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At the tiht have made sense Michael could see how that was possible The Army knehere to find theo around, so hts But not now Not with the batteries the way they were, the lights about to fail Blackness and screa after Michael’s conversation with Theo, not more than a few days as he recalled, that he had happened upon the old logbook-"happened" being not quite the correct word, as things turned out It was the quiet hour, just before dawn Michael had been sitting at the panel in the Lighthouse like always, h Teacher’s copy of What to Name the Baby (that’s how desperate he’d beco new to read; he’d just made it to the I’s), when, for so thought that if the winds had blown a little differently his parents ht have named him Ichabod (Ichabod the Circuit!), his eyes had drifted upward to the shelf above his CRT, and there it was A notebook with a thin black spine Standing there a the usual whatnot, tucked between a spool of solder and a stack of Elton’s CDs (Billie Holiday Sings the Blues, Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones, Superstars 1 Party Dance Hits, a group called Yo Ma at each other, not that he understood the first thing about ht at it a thousand ti it before; that was curious, the thought that gave hi he hadn’t read (He’d read everything) He rose and took it from its place on the shelf, and when he cracked the spine the first thing he saw, inscribed in a precise hand, an engineer’s hand, was a narandfather Rex Fisher, First Engineer of Light and Power, First Colony, California Republic What the hell? How had he es, crinkled with e; it took only a moment for his mind to parse the information, to break it into its components and reassemble it into a coherent whole that told him what this slender, ink-filled volume was Columns of numbers, with dates written in the old style, followed by the hour and another number Michael understood to be the frequency of transht, short notations, rarely estion, whole stories folded into them: "unmanned distress beacon" or "five survivors" or "military?" or "three en route froden, Utah Kerrville, Texas Las Cruces, New Mexico Ashland, Oregon Hundreds of such notations, filling page after page, until they simply stopped The final entry read, si by order of the Household"

A gloas paling the s by the time Michael finished He doused the lantern and rose fros followed by a pause of identical duration, then three e the first ti; you’re alive)-and crossed the mazelike clutter of the narrow room with its plastic bins of parts and scattered tools and dirty dishes in teetering piles (why Elton couldn’t just eat in the barracks Michael had no idea; the ), stepped to the breaker panel, and powered down the lights A wave of weary satisfaction washed through hiht’s work accomplished, all souls safe and sound to face another day Let’s see Alicia and her blades do that (And wasn’t it true that when he’d lifted his face to see the logbook, it had been the ie of Alicia in his mind that had distracted him? As it sometimes-often-did? And not just Alicia but the specific picture of sunlight flaring her hair as she had stepped fro down the path toward her, unseen? An i? All this despite the fact that Alicia Donadio was, in point of fact, the singlewoman on earth, not that there was such a vast field of coh the steps, flipping the cells to charge, turning on the fans and opening the vents; the an to flicker and rise

He swiveled to look at Elton, who appeared to be dozing in his chair, though it was so, Elton’s eyes were always the sah slitted eyelids of perpetually tearing daed to close His pale hands were folded over the curve of his belly, the earphones, as always, cla out the ht The Beatles Boyz-B-Ware Art Lundgren and his All-Girl Polka-Party Orchestra (the only one that Michael sort of liked)

"Elton?" No answer Michael turned his voice up a notch "Elton?"

The old man-Elton was fifty at least-startled to life "Flyers, Michael What ti We’re down for the night"

Elton screwed hi, and drew the earphones down into the folds of his neck "Then what you wake ood part"

Next to the CDs, Elton’s nightly forays into iined sexual adventure constituted hisdead, which he would recount to Michael in excruciating detail, clais that had happened to hiured, since Elton hardly ever set foot outside the Lighthouse, and to look at hiray teeth clotted with the reo, Michael didn’t see how any of it was even remotely possible

"Don’t you want to hear about it?" The old"It was the hay dream I know you like that one"

"Not now, Elton Ifound so A book"

"You woke me up because you found a book?"

Michael scooted his chair down the length of the panel and placed the log in the old htless eyes turned upward, then drew it to his nose and gave a long sniff

"Now, I’d say that would be your great-grandfather’s logbook Thing’s been floating around here for years" He passed it back to Michael "Can’t say I’ve read it ood in there?"

"Elton, what do you know about this?"

"Couldn’t say Things do have a way of popping up right when you need theh"

Which hen Michael realized why he hadn’t seen the book before He hadn’t seen it before because it wasn’t there

"You put it on the shelf, didn’t you?"

"Now, Michael Radio’s forbidden You know that"

"Elton, did you talk to Theo?"

"Theo who?"

Michael felt his irritation mount Why couldn’t the man just answer a question? "Elton-"

The old et your gaps in a twist No, I didn’t talk to Theo Though I’ you did I didn’t talk to anyone, except for you" He paused "You know, you’re more like your old ood liar, either"