“Allie,” Lisa whispered.
The craft continued to hover silently. Then a beam of light, brighter than any emitted before it, fierce and blinding, shot down to the farmhouse with laser-sharp perfection, carrying a crystalline beauty to the earth, sweeping around the farmhouse and tugging it upward from its ancient foundation.
Lisa moaned, as if the weight of the farmhouse were on her shoulders. But Charlie knew that Lisa’s burden was only a reflection, light and unsubstantial, compared to the vast weight Allie bore upward, huge and crushing, as Atlas bore the world.
He stepped outside the shed, his eyes fixed on the unreal and impossible vision beyond it, a farmhouse tearing away from its foundations, rising slowly upward as if drawn into the sky by huge, but invisible cables.
“They’re taking it,” Wakeman breathed.
And instantly they did, the farmhouse now encased in a shimmering wrap of light that suddenly coalesced into a single, fiery ball and vanished into the upper sky, away and away, fleeing the earth as if it were a dark stranger of terrible intent.
Lisa moaned again, then collapsed in utter exhaustion.
Charlie hurried over to her and drew her into his arms.
“It’s all right,” Lisa said. “It’s all right.”
She struggled to her feet, and with Charlie’s help, gazed out at the dark field, a few figures now standing, dazed, beneath the very place from which the craft had disappeared: Mary, surrounded by soldiers, all of them thunderstruck and staring about, as if looking for what was missing.
Chapter Two
Mary sat inside General Beers’ trailer, holding a blanket snugly around her shoulders. Outside, the entire base was being dismantled. She knew what that meant. Soon there would be no sign that anything had happened here. It would all be explained as a “toxic spill” or some other such idiotic explanation the public would no doubt accept.
“Want to tell me what this is?” Beers asked, pointing to the alien artifact.
She nodded. “It’s theirs,” she said.
“No kidding,” the general said facetiously. “What else do you know about it?”
Mary shook her head.
“You won’t tell me?”
Mary stared at him silently.
Beers nodded crisply then turned to the MP beside him. “Get me Wakeman,” he said.
Wakeman came into the room a few minutes later, an MP on either side.
“Mary, you all right?” he asked. “What happened? What did you see?”
Beers interrupted him. “What can you tell me about this, Doctor?” he demanded.
Wakeman looked at the scrolling artifact. He smiled.
“Nice,” he said, as if he were viewing nothing more than a curious piece of jewelry. “Very nice.”
“What is it?” the general asked.
“It gathers information,” Wakeman answered. “A recording device of some kind. A brain.”
“You and Ms. Crawford withheld valuable evidence,” Beers said. “In my opinion, your actions are directly responsible for the failure of this mission.”
Wakeman shrugged. “Nice to have someone to blame when things go wrong, isn’t it, General?”
Beers glared at him. “Maybe the ride back to Ash will give you a little time to consider the consequences of being uncooperative.”
He motioned Mary to her feet. “Take them to the truck.”
The soldiers stepped forward and led Mary and Wakeman out of the building. In the distance she saw two people, a man and a woman, standing beside a Humvee. Allie’s parents, she recognized, no doubt distraught that their precious little girl had been taken. They had made an enormous effort to save their daughter, traveled hundreds of miles and risked their lives. It was a strangely human thing to do, she thought, throw everything else to the wind, risk it all for… just a child. She couldn’t help wondering if her father would have done the same for her.
“Get in the back of the truck,” an MP commanded.
Wakeman offered a hand, but Mary didn’t take it.
Without help, she climbed into the truck, Wakeman just behind her.
From her place in the back of the truck, Mary watched as General Beers approached Allie’s parents. Briefly, they spoke, then the general escorted Allie’s mother into the back of the Humvee and climbed in after her, leaving the father to ride with Pierce, the Humvee’s driver.
The Humvee pulled away, and the truck drew in behind it.
Mary turned toward the soldiers as the truck pulled away. They were silent, as if frozen in dread, and in their dread, the sheer lingering horror that was etched in their faces, she felt something begin to focus in her, a strange revelation.
“Mary?” Wakeman asked, nudging his shoulder against hers. “Can you tell me about it?”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry they found the artifact.”
“It’s not important anymore,” Mary said.
“How can you say that,” Wakeman asked.
The truck entered a green meadow where a few cows grazed quietly.
“You saw the artifact,” Wakeman continued. “It was working overtime. Something is still going to happen.”
Mary seemed hardly to hear him. “Yes,” she whispered to herself, remembering the way Allie had screened a pasture, and behind it, let time pass and people get away. For a moment, she had stopped the world, stopped time, stopped everything by the simple expedient of throwing up a screen.
One of the soldiers shivered.
Mary’s eyes swept over to him. She noted his name,
Walker. “You went in, didn’t you?” she asked him. “You went into the craft.”
Walker nodded.
Mary leaned forward slightly. “What did you see?”
Walker looked at her like a small child forced to reveal something shameful. “Bugs,” he said, his lips trembling. “Cockroaches. They were all over me.”
Mary looked at him pointedly. “Have you always been afraid of bugs?” she asked.
Walker nodded hesitantly. “Since I was a kid.”
Mary felt it almost physically, an idea so solid, it seemed to add weight to her mind. The bugs were as unreal as the cow she’d seen in Seattle. It was all a… screen. “Stop the truck,” she said, rising to her feet. “Stop the truck, I want to talk to General Beers.”
The driver immediately honked the horn and flashed his lights to get the attention of the general’s Humvee ahead. Then he stopped, the Humvee just behind them now coming to a halt behind him.
“General Beers,” Mary said as the general leaped from a Humvee behind them and strode over to the truck.
“Where the hell are the mother and father?” Beers demanded.
The soldier glanced up the road, to where the Humvee, the one he had been following, disappeared around a curve in the road.
“They’re… with… you, sir,” he stammered.
“What?” General Beers yelped.
“I can explain this to you,” Mary said to the general with a thin smile. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“What are you talking about?” Beers demanded.
“Turn the truck around and I’ll show you.”
Beers stared at her, still unwilling to obey her. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’d better be right,” he said.
“Just turn the truck around,” Mary said. “And go back to the farmhouse.”
“Farmhouse?” the general blurted out. “There is no farmhouse. It was…”
“Taken?” Mary interrupted. She shook her head. “Not at all, General. Because everything that happened only happened in our heads.”
Moments later they stood before the farmhouse, just as Mary had known they would, all of them staring at it unbelievingly.
“Allie can manifest thought,” Mary explained. “That’s as simple as I know how to put it. She fooled us, General, pure and simple.”
“Then where is she?” Beers asked.
Mary’s smile was thin as ice. “This is the part you’re not going to like.”