April wasn’t sure which member of Max’s restoration crew had first noticed the series of images in the wall at the rear of the dome. Several claimed credit for finding the icons; but she was struck by the fact that battalions of journalists and physicists, mathematicians and congressmen had marched innocently past the figures. She herself had never noticed them.
There were six, embedded within the glassy surface. They were unobtrusive, black rather than white, and consequently easy to miss in the dark green wall.
The workers had retreated from the area, leaving wheelbarrows and shovels. April stood on a couple of inches of dirt, studying the icons. They were arranged in two columns, each about the size of her palm. Several were pictographic: a tree, a curling line that looked like smoke, an egg, and an arrow. There was also a pair of interlocking rings, and a figure that vaguely resembled a G clef.
They appeared to be three-dimensional, and they were all executed in the representational style of the stag. April peered closely at the tree, the top left-hand figure. Like the others, it was located just beneath the surface. She took out a handkerchief and wiped the wall, trying to see more clearly.
And the tree lit up.
She jumped.
Like neon, it burned with a soft amber glow.
She held her hand against the wall but felt no localized heat.
Nothing seemed to be happening anywhere. No doors opened. There were no changes in the texture of the light. She touched the icon again to see if the light would go out.
It continued to burn.
And a bright golden aura ignited a few feet in front of her. It expanded and stars glowed within its radiance. She tried to call out, but her voice stuck in her throat.
Then, as quickly as it had come, it faded. And snapped off.
There had not been a sound.
April stood, not moving, for a full minute. Where the light had been, a clean circle of floor glittered in the filtered sunshine.
Charlotte inspected the cartons at the back of the bus. One had worked loose and was threatening to fall into the aisle. She reached for it, but Jim Fredrik, from Mobile, got there first and secured it. She thanked him and went back to her seat.
They were behind schedule. The buses had been stalled in heavy traffic about nine miles northeast of the excavation for almost two hours. Signs posted along the route warned them that the site would be closed at six. They were not going to make it.
The members of the network tended to be students or young professionals. They were predominantly white, they were joggers and aerobics enthusiasts, and they had money. During the sixties they would have ridden the freedom buses. They were believers, convinced that the world could be made better for everyone and that the means to act lay at hand.
The bus was drafty and the windows were freezing over. Nevertheless, Charlotte’s fellow passengers retained their good spirits. They opened thermos bottles and passed around coffee and hot chocolate. They sang traveling songs from Tolkien and Gaian chants from last year’s general council at Eugene. They wandered up and down the aisle, trying to keep their feet warm. And they watched the Pembina Escarpment grow.
The buses turned onto Route 32 just before sunset. Traffic was moving faster now. But it was after six when they reached Walhalla. Charlotte was tempted to call it off for the night and stop here for coffee and hamburgers. But when a couple of her lieutenants approached her with the same notion, she resisted. “Let’s at least make the effort,” she said. “And if they won’t let us in tonight, there’s something else we can do.”
Back out on the two-lane, they moved at a good clip. Her driver, a rock-band guitarist from New Mexico whose name was Frankie Atami, jabbed his finger ahead. “That’s it,” he said.
There were lanterns off the side of the road, and barricades were up. Cars were being turned away. “Pull over,” she told Frankie.
Two police officers stood beside a barricade at the entrance. They wore heavy jackets. Frankie stopped and opened the door. She leaned out, but the cops just waved them back. “We’ve come a long way, officer,” Charlotte said, shivering.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said the taller of the two. “We’re closed for the night. Come back tomorrow.”
“What time do you open up?”
But the cop was finished talking and jabbed a finger at the road. Frankie checked his mirrors and pulled cautiously out onto the highway.
“Pull off when you can,” Charlotte told him. “Let’s try to get a look at it.”
He glanced doubtfully at the drainage ditches on both sides, which had already claimed several cars. “I don’t think so,” he said.
Frustrated, they continued south while their angle of vision to the ridge narrowed and vanished. Charlotte fished out a map. “Okay,” she said. “Left just ahead.”
She brought them around so that, as it grew dark, they were moving along a county road several miles distant from the escarpment but with an excellent view of it. “Find a place to stop, Frankie,” she said.
They pulled off onto a shoulder. The second bus swung in behind them and parked. People drifted between the vehicles, drinking coffee and hot chocolate. At the back of the bus, Jim Fredrik was opening cartons. May Thompson and Kim Martin dug into them and brought out lanterns. Along the roadside they filled them with kerosene, and everybody took one.
A few started to sing, and the last of the light fled down the horizon. The stars blazed overhead.
And suddenly, as if someone had thrown a switch, the emerald glow appeared atop the escarpment.
They went dead silent.
After a minute someone moved up close to Charlotte. Manny Christopher, a software designer from Providence. “That’s it,” Manny said.
Silently they embraced each other and murmured congratulations. Charlotte lit her lantern. It was a signal for the others, and they lined up in the communal glow, forming a human chain, facing Johnson’s Ridge.
Charlotte felt the pull of the object on the summit. The Roundhouse, the media called it. But in another time it had borne a different name, given by a different entity. The faces of her friends, despite the cold, were warm and alive in the flickering lights. Beacons, she thought. The lanterns and the faces. Beacons for the universal power.
She raised her lamp, and the others followed her lead.
In that moment she loved them all. And she loved the magnificent world into which she’d been born.
For a few brief moments she saw her friends, the whole complexity of life on earth, and the wheeling stars, through the eyes of God.
“Our guest on CNN Matchup,” said the host, “is Alfred MacDonough, from the University of Toronto, winner of the Nobel prize for physics. Dr. MacDonough, what is really happening at Johnson’s Ridge?”
MacDonough, thin, white-haired, fragile, looked over the top of his glasses. “I would have to say, Ted, that we’re seeing the first real evidence that we’ve had visitors from somewhere else.”
The host nodded. “The Roundhouse is reported to have power.”
“Yes. There seems to be no question that this—” He paused, weighing his words. “—place is putting out light and heat.”
“Do we know how that’s being done?”
“To my knowledge, no one has yet looked at the mechanism.”