They passed the turn-off for Winnemucca, which made her think of Cordwainer Bird. Bird had taken the National Endowment for the Arts advance for The Very, Very Last Dangerous Visions; Really. And This Time I'm Not Foolin' and vanished without a trace. Rumor speculated that he was preparing the ultimate diatribe; the one that would rock the Establishment to its very foundation.

There were stories about Bird. Some of them were true.

I wonder ifBob misses his van. Foolish question. Of course he did. He had had that van a long time and had kept it in careful condition. It was comfortable, like an old slipper. Lots of memories there.

Lots. The quilts and blankets in the back of the van were not entirely meant for insulation. Sherrine gave Bob a sidelong glance. She was not opposed to marriage, in principle. Not for sex, although the new laws made it safer that way, but for the comradeship. She had even tried it once, and it had been the happiest three years of her life… though the marriage had lasted five.

Whatever had become of Jake? Had his liaison with Heather lasted? The Cookie had struck her as one who enjoyed the chase more than the prize. Suppose, after dumping his wife for a better looker, Jake had been dumped in turn for a more virile stud?

Or else Jake and Heather were living a life of connubial bliss in a suburban bungalow somewhere, with a miniature Jake and Heather scampering around them.

Well, well. How little we know ourselves. She had not thought about Jake in a long, long time. Yet, the recollection still drove her heart to flutter. Not the end-Jake, but the early Jake. He with the wide, smiling mouth and the perpetually shadowed jaw and the audacity to wander through the timescape of undreamed lands. Somehow, beneath the bitterness, beneath the anger, there was… not love, but the shadow of a love that once was.

She was glad when Bob pulled over and turned the wheel over to her. Gordon half-woke, then settled back. Alex climbed out of the sleeper box like a sleepy spider monkey. Bob crawled in. Sherrine put the monster in gear.

The task at hand was to honcho an eighteen-wheeler to St. Louis. Other cars drifted past like windup toys. There weren't many in these early morning hours.

The truck turned majestically, less like a car than a seagoing liner. A lot of momentum in an eighteen-wheeler. But if they stuck mainly to the interstates she would be okay. No sharp turns. What was it that Bill Vukovich had said after winning his second strait Indy 500? "There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left."

"What did you--?"

"Did I say that out loud? Sorry, Gordon. Back to sleep."

"Can you drive and talk?"

"Sure, Gordon. How are you holding up?"

"I was asked, 'Am I still having fun?' I am. You?"

"I haven't had time to stop and think since Bob rousted me out of bed to pull Angels off the Ice." She remembered the comfort and security of the computer room with a longing that shocked her. There was an animal contentment to living only in the present, snug under the covers and comforters, giving no thought to the future.

The future was a sneaky tense that crept up a day at a time, each tomorrow just a little different from the last, until one day you looked back along the path you had traveled and saw how very, very far you had come from your roots. Safe and secure; but with your dreams cauterized. In the bright light of day, she could see that that path of accumulated tomorrows was a smooth and slippery one that led down, down, down. The bottom of a Well was the point of minimum energy; which was why it was so easy to rest there unmoving.

To move, however… Ah, that was another matter entirely. There were other paths, other tomorrows. One could choose among them. And she had made her choice.

And having made that choice, having left behind everything in her life but a change of clothes-"Yeah. Yes, Gordon, I'm still having fun."

But both Angels were asleep, slumped into each other as if boneless.

Sherrine felt more at peace than she had had at any time since Jake had left. Yet, all the psychologists would agree that she should be feeling terrible tensions and insecurity. Abody at rest tends to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. She had never thought of Newton as a psychologist before.

They passed an interchange. A neon sign on the feeder road below them glided out of the darkness and then faded behind them. HARRY'S ALL NIGHT HAMBURGERS. She felt a sudden passion for cheeseburger and fries.

He licked the pencil tip with his tongue, tucked the receiver more firmly against his ear, and held his hand poised over the order pad. "All right, go ahead. You want what? Cornish hens. Fine, ma'am. Yes, we do. All sorts of barnyard animals. A half-dozen? And what? I see. Is there some reason why they should be pregnant? How about a nice rooster, instead? Fine. Yes, you can pay when you pick them up."

The clapboard building was falling apart. The porch roof sagged, and the windows were boarded up. Shutters and sidings loose and brittle with time ratted in the prairie wind. Behind the building, black and rotted husks dotted a weed grown field. Mike Glider gingerly got out of the truck and looked around. "Harry?"

"Here." Harry and Jenny came down from the decaying porch.

"I thought this was the place," Mike said. "Now I'm not so sure."

"This is it," Harry said. He held up a piece of broken board. IOWA STATE COLLEGE AGRICULTURAL RESEA--The end of the sign was charred black.

"Sure is run down," Bruce said.

Mike nodded. "Yeah, but it was once the pride of the Agricultural Service. They did a lot of good work here."

"Closed by court order," Harry said.

"Worse than that," Mike said. "They didn't even wait. A Green flying squad burned the main building out. Killed four of the research staff--and got off as justifiable manslaughter."

"Wasn't the only place that happened," Harry said. "The big pogrom--lot of scientists killed that year. Okay, what's next?"

"We get shovels," Mike said. "They buried the bacterial cultures out in the cornfield when they heard the mob was coming."

"I better watch the bike," Harry said.

"It's all right, I can see it," Jenny said.

Harry shrugged. "Okay." He looked around at the wasted fields. "Shovels. Dig where?"

"They faxed me a map," Mike said. He grabbed the doorknob and shook it. The door would not budge. "They used student labor during the school year; then used volunteers so they could continue working the land"--again, he tried the door--" into summer sessions. There are probably all sorts of tools--" He kicked the door. "If we can just get inside."

The doorknob was pulled from his grasp. "I came in through the back," Harry said.

Mike looked at Bruce and Bruce looked at Mike. "I would have tried that next," Mike said. He stepped inside the building to the musty smell of cobwebs and rotted wood. A thick layer of dust coated the floor, broken by the tracks of rodents.

The building was a warren of rooms and closets. Abandoned offices. Desks with empty drawers hanging open. File cabinets overturned. Papers scattered about the floor, stained with rodent droppings and the leak of rain through the roof.

"God damn them," Mike said reverently. "They did good work here. Milk. We had a way to synthesize hormones. Natural hormones, what cows make themselves. Give the cows more and get half again as much milk. Only they wouldn't let us use it."

"With people starving?" Jenny demanded. "How long has that been going on."