Текст книги "Ancient Shores"

Автор книги: Jack McDevitt

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“Arky tells me,” Walker said, as if Wells had not spoken, “you have an interest in buying some of our land.”

“Yes, sir.” Wells looked like a man trying to appear thoughtful. “Chairman, let me not mince words. The National Energy Institute is a consortium of industrial and banking interests that would like to offer you a great deal of money for the property known as Johnson’s Ridge. A great deal, sir.”

Walker showed no expression. “You wish to buy the property outright?”

“That’s correct. And we are prepared to pay hand-somely.” He smiled. It was a thin smile, and conveyed no warmth. Defensive. Redfern decided that Wells had been one of those kids whom everybody beat up. “Let’s put our cards on the table,” he said.

“By all means.”

“Chairman, it’s doubtful that there is anything of real value on that ridge. You know that. I know that. The government’s been there and they’ve already decided there’s no need for them to be concerned.” Redfern doubted that was true. “So it’s a shot in the dark. But on the off chance there might be something that could be turned to a profit, we are willing to pay for the chance to look. And pay quite well, I might add.”

He produced a blue folder and a leather-covered checkbook and took a gold pen from his pocket. “Why don’t we just settle it now? Say, five million?” He removed the cap from the pen. “You could do quite a bit with that kind of money. Truth is, Chairman, I’d like to come back in a few years to see how the reservation will have changed.”

Walker was able to conceal his surprise at the amount. He glanced at Redfern, who gave him no encouragement. Whatever they offer now, Arky thought, is too little. “A number of corporations,” the chairman said, “have already shown interest. They would like to build hotels up there. And restaurants. Disney wants to build a theme park. I would not wish to sound greedy, Dr. Wells, but five million is small potatoes at this stage.”

Redfern was proud of the chairman.

Wells’s eyebrows went up. “I see,” he said. “And you have firm offers?”

“Oh, yes. They are very generous. And these people only want to lease property. You want to get at the heart of the property’s value. If we were to sell to you, we would have nothing save the cash in hand. Dr. Wells, under the circumstances, that would have to be a lot of cash in hand.”

Wells looked down at his checkbook. “You drive a hard bargain, sir. But I understand your point. And I am authorized to compete. May I ask what you would consider a serious offer?”

Walker closed his eyes briefly. “Why don’t you simply go to your final offer and save us both some time?”

Wells looked uncomfortable. Arky could see the wheels going around.

“Fifty million.” He spoke in a voice the lawyer could barely hear.

“That’s very good,” said Walker. “And the money would be payable…?”

Redfern caught his eye. Don’t do it.

“Ten percent on signing the contract. The balance on the actual deed transfer.” He offered his pen to the chairman. “Do we have an agreement?”

This time Walker was unsuccessful in masking his shock. “You must understand,” he said, “that I cannot make the decision. It will be up to the council.”

“Of course. But Mr. Redfern assures me you have considerable influence. I’m sure that if you are in favor of this action, the council will go along with it.”

Walker tried to look doubtful. But it wasn’t working. Wells smiled, confident the council could not resist so generous an offer. “Arky is inclined to overstate my influence, I think.” Walker glanced over at his lawyer. “I wonder, Dr. Wells, if you would excuse us for a minute.”

“Of course.” Wells threw a quick grin at Redfern. You son of a bitch, it said, you cost me, but let’s see you change his mind. “I’ll be in the other room,” he said. He opened the blue folder, which contained a contract, pushed it toward Walker, and left the office.

The chairman smiled broadly. He could barely contain his pleasure.

“I advise against it,” said Redfern.

“Why not?” Walker beamed. “Why in God’s name should we not take this kind of money?”

“The value isn’t going to go away. Why would they offer so much?”

“It might be worth nothing. We could wind up selling T-shirts over there. Listen, Arky, we don’t need more than fifty million. Do you realize what that could do for us? He’s right, you know. That kind of money could put a lot of logs on front porches. I think we should not get greedy. And I will so advise the council.”

“This is not a man,” said Arky, “who is going to give us anything. He’s offering fifty million because he thinks it’s worth more. Considerably more. Advise the council to seek a second offer. You might be surprised at the result.”

Walker’s delight began to drain away. “You seriously expect me to go before them and recommend against this kind of money? When we could conceivably end up with nothing? Even if I did take a stand against the proposal, they’d sweep me aside.” He took a deep breath. “Give me a real reason. If you have one.”

Arky did not like the position he was in. If things went wrong, he knew who would be hanging out there. “If Wells and his people get hold of it, they’ll treat it exclusively as a source of wealth. Who knows what might get lost?”

“That’s not exactly a war cry,” said Walker.

“No, it isn’t. But we may be looking at another Manhattan island.”

“Maybe you weren’t listening, Arky. He isn’t talking twenty-six bucks.”

“Maybe not. But if you want a war cry, keep in mind that we now possess a discovery that may release whole new technologies. The road to the future, Chairman, might run directly across the top of Johnson’s Ridge. And you’re ready to give it away.”

“I’d see it the same way,” said Max. “Take the money and run.”

Arky looked disgusted. “That is precisely what they will do.” He was working his way through a plate of fish and chips. April, Arky, and Max were in a back booth at Mel’s Restaurant in Langdon. It was no longer possible to get near the Prairie Schooner, which was overwhelmed with customers. “The council will feel that it would be criminal to turn down an offer of that magnitude. And, to be honest, I’m not comfortable advising against accepting it.” He looked extremely unhappy. “Do you have any idea what would happen to me if they took my advice and the ridge turned out to be worthless?”

“You’d get scalped?” Max asked innocently.

Arky didn’t seem to have heard. “Not that it matters. They’ll take the money and run. Just as you say.”

“Damn,” said April. “If the project gets sold off, we’ll be out the following day.”

“I don’t think there’s much question about that,” said Max. He listened to the low murmur of conversation around him, to the clink of silverware and occasional bursts of laughter.

“Arky,” April said, “I can’t deal with the prospect of not being here when the discoveries get made.”

The lawyer looked sympathetic. “I know. But I think the matter is past my being able to control events.”

“How long do we have?” asked April.

“Wells’s people probably have teams ready to go as soon as the paper gets signed. There’ll be a special council meeting late tomorrow afternoon to consider the offer. If they approve it, which they will, Wells will make a phone call, and you’ll be history.”

Devil’s Lake, ND, Mar. 15 (AP)—

A consortium of business interests is reported to be ready to offer fifty million dollars to the Devil’s Lake Sioux for the Johnson’s Ridge property on which the Roundhouse, an archeological find rumored to be of extraterrestrial origin, is located. According to informed sources, the tribal council will meet in extraordinary session tomorrow evening to consider the offer, which has been increased several times over the last few days. Officials on both sides declined to comment.

When they got back to the Northstar, there was a package waiting for Max. “Filters,” he explained. “For the minicam. Maybe we can get a better look at what happens when the lights come on.”

They retreated gloomily to their rooms. But minutes later April appeared at Max’s door.

“Come in,” he said. “I was going to call you.”

She looked frantic. “What do we do?”

There was only one chair in the room. Max left it for her and sat down on the bed. “I don’t think there’s much we can do. Not with all that money out there.”

“Max,” she said, “fifty million’s peanuts. Listen, we may have found a link to somewhere else.” She forced it out, as she might an appeal to the supernatural. “The chair did not just get annihilated. It went somewhere.”

“You think.”

“I think.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “Did you know there’s a seventh icon?”

“No,” said Max, surprised. “Where?”

“Beside the ditch. Where they used to tie up the boat.”

Max pictured the area. “On one of the posts?”

“Yes. It’s got a design that looks like a kanji character. It doesn’t light up when you touch it. I even tried putting a chair in the ditch, and it still didn’t work. But Max, I think that’s the way they brought the boat in. Directly from wherever.”

Max shook his head. “I’m sorry. But I just can’t buy any of this. You’re talking Star Trek stuff. ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”

They sat and listened to the wind blow.

“I think it’s really true, Max.”

“Well, good luck proving it. Whatever they are, the icons seem to work only once. What good is a long-range transport system that only works once?”

She pulled her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees. “I think they work only once because the stuff we’ve been sending blocks the reception area. Somebody has to move it and clear the grid on the other end. If they don’t, the system shuts down.”

“That’s the wildest guesswork I’ve ever heard.”

“Max, we watched the chair fade out. It faded. It didn’t blow up. It didn’t disintegrate. It went somewhere. The question is, where?”

Max shook his head. “I think the whole idea is goofy.”

“Maybe.” April took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think we better tell Arky what we know.”

“You mean, tell him we think we have a portal to another dimension? Or to Mars? He’ll think what I think: It’s goofy.”

Her eyes were pools of despair. “He wouldn’t think that if we did a demonstration for him.”

“What kind of demonstration? All we can do is make things disappear. That doesn’t prove anything.”

Neither of them wanted to state the obvious.

19

Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,

Fearless for unknown shores.

–Walt Whitman, “Passage to India”

April squeezed her eyes shut. The eternal prairie winds shook the windows. She was unnerved, but the conviction that she was right was going to help her get through it.

She heard a car pull up outside. The doors banged, and voices drifted in.

If there were time, she might have devised a test that would remove some of the risk. But there was no time. She sighed. Use it or lose it.

Through the wall, she could hear the mindless burble of Max’s TV.

What were the dangers?

She might be annihilated. But no piece of the chair had remained, and there was no indication of a violent event. It had simply lost its corporeality. It had gone somewhere.

She might find herself in a hostile environment. For example, in a methane atmosphere. But the visitors had presumably thrived in North Dakota. Surely whatever lay on the other side, through the port, was essentially terrestrial.

She might be stranded. But who ever heard of a port you could enter from only one side?

At midnight she filled her thermos and put two sandwiches and some fruit into a plastic bag. She loaded her camera and pulled on her Minneapolis Twins jacket, feeling pleased with herself. Forty minutes later she passed the police blockade at the access road and drove up the winding incline and out onto the ridge. The glow from the Roundhouse, out of sight in its excavation ditch, seemed brighter tonight. She wondered if it was still charging its batteries and made a mental note to start logging the luminosity.

It was cold, down in the teens. She parked just outside the security gate, opened her glove compartment, and took out a notebook. She sat thinking for several minutes before she knew what she wanted to say. When she’d finished, she laid the notebook open on the passenger seat, picked up a flashlight, and got out.

One of the guards, a middle-aged man whom she knew only as Henry, appeared in the door of the security station. “Good evening, Dr. Cannon,” he said. “Forget something?”

“No, Henry.” Her breath misted in the yellow light of the newly installed high-pressure sodium lamps. “I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d come out and see if I could get some work done.”

He looked at his watch, not without a sense of disapproval. “Okay,” he said. “Nobody else here. From the staff.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

He disappeared back inside. April walked through the gate and went directly into the Roundhouse, shutting the door against the cold.

At night the dome was a patchwork of light and dark, a scattering of illuminated alcoves. The lights shifted and moved as she did, following her, illuminating the ground in front, fading behind. As she approached the grid, it also lit up, spotlighted for her as if the place knew what she intended.

She hesitated. It was just as well Max wasn’t here, because then it would be impossible to back away. And until now she had believed she would back away. But the fear had almost dissipated. Something was out there, waiting for her. The illuminated grid looked both safe and inviting. Time to move out.

She switched on the flashlight and approached the icons. The triggers.

Touch the icon and you get twenty-three seconds to walk over and take your place on the grid.

She looked at the arrow, the rings, and the G clef.

The arrow.

It gleamed in the half-light. She touched the wall, just her fingertips. And pressed.

The light came on.

She took a deep breath, crossed the floor, and stepped onto the grid. The trench that had once been a channel extended out into the shadows. Across the dome, the wall was lost in the dark and the lights faded out and the night went on forever. She hitched the camera strap higher on her shoulder, taking comfort from the mundaneness of the act. She zipped her jacket almost to her neck and fought down a sudden urge to jump off the grid.

It was still dark when the telephone brought Max out of a deep sleep. He rolled over, fumbled for the instrument, picked it up. “Hello?”

“Mr. Collingwood? This is Henry Short. Out at the security gate.”

He immediately came awake. “Yes, Henry? What is it?”

“We can’t find Dr. Cannon,” he said.

He relaxed. “She’s sleeping next door.”

“No, sir. She came out here at about twelve-thirty. Went inside the Roundhouse. But she’s not in there now.”

Max looked at his watch. A quarter after three.

“We’ve checked the other buildings. She’s not anywhere. We can’t figure it out.”

“Is her car still there?”

“Yes, sir. She hasn’t come back through the gate.”

Max was genuinely puzzled. To him the conversation earlier that evening, with its implications and pointed omissions, had been purely hypothetical. “Henry, did you check the rear apartments in the Roundhouse?”

“We looked everywhere.”

“Okay. Call the police. I’m on my way.”

He hung up and rang her motel number. No one answered. He stared at the phone and finally recognized the possibility that she might have used the grid. Thoroughly alarmed, he dressed hastily, climbed into his car and started for Johnson’s Ridge. He should have told Henry to look in the channel. Maybe she’d fallen in there. It would have been easy enough for the security people to miss her.

He picked up his cellular phone, dialed the gate, and got a new voice. George Freewater. “How are we doing?” he asked.

“Still no news. The police are on their way.” Long pause. “Max, if she’s outside, she won’t last very long. It’s cold.”

“I know. Did you look in the channel?”

He heard a brief conversation on the other end, and then George came back. “Yes, we looked in the channel. Listen, Mr. Collingwood, we found something else. There’s a message addressed to you. It was on the front seat of her car.”

“Me?” Max’s stomach lurched. “What’s it say?”

“You want me to read it?”

“Yes, George. Please.”

“Okay. It says—Wait a minute; the light’s not so good here. It says, ‘Dear Max, I’m following the arrow. Since you’re reading this, something may have gone wrong. Sorry. I enjoyed working with you.’” George grunted. “What’s she talking about?”

Max’s headlights lost themselves in the dark. “I’m not sure,” he said. But he knew.

The Man in the White Suit is alive and well. Those who remember the classic British film starring Alec Guinness as a man who invented a cloth that resisted wrinkling and dirt may understand what’s happening these days to the clothing industry. Capitalization has been shrinking for clothing manufacturers since the first rumors surfaced of the possibility of developing a cloth very much like the one in the film. Numerous experts are on record that it is only a matter of time before the Roundhouse technology, which created superresistant materials on Johnson’s Ridge, becomes generally available. What will happen when that occurs is uncertain. But for now, tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared, and an entire industry is in chaos. This newspaper is a reluctant advocate of government intervention. But in this case, the time has come.

(Lead editorial, Wall Street Journal)

When Max walked into the Roundhouse, he was angry with April Cannon. She had put him in a terrible position. He berated himself for not guessing what might happen and heading it off.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

The dome was oppressive.

Henry Short was inside with two police officers. One was looking down into the pit. He was young, barely twenty-one. Sandy-haired, long, angular jaw, prominent nose.

The partner, who was bald and irritable, broke off his conversation with George Freewater as Max entered. “Sir, you’re Mr. Collingwood?”

“Yes,” said Max.

“I’m Deputy Remirov,” he said, producing a notebook that Max recognized as belonging to April. “What does this mean?”

I’m following the arrow.

“What’s the arrow?” the younger one asked.

Max hesitated briefly. “I don’t know,” he said.

Remirov looked unhappy. “You have no idea what she was trying to tell you?”

“No,” said Max. “Not a clue.”

The policeman didn’t believe a word of it. “Why would she write you a note you can’t understand?” he asked angrily.

Max squirmed. He wasn’t good at lying. And he didn’t like being evasive with police officers. He’d had little contact with them during his life, and they made him nervous. “I just don’t know,” he said.

Exasperated, Remirov turned back to George. “You’re sure she didn’t go out through the gate without being seen?”

“We’ve got a camera on the gate,” George said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I guess it is possible. But we always have somebody on the monitors.”

“So you really don’t know,” said Remirov.

“Not without checking the tapes.”

“Why don’t we check the tapes?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.

Max wandered away to look at the grid. He saw no way to confirm whether she had actually used it. There were no footprints, no marks that told him anything.

Redfern, wearing a buckskin jacket and heavy boots, came into the dome. He spoke briefly with George and the two policemen before he saw Max. “They’re going to organize a search party,” he said.

“Good,” said Max.

A long, uncomfortable silence followed. “George told me she left a note for you. Max, where is she?”

“My guess is she’s dead,” said Max. Saying what he had been thinking ever since he’d heard about the note somehow made it less real.

Redfern’s jaw tightened. “How?” he asked.

Max thought about doing a demonstration, but since each of the icons seemed to work only once, he hesitated. Instead he simply pointed out the grid and the set of triggers, and explained what had happened. “This,” he said, directing the lawyer’s attention to the symbol at the top of the second column, “is the arrow.”

“You’re telling me there’s a device here that annihilates things, and you think she used it on herself?”

“That’s what I think,” said Max.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “Don’t you people have any sense at all?”

“Hey, I didn’t know anything like this was going to happen.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe you should’ve been watching a little closer.”

Max started to protest, but Arky waved it aside. “We can figure out who to blame later. She thought she was going somewhere. How did she expect to get back?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t exactly talk this over with me. But I assume she hoped there’d be a similar device at the other end. If there is an other end.”

Arky turned to George, who had joined them. “How long ago, did you say?”

“She came through the gate at twelve-thirty.”

Arky looked at his watch. Ten after four. “I guess we can assume she isn’t coming back on her own.” He folded his arms. “So where,” he asked accusingly, “do we go from here?”

Max felt like an idiot. Damn you, Cannon.

Arky’s face was dark. The shadows of an internal struggle played at the corners of his mouth and in his eyes. “Maybe it would be best,” he said, “if the tribe did sell. People die a little too easily here.” He got up and headed toward the door. “We’ll let the police go ahead with their search. There is a chance she wandered off and got lost on the mountain.” He hesitated. “Max—”

“Yes?”

“I would like your word that you will not try to follow her.”

The demand embarrassed him. Max Collingwood would never try that kind of stunt. It was flat-out stupid. But in some dark corner of his mind it pleased him that Arky believed he might be capable of it. “No,” he said, meaning it. “I won’t.”

Emotion flickered across the lawyer’s features. “Good,” he said. “Let’s let the search run its course. Meantime, you should find out about her next of kin.”

Next of kin? Max knew very little about April Cannon. He would have to check with Colson Laboratories.

Arky paused at the door. “Max, is there anything else about this place I should know?”

“No,” said Max. “At least, not anything that I know about.”

Max listened to the negative reports coming in from the search parties while the first vague streaks of dawn crept into the sky. The little girl with the brown curls was looking at him again from the cabin window. It was a memory he had thought he’d shut away. Buried.

He liked April Cannon, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe she was gone, vanished into a dark never-never land. The image of the fading chair, the vertical lines just visible through its legs and seat, was paused on each of the monitor bank’s four screens.

The lines might have been anything—a defect in the film, a momentary reflection. Or they might have been a glimpse of another place. They looked vaguely like a column. He pictured the wooden chair set in the portico of a Greek temple.

If in fact it was a transportation system, it had to work in both directions. Why, then, had she not come back?

Because the system was old. After all, the smoke had not worked. Maybe she was simply stranded.

There was a test he could run.

Max installed a filter in his minicam, got a spade and collected a pile of snow, and went back to the Roundhouse. It was empty; the search was concentrated on the surrounding hillsides. His boots crunched on the dirt floor, and it occurred to him that it was the first time he’d been alone in here.

He made a little mound of snow in the center of the grid. Then he propped the camera on a chair, aimed it, and started it.

He pressed the wall over the arrow.

It lit up.

Max backed away, watching the pile of snow, counting down without meaning to.

Above the grid, the air ignited. It burned and expanded and threw off a golden cloud that shimmered and grew so bright he had to look away. Then it winked out.

The snow was gone. Not so much as a trickle of water remained.

Okay. He gathered up the camera, hurried back to the van, and loaded the videocassette into the VCR.

He played it through at normal speed first to be sure he had the entire sequence. And there was no doubt that the snow went transparent before vanishing altogether.

He rewound it and began again. When the effect started, he froze the frame and walked it through. The light brightened, grew misty, and expanded. Within the mist, stars ignited. The luminosity seemed almost to seek the pile of snow. Bright tendrils embraced the snow, and then it began to fade. Frame by frame it grew less distinct, without losing its definition. When it was almost gone, no more than a suggestion, another image appeared.

It paralyzed him.

He was looking at her headless torso. She was crumpled, arms dangling.

A sense of loss engulfed him. And as tears of blind rage began to flow, he realized that it might be only her jacket.

Was only her jacket.

Minnesota Twins. He could read the logo. There was no question. But the front didn’t look right. An object, a cylinder, a tube, something, hung from it.

A flashlight. It was the barrel of a flashlight. Minus its cap.

The barrel looked crushed.

It was one of the standard-issue cheap plastic models they had used at the site. But what had happened to it?

He puzzled over it for several minutes. What would he have done if he were stranded over there, wherever there was? He would try to send a message.

I am here.

And…what?

The flashlight’s broken?

He took a deep breath.

Something’s broken.

The transportation system is broken.

He called Arky. “She made it,” he said. “The thing’s a doorway. A passage.”

“How do you know?”

“Her coat’s on the other side. I’ve got pictures.”

The lawyer seemed to have trouble speaking. Max could picture him shaking his head, trying to make sense of all this. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“So what do we do now?”

It was painfully obvious. “We need a hardware store.”

They got the proprietor out of bed and bought a generator, two gallons of gas, a voltage meter, a one-and-a-half-horsepower industrial-strength drill, and a few additional pieces of equipment and took it back to the Roundhouse. Max used the drill to cut through the rear wall.

The space behind the wall was occupied by a flat rectangular crystal mounted in a frame. It was roughly the dimensions of a sheet of standard-sized stationery and about a quarter-inch thick. It was translucent, and there were several small burn marks. The device was connected to the icons by color-coded cables. “It’s probably a circuit board,” said Max.

Arky looked horrified. “We can’t repair this kind of stuff,” he said.

“Depends what the problem is. If it’s something integral to the crystal, then probably not. But April might just be looking at a loose wire. Or a dead power source.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to build one of these, but it doesn’t look all that complicated.”

“I don’t think it could be the power supply,” Arky said. “If there were no power over there, she wouldn’t have arrived in the first place.”

“That’s probably true, Arky. But who knows? Let’s see what else is here.” He dug into the wall behind the crystal.

There were other cables in back, one running down into the floor, others curving into the overhead. One group was banded together. “One of these has to be the power source,” said Max. “And I’ll bet the cluster activates the transport mechanism itself. Whatever and wherever that is.”

“It’s going to take a while to figure out where these go,” said Arky.

“Maybe we can cut a few corners.” Max knelt on a rubber mat and took hold of the cable they thought might lead to the power source. He tugged on it, gently, and to his delight, it slipped off as easily as if the connection had been cleaned and oiled the day before, revealing a prong. “Okay,” he said. “Hand me the voltage meter.”

It was difficult getting at the cable, and eventually he was forced to make a bigger hole. But he got his reading. “Direct current,” he said. “Eighty-two volts.”

“That’s an odd number,” said Arky.

“They don’t play by our rules, I guess.”

Arky poured gas into the generator tank. He used the regulator to adjust its flux and took a True Hardware cable connector apart and reconfigured it to clip to the back of the crystal. Max pressed the arrow, and the icon lit up.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess it’s time to bite the bullet.”

Max had almost hoped it wouldn’t work. Then he’d have been able to justify in his own mind that there was no point trying to follow. But he was cornered, and he wondered whether he could really bring himself to stand on the grid.

He disconnected the generator and replaced the original cable. Then he put the generator on the grid, plunked a toolbox down beside it, and picked up a legal pad.

“I’m not so sure about this,” said Arky. “If something goes wrong, I could lose my license.” He grinned at Max, and Max suddenly realized he had the lawyer’s respect. It was almost worth it. “What’s the paper for?”

“Communication.” Max held up a black marker. “If we get stuck over there, if this stuff doesn’t work, I’ll post a message.”

He climbed stiffly onto the grid and closed his eyes. Then, deliberately, he opened them again. “Okay, Arky,” he said. “Hit the button.”

20

Unpathed waters, undreamed shores…

–William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

The world filled with light. The arching walls grew transparent and leaked blue-white sunlight. Violet hills swam in and out of focus. The floor fell away, and he was afloat, not falling, but drifting. A sudden vertigo washed through him. Then he sprawled forward on solid ground.

He was looking at the Minnesota Twins logo. The jacket was draped over a broken tree branch, which was propped against a glass wall.

He was inside a cupola, near the top of a low hill. Around him lay the forest he had glimpsed when the transition started. Except that it was solid now. And it did not look like any forest he had ever seen.

There were no greens. The vegetation favored a deep violet hue. Enormous white and yellow blossoms hung from trees that looked half human, like people who had defied the gods and taken root. Plump red and yellow fruit hung from thick, gnarled branches. The ground was thick with leaves.

The sun hovered on the horizon, but whether it was early evening or morning was impossible to say.