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His love for her could not be subverted by this alien force, noit was

But how did she know that? She was engaging in wishful thinking

For all she knew, The Enemy’s powers of mental control were so awesoht now and tell her to drown herself in the pond, and she would do as told

She remembered Norht rounds froain, long after he was dead

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

Still far away

Jiain, intent on waking him, and almost called out his naht be in him already Dreams are doorways She didn’t have a clue as to what The Friendlike the bells But maybe what it had meant was that The Enemy could enter the dreamer’s dream and thus the dreamer’s mind Maybe this time The Enemy did not intend to materialize from the wall but from Jim, in the person of Jim, in total control of Jim, just for a murderous little lark

Lub-dub-DUB, !ub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

A little louder, a little closer? Holly felt that she was losing her mind Paranoid, schizoid, flat-out crazy No better than The Friend and his other half She was frantically trying to understand a totally alien consciousness, and the er and more varied the possibilities becahtmare can be made flesh In an infinite universe, life was therefore essentially the same as a dream Contemplation of that under the stress of a life-or-death situation, was guaranteed to drive you bugshit

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

She could not ain

Letting her breath out in a rush, she backed up against the wall beside the , less afraid of the limestone now than she was of Jiht to wake him when the threenote heartbeat was not audible Maybe The Enemy was only in his dream -and therefore in him-when that triple thud could be heard

Afraid to act and afraid not to act, she glanced down at the tablet in her hand So at the HE LOVES YOU HOLLY/HE WILL KILL YOU HOLLY litany

Before her eyes, instead, was the list of people who had been saved by Jirandiose explanations of their importance

She saw "Steven Aimes" and realized at once that he was the only one on the list whose fate The Friend had not vocalized during one or another of their conversations last night She remembered him because he was the only older person on the list, fifty-seven She read the words under his name, and the chill that had touched her nape earlier was nothing coh it now and pierced her spine

Steven Aimes had not been saved because he would father a child ould be a great diploreat healer He had not been saved because he wouldcontribution to the welfare of mankind The reason for his salvation was expressed in just eleven words, theeleven words that Holly had ever read or hoped to read: BECAUSE HE LOOKS LIKE MY FATHER WHOM I FAILED TO SAVE

Not "like Jim ’s father" which The Friend would have said Not "whom he failed to save," as the alien would surely have put it MY FATHER I FAILED MY I

The infinite universe just kept expanding, and now an entirely new possibility presented itself to her, revealed in the telling words about Steven Aimes No starship rested under the pond No alien had been in hiding on the farm for ten thousand years, ten years, or ten days The Friend and The Eneh: they were thirds, not halves, of the same personality, three in one entity, an entity with enorodlike and yet as human as Holly was Jiedy when he was ten years old Who had painstakingly put hiain with the help of a coods Who was as insane and dangerous as he was sane and loving

She did not understand where he had gotten the power that he so obviously possessed, or why he was not ahatsoever that the poithin hiinary alien presence

The realization that he was everything, that the end and beginning of this mystery lay solely in him and not beneath the pond, raised more questions than it answered She didn’t understand how such a thing could be true, but she kneas, at last, the truth Later, if she survived, she

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

Closer but not close

Holly held her breath, waiting for the sound to get louder

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

Jim shifted in his sleep He snorted softly and smacked his lips, just like any ordinary dreamer

But he was three personalities in one, and at least two of them possessed incredible power, and at least one of the

Lub-dub-DUB

Holly pressed back against the li so hard that it seemed to have ha

The tripartite beat faded

Silence

Shethe curved wall Easy little steps Sideways

Toward the timbered, ironbound door She eased away froh to reach out and snare her purse by its straps

The closer she gut to the head of the stairs, theto sla to sit up and turn to her His blue eyes would not be beautiful but cold, as she had twice glie but cold

She reached the door, eased through it backward onto the first step, not wanting to take her eyes off Jim But if she tried to back down those narrow stairs without a handrail, she would fall, break an arh room and hurried toward the bottoh the velvety-gray ht outlined the s, the lower chaht, only the extra edge of an adrenaline rush Unable to reht set up a clatter when she knocked it over, she ing sideways again

The antechaht When she looked to her left, she could barely see the foot of the stairs dohich she had just descended

Feeling the wall ahead of her with her right hand, she discovered the corner She stepped through the archway and into the antechaht, it was dilow that lay beyond the open outside door