Perhaps the Rogue River scouts were merely on a small-time raid, and had talked big to impress themselves.

Perhaps.

Well, here we are.

The stable hands took his satchels, containing a few personal possessions and three books borrowed from the community library. They had already saddled his new mount, a fine, strong gelding. A large, placid mare carried supplies and two bulging sacks of hope-filled mail. If one in fifty of the intended recipients still lived, it would be a miracle. But for those few a single letter might mean much, and would begin the long, slow process of reconnection.

Maybe his role would do some good — enough at least to counterbalance a lie. …

Gordon swung up onto the gelding. He patted and spoke to the spirited animal until it was calm. Peter offered his hand. “We’ll see you again in three months, when you swing by on your way back East again.”

Almost exactly what Dena Spurgen said. Maybe I’ll be back even sooner, if I ever come up with the courage to tell you all the truth.

“By then, Gordon, Cyclops promises to have a proper report on conditions here in north Oregon worked up for your superiors.”

Aage gripped his hand for another moment. Once again Gordon was puzzled. The fellow looked as if, somehow, he were unhappy about something — something he could not speak of. “Godspeed in your valuable work, Gordon,” he said earnestly. “If there’s ever anything I can do to help, anything at all, you have only to let me know.”

Gordon nodded. No more words were needed, thank Heaven. He nudged the gelding, and swung about onto the road north. The pack horse followed close behind.

9. BUENA VISTA

The Servants of Cyclops had told him that the Interstate was broken up and unsafe north of Corvallis, so Gordon used a county road that paralleled not far to the west. Debris and potholes made for slow going, and he was forced to take his lunch in the ruins of the town of Buena Vista.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon, but clouds were gathering, and tattered shreds of fog blew down the rubble-strewn streets. By coincidence, it was the day when area farmers gathered at a park in the center of the unpopulated town for a country market. Gordon chatted with them as he munched on cheese and bread from his saddlebags.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with the Interstate up here,” one of the locals told him, shaking his head in puzzlement. “Them perfessers must not get out this way much. They aren’t lean travelin’ men such as yourself, Mr. Krantz. Must’ve got their wires crossed, for all their buzzin’ brains.” The farmer chuckled at his own wit.

Gordon didn’t mention that his itinerary had been planned by Cyclops itself. He thanked the fellow and went back to his saddlebags to pull out the map he had been given.

It was covered with an impressive array of computer graphics, charting out in fine symbols the path he should take in establishing a postal network in northern Oregon. He had been told the itinerary was designed to take him most efficiently around hazards such as known lawless areas and the belt of radioactivity near Portland.

Gordon stroked his beard. The longer he examined the map, the more puzzled he grew, Cyclops had to know what it was doing. Yet the winding path looked anything but efficient to him.

Against his will he began to suspect it was designed instead to take him far out of his way. To waste his time, rather than save it.

But why would Cyclops want to do such a thing?

It couldn’t be that the super machine feared his interference. By now Gordon knew just the right pitch to ease such anxiety… emphasizing that the “Restored U.S.” had no wish to meddle in local matters. Cyclops had appeared to believe him.

Gordon lowered the map. The weather was turning as the clouds lowered, obscuring the tops of the ruined buildings. Drifts of fog flowed along the dusty street, pushing puffy swirls between him and a surviving storefront win-dowpane. It brought back a sudden, vivid recollection of other panes of glass — seen through scattered, refracting droplets.

Death’s head… the postman grinning, his skeletal face superimposed on mine.

He shivered at another triggered recognition. The foggy wisps reminded him of superchilled vapor — his reflection in the cool glass wall as he met with Cyclops back in Corvallis — and the strangeness he had felt watching the rows of little flashing lights, repeating the same rippling pattern over and over… …

Repeating …

Suddenly Gordon’s spine felt very cold.

“No,” he whispered. “Please, God.” He closed his eyes and felt an almost overwhelming need to change his thoughts to another track, to think about the weather, about pesterous Dena or pretty little Abby back in Pine View, about anything but …

“But who would do such a thing?” he protested aloud. “Why would they do it?”

Reluctantly, he realized he knew why. He was an expert on the strongest reason why people told lies.

Recalling the blackened wreckage behind the House of Cyclops, he found himself all at once wondering how the techs could possibly have accomplished what they claimed to have done. It had been almost two decades since Gordon had thought about physics, and what could or could not be achieved with technology. The intervening years had been filled with the struggle to survive — and his persistent dreams of a golden place of renewal. He was in no position to say what was or was not possible.

But he had to find out if his wild suspicion was true. He could not sleep until he knew for sure.

“Excuse me!” he called to one of the farmers. The fellow gave Gordon a gap-toothed grin and limped over, doffing his hat. “What can I do for you, Mr. Inspector?”

Gordon pointed at a spot on the map, no more than ten miles from Buena Vista as the crow might fly. “This place, Sciotown, do you know the way?”

“Sure do, boss. If you hurry, you can get there tonight/’

“I’ll hurry,” Gordon assured the man. “You can bet your ass I’ll hurry.”

10. SCIOTOWN

“Just a darn minute! I’m coming!” the Mayor of Sciotown hollered. But the knock on his door went on insistently.

Herb Kalo carefully lit his new oil lantern — made by a craft commune five miles west of Corvallis. He recently had traded two hundred pounds of Sciotown’s best pottery work for twenty of the fine lamps and three thousand matches from Albany, a deal he felt was sure to mean his reelection this fall.

The knocking grew louder. “All right! This had better be damn important!” He threw the bolt and opened the door.

It was Douglas Kee, the man on gate duty tonight. Kalo blinked. “Is there a problem, Doug? What’s the—”

“Man here to see you, Herb,” the gateman interrupted. “I wouldn’t’ve let him in after curfew, but you told us about him when you got back from Corvallis — and I didn’t want to keep him standin’ out in the rain.”

Out of the dripping gloom stepped a tall man in a slick poncho. A shiny badge on his cap glittered in the lamplight. He held out his hand.

“Mr. Mayor, it’s good to see you again. I wonder if we could talk.”