here in the flesh. Except for visits to their shrinks, inmates rarely got past this door.

"Excuse me."

Standing at the foot of the stairs was a security guy. He was six foot three and fully weaponed.

Mack smiled. "I've lost my way."

"Identify yourself, please."

He took a step closer, at which moment the guard's eyes flickered and Mack knew two things. He'd been recognized and the cleaver was spotted.

In the split of an instant, Mack stepped up to him and swung it, and his head went wobbling off, hit the stairs with a wet thud and came rolling down, coming to rest at the feet of the crumpling corpse.

Human bodies contain an amazing amount of blood, and there was no way to stop the ocean of it that was pumping out of this man. Mack picked up the head and took it to the coat closet that was concealed under the wide staircase. He shoved it onto a shelf, then dragged the body in, leaving behind a long, streaked trail of blood.

When morning came, they would certainly find this, but in the night, with all that flickering, it was hard to see exactly what was going on with the floor. So, unless somebody slipped in the mess, he had a reasonable chance that it would not be discovered until morning.

The stairs were open to him, and he thought he might alter his plan and try Dr. Ford first.

He took them three at a time. Surprise was essential.

Hallways led to the left and the right, then a central one, arched, where Mr. and Mrs. Acton's suites had been. On the left were the old nurseries, now offices.

Moving along the central corridor, he heard nothing. The doors were thick and all were closed. He stopped at the one with the DR. DAVID FORD DR. DAVID FORD sign. Behind it lay his office, his reception room, and his private rooms. sign. Behind it lay his office, his reception room, and his private rooms.

He put his hand on the doork.n.o.b and twisted it very carefully, so as not to make the least sound. After an eighth of an inch, he met resistance. The d.a.m.n thing was locked, which was a setback, although a predictable one. He was going to have to find some basic tools, a coat hanger or a long, thin screwdriver, if he was going to get through a thick, well-made door like this silently.

As he leaned against it, trying to see if he could hear the tumblers as he moved the handle, he heard voices inside, faint but intense. The door was so closely fitted that you couldn't even see a line of light under it. Leaning against it didn't help, the voices remained indistinct.

For all he could tell, whoever was in there might come out at any moment. His bridges were well and properly burned. If he was found here, something permanent would be done to him. These were kindly people and he could not imagine them killing him. But they were desperate, also, and desperation causes unexpected behavior.

Initiative was slipping away from him. He'd thought it was possible that he would not unlock the secret of this place in time. If so, then his duty was clear: he must prevent it from being used at all. If the purest and best could not continue, the whole species had to go extinct. No third alternative was acceptable, not to him and, he was certain, not to the people in the bunkers.

He went back downstairs and threw open the recreation area doors and went through it to the art room, and there it was in its magnificence, the painting. And the d.a.m.n thing was gloriously, superbly finished. Caroline Light had painted a great masterwork in a day. He didn't know a great deal about art, but he knew that the technique was immeasurably accomplished.

Even in this bizarre light, he could see a lovely meadow just after sunset, behind it a woodland, and in the far distance the western sky still glowing orange. Just an amazing thing.

As he peered into it more closely, he noticed that he became physically uncomfortable. He found himself rubbing the dark place on his neck, which seemed to be getting hot.

Swallowing the pain, he continued his examination of the painting ... and realized something. For all the realism of this thing, the sky was wrong. Or was it? Yeah, the constellations could be off. He wasn't aware of exactly how they should look, but it wasn't like this. Then, as he watched, he saw that the painting appeared to be changing. And that was the d.a.m.nedest thing he had ever seen. The glow in the sky was fading. That was was a sunset. a sunset.

But then this wasn't a painting. It was-G.o.d, what was it, a window into another world? Because there were no auroras there, no purple sky.

He thought: I could go through. Just climb through. To h.e.l.l with his G.o.dd.a.m.n duty, this was a chance to save himself. He extended his hand toward it-and his skin immediately got so hot that he s.n.a.t.c.hed it back.

More carefully this time, he moved his hand closer, and the closer he came, the more the heat in his body increased. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he touched the surface of the thing.

It was like touching the edge of a column of air.

He pressed a little deeper, and could feel, on his palm, a subtle change in temperature.

It was was a door, d.a.m.n right. So he was going through and screw them all. a door, d.a.m.n right. So he was going through and screw them all.

He extended his arm, and immediately felt such furious agony in the discolored area on his neck that he had to stop. He threw himself back away from the thing, rolling, writhing, forcing his screams back into his throat. The dark area hurt like h.e.l.l. He could smell burned skin.

Clutching his shirt, he smothered what seemed to be a fire that had started spontaneously in his flesh.

These people were full of tricks and G.o.dd.a.m.n them.

He raised the cleaver. Then stopped. What would happen if he struck it, would it blow up in his face or what?

He looked more closely at it, being careful not to try to touch it again. You could see the places where the canvas was tacked to the stretcher. The back of it was just-well, he pushed the edge of the cleaver against it and found that there was give there.

No matter how it looked or what it did, this was basically paint on canvas, it had to be. Maybe it was also a d.a.m.n wormhole or something, and if so, they were certainly about to use it.

That must not be allowed to happen. But he was in no position to steal it. He didn't know how it worked. He only knew that if he couldn't use it, they d.a.m.n well weren't going to, either.

He went around behind it and positioned himself. He raised the cleaver, aiming for the center of the frame. With an easy motion, he cut the thing into two halves, which flew off in opposite directions. Where the painted area was slashed, tiny sparks flickered.

Again he slashed it, to the left, to the right, again and again, ripping and tearing and cutting until there was nothing left of it but smeared paint and sc.r.a.ps of cloth, and a tiny, shimmering corner not big enough for a finger.

He stood over it and smashed his heel into it and ground it and ground it until there was nothing left at all.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?"

He turned. He looked across the dark, flickering maw of the large recreation area. A shadow stood there.

"h.e.l.lo, Doctor," he said, and advanced toward Marian Hunt.

When her eyes went to the cleaver, she took a step back, but he was on her then and before she could turn away he had grabbed her wrist and, with a swift upward swing of the knife, severed her arm.

Blood sprayed from her shoulder, shock and disbelief transformed her face into a gabbling mask, and he swung the severed arm at her and hit her in the side of the head with the ball head of the humerus bone, which struck her skull with a thick crunch.

She fell to her side, landing on the gushing shoulder with a sucking gasp of agony. He slammed her head with her arm again and again, hitting her skull until it was soup.

He didn't clean anything up, it was too late for that. He needed to get out of here because he didn't know why she'd suddenly appeared in the first place. He must have made too much noise, and that meant that others would be on their way. Plus, by now that guard had failed to report in and that was going to be investigated.

The painting represented science so advanced that he could not even begin to imagine how it might work, but two things were certain: first, it would not be doing its job now. Second, Light would tell him how it did did work, and she would make one that worthy, decent people could use. work, and she would make one that worthy, decent people could use.

He tossed the arm into the air and slashed up as it came down, severing the forearm. Then he slit the flesh off the humerus and hefted it. A club could silence a man a whole lot faster than a knife.

As he headed for the patient suites, he heard a rise of voices all through the building-and realized that he wasn't the cause, because the windows were now as bright as dawn, but it was not dawn and the light was a bizarre, sickly violet.

He strode to the closest window and saw, rising on the northeastern horizon, the source of the earlier disturbance outside.

A new star was rising, and it brought a quote to his mind, "And a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water ..."

The star Wormwood was here, and this was not only what the Book of Revelation foretold, but also the old calendars. It was what all the warnings from the past were about, and why they involved such exquisite calculations and precise dates.

The thing had only one meaning for him. Time was no longer running out, it had had run out. run out.

These b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had known this, he suspected, right to the minute. That was why they had prepared their little escape hatch when they had. They would also realize that it was the most valuable thing in the world, or that had ever been in the world.

Well, they would do it all again, but not here. They would do it for him. He just very badly needed those people from the town to come up and create his diversion. Then he would take Light and Ford where he wanted to take them, and do with them what he needed to do.

16.

MEMORY.

As David watched the rising of the new star, the red star, he thought of the Book of Revelation. What was the past, that it was so wise that it could write such books? As he looked back from the world as it was now, history seemed to him to be a long process of going blind.

He thought, I am at stage two of the process of dying, I'm beginning to accept the reality of what's happening, and that's changing my perspective. I am at stage two of the process of dying, I'm beginning to accept the reality of what's happening, and that's changing my perspective.

It meant accepting that he could not keep the Acton Clinic functioning and he could not save the patients. Perhaps there had been a mission. Of course there had. But he did not think that even Herbert Action had been able to imagine the sheer scale of the catastrophe.

He tried to shake off the simmering anguish of failure, but that was not going to be possible.

"David."

A shock went through him and he whirled around-and found himself confronting a large group of people who had entered his office so quietly that he had not heard them.

"David," Caroline said again. He did not like that tone. He did not like this crowd. On top of everything else, now he had a rebellion on his hands.

Glen was there, Bev Cross and Sam Taylor, and a dozen or more patients, among them Susan Denman and a mysteriously recovered Aaron Stein, who had been among the most profoundly psychotic. Katie was nowhere to be seen.

Caroline said, "We're a delegation."

"May I know your complaint? I presume it is a complaint."

Bev brought out a disposable syringe. "David, we're going to do this."

It was the substance-the gold.

"David," Glen said, "you need to let us."

Caroline's lips were a stern line, but her eyes were pale clouds, heavy with tears.

"We've all taken it, David," Sam said. "We all remember."