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Chapter 1

DAY 1

Contact

1 The Country of Lost Borders

Aby the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a sht

Lieutenant Roger Shawn must have found the binoculars difficult The metal would be cold, and he would be clu out into the ed the lenses He would be forced to pause to wipe theer

He could not have known the futility of this action Binoculars orthless to see into that town and uncover its secrets He would have been astonished to learn that the men who finally succeeded used instruments a million times more powerful than binoculars

There is so against a boulder, propping his arh cumbersome, the binoculars would at least feel comfortable and familiar in his hands It would be one of the last familiar sensations before his death

We can iine, and try to reconstruct, what happened from that point on

Lieutenant Shaept over the town slowly and e, just a half-dozen wooden buildings, set out along a single hts, no activity, no sound carried by the gentle wind

He shifted his attention fro hills They were low, dusty, and blunted, with scrubby vegetation and an occasional withered yucca tree crusted in snow Beyond the hills were more hills, and then the flat expanse of the Mojave Desert, trackless and vast The Indians called it the Country of Lost Borders

Lieutenant Shawn found hi in the wind It was February, the coldest month, and it was after ten He walked back up the road toward the Ford Econovan, with the large rotating antenna on top Thesoftly; it was the only sound he could hear He opened the rear doors and cli the doors behind him

He was enveloped in deep-red light: a night light, so that he would not be blinded when he stepped outside In the red light the banks of instrureenly