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"No, never," Laura said without hesitation "When he mentioned the place to which it would take methere was a terrible look in his eyes And I know he returned there himself only with reluctance I don’t knohere he comes from, Thelma, but if I didn’t misunderstand what I saw in his eyes, the place is just one step this side of hell"
Sunday afternoon they dressed in shorts and T-shirts, spread a couple of blankets on the rear lawn, and , lazy picnic of potato salad, cold cuts, cheese, fresh fruit, potato chips, and plu They played games with Chris, and he enjoyed the day enorine into a lower gear, producing one-liners designed for eight-year-olds
When Chris saw squirrels frolicking farther back in the yard, near the woods, he wanted to feed theave him a pecan roll and said, "Tear it into little pieces and toss the pieces to theet too near And you stay close to o all the way to the woods Only about halfway"
He ran thirty feet from the blanket, only a little more than halfway to the trees, then dropped to his knees He tore pieces fro those quick and cautious creatures edge a bit closer for each successive scrap
"He’s a good kid," Thelma said
"The best" Laura moved the Uzi to her side
"He’s only ten or twelve yards away," Thelma said
"But he’s closer to the woods than to me" Laura studied the shadows under the serried pines Plucking a few potato chips fro, Thelht a subun I sort of like it Don’t have to worry about bears" "It’s hell on ants, too"
Thelma stretched out on her side on the blanket, her head propped up on one bent ars crossed Indian-fashion Orange butterflies, as bright as condensed sunshine, darted through the war," Thelreed "There was a very bad time He cried a lot, wasn’t emotionally stable But that passed They’re flexible at his age, quick to adapt, to accept But as good as he seemsI’m afraid there’s a darkness in hi to go away"
"No," Thelo away It’s like a shadow on the 5eart But he’ll live, and he’ll find happiness, and there’ll be times when he’s not aware of the shadow at all" While Thel the squirrels, Laura studied her friend’s profile
"You still miss Ruth, don’t you?"
"Every day for twenty years Don’t you still miss your dad?" "Sure," Laura said "But when I think of him, I don’t believe what I feel is like what you feel Because we expect our parents to die before us, and even when they die prematurely, we can accept it because we’ve always known it was going to happen sooner or later
But it’s different when the one who dies is a wife, husband, child or sister We don’t expect them to die on us, not early in life So it’s harder to cope Especially, I suppose, if she’s a twin sister"
When I get a piece of good news-career news, II always think of is how happy Ruthie would have been for ht"
"That’s healthy now Not so healthy a year froht and listen to my heartbeat, and it’s a lonely sound Thank God for Chris He gives ot you and Chris, and we’re sort of family, don’t you think?"
"Not just sort of We are family You and me-sisters" Laura smiled, reached out, and ru sisters doesn’t et to borrow h the open doors of the institute’s offices and labs, Stefan saw his colleagues at work, and none of them had any special interest in him He took the elevator to the third floor where just outside his office he encountered Dr Wladyslaw Januskaya, as Dr Vladie of the tiinally had been called Project Scythe but which for severalRoad
Januskaya was forty, ten years younger than his etic Penlovski Short, overweight, balding, with a blotchy coold teeth in the front of his lasses that s, Januskaya should have been a coure But his unholy faith in the state and his zeal in working for the totalitarian cause were sufficient to counteract his coRoad
"Stefan, dear Stefan," Januskaya said, "I’ve been estion, last October, that the power supply to the gate should be provided by a secure generator Your foresight has saved the project If ere still drawing froate would have collapsed half a dozen times by now, and we’d be woefully behind schedule"
Having returned to the institute in expectation of arrest, Stefan was confused to find his treachery undiscovered and startled to hear hiested switching the gate to a secure generator not because he wanted to see their vile project achieve success but because he had not wanted his own jaunts into Laura’s life to be interrupted by the failure of the public power supply
"I would not have thought last October that by this time ould have coer to be trusted," Januskaya said, shaking his head N, "the social order so thoroughly disturbed What must the endure to see the socialist state of their dreams triu very different things than Januskaya meant
"But ill triunified eyes filled with theRoad, ill triumph"
He patted Stefan on the shoulder and continued down the hall
After Stefan watched the scientist walk nearly to the elevators, he said "Oh, Dr Januskaya?"
The fat white worm turned and looked at him "Yes?"
"Have you seen Kokoschka today?"
"Today? No, not yet today"
"He’s here, isn’t he?"
"Oh, I’d i as there’s anyone working, you know He’s a diligent man If we had more like Kokoschka we’d have no doubt of ultimate triumph Do you need to talk to him? If I see him, should I send hient I wouldn’t want to interrupt him in other work I’m sure I’ll see him sooner or later"
Januskaya continued to the elevators, and Stefan went into his office, closing the door behind hi cabinet that he had repositioned slightly to cover one-third of the grille in the corner ventilation chase In the narrow space behind it, a bundle of copper wires was barely visible, corille The wires were connected to a sied into a wall outlet farther behind the cabinet Nothing had been disconnected He could reach behind the cabinet, set the ti a twist he gave the dial, the institute would be destroyed
What the hell is going on? he wondered
He sat for a while at his desk, staring at the square of sky that he could see fro sluggishly across an azure backdrop