He was silent, searching. "Hello."
Rain rattled on the roof. "I missed you."
He frowned. Looked uncomfortable. "Hutch, I have something to tell you."
Up front, she thought. That was his style. "You're getting married."
His eyes widened again. He grinned. It was the sheepish, friendly, disingenuous grin that had first attracted her two years before. Tonight, it reflected relief. The worst of this was already over. "How did you know?"
She shrugged. "People were telling me about it ten minutes after I landed."
"I'm sorry. I would have told you myself, but I didn't know you were back."
"It's not a problem. Who is she?" She negotiated a deep puddle at the exit, and turned onto Harrington Avenue.
"Her name's Teresa Pepperdil. She's like you: uses her last name. Everybody calls her 'Pep. She's a teacher."
"She's attractive, of course."
"Again, like you. I always restrict myself to beautiful women." He meant it as a compliment, but it was clumsy, and it hurt.
Hutch said nothing.
He looked past her, avoiding eye contact. "What can I tell you? She lives in South Jersey, and, as far as I know, she plans to stay here." He sounded defensive.
"Well, congratulations."
"Thanks."
She turned left onto 11th. Cal's apartment was just ahead, in a condo designed to look like a castle. The pennants hung limply. "Listen," she said, "why don't we stop and have a drink somewhere?" She almost added, for old time's sake.
"Can't," he said. "She'll be over in a little while. I need to get cleaned up."
She pulled in at the curb, short of the driveway. Cut the engine. She wanted to back off, let it go, not embarrass herself. "Cal," she said, "there's still time for us." She spoke so softly she wasn't sure he'd heard.
"No." His eyes turned away. She had expected anger, perhaps bitterness, sadness. But there was none of that. His voice sounded hollow. "There never was time for us. Not really."
She said nothing. A man approached with a dog. He glanced at them curiously, recognized Cal, mumbled a greeting, and passed on. "We could still make it work," she said. "If we really wanted to." She held her breath, and realized with numbing suddenness that she was afraid he would say yes.
"Hutch." He took her hand. "You're never here. I'm what you do between flights. A port of call."
"That's not what I intended."
"It's what happens. How many times have we had this conversation? I look at the sky at night, and I know you're out there somewhere. How the hell could you ever settle in to hang around Princeton the rest of your life? And rear kids? Go to PTA meetings?"
"I could do it." Another lie? She seemed to be flying on automatic now.
He shook his head. "Even when you're here, you're not here." His eyes met hers, finally. They were hard, holding her out. "When's your next flight?"
She squeezed his hand, got no response, and released it. "Next week. I'm going out to evacuate the Academy team on Quraqua."
"Nothing ever changes, does it?"
"I guess not."
"No—" He shook his head. "I've seen your eyes when you start talking about those places, Hutch. I know what you're like when you're ready to leave. Did you know you usually can't wait to get away? You could never settle for me." His voice trembled. "Hutch, I love you. Always have. Always will, though I won't mention it again. I would have given anything for you. But you're beyond reach. You would come to hate me."
"That would never happen."
"Sure it would. We both know that if I said, fine, let's go back and start again, you call up what's-his-name and tell him you're not going to Quraqua, wherever the hell that is, and you'd immediately start having second thoughts. Immediately. And I'll tell you something else: when I get out of the car, and you wave goodbye and drive away, you're going to be relieved." He looked at her, and smiled. "Hutch, Pep's a good woman. You'd like her. Be happy for me."
She nodded. Slowly.
"Gotta go. Give me a kiss for the old days."
She managed a smile. Saw its reflection in his face. "Make it count," she said, and drank deep.
Moments later, as she turned onto the Conover Expressway headed north, she decided he was wrong. For the moment, at least, she felt only regret.
Amity Island, Maine. Friday, May 7; 2000 hours.
Hurricanes had been Emily's kind of weather. She'd loved riding them out, sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass of Chianti, listening to the wind howl around the central dome, watching the trees bend. She'd loved them even though they were getting bigger every year, hungrier, wearing down the beach, gradually drowning the island.
Maybe that was why she loved them: they were part of the intricate mechanism of steadily rising seas and retreating forests and advancing deserts that had finally forced reluctant politicians, after three centuries of neglect, to act. Probably too late, she had believed. But she heard in the deep-throated roar of the big storms the voice of the planet.
Richard Wald was struck by her in their first encounter. That had come in the days when archeology was still earth-bound, and they'd been seated across a table in a Hittite statuary seminar. He'd lost track of the statuary, but pursued Emily across three continents and through some of the dingiest restaurants in the Middle East.
After her death, he had not married again. Not that he'd failed to recover emotionally from his loss, nor that he'd been unable to find anyone else. But the sense of what he'd had with her had never been duplicated, nor even approached. His passion for Emily had dwarfed even his love for ancient knowledge. He did not expect to find such a woman again.
It had been her idea to settle in Maine, well away from D.C. or New York. He'd written Babylonian Summer here, the book that made his reputation. They'd been here on Thanksgiving Day, watching a storm like this one, when the announcement came that FTL had been achieved. (At the time neither Richard nor Emily had understood what was so special about FTL, much less how it would change their profession.) That had been just two weeks before she'd died, enroute to visit her family before the holidays.
Rain blew hard against the windows. The big spruce trees in his front yard, and across the street at Jackson's, were heaving. There was no longer a hurricane season. They came at all times of the year. Counting from January 1, this was the seventh. They'd named it Gwen.
Richard had been reviewing his notes on the Great Monuments while preparing to write an article for the Archeological Review. It was a discussion of the current disappointment that we were no closer to finding the Monument-Makers after twenty years of effort. He argued that there was something to be said for not finding them: Without direct contact, they (the Monument-Makers) have become a considerable mythic force. We know now that it is possible to create an advanced culture, dedicated to those aspects of existence that make life worthwhile, and even noble. How else explain the motivation that erected memorials of such compelling beauty?
It might be best, he thought, if we never know them, other than through their art. The artist is always inferior to the creation. What after all are Paeonius, Cezanne, and Marimoto when contrasted with the "Nike," "Val d'Arc," and the "Red Moon"? Firsthand knowledge could hardly lead to anything other than disappointment. And yet—And yet, what would he not give to sit here on this night, with the storm hammering at the door, and Beethoven's Fifth in the air, talking with one of those creatures? What were you thinking atop that ridge? Hutch thinks she understands, but what was really going through your mind? Why did you come here? Did you know about us? Do you simply wander through the galaxy, seeking its wonders?
Were you alone?
The leading edge of Hurricane Gwen packed two hundred-kilometer winds. Black rain whipped across his lawn and shook the house. Thick gray clouds torn by livid welts fled past the rooftops. The metal sign atop Stafford's Pharmacy flapped and banged with steady rhythm. It would probably come loose again, but it was downwind of the town, and there was nothing the other side of it except sand pits and water.