Christopher stared at her as if she were a ghost. “Kaye…” he began, his voice breaking.

“No need,” Kaye said, and touched his red-scarred hand.

“There is a need. I feel like I don’t deserve to be here with you and Mitch, with her.”

“Shush,” Kaye said. “You were there at the beginning.”

Christopher smiled. “Thank you,” he said.

“How old is she?” Eileen whispered.

“Three weeks,” Kaye said.

Maria reached out first and tucked her finger into Stella’s hand. The baby’s fingers closed tightly around it, and she tugged gently. Stella smiled.

“That reflex is still there,” Oliver said.

“Oh, shut up,” Eileen said. “She’s still a baby, Oliver.”

“Yes, but she looks so…”

“Beautiful!” Eileen insisted.

“Different,” Oliver persisted.

“I don’t see it much now,” Kaye said, knowing what he meant, but feeling a little defensive.

“We’re different, too,” Mitch observed.

“You both look fine, even stylish,” Maria said. “It’s going to be all the rage once the fashion magazines see you. Petite, beautiful Kaye…”

“Rugged, handsome Mitch,” Eileen said.

“With squid cheeks,” Kaye finished for them. They laughed, and Stella jerked in her bassinet. Then she warbled, and again the room fell silent. She honored each of the guests in turn with a second, lingering look, her head wobbling as she tracked them around the room, coming full circle to Kaye and then jerking again as she saw Mitch. She smiled at Mitch. Mitch felt his cheeks flush, like warm water running beneath his skin. The last of the skin masks had fallen away eight days before, and looking at his daughter was something of an experience.

Oliver said, “Oh, my God.”

Maria stared at all three of them, her jaw open.

Stella Nova sent waves of fawn and gold over her cheeks, and her pupils dilated slightly, the muscles around her eyes and eyelids drawing the skin down in delicate and complex curves.

“She’s going to teach us how to talk,” Kaye said proudly.

“She is absolutely stunning,” Eileen said. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful baby.”

Oliver asked permission to get closer and leaned in to examine Stella. “Her eyes really aren’t that large, they just look large,” he said.

“Oliver thinks the next humans should look like UFO aliens,” Eileen said.

“Aliens?” Oliver said indignantly. “I deny that statement, Eileen.”

“She’s totally human, totally now,” Kaye said. “Not separate, not distant, not different. She’s our child.”

“Of course,” Eileen said, blushing.

“Sorry,” Kaye said. “We’ve been out here for too long, with too much time to think.”

“I know about that” Christopher said.

“She has a really spectacular nose,” Oliver said. “So delicate, yet broad at the base. And the shape — I do believe she’s going to be a spectacular beauty.”

Stella watched him soberly, her cheeks colorless, then looked away, bored. She tried to find Kaye. Kaye moved into the baby’s field of view.

“Mama,” Stella chirped.

“Oh, my God,” Oliver said again.

Wendell and Oliver drove out to the Little Silver store and bought sandwiches. They all ate at a small picnic table behind the trailer in the cooling afternoon. Christopher had said very little, smiling stiffly as the others spoke. He ate his sandwich on a patch of straw-dry lawn, sitting in a rickety camp chair.

Mitch approached and settled down beside him on the grass. “Stella’s asleep,” he said. “Kaye’s with her.”

Christopher smiled and took a sip from a can of 7UP. “You want to know what brings me all this way out here,” he said.

“All right,” Mitch said. “That’s a start.”

“I’m surprised Kaye was so forgiving.”

“We’ve gone through a lot of changes,” Mitch said. “I must say it seemed you abandoned us.”

“I’ve gone through a lot of changes, too,” Christopher said. “I’m trying to piece things back together. I’m going down to Mexico day after tomorrow. Ensenada, south of San Diego. On my own.”

“Not a vacation?”

“I’m going to look into the lateral transmission of old retroviruses.”

“It’s bullshit,” Mitch said. “They made it up to keep the Taskforce going.”

“Oh, something’s real enough,” Christopher said. “Fifty cases so far. Mark’s not a monster.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Mitch stared grimly at the desert and the trailer.

“But I am thinking it may not be caused by the virus they’ve found. I’ve been looking over old files on Mexico. I found similar cases from thirty years ago.”

“I hope you set them straight soon. It’s been nice here, but we could have done a lot better…under other circumstances.”

Kaye came out of the trailer holding a portable baby monitor. Maria handed her a sandwich on a paper plate. She joined Mitch and Christopher.

“What do you think of our lawn?” she asked.

“He’s looking into the Mexican illnesses,” Mitch said.

“I thought you quit the Taskforce.”

“I did. The cases are real, Kaye, but I don’t think they’re directly related to SHEVA. We’ve been through so many twists and turns on this — herpes, Epstein-Barr. I guess you got the bulletin from the CDC on anesthesia.”

“Our doctor did,” Mitch said.

“We might have lost Stella without it,” Kaye said.

“More SHEVA babies are being born alive now. Augustine’s got to deal with that. I just want to level the field a little by finding out what’s going on in Mexico. All the cases are down there.”

“You think it’s from another source?” Kaye asked.

“I’m going to find out. I can walk a little now. I’m hiring an assistant.”

“How? You’re not rich.”

“I’ve got a grant from a rich eccentric in New York.”

Mitch’s eyes widened. “Not William Daney!”

“The same. Oliver and Brock are trying to put together a journalistic coup. They thought I could gather evidence. It’s a job, and hell, I believe in it. Seeing Stella… Stella Nova…really brings it home. I just didn’t have the faith.”

Wendell and Maria walked over from the oak tree and Wendell pulled a magazine out of a paper sack. “Thought you might like to see this,” Maria said, handing it to Kaye.

She looked at the cover and laughed out loud. It was a copy of WIRED, and on the brilliant orange cover was printed the black silhouette of a curled fetus with a green question mark across the middle. The log line read “Human 3.0: Not a Virus, but an Upgrade?”

Oliver joined them. “I’ve seen that,” he said. “WIRED doesn’t have much clout in Washington these days. The news is almost all grim, Kaye.”

“We know,” Kaye said, brushing back a wisp of hair as the breeze picked up.

“But here’s some good. Brock says National Geographic and Nature have finished peer review on his piece on the Innsbruck Neanderthals. They’re going to publish jointly in six months. He’s going to call it a confirmed evolutionary event, a subspeciation, and he’s going to mention SHEVA, though not prominently. Did Christopher tell you about Daney?”

Kaye nodded.

“We’re going to make an end run,” Oliver said, his eyes fierce. “All Christopher has to do is track down this virus in Mexico and out-think seven national laboratories.”

“You can do it,” Mitch said to Christopher. “You were there first, even before Kaye.”

The visitors were packing up for their long trip through the northern badlands and out of the reservation. Mitch helped Christopher into the passenger seat and they shook hands. As Kaye held a sleepy Stella and hugged the others, Mitch saw Jack’s pickup rolling down the dirt road.

Sue was not with him. The truck’s brakes squealed as Jack stopped in the drive, just to one side of the van. Mitch walked over to talk as Jack opened the door. He did not get out.

“How’s Sue?”

“Still holding,” Jack said. “Chambers can’t use any drugs to get her going. Dr. Galbreath is watching things. We’re just waiting.”