Part 16 (1/2)

”You said to me, 'All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.'”

”Did I really?” he asked. If there wasn't mockery in his voice, it brimmed in his eyes.

”It didn't entirely flow out of what you said before it,” she remembered, ”but I attributed any incoherence to the gin, and didn't immediately recognize the quote.”

”I wasn't necessarily quoting, dear lady. Perhaps I am from time to time capable of saying something wise all of my own.”

She wouldn't let him slip out of it as easily as that. ”The following line in Eliot is 'All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.'”

”Well, that certainly resonates with the situation.”

”Harry Corrigan, my father, you-all quoting Eliot. How are you connected with them? What's going on here?”

Derek's smug, sardonic grin was identical to Render's. ”Neil, your lovely wife seems to have cast her lot with conspiracy nuts-the black-helicopter crowd.”

”You spoke those words,” Neil confirmed. ”I remember.”

”Be careful, Neil. Paranoia can be contagious. You better grab your own bottle of gin and inoculate yourself.”

”If you think someone's out to get you, and someone is is out to get you,” Molly said, ”it's not paranoia. It's reality.” out to get you,” Molly said, ”it's not paranoia. It's reality.”

Pointing at the ceiling, indicating the leviathan that they could sense without seeing, feel without hearing, Derek said, ”That is reality, Molly, hanging over all our heads. All of us dead, a whole world dead, and no escaping it, nothing to be settled except the hour when the ax falls on the last of us.” is reality, Molly, hanging over all our heads. All of us dead, a whole world dead, and no escaping it, nothing to be settled except the hour when the ax falls on the last of us.”

She saw in Derek Sawtelle no fear, no despair, not even the sweet melancholy that he had touted as the ideal retreat from sharper emotions. Instead, in his suddenly feverish eyes and in the points of his Ches.h.i.+re-Cat smile, she saw triumph, which made no sense at all, but which was apparent nonetheless and unmistakable.

”Now, dear Molly, stop thras.h.i.+ng about for meaning in silly conspiracy theories, and grab what pleasure can be had. The drinks are on the house.”

Frustrated, confused about so much but not about Derek's barely veiled hostility and lies, Molly turned away from him. She pushed a few steps through the milling crowd before she realized that she didn't know where to go or what to do next.

She seemed to have no option but to wait for death and embrace it when it came.

29.

NEIL TOOK HER BY THE ARM AND LED HER TO an empty booth along the north wall of the tavern.

She refused to sit. ”We're running out of time.”

”I hear the clock.”

”We've got to do something, get ready.”

”All right. But what? How?”

She said, ”Maybe the bank is the best idea. Secure the place. Hunker down. At least go out fighting.”

”Then we'll go there now, with the rest of them.”

”That's just it. The rest of them. They were all dead...in the mirror. Do they die at the bank? Is that where they get...torn apart like that?”

She shook her head. She looked around the tavern. She could see the barely checked panic in people who, minutes ago, had been talking strategy, tactics, and the possibility of survival. Now they believed the mirror. They expected to die horribly, and soon.

”I'm scared,” she said. ”I've been handling this pretty well so far...but I'm starting to lose it.”

Neil put his arms around her. He always knew when to say nothing.

Molly trembled against him. She listened to his heart. Steady Neil.

When her heart had begun to time itself to his slower beat, he guided her into the booth and sat across from her.

This table had no candles, and she was grateful for the shadows. She didn't want anyone but Neil to see her tears. She prided herself on her toughness, her resilience.

Maybe honest pride didn't matter anymore, but for reasons she couldn't put into words, she thought it mattered more than ever.

Neil said, ”Before we can figure out what to do, maybe we've got to ask ourselves what we know. know.”

”Less and less.”

With irony, he repeated the Eliot quote: ”'All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.'”

The booth benches featured open s.p.a.ce under the seats. Molly tucked her legs back-and thought of the missing doll.

In the brief darkness between the loss of public power and the lighting of the candles, the doll could have crawled into this booth, under her seat. Eyeless but all-seeing. Tongueless mouth filled with the breathless silence of a stalking predator.

She resisted the urge to scramble out of the booth and search under it with a flashlight. To do so would be to succ.u.mb to the most childish of fears, after which she would find it more difficult to summon the courage to face the real and more serious terrors that surely were coming.

It was just a doll. And if she should feel a small hand on her ankle, it would be only the hand of a doll, no matter how demonically animated, just the hand of a doll.

She wiped at her damp cheeks. ”Are they really taking our world from us?”

”The evidence says so.”

”Or is that just the way we're reading the evidence?”

”I don't see how else to interpret it.”

”Neither do I. That thing in the janitor's closet...” She shuddered.

She could still feel the airborne t.i.tan overhead, and now when she turned her attention to the ceiling, she could sense the vessel's movement, too, as it progressed southward through the storm. She seemed to be increasingly sensitized to it.

”But fast-track terraforming is Derek's theory,” she said, ”and I don't trust him.”

”What is it with Derek?” Neil asked. ”Why did he act like that with you?”

”I don't know.”

”You said maybe Render wasn't only only Render.” Render.”