Part 12 (1/2)

He smiled. ”The only thing I can think of was the disgusting popularity of that dreadful c.o.c.ktail they called a Harvey Wallbanger. In the seventies, at every party, you were offered that concoction, that abomination, which I refused with heroic persistence.”

”Anyway,” said Neil, ”we all know what's happening-in general if not the specific details.”

Gin seemed to serve Derek as an orally administered eyewash, for his gaze was crystalline clear, not bloodshot, and steady. ”Before I explain, I must confess to an embarra.s.sing weakness you know nothing about. Over the years, in the privacy of my home, I have read a great deal of science fiction.”

If he thought this secret required confession and penitence, perhaps he was drunker than Molly had realized.

She said, ”Some of it's quite good.”

Derek smiled brightly. ”Yes, it is. Undeniably, it's a guilty pleasure. None of it is Hemingway or Faulkner, certainly, but whole libraries of the stuff are markedly better than Gore Vidal or James Jones.”

”Now science fiction is science fact,” Neil acknowledged, ”but what does that have to do with living through tomorrow?”

”In several science-fiction novels,” Derek said, ”I encountered the concept of terraforming. Do you know what it is?”

a.n.a.lyzing the word by its roots, Molly said, ”To make earth-or to make a place like the planet Earth.”

”Yes, exactly, yes,” said Derek with the enthusiasm of a Star Trek Star Trek fan recounting a delicious plot twist in his favorite episode. ”It means altering the environment of an inhospitable planet to make it capable of supporting terrestrial life forms. Theoretically, for instance, one could build enormous machines, atmosphere processors, to liberate the composite molecules of a breathable atmosphere from the very soil and rock of Mars, turning a nearly airless world into one on which human beings, flora, and fauna would flourish. In such science-fiction stories, terraforming a planet takes decades or even centuries.” fan recounting a delicious plot twist in his favorite episode. ”It means altering the environment of an inhospitable planet to make it capable of supporting terrestrial life forms. Theoretically, for instance, one could build enormous machines, atmosphere processors, to liberate the composite molecules of a breathable atmosphere from the very soil and rock of Mars, turning a nearly airless world into one on which human beings, flora, and fauna would flourish. In such science-fiction stories, terraforming a planet takes decades or even centuries.”

Molly at once understood his theory. ”You're saying they aren't using weather as a weapon.”

”Not primarily,” Derek said. ”This isn't the war of the worlds. Nothing as grand as that. To these creatures, wherever they may be from, we are as insignificant as mosquitoes.”

”You don't go to war with mosquitoes,” Neil said.

”Exactly. You just drain the swamp, deny them the environment in which they can thrive, and build your new home on land that no longer supports such annoying bugs. They're engaged in reverse terraforming, making Earth's environment more like that on their home world. The destruction of our civilization is to them an inconsequential side effect of colonization.”

To Molly, who believed that life was a gift given with meaning and purpose, the perfect cruelty and monumental horror that Derek was describing could not exist in Creation as she understood it. ”No. No, it's not possible.”

”Their science and technology are hundreds if not thousands of years more advanced than ours,” Derek said. ”Literally beyond our comprehension. Instead of decades, perhaps they can remake our world in a year, a month, a week.”

If this was true, humankind was indeed the victim of something worse than war, denied even the dignity of enemy status, viewed as c.o.c.kroaches, as less than c.o.c.kroaches, as an inconvenient mold to be rinsed out of existence with a purging solution.

When Molly's chest tightened and her breath came less easily than before, when her heart began to race with anxiety, she told herself that her reaction to Derek's premise was not an indication that she recognized the ring of truth in his words. She did not believe that the world was being taken from humanity with such arrogance and with no fear of the consequences. She refused refused to believe such a thing. to believe such a thing.

Evidently sensing her innate resistance to his theory, Derek said, ”I have proof.”

”Proof?” Neil scoffed. ”What proof could you possibly have?”

”If not proof, at least some d.a.m.n convincing evidence,” Derek insisted. ”Follow me. I'll show you.”

He turned away from them, toward the back of the tavern, but then faced them again without having taken a step.

”Molly, Neil...I'm sharing this out of concern for you. I don't mean to cause you any distress.”

”Too late,” Molly said.

”You're my friends,” Derek continued. ”I don't want to see you waste your final hours or days in futile resistance to an inevitable fate.”

”We have free will. We make our own fate, even if it's figured in the drift of stars,” Neil said, for so had he been taught, and still believed.

Derek shook his head. ”Better to seize what pleasure you can. Make love. Raid Norman Ling's market for your favorite foods before the place is underwater. Settle into a comforting haze of gin. If others want to go out with a bang...well, let them. But pursue what pleasures are still available to you before we're all washed into that long, perfect, ginless darkness.”

He turned away from them once more and went to the back of the tavern.

Watching him, hesitating to follow, Molly saw Derek Sawtelle as she had never seen him before. He was still a friend but also other than a friend; he was now the embodiment of a mortal temptation-the temptation to despair.

She did not want to see what he wished to show them. Yet the refusal to look would be a tacit acknowledgment that she feared his evidence would be convincing; therefore, refusal would be the first step on a different road to despair.

Only by seeing his evidence could she test the fabric of her faith and have a chance to hold fast to her hope.

She met Neil's eyes. He recognized her dilemma, and shared it.

Pausing at the archway that led to a short hall and the public rest rooms, Derek looked back and promised, ”Proof.”

Molly glanced at the three lazily roaming dogs, and they looked at once away from her, pretending to be enthralled by the history of dropped food written on the stained wood floor.

Derek pa.s.sed through the archway, disappearing into the hall.

After a hesitation, Molly and Neil followed him.

21.

WHEN DEREK HAD ASCERTAINED THAT THE men's room was unoccupied, he propped the door open with a trash can and motioned for Molly and Neil to enter.

A strong piney scent rose from the perfumed cakes in the two urinals. Under that astringent fragrance, the odor of stale urine persisted.

The room had three inner doors. Two offered access to toilet stalls, and the third opened on a janitorial closet.

”I had just washed my hands,” Derek said, ”and realized there were no paper towels in the dispenser. I opened the closet to look for some....”

A light came on automatically when the closet door was opened, and would go off when it was closed.

The closet contained metal shelves laden with supplies. A broom. A sponge mop and a rag mop. A bucket on wheels.

”I noticed the leak at once,” said Derek.

The ceiling Sheetrock at the back of the closet was saturated. A blister had formed, then broken, and rain had dripped down through the open metal shelving, gradually saturating the supplies stored there.

When Derek removed the bucket, broom, and mops, the closet proved large enough to allow the three of them to crowd inside.

At the sight of Derek's promised evidence on the wet tile floor, Molly drew back a step, b.u.mping against Neil. She thought the thing must be a snake.

”It's probably a fungus,” said Derek, ”or the equivalent, I think. That would be the closest word we'd have for it.”