William was silent.

But she recognized the description at once. John Tyler, hollow to the core; she could practically hear the wind whistle in his bones.

“But there are people like Dr. Wheeler—or that Abby Cushman. They don’t seem exceptional.”

The prairie wind rattled a window. William hesitated a long while.

Then he said, “Miriam, did you ever read Yeats?”

“Who is Yates?”

“A poet.”

She had never read any poetry but the Psalms, and she told him so.

“Yeats wrote a line,” William said, “which always stuck in my memory. Man is in love, he said, and loves what vanishes. I don’t think it’s true—not the way the poet meant it. Not of most people. But it may have been true of Yeats. And I think it’s true of a certain few others. Some few people are in love with what dies, Miriam, and they love it so much they can’t bear to leave it behind.”

What a difficult kind of love that must be, Miriam thought.

By some miracle of Traveller intervention, there was water pressure in the restrooms of the truckstop restaurant. A pleasure—Miriam despised chemical toilets.

At dawn, the new Artifact a crescent of pearl and pink on the horizon, Miriam hurried from her camper into the cold green-tiled ladies’ room with the Bible clasped in her hand.

She opened it at random and began to read.

Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Matthew 28:20.

There was blood in the toilet again this morning. I am dying, Miriam thought.

Chapter 30

Fireworks

Matt woke to a knock at the door of his camper: Tom Kindle in ancient jeans, a cotton shirt, high-top sneakers, and a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. He was carrying a rifle.

“Looks like you’re loaded for bear.”

“Rifle’s for you,” Kindle said. “Kind of a gift.”

“Don’t you need it?”

“I can pick up a fresh one plus ammunition in Laramie. Matthew, you might not like it, but you’re on some dangerous turf these days. You’re liable to need this.”

Matt took the rifle in his hands. He didn’t come from a hunting family, and he’d never done military duty. It was the first time he’d held a rifle. It was heavier than it looked. Old. The stock was burnished where it had been handled over the years. The metal parts had been recently oiled.

He didn’t like the sad weight of it, any more than he liked the sad weight of Kindle’s leaving.

He gave it back. “Not my kind of weapon.”

“Matthew—”

“I mean it.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“Shit,” Kindle said, but he took back the rifle in his left hand and looked more comfortable with it there. “Talked to Abby yet?”

“I’m about to. Not looking forward to it.”

“You could change your mind.” Kindle shrugged. “I doubt it.” He put out his hand; Matt shook it. “Take care of yourself, old man.”

“Watch your back, Dr. Kildare.”

“We thought you should know,” the radio said, “all our Helpers have gone silent.”

It was not a routine call, coming at this hour of the morning, and Tyler listened with a rising interest.

He and Joey had set up the receiver in a seedy staff lounge at the back of the truckstop cafeteria. Tyler had made the room his command quarters, and he was alone in it.

As alone as he ever got, these days.

He held the microphone in his right hand and thumbed the talk button. “Say again, Ohio?”

The transceiver was hooked to a mobile antenna and plugged into a wall socket. Since they came over the Coast Range, they’d been doing radio wherever they found live AC. Joey wanted to rig a ham unit to run off a car battery—it was easy, he claimed, and would be more convenient. But Tyler had discouraged him. Tyler didn’t much care for the radio anymore. He had begun to see it as a liability.

“Helpers have fallen silent,” the Ohio man said. Ohio ran a twenty-four-hour radio watch, and this was their morning shift, a guy named Carlos with a faint Hispanic accent. “Wondered if you had the same experience.”

“We’re not currently near a Helper, Ohio.”

“Theory here is that the Travellers are fixing to move on. Maybe the Contactees take over, maybe not. Could be we’ll see the Artifact move out of orbit soon. End of an era, huh? If that’s true.” The man seemed to want to chat.

Sissy appeared in a corner of the room, faintly luminous and anxious to speak.

“All the Helpers are silent?” Tyler wanted to nail down this new fact. “Every one,” Carlos said. “They don’t talk anymore. Or move or nothing.”

Tyler thought about it. He turned it over in his head, wanting to make sense of it.

He glanced out the greasy window at the curvature of the new Artifact, still earthbound—the human Artifact, a spaceship the size of a mountain.

“Ohio,” he said. “Your signal is weak.”

“Sorry, Colonel… weather problem there?”

The sky was baby-blanket blue. Windless. “Got a front moving in,” Tyler said.

“You in any danger, Colonel?”

“Not that serious. We might be out of touch for a while, though.”

“Sorry to hear it. Look for you later?”

“Indeed. Thanks, Ohio.”

Sissy beamed approval.

Now, Tyler instructed himself, now think.

If the Travellers leave… If the Helpers fall silent…

Then we’ll be safe. All our secrets safe.

Sissy’s voice was faint but strident, like the buzz of a high-tension wire. It might not work that way, Tyler thought. We don’t know. Therefore wait. Wait and see. Wait here? Yes.

How long?

Until it’s over. Until the Travellers are gone, dead are gone, altogether empty skies.

People don’t want to stay here, Tyler thought. They want Ohio. Make up something. Tell them Ohio told you to wait. Bad weather. Like you said, Bad weather along the Platte, say. Dam washed out, say. Sissy possessed a wonderful imagination.

It might work, Tyler agreed. But not if they can talk to Ohio, or Ohio talk to us. The radio—

You’re not stupid, Sissy said. You can fix the radio.

Tyler closed the dusty horizontal blinds and jammed a chair back under the knob of the door.

It was still early morning, not much activity yet among the people Tyler had come to think of, pleased with his own sense of humor, as the Unhappy Campers. Joey was walking a perimeter, exactly the kind of idiotic task Joey adored. Jacopetti slept until noon if no one bothered him. No one else was likely to knock in the next few minutes.

He lifted Joey’s toolbox onto the trestle table where the radio was. He unplugged the transceiver and worked out the sheet-metal screws that held the cover in place.

He used two alligator clips and a stout piece of wire to make a jumper cable. Then he hooked one clip to the 120-volt primary of the transformer and the other clip to the positive rail of the DC supply. For insurance, he added a bare wire across the internal fuse.

Put the lid back on, Sissy reminded him, before you plug it in.

Tyler did so. He threw the power switch to the on position, for good measure.

Then he hunkered down and pushed the plug into the wall socket.

There was a half second of silence. Then the big transceiver made a sound like a gunshot and jumped a quarter-inch off the surface of the table. It belched a spark as bright as a camera flash and sizzled with high-voltage overload.

The ceiling light flickered and faded altogether as the building’s circuit breakers cut in.

Now hurry, Tyler thought. He unplugged the unit, then cracked the blinds to admit just enough light to work by. When he pried up the lid, the transceiver gushed sour smoke into his face. Tyler ignored the stench and hurried to disguise his handiwork. He pulled out what was left of the jumper, the alligator clips, the wire across the fuse. Then he jammed the lid back on and began to drive home the screws one by one.