The Passage (130 page)

“Michael, just tell us,” Peter said.

“It’s the system backup log. Every night when the batteries get down below forty percent, they send a signal to the station, asking for more current. It’s all completely automated, nothing you’d ever see happening. The first time it happened was six years ago, then just about every night ever since. Until now. Until, let’s see, three hundred and twenty-three cycles ago.”

“Cycles.”

“Days, Peter.”

“Michael, I don’t know what that means.”

“It means either somebody figured out how to fix those batteries, which I seriously doubt, or they’re not drawing any current.”

Alicia frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t they?”

Michael hesitated; Peter could see the truth in his face.

“Because somebody turned the lights off,” he said.

They spent a restless night in the bunker and set out in the morning. By half-day they had made their way through Banning and begun to ascend. When they stopped to rest beneath the shade of a tall pine, Alicia turned to Peter.

“Just in case Michael’s wrong and we’re arrested, I want you to know I’m going to say I was the one who killed those men. I’ll take whatever’s coming to me, but I’m not going to let them have you. And they’re not touching Amy or the Circuit.”

This was more or less as he had expected. “Lish, you don’t have to do that. And I doubt Sanjay will do anything at this point.”

“Maybe not. But just so we’re clear. I’m not asking, either. Be ready. Greer? Understood?”

The major nodded.

But this warning was for naught. They knew it by the time they reached the final switchback in the road, above Upper Field. They could see the Wall now, rising through the trees, the catwalks unoccupied, no sign of the Watch. An eerie stillness hung over all. The gates stood open and unmanned.

The Colony was empty.

•   •   •

They found two bodies.

The first was Gloria Patal. She had hanged herself in the Big Room of the Sanctuary, among the empty cribs and cots. She had used a tall stepladder, ascending to affix the rope to one of the rafters, near the door. The ladder now lay on its side beneath her pointed feet, freezing the moment when she had put the noose around her neck and pushed off, sending the ladder swooning to the floor.

The other body was Auntie’s. It was Peter who found her, sitting in a kitchen chair in the small clearing outside her house. She had been dead many months, he knew, and yet very little seemed to have altered in her appearance. But when he touched her hand where it lay in her lap, he felt only the cold stiffness of death. Her head was tipped backward; her face wore a peaceful expression, as if she had simply fallen asleep. She had gone outside, he knew, when darkness had come and the lights did not go on. She had carried a chair into the yard, to sit and watch the stars.

“Peter.” Alicia touched his arm as he crouched beside the body. “Peter, what do you want to do?”

He pulled his eyes away, realizing only then that they were full of tears. The others were standing behind her, a silent chorus of witness.

“We should bury her here. Near her house, her garden.”

“We will,” Alicia said gently. “I meant about the lights. It will be dark soon. Michael says we have a full charge if we want.”

He glanced past her to Michael, who nodded.

“All right,” he said.

They closed the gate and gathered in the Sunspot—all except Michael, who had returned to the Lighthouse. It was just twilight, the sky purpling overhead. Everything seemed held in suspension; not even the birds were singing. Then with an audible pop the lights came on, dousing them all with a fierce and final brilliance.

Michael appeared to stand beside them. “We should be good for tonight.”

Peter nodded. They were silent for a time in the presence of this unspoken truth: one more night, and the lights of First Colony would darken forever.

“So now what?” Alicia asked.

In the stillness, Peter felt the presence of his friends around him. Alicia, whose courage was a part of him. Michael, grown lean and hard, a man now. Greer, his wise and soldierly countenance. And Amy. He thought of all that he had seen, and those who had been lost—not just the ones he knew of, but those whom he did not—and he knew what his answer was.

He said, “Now we go to war.”

SEVENTY-FOUR

The last hour before dawn: Amy crept from the house, alone. The house of the woman called Auntie, who had died; they had buried her where she’d sat, wrapping her body in a quilt from her bed. On her chest Peter had placed a photograph he had taken from her bedroom. The ground was hard, it had taken them many hours of digging, and when they were done, they had decided to sleep the night there. The woman’s house, Peter had said, would be as good as anyplace. He had a house of his own, Amy knew. But he did not seem to want to go back there.

Peter had stayed up most of the night, sitting in the old woman’s kitchen, reading from her book. His eyes squinted in the light of the lantern as he turned the pages of her small, neat script. He had made a cup of tea but did not drink it; it sat beside him on the table, untouched, forgotten as he read.

At last Peter slept, and Michael, and Greer, who had traded the watch with Alicia after half-night; she was up on the catwalk now. Amy stepped onto the porch, holding the door so it wouldn’t bang behind her. The earth was cool with dew under her bare feet, soft with a pillow of needles atop the hardpan. She found the tunnel under the trunkline without difficulty, dropped through the hatch, and wriggled through.

She had felt him for days, weeks, months. She knew that now. She had felt him for years, since the beginning. Since Milagro and the day of the not-talking and the big boat and long before, through all the years of time that stretched inside her. The one who followed her, who was always nearby, whose sadness was the sadness she felt in her heart. The sadness of missing her.

They always went home, and home was wherever Amy was.

She emerged from the tunnel. Dawn was moments away; the sky had begun to pale, the darkness dissolving around her like a vapor. She moved away from the walls, into the cover of the trees, and sent her mind outward, closing her eyes.

—Come to me. Come to me.

Stillness.

—Come to me, come to me, come to me.

She felt it then: a rustling. Not heard but sensed, gliding atop every surface, every part of her, kissing it like a breeze. The skin of her hands and neck and face, the scalp under her hair, the tips of her eyelashes. A soft wind of longing, breathing her name.

Amy
.

—I knew you were there, she said, and wept, as he was weeping in his heart, for his eyes could not make tears.—I knew you were there.

Amy, Amy, Amy
.

She opened her eyes to see him crouched before her. She stepped toward him, touching his face where the tears would have been; she put her arms around him. And as she held him, she felt the presence of his spirit within her, different from all the others she carried, because it was also her own. The memories poured through her like water. Of a house in the snow and a lake and a carousel with lights and the feel of his big hand wrapping her own on a night when they soared together beneath the eaves of heaven.

—I knew, I knew. I always knew. You were the one who loved me.

Dawn was breaking above the mountain. The sun was sweeping toward them like a blade of light over the earth. And yet she held him as long as she dared; she held him in her heart. Above her on the catwalk, Alicia was watching, Amy knew. But this didn’t matter. What she was witnessing would be a secret between them, a thing to know and never speak of. Like Peter, what he was. For Amy believed Alicia knew that, too.

—Remember, she told him. Remember.

But he was gone; her arms held only space. Wolgast was rising, he was lifting away.

A shudder of light in the trees.

POSTSCRIPT

ROSWELL
ROAD

From the Journal of Sara Fisher (“The Book of Sara”)

Presented at the Third Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period

Center for the Study of Human Cultures and Conflicts

University of New South Wales, Indo-Australian Republic

April 16–21, 1003
A.V
.

[Excerpt begins.]

Day 268

Three days since the farmstead. We crossed into New Mexico this morning, just after sunrise. The roadway is in very bad shape, but Hollis is sure this is Route 60. A flat, open country, though we can see mountains to the north. From time to time a huge, empty sign by the roadway, abandoned cars everywhere, some blocking the way, which makes for slow going. The baby is restless and crying. I wish Amy were here to quiet him. We had to spend last night out in the open and so everybody is exhausted and snapping at one another, even Hollis. Fuel is getting to be a worry again. Down to what we have in the tank plus one extra from the cache. Hollis says we’re looking at five days to Roswell, maybe six
.

Day 269

Spirits lifting. We saw our first cross today—a great red splash on the side of a grain silo, fifty meters high. Maus was up top and saw it first. Everyone started to cheer. We’re spending the night in a concrete bunker just behind it. Hollis thinks it used to be some kind of pumping station. Dark and dank and full of pipes. There’s fuel stacked in drums, just like Greer said, which we siphoned off into the Humvee before bolting down for the night. There’s nothing much to sleep on, just the hard cement floor, but we’re close enough to Albuquerque now that no one thinks we should sleep in the open
.

Strange, and nice, to be sleeping with a baby in the room. Listening to the little noises he makes, even when he’s asleep. I haven’t told Hollis my news yet, wanting to be sure. Part of me thinks he already knows. How
could he not know? I’m sure it’s written all over my face. Whenever I think about it, I can’t stop smiling. I caught Maus staring at me tonight when we were moving the fuel and I said, What? What are you staring at? And she said, Nothing. Just, you know, anything you want to tell me, Sara? I did my best to look innocent, which wasn’t easy, and told her no and what are you talking about and she said, laughing, Well, okay. That’s certainly okay with me
.

I don’t know why I’m thinking this but if it’s a boy, I want to name it Joe, and if it’s a girl, Kate. After my parents. It’s strange how being happy about one thing can make you just as sad about another
.

We are all wondering about the others, hoping they’re okay
.

Day 270

Tracks all around the Humvee this morning. It looks like there were three of them. Why they didn’t try to break into the bunker is a mystery—I’m sure they could smell us. Hoping to make Socorro in plenty of time to lock down for the night
.

Day 270 (again)

Socorro. Hollis is pretty sure the bunkers are part of an old gas pipeline system. We are bolted down for the night. Now we wait [illegible]

Day 271

They came again. More than three, a lot more. We could hear them scratching at the walls of the bunker all night long. Tracks everywhere this morning, too many to count. The windshield of the Humvee was shattered, and most of the windows. Anything we’d left inside was scattered over the ground, smashed and torn to pieces. I’m afraid it’s just a matter of time before they try to break into one of the bunkers. Will the bolts hold? Caleb cries half the night no matter what Maus does, so it’s no secret where we are. What’s stopping them?

It’s a race now. Everybody knows it. Today we are crossing the White Sands Missile Range to the bunker at Carrizozo. I want to tell Hollis but I don’t. I just can’t, not like this. I will wait until the garrison, for luck
.