He followed the road past the Curry Village shops and over a stone bridge and then crossed the meadow. A red-winged blackbird in a nearby bush took exception to his presence. He grinned and tried to chirp back in a friendly manner, but the bird would have none of his overtures. That didn’t matter; he knew he belonged there as much as the bird.
From the middle of a meadow, surrounded by tussocks of grass, he rotated to survey his new world. The valley was dark and quiet; the rich, deep blue evening sky hovered on motionless air. He heard the distant echoes of people laughing and talking, their voices bouncing from the granite walls of Glacier Point, Sentinel Rock, and the Royal Arches across the valley. At the base of the Royal Arches he could make out the lights of the Ahwanee resort hotel. To the west a few hundred yards, a few campfires and electric lights revealed the extent of Yosemite Village.
He and his parents had lodged the last night of their journey in the Ahwanee, after spending a week in the tent cabins. He was still debating whether he would do that when the end approached.
Sublime peace.
How would the people of the world fare if all could spend their lives in this kind of beauty? If humans were rare enough that almost any meeting was precious?
He turned on his flashlight and shone it ahead as he returned to the tent cabins. On a flat-topped granite boulder just down the slope from his cabin, he laid out the Coleman stove and a pot of water and fixed a quick supper of ramen soup, throwing an onion and a hot dog in with the noodles.
He walked in darkness to the showers, wearing only an off-white knee-length terry-cloth robe, shaving kit in hand. A Steller’s jay hopped along behind him, watching closely for dropped crumbs. “It’s dark,” he told the bird. “Go to sleep. I’ve eaten already. Where were you? No food now. “The bird persisted, however; it knew humans were liars.
The communal showers — a large wood-paneled building, women to the left, men to the right — were practically empty. An attendant at the towel and soap station lounged back on his stool and only leaned forward when Edward approached. “Step right up,” the young man said, flourishing a small bar of soap and a towel. “No waiting.”
Edward smiled. “Must be dull.”
“It’s wonderful,” the attendant said.
“How many people here?”
“In the entire valley? Maybe two, three hundred. At Camp Curry, no more than thirty. Perfectly peaceful.”
Edward showered in a clean, virtually unused stall, then shaved himself with a disposable razor in a mirror long enough to accommodate fifteen or twenty men. One other came in to shower, smiling cheerfully. Edward nodded cordially, feeling like privileged nobility, packed up his kit, and returned to the tent cabin.
By eight, he had had enough of reading the books he had bought in the shopping mall bookstore. He turned out the overhead light and plumped up the pillows, and then lay sleepless for an hour, thinking, listening.
Somewhere in the valley, a group of kids sang folk songs, their young voices rising high in the starry darkness. They sounded like cheerful ghosts.
I’m home.
55
Reuben turned nineteen on March 15, in Alexandria, Virginia. He celebrated by buying himself a doughnut and a carton of milk in a small bakery, and then stood on the street, drawing suspicious glances. He had bought a new overcoat and a fedora, but tall, muscular young blacks, standing idle, dressed even in inconspicuous nonconformity, were not a favored attraction in the tourist district. He did not care. He knew what he was doing.
With a flourish, he tossed the carton and the waxed-paper doughnut wrapper into a public trash can, wiped his lips delicately with the knuckle of his index finger, and unlocked the door of a faded silver 1985 Chrysler LeBaron. He had purchased the car with cash in Richmond and had already, in just three days, put four hundred miles on it. It was the first car he had ever bought, and he didn’t care whether he owned it or not. He had sole use of it, and that was what counted.
The remainder of the bag full of cash — about ten thousand dollars — he had stashed in the trunk under the spare tire.
“Okay,” he said, listening to the engine smoothly idling. “Where to?”
He squinted a moment. Now, the orders usually came from people, and not from the indefinite nonvoice of what those on the network called the Boss. Reuben had even come to recognize the “signatures” of certain human personalities he communicated with, but this time, they were not familiar to him.
“Cleveland it is,” he said. He pulled several maps from the glove compartment and used a yellow marker to draw his course along the highways. He had spent the last few days stealing hundreds of books and optical disks from libraries in Washington and Richmond, and buying hundreds of others from bookstores. He had passed all of these on to three middle-aged men in Richmond, and he had no clear idea what they were going to do with them; he hadn’t asked. Clearly, the Boss was interested in literature.
With some relief — he did not enjoy thievery, even in a good cause — he took to the open road.
Spring was coming fast. The hills surrounding the Pennsylvania Turnpike were already rich green, and trees were bringing forth leaves that they would not have time to shed. There would be no summer or autumn.
Reuben shook his head, thinking about that, hands on the wheel. When he was on the road, the network rarely spoke to him, and that gave him plenty of time — perhaps too much time — to wonder about things.
He refilled the LeBaron’s tank in New Stanton and parked in front of a diner. After a quick meal of a hamburger and a small green salad, he paid his tab and looked over a rack of postcards, choosing one showing a big white barn covered with Pennsylvania Dutch hex symbols. Purchasing a few stamps from a machine, he scribbled on the back of the card,
Dad,
Still working steady here and elsewhere. Thinking about you.
Take care of yourself.
Reuben
and dropped it into the box outside the diner.
He made it to Cleveland by eight. A quiet rain fell as he checked into an old hotel near the bus depot. He parked the LeBaron in a public parking garage, uncomfortably aware that he would not be driving it to the final destination. Somebody would pick him up and take him there.
He was no more than a couple of miles from Lake Erie, and that — so the network had told him — was where he would have to be in the early morning.
Reuben regarded himself in the bathroom’s spotty mirror. He saw a big kid with a patchy beard and strong, regular features. He saluted the big kid — and the network — and went to bed, but didn’t sleep much.
He was scared. Tomorrow, he would meet other people in the network — some of the people behind the voices. That didn’t frighten him. But…
Something in the lake waited for them.
How much did he trust the Secret Masters?
What did it matter?
He’d be on the lake shore, at the Toland Brothers Excursion Terminal, at six a.m. , clean-shaven and freshly showered and dressed in the new suit he had purchased in Richmond for just such an occasion.
56
Trevor Hicks stepped out of the rental car under a big iron trestle and screened his eyes against the sun. He saw Arthur Gordon crossing the street. Gordon waved. Hicks, exhausted from the drive and still nervous, made a feeble gesture of acknowledgment. He had never become used to driving in the United States. Unable to find a quick route by surface streets, he had taken the freeway to get to the Seattle waterfront, then had driven in circles beneath the bridge for ten minutes, twice barely missing other cars in the narrow aisles. Finally he had managed to park just down the long concrete steps from the Pike Place Market. Across the street, warehouses converted into restaurants and shops vied with new buildings for views of the bay. Sea gulls wheeled and squeaked over a half-eaten hamburger in the street, lifting on spread wings to dodge passing cars.