Mike let the boys look at his weapon, but not fire it. Who knew if those rounds would be needed. He kept the portal covered. No use in having to explain that d.a.m.n thing, and he knew as well as any soldier that desperate people can turn nasty real fast, if they see something they think might save them.

When he had a chance, though, he looked into the portal. He was sort of hoping to see Tim, but he only saw the day over there getting slowly older, just like it was here.

Del reappeared. "Done and done," he said, satisfaction in his voice.

"Let's just get rolling, man. It's already sunset d.a.m.n near, so it's sunset over there, too, and my bro is gonna be feeling mighty needful."

The first thing they saw of the Acton Clinic was a big wall topped with razor wire. There was a huge iron gate that was wide open, and as they went through it, there appeared what Mike knew at once was the most beautiful house he'd ever seen. But as they drew closer, he saw that it was partially burned out. Windows were broken. There was an ugly silence of a kind he knew all too well.

And now, as the sun set, the violet star that Colonel Manders had told them was a supernova appeared low in the northeastern sky, flooding the world in its creepy light.

When they arrived at the front of the house, Del stopped the Humvee and cut the engine. He turned to Mike. "What now?"

Mike had no idea what now. The windows of the old house were dark. It looked pretty ruined in there. But it didn't look real cla.s.sified. No government warning signs, a wide-open gate, and no lights or guard units didn't exactly suggest this.

"What now is, we take a look around."

"Weapons?"

"You carry and cover, I'll take the portal."

"We can't leave a weapon uncontrolled."

"Then we pull the ammo outta mine and I'll hold on to the bolt."

"We might need that firepower."

So Mike strapped on his rifle and carried the portal. The thing wasn't heavy, and from the back it looked like a piece of canvas. But on the front, it was as slick as gla.s.s and you could go in it and run off in there, which Mike did not have the guts to do. He wanted his brother, though, and worse every minute.

The darker it got, the brighter the light from the portal appeared. Now it was looking over a glade full of grazing horses. The sun was a glow in the west, the sunset rich with gold at the horizon, then orange and yellow above it, and finally pale green fading into the blue of night. You could see plenty of stars, and Mike knew a fair amount about stars, thanks to their dad, who had a Celestron and had taught them the sky.

"How weird," he said. He held the portal directly overhead and looked up into it, then brought it slowly down to the eastern horizon.

"The constellations are out of place."

"Useful to know. Let's go inside and see if we can find out why."

Mike was transfixed. "Let me tell you ... this sky is not right."

"Okay! Now let's move our a.s.ses. This can't be safe out here, man."

He kept moving the portal, trying to find north based on the glow on the western horizon. From the foliage he had seen when it was light there, he knew that the season was the same-early summer. So ...

"What the h.e.l.l is Draco doing there there?"

"Dray-who doing where?"

"The constellation Draco ... it's way north. There's Eltamin, and ... Thuban. Thuban is the North Star!"

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, will you get your a.s.s in gear?"

He lowered the portal. "Del," he said, "this is just a d.a.m.n amazing thing."

"Well, duh duh!"

"No, you don't understand what this is. Because this isn't just some kind of window, like, into China or somewheres. Some kind of wormhole or whatever. Del, the polestar in that sky-" He tapped the edge of the portal, being careful not to touch its lethal surface. "The polestar is not Polaris, it's Thuban. Thuban, Thuban, man!" man!"

"Look, do you remember how interested I was in the telescope, which was not at all? So I am not going to know what the f.u.c.k that means, am I?"

"What it means is that this thing is a d.a.m.n time machine!" He held it up. "Thuban won't be the polestar for another twenty thousand years. When Timmy went into that thing, he crossed thousands of years into the future, Del. It's the future in there!"

"Oh, yeah, what about the little matter of the fact that Earth is gonna be a burned-out cinder in the future?"

"The dinosaurs got torched, and we're here. So it's not gonna stay, like, a cinder forever."

"Oh, man, somebody is gonna be very p.i.s.sed off at us, because this thing is unbelievably cla.s.sified, it has to be. The general was taking it back to the Blue Ridge for, you know, the Family, the politicians, all those rich people, the senators-"

"I know who's down there, I seen 'em go in same as you."

"Okay, then, we are criminals. Big-time. The whole f.u.c.king army is gonna be after us, plus the FBI, the CIA, and all'a that s.h.i.t."

"Except that doesn't matter a s.h.i.t anymore and I am not gonna stop until I get my brother back, and that is the line in the sand here, Del, so if you want to go back, that's fine by me. Personally, I wouldn't sell those sc.u.mbags s.h.i.t on a platter, much less give 'em this thing. Find me some good folks-decent, you know-and let's get 'em through. And get us through, and find my brother."

Del ran a hand along the top edge of the thing, which now gleamed purple as the supernova spread its rising light.

"It's gonna be a brave f.u.c.king guy goes through this thing first. I mean, it's a d.a.m.n miracle your brother didn't do like the rest of 'em."

"Drop the gun and step away from it, please."

Del did exactly as the voice from inside the house instructed. To Mike he mouthed the words "told you."

"Now face me. Come up onto the porch, please."

Mike started to lift the portal, but the unmistakable snicker of a bolt being thrown on a very proficient-sounding weapon froze him. Turning slowly, he held up his hands. Side by side, he and Del walked onto the porch. After a moment, a flashlight shone in their faces. It lingered on their patches. Whoever this was wanted to identify their unit, obviously.

"PFC Twine, please come forward."

Del took another step closer to the door. Behind them, Mike heard movement. Somebody was taking the portal! He reacted immediately, turning to stop them.

"Freeze!"

Which Mike did. But he had seen a woman in the violet light, her long legs striding, her hair flowing back, carrying the portal like the d.a.m.n thing was her own personal possession. But Tim was in there. He had to get his brother back!

"Hey, look, we come here to bring it to you," he said. "But you gotta understand, my brother's in it. He's lost in there!"

There was no reaction. He could hear the woman's footsteps fading away. He dared not try again to look. He focused his attention on the flashlight.

"We're twins, see. So we are real close and I gotta get him outa there or go in-go over-with him. That's what I gotta do." He said nothing about the time machine part of it. That was probably the most secret thing about it. Guys were getting shot right and left these days. Forget the court-martial, the brig. Nowadays, you got your head blown off by a psycho general and n.o.body gave the slightest s.h.i.t.

"Okay, Specialist Pelton, please come forward."

Del was shaking like a terrified Chihuahua or something, which was not like Del Twine, who could chew the beard of a Taliban for lunch.

"Now what's going to happen is I want you to come into the building. I am going to be standing aside. You will not see me. Then you will go where you're directed."

Del was shaking so much he looked drunk, and Mike was about to wet his pants. Maybe there was another Blue Ridge here, full of even more rich s.h.i.tkickers, and they were gonna end up getting their a.s.ses tortured.

Then a match was struck ahead of them, and Mike saw that they were in a ruined hall that had once been really, really beautiful, with a sweeping staircase that led up to a ma.s.s of blackened beams where part of the roof had come in. Delicate fingers touched the match to a candle, and Mike saw a beautiful girl in the yellow light, with big eyes that looked him over dispa.s.sionately and frankly.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

She turned and went through a dining room full of upended tables and toward a big black door. So this was it, the inner sanctum.

The windows were draped with blankets, and there were many candles. And, in their light, many faces.

Mike's first thought was, These are civilians. These are civilians. His second was that they were hurt, some of them. Then that there were a whole lot of them, maybe over a hundred, and they had to be the quietest people he had ever seen in his life. His second was that they were hurt, some of them. Then that there were a whole lot of them, maybe over a hundred, and they had to be the quietest people he had ever seen in his life.

Then, from the back, the woman who had taken the portal came in. Del sucked an awed breath, and even in flickering candlelight, Mike could see why. There was just very little question-this was about the most beautiful woman in the world. She carried the portal, which was glowing softly with starlight from the other side, and put it on an easel.

Mike said, "Lady, my brother is in there. I want you folks-" He looked around the room, tried to smile, but his smile collapsed and he was all of a sudden not a soldier. That all just went out of him, all the hardness, the long, cold nights ducking Taliban mortar sh.e.l.ls and hating the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, all of that and all the misery he had endured as a virtual slave guarding the Blue Ridge, and the terror of this day-all of it just melted away.

What was left was his truth-he was a scared nineteen-year-old boy in an impossible situation, who had lost his twin brother and with him half of his own soul. He let out a long sob, then choked it back.

A man came to him, a guy in his thirties, the kind of guy who was born to command. When the guy's arm came around his shoulder, he wasn't embarra.s.sed, not even in front of all these people. He was just tired and scared and alone.

"Come on, you two, I want to introduce you to our head of security. There's work for you here."

The two young soldiers went with David Ford, watched by many eyes, and in the candlelight, there gleamed many tears. Before them, the portal, back where it belonged, glowed with soft and beautiful light.

From his careful place of hiding, Mack also saw this. As he calculated his odds, he fingered the safety on his gun. He was sick and his burn hurt like nothing else he had ever known, but mostly he was filled with a rage that was beyond any emotion he had ever felt, a great, fiery darkness that boiled up from the center of his soul, and would drive him, he knew, both to feats even beyond his own great skill, and to death if it was necessary to fulfill his aim, which had become very simple.

Alone, he could not get the portal to Blue Ridge, which meant that the people who deserved it were not going to get it.

So n.o.body else would, either.

24.

THE MOON.

As soon as he'd disarmed the two young soldiers and a.s.sured himself that they meant no harm, Glen had gone outside to run the perimeter. He'd lost six of his sixteen men, but that still left enough of a force to reestablish a presence on the walls. They were a lot better off with a deeper defense, even if it had some light spots.

It was as he was crossing the broad lawn that led to the front gate, which was stuck open and thus guarded now by three men, that he noticed the moon.

He stopped, then focused his full attention on it. Over millions upon millions of nights, the moon has risen in peaceful splendor. But there is a reason that her face is marked by craters so enormous that they define her very form. They are a reminder and a warning that what has happened in the past can happen again.

He decided that he needed David to see this, and returned to the rec area where the survivors were a.s.sembled.

David could see by Glen's expression that something was very wrong.

"You need to come outside."

"What's the problem?"

He nodded toward the door, and David followed.

"My G.o.d," David said as soon as he saw the moon.

"What do you think it means?"

The face of the moon was unrecognizable. That strange, shocked expression that had fascinated human beings from time immemorial was turned in a new direction.

"It's in motion," David said, "the moon is rotating."

Del and Mike had followed them out.

"Does this mean the end of the world?" Del asked.

Hardly hearing him, David watched in awe as this enormous cosmic event continued to unfold. Another object appeared in the sky, this one perhaps a tenth the size of the moon itself. As it crossed the face, it became a black irregular shadow. Size was impossible to judge, of course, but it was easily visible, so it was huge.

Once it crossed the face, it was lost to view because it was too black to reflect sunlight.

David knew what it was. It was an immense ma.s.s of debris of some sort from the supernova. He said, "I think if it strikes the moon, we're going to see gigantic boulders thrown off. Some will fall back, but some won't and the ones that don't are headed here."

"Which means ... what?"

"Mike, it means devastating earthquakes. Tidal waves. Maybe worse. Much worse."

As Del backed away from him, David saw a trapped animal come into his eyes.

"You think you know it all but you don't know a d.a.m.n thing!"

David did not challenge him, what would be the point? His fear and his anger would mean nothing, not in the face of what was coming.

The object reappeared, dark again as it crossed the moon's face. With deceptive slowness, it arced downward. On the moon's surface, then, there was a flicker of light. A moment later dust rose in a cloud so huge that it could be seen clearly as a haze spreading across the whole face, making it go out of focus.

Then a rain of gleaming specks emerged from this haze, some of them big enough that they could be seen to be tumbling, others nothing more than additions to a star field made faint behind the endless auroras and sick, purple-pink light.

David knew that these were actually huge stones, and that they would reach Earth in the next few days. But even before then-long before then-others were going to strike, and that could start happening at any moment.

"We got a problem," Glen said. He wasn't looking at the moon, and David followed his eyes toward the distant front gate.

"This is just the beginning," David said.