They drank their tea, undressed, and got into bed. Usually there were noises at night-people talking in the street, a barking dog, the various small sounds of life-but with the power out, everything was very quiet. It was true: it had been a while. A month, or was it two? But the old rhythm, the muscle memory of marriage, was still there, waiting.

"I've been thinking," Sara said after.

Hollis was nestled behind her, wrapping her in his arms. Two spoons in a drawer, they called it. "I thought you might be."

"I miss them. I'm sorry. It's just not the same. I thought I'd be okay with it, but I'm just not."

"I miss them, too."

She rolled to face him. "Would you really mind so much? Be honest."

"That depends. Do you think they need a librarian in the townships?"

"We can find out. But they need doctors, and I need you."

"What about the hospital?"

"Let Jenny run it. She's ready."

"Sara, you do nothing but complain about Jenny."

Sara was taken aback. "I do?"

"Nonstop."

She wondered if this was true. "Well, somebody can take over. We can just go for a visit to start, to see how it feels. Get the lay of the land."

"They may not actually want us out there, you know," Hollis said.

"Maybe not. But if it seems right, and everyone's agreed, we can put in for a homestead. Or build something in town. I could open an office there. Hell, you've got enough books right here to start a library of your own."

Hollis frowned dubiously. "All of us crammed into that tiny house."

"So we'll sleep outside. I don't care. They're our kids."

He took a long breath. Sara knew what Hollis was going to say; it was just a matter of hearing him say it.

"So when do you want to leave?"

"That's the thing," she said, and kissed him. "I was thinking tomorrow."

Lucius Greer was standing under the spotlights at the base of the dry dock, watching a distant figure swinging over the side of the ship in a bosun's chair.

"For godsakes," Lore yelled. "Who did this fucking weld?"

Greer sighed. In six hours, Lore had seen very little that she actually approved of. She lowered the chair to the dock and stepped free.

"I need half a dozen guys down here now. Not the same jokers who did these welds, either." She angled her face upward. "Weir! Are you up there?"

The man's face appeared at the rail.

"String up three more chairs. And go get Rand. I want these seams redone by sunrise." Lore looked at Greer from the corner of her eye. "Don't say it. I ran that refinery for fifteen years. I know what I'm doing."

"You won't hear any complaints from me. That's why Michael wanted you here."

"Because I'm a hard ass."

"Your words, not mine."

She stood back, hands resting on her hips, eyes distractedly scanning the hull. "So tell me something," she said.

"All right."

"Did you ever think it was all bullshit?"

He liked Lore, her directness. "Never."

"Not once?"

"I wouldn't say the thought never crossed my mind. Doubt is human nature. It's what we do with it that matters. I'm an old man. I don't have time to second-guess things."

"That's an interesting philosophy."

A pair of ropes drifted down the flank of the Bergensfjord, then two more.

"You know," Lore said, "all these years, I wondered if Michael would ever find the right woman and settle down. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my competition was twenty thousand tons of steel."

Rand appeared at the gunwale. He and Weir began to hitch up the bosun's chairs.

"Do you still need me here?" Greer asked.

"No, go sleep." She waved up at Rand. "Hang on, I'm coming up!"

Greer left the dock, got in his truck, and drove down the causeway. The pain had gotten bad; he wouldn't be able to hide it much longer. Sometimes it was cold, like being stabbed by a sword of ice; other time it was hot, like glowing embers tossing around inside him. He could hardly keep anything down; when he actually managed to take a piss, it looked like an arterial bleed. There was always a bad taste in his mouth, sour and ureic. He'd told himself a lot of stories over the last few months, but there was really only one ending he could see.

Near the end of the causeway the road narrowed, hemmed in on either side by the sea. A dozen men armed with rifles were stationed at this bottleneck. As Greer drew alongside, Patch stepped from the cab of the tanker and came over.

"Anything going on out there?" Greer asked.

The man was sucking at something in his teeth. "Looks like the Army sent a patrol. We saw lights to the west just after sundown, but nothing since."

"You want more men out here?"

Patch shrugged. "I think we're okay for tonight. They're just sniffing us out at this point." He focused on Greer's face. "You okay? You don't look too good."

"Just need to get off my feet."

"Well, the cab of the tanker is yours if you want it. Catch a few winks. Like I said, there's nothing going on out here."

"I've got some other things to see to. Maybe I'll come back later."

"We'll be here."

Greer turned the truck around and drove away. Once he was out of sight, he pulled to the side of the causeway, got out, placed a hand against the fender for balance, and threw up onto the gravel. There wasn't much to come up, just water and some yolky-looking blobs. For a couple of minutes he remained in that position; when he decided there was nothing more, he retrieved his canteen from the cab, rinsed his mouth, poured some water into his palm, and splashed his face. The aloneness of it-that was the worst part. Not so much the pain as carrying the pain. He wondered what would happen. Would the world dissolve around him, receding like a dream, until he had no memory of it, or would it be the opposite-all the things and people of his life rising up before him in vivid benediction until, like a man gazing into the sun on a too-bright day, he was forced to look away?

He tipped his face to the sky. The stars were subdued, veiled by a moist sea air that made them seem to waver. He brought his thoughts to bear upon a single star, as he had learned to do, and closed his eyes. Amy, can you hear me?

Silence. Then: Yes, Lucius.

Amy, I'm sorry. But I think that I am dying.

47.

A spring afternoon: Peter was working in the garden. Rain had worked through in the night, but now the sky was clear. Stripped to his shirtsleeves, he jabbed his hoe into the soft dirt. Months of eating from the canning jars while they watched the snow fall; how good it would be, he thought, to have fresh vegetables again.

"I brought you something."

Amy had snuck up behind him. Smiling, she held out a glass of water. Peter took it and sipped. It was ice cold against his teeth.

"Why don't you come inside? It's getting late."

So it was. The house lay long in shadow, the last rays of light peeking over the ridge.

"There's a lot to be done," he said.

"There always is. You can get back to work tomorrow."

They ate their supper on the sofa, the old dog nosing around their feet. While Amy washed up, Peter set a fire. The wood caught with crackling quickness. The rich contentment of a certain hour: beneath a heavy blanket, they watched the flames leap up.

"Would you like me to read to you?"

Peter said he thought that would be nice. Amy left him briefly and returned with a thick, brittle volume. Settling back on the sofa, she opened the book, cleared her throat, and began.

"David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens. Chapter One. I Am Born."

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

How wonderful, to be read to. To be carried from this world and into another, borne away on words. And Amy's voice, as she told the story: that was the loveliest part. It flowed through him like a benign electric current. He could have listened to her forever, their bodies close together, his mind in two places simultaneously, both within the world of the story, with its wonderful rain of sensations, and here, with Amy, in the house in which they lived and always had, as if sleep and wakefulness were not adjacent states with firm boundaries but part of a continuum.

At length he realized that the story had stopped. Had he dozed off? Nor was he on the sofa any longer; in some manner, unaware, he had made his way upstairs. The room was dark, the air cold above his face. Amy was sleeping beside him. What was the hour? And what was this feeling he had-the sense that something was not right? He drew the blankets aside and went to the window. A lazy half-moon had risen, partially lighting the landscape. Was that movement, there, at the edge of the garden?

It was a man. He was dressed in a dark suit; gazing upward at the window, he stood with his hands behind his back, in a posture of patient observation. Moonlight slanted across him, sharpening the angles of his face. Peter experienced not alarm but a feeling of recognition, as if he had been waiting for this nighttime visitor. Perhaps a minute passed, Peter watching the man in the yard, the man in the yard watching him. Then, with a courteous tip of his chin, the stranger turned away and walked off into the darkness.

"Peter, what is it?"

He turned from the window. Amy was sitting up in bed.

"There was somebody out there," he said.

"Somebody? Who?"

"Just a man. He was looking at the house. But he's gone now."

Amy said nothing for a moment. Then: "That would be Fanning. I was wondering when he'd show up."

The name meant nothing to Peter. Did he know a Fanning?

"It's all right." She drew the blanket aside for him. "Come back to bed."

He climbed under the covers; at once, the memory of the man receded into unimportance. The warm pressure of the blankets, and Amy beside him; these were all he needed.

"What do you think he wanted?" Peter asked.

"What does Fanning ever want?" Amy sighed wearily, almost with boredom. "He wants to kill us."

Peter awoke with a start. He'd heard something. He drew a breath and held it. The sound came again: the creak of a floorboard underfoot.

He rolled, reached his right hand to the floor, and took the weight of the pistol in his grip. The creak had come from the front hallway; it sounded like one person; they were trying to keep quiet; they didn't know he was awake; surprise was therefore on his side. He rose and crossed the room to the front window; his security detail, two soldiers stationed on the porch, were gone.

He thumbed off the safety. The bedroom door was closed; the hinges, he knew, were loud. The moment the door opened, the intruder would be alerted to his presence.

He pulled the door open and moved at a quickstep down the hall. The kitchen was empty. Without missing a stride, he turned the corner into the living room, extending the pistol.

A man was seated in the old wooden rocker by the fireplace. His face was turned partially away, his eyes focused on the last embers glowing in the grate. He appeared to take no notice of Peter at all.

Peter stepped behind him, leveling the gun. Not a tall man but solidly built, his broad shoulders filling the chair. "Show me your hands."

"Good. You're awake." The man's voice was calm, almost casual.

"Your hands, damnit."

"All right, all right." He held his hands away from his body, fingers spread.

"Get up. Slowly."

He lifted himself from his chair. Peter tightened the grip on his pistol. "Now face me."

The man turned around.

Holy shit, thought Peter. Holy, holy shit.