Greer let go. The rope holding the net shrieked through the block. Peter ran to the rail. He had just enough time to see the splash before Amy vanished into the oily water.

Darkness.

She was spinning and twisting and falling. Her senses swarmed with the awful, chemical-tasting water. It filled her mouth. It filled her nose and eyes and ears, a grip of pure death. She touched down upon the mucky bottom. The net held her body fast in its tangle. She needed to breathe. To breathe! She was thrashing, clawing, but there was no escaping its grasp. The first bubble of air rose from her mouth. No, she thought, don't breathe! This simple thing, to open one's lungs and take in the air: the body demanded it. A second bubble and her throat opened and the water slammed into her. She began to choke. The world was dissolving. No, it was she who was dissolving. Her body felt untethered to her thoughts, a thing apart, no longer hers. Her heart began to slow. A new darkness came upon her. It spread from within. This is what it's like, she thought. Panic, and pain, and then the letting go. This is what it's like to die.

Then she was somewhere else.

She was playing a piano. This was strange, because she'd never learned. Yet here she was, playing not just well but expertly, fingers prancing across the keys. There was no sheet music before her; the song came from her head. A sad and beautiful song, full of tenderness and the sweet sorrows of life. Why did it seem entirely new to her but also remembered, like something from a dream? As she played, she began to discern patterns in the notes. Their relationship was not arbitrary; they moved through discernible cycles. Each cycle carried a slight variation of the song's emotional core, a melodic line that never wholly departed but supported the rest like laundry on a string. How astonishing! She felt as if she were speaking an entirely new language, far more subtle and expressive than ordinary speech, capable of communicating the deepest truths. It made her happy, very happy, and she went on playing, her fingers dexterously moving, her spirit soaring with delight.

The song turned a corner; she could sense its end approaching. The final notes descended. They hung like dust motes in the air, then were gone.

"That was wonderful."

Peter was standing behind her. Amy leaned the back of her head against his chest.

"I didn't hear you come in," she said.

"I didn't want to disturb you. I know how much you like to play. Will you play me another?" he asked.

"Would you like that?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "Very much."

"Pull her up!" Peter yelled.

Greer was looking at his watch. "Not yet."

"Goddamnit, she's drowning!"

Greer continued looking at his watch with infuriating patience. At last he looked up.

"Now," he said.

She played for a long while, song after song. The first was light, with a humorous energy; it made her feel as if she were at a gathering of friends, everyone talking and laughing, darkness thickening outside the windows as the party went on and on into the small hours of the night. The next one was more serious. It began with a deep, sonorous chord at the bass end of the keyboard, with a slightly sour tone. A song of regret, of acts that could not be recalled, mistakes that could never be undone.

There were others. One was like looking at a fire. Another like falling snow. A third was horses galloping through tall grass beneath a blue autumn sky. She played and played. There was so much feeling in the world. So much sadness. So much longing. So much joy. Everything had a soul. The petals of flowers. The mice of the field. The clouds and rain and the bare limbs of trees. All these things and many others were in the songs she played. Peter was still behind her. The music was for him, an offering of love. She felt at peace.

They swung the net over the side and lowered it to the deck. Greer drew a knife and began to slash at the filaments.

In the net was the body of a woman.

"Hurry," Peter said.

Greer hacked away. He was fashioning a hole. "Take her feet."

Michael and Peter drew Amy free and laid her faceup on the deck. The sun was rising. Her body was limp, with a bluish cast. On her head, a scrim of black hair.

She wasn't breathing.

Peter dropped to his knees; Michael straddled her at the waist, stacked his palms, and positioned them on Amy's sternum. Peter slid his left hand beneath her neck, lifting it slightly to open the airway; with his other hand he pinched her nose. He fit his mouth over hers and blew.

"Amy."

Her fingers stilled, bringing a sudden silence to the room. She lifted her hands above the keyboard, palms flat, fingers extended.

"I need you to do something for me," Peter said.

She reached over her shoulder, took his left hand, and placed it against her cheek. His skin was cold and smelled of the river, where he liked to spend his days. How wonderful everything was. "Tell me."

"Don't leave me, Amy."

"What makes you think I'm going someplace?"

"It's not time yet."

"I don't understand."

"Do you know where you are?"

She wanted to turn around to see his face and yet could not. "I do. I think I do. We're at the farmstead."

"Then you know why you can't stay."

She was suddenly cold. "But I want to."

"It's too soon. I'm sorry."

She began to cough.

"I need you with me," Peter said. "There are things we have to do."

The coughing became more intense. Her whole body shook with it. Her limbs were like ice. What was happening to her?

"Come back to me, Amy."

She was choking. She was going to vomit. The room began to fade. Something else was taking its place. A sharp pain stuck her chest, like the blow of a fist. She doubled over, her body curling around the impact. Foul-tasting water poured from her mouth.

"Come back to me, Amy. Come back to me ..."

"Come back to me."

Amy's face was slack, her body still. Michael was counting out the compressions. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.

"Goddamnit, Greer!" Peter yelled. "She's dying!"

"Don't stop."

"It's not working!"

Peter bent his face to hers once more, pinched her nose, and blew.

Something clicked inside her. Peter pulled away as her mouth opened wide in a throttled gasp. He rolled her over, slipped an arm beneath her torso to lift her slightly, and pounded her on the back. With a retching sound, water jetted from her mouth onto the deck.

There was a face. That was the first thing she became aware of. A face, its features vague, and behind it only sky. Where was she? What had occurred? Who was this person who was looking at her, floating in the heavens? She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Slowly the image resolved. A nose. The curving shape of ears. A broad, smiling mouth and, above it, eyes that glittered with tears. Pure happiness filled her like a bursting star.

"Oh, Peter," she said, raising a hand to his cheek. "It is so good to see you."

VIII.

The Siege.

Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand, The moving squadrons blacken all the strand.

-HOMER, THE ILIAD.

56.

All night long, the virals pounded.

It happened in bursts. Five minutes, ten, their fists and bodies slamming against the door-a period of silence, then they would began again.

Eventually the intervals between the attacks grew longer. The girls gave up their crying and slept, their heads buried in Pim's lap. More time passed with no sounds outside; finally, the virals did not return.

Caleb waited. When would dawn come? When would it be safe to open the door? Pim, too, had fallen asleep; the terrors of the night had exhausted all of them. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

He awoke to muffled voices outside; help had arrived. Whoever it was had begun to knock.

Pim awoke. The girls were still asleep. She signed a simple question mark.

It's people, he replied.

Still, it was with some anxiety that he unbarred the door. He pushed it just a little; a crack of daylight blasted his eyes. He shoved the door open the rest of the way, blinking in the light.

Standing before him, Sara dropped to her knees.

"Oh, thank God," she said.

Hollis was with her; the two were barefoot, soaked to the bone.

"We were coming to see you when they attacked," Hollis explained. "We hid in the river."

Pim lifted the children out and climbed up behind them. Sara embraced her, weeping. "Thank God, thank God." She knelt and drew the girls into her arms. "You're safe. My babies are safe."

Caleb's relief melted away. He realized what was about to happen.

"Kate," Sara yelled. "Come out now!"

Nobody said anything.

"Kate?"

Hollis looked at Caleb. The younger man shook his head. Hollis stiffened, wavering on his feet, the blood draining from his face. For a moment Caleb thought his father-in-law might collapse.

"Sara, come here," Hollis said.

"Kate?" Her voice was frantic. "Kate, come out!"

Hollis grabbed her around the waist.

"Kate! You answer me!"

"She's not in the hardbox, Sara."

Sara thrashed in his arms, trying to break free. "Hollis, let me go. Kate!"

"She's gone, Sara. Our Kate is gone."

"Don't say that! Kate, I'm your mother, you come out here right now!"

Her strength left her; she dropped to her knees, Hollis still holding her around the waist. "Oh, God," she moaned.

Hollis's eyes were closed in anguish. "She's gone. She's gone."

"Please, no. Not her."

"Our little girl is gone."

Sara lifted her face to the heavens. Then she began to howl.

The light was soft and featureless; low, wet clouds blotted the sun. Peter lifted Amy into the vehicle's cargo bay and put a blanket over her. A bit of color had flowed back into her face; her eyes were closed, though it seemed she was not asleep but, rather, in a kind of twilight, as if her mind were floating in a current, the banks of the world flowing past.

Greer's voice was tight: "We better get moving."

Peter rode in the back with Amy. The going was slow, the dirt track crowded by brush. In the dark, Peter had absorbed almost nothing of the landscape. Now he saw it for what it was: an inhospitable swamp of lagoons, ruined structures clawed by vines, the earth vague, like something melted. Sometimes standing water obscured the roadway, its depth unknown; Greer plowed through.

The foliage began to thin; a cyclonic tangle of highway overpasses appeared. Greer threaded through the detritus beneath the freeway, located a ramp, and ascended.