Part 33 (1/2)

”I can't stop them this time, David.”

”We can dust 'em,” Mike said. ”Give us back our guns.”

”No,” David said. ”You need to let this happen. Just be sure they're orderly, because there're going to be more.”

The people began to hesitate, then to cl.u.s.ter in uneasy groups, when guards on the perimeter showed themselves.

”Go in and retrieve your weapons,” Glen told the two soldiers.

David saw men, women, and children, he saw dogs on leads, cats in carriers, people hauling suitcases and straining under heavy backpacks.

As people flooded into the compound, it became possible to observe great, long columns of them stretching off along the road as far as could be seen.

Glen called to his men, ”Pull it in, stay in front of them!”

As the guards on the gate began backing up, the others came in off the walls.

Del fired his gun into the air.

”NO!” David said. ”Not that.”

A woman tried to settle a barking dog, but other than that, there was silence from the whole enormous and swelling ma.s.s.

A man came forward, his hands in the air, a white handkerchief in one fist. ”Please,” he said, ”let our children come with you.”

”They know about the portal,” David said.

”How?” Mike asked.

”A lot more people are going to know about it. It's going to be seen all over the world by the ones who need to see it.”

”Seen? How?”

”As time pa.s.ses, it becomes more ... I guess the best word is 'focused.' And the more focused it is, the more people see it.”

Mike shook his head.

”It's hyperdimensional. It's outside of s.p.a.ce-time as we know it. What's happening is that it's growing in hypers.p.a.ce, like a gigantic crystal made of time. Does that make sense to you?”

”No, Sir, it does not. But I a.s.sume it means that a whole lot of people are going to go through it.”

David drew on his now clear memories of what he'd learned in the cla.s.s. ”Around a million worldwide,” he said. He called to the crowd, ”You're welcome on the grounds. But the building is off limits, do not attempt to enter the building.”

To emphasize this, the security guards moved toward them in a line, arms linked. The crowd spread into the broad front garden, but there were still many more coming.

”Man, look at the moon,” Mike said. ”Look at it!”

The orb was dark red from dust, and the familiar face was now gone.

What had been the dark side was now facing earth.

”Man, that sucker could be about to come out of its...o...b..t,” Mike said. ”If it hits us, we're done.”

The last time the moon had rotated was four hundred and fifty million years ago, before even single-celled life-forms trembled in the waters. It had been struck, then, by an even larger asteroid-actually a small planet-and a huge piece of it had crashed to earth. The crater it had left remained the largest landform on earth. It is called the Pacific Ocean.

Now the whole crowd was watching, and people were coming out of the house, all looking up at the greatest cosmic spectacle that any man had ever witnessed.

From within the ma.s.s of them, there arose a female voice, clear in the cathedral silence of the moment.

” 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' ” And although her tone was filled with fear and even the ragged edge of desperation, a chorus took up the lines, until by the time the final verse was uttered, it was a solemn chant, clear and determined, from many thousands of throats.

In the silence that followed, they watched as bright sparks flickered in waves across the new face of the moon.

”Jesus, it's the fis.h.i.+ng tackle lady,” Del said. He went into the crowd to the woman who had spoken out.

David saw that she and her husband and kids carried an extraordinary variety of angling equipment, and he thought that it might prove very useful if where they were going was as undeveloped as it appeared. So far, no matter what direction he had pointed the portal in, he hadn't seen a sign of any sort of structure. He feared that a great many people were going to be thrown into a very primitive environment, and that was going to be a very hard situation for them to face, especially after the h.e.l.lish conditions they were enduring here.

”It's beautiful,” a voice said from behind them. David did not need to turn to know that Caroline was there. Suddenly and with great intensity, he remembered her body close to his, and her gentle, insistent ways.

”David,” she said, ”I'm having a problem with the portal. It's flickering. It looks like it's failing somehow.”

Terror like lightning shot through him. He looked out at the crowd. ”Don't tell them,” he said, and followed her back into the building.

25.

THE OMEGA POINT.

Looking at it on its easel, David could see at once how it was changing. There was something dim and grainy about it now. He touched it. ”It looks like a painting again,” he said.

The cla.s.s was cl.u.s.tered around it. As it turned out, they had survived the worst of the a.s.sault by hiding in the attic and ductwork of the patient wing. They had been clever about hiding, and only two lives had been lost.

”Before we moved, I thought we should wait for dawn over there,” Caroline said. ”I didn't expect this.”

David did not say that he thought that Caroline had made a mistake. How could anybody be blamed for anything now?

He addressed the group. ”We need to start getting people through. We need to do it right now.”

n.o.body moved.

George Noonan said, ”All those people, one by one? Through this?” He shook his head.

”I don't see how we can help them,” Aaron added. ”Not with such a small opening.”

”I think we have to,” a voice replied. It was Peggy Turnbull, who had been a tomboy in the days of their cla.s.s, interested only in hunting and horses. In recent years, she had become a poet. Her false psychosis had been depression. He regarded her narrow face, pale in the candlelight. How long would this delicate creature survive in the wilderness that they would soon be entering?

At that moment, there was light so bright that it glared in through the blankets that had been hung over the windows, and from outside there came a howling uproar of terror.