Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

ELLIE ^{JACK McDEVITT}

If the lights at Bolton’s Tower go out, the devil gets loose. At least, that was the story. The idea spooked me when I was a kid, and even years later on those rare occasions when I traveled into its general neighborhood, which was well north on the Great Plains, far off the trading routes.

The Tower put out a lot of light, so much that it could be seen from the Pegborn-Forks road. In a world illuminated mostly by kerosene and candles, it was unique, and it was easy to believe there might be a supernatural force at work.

I’d been away from the Dakotas for years, and had long since forgotten about the thing, when the press of business and a series of unseasonal storms drove me north into my old home grounds. The weather had been overcast for a week, had cleared off during the course of a long cold afternoon, and when the sun went down, Bolton’s star rose in the east. I knew it immediately for what it was, and I knew I was close.

There’s something else odd about Bolton’s Tower.

It’s just inside the southern rim of a long, curving ridge. The ridge isn’t high. It seldom exceeds thirty feet, and sometimes it’s no more than a ripple in the grass. But it’s a strange ridge: if you follow it far enough, you discover it forms a perfect circle. You can’t see that from any single place; the ring is too big. More than sixty miles around. I’ve heard tent preachers explain that the circle symbolizes God, because it’s endless, and cannot be improved on. Just the thing to imprison Satan, they add darkly.

I crossed the ridge on foot, leading my mount. Snow was beginning to fall again, and the wind was picking up. The Tower rose out of a cluster of dark, weather-beaten buildings and a screen of trees. These structures were low and flat, dreary boxes, some made of clapboard and others of brick. Their windows were gone; their doors hung on broken hinges or were missing altogether. A roof had blown off one, another lay partly demolished by a fallen tree. A small barn, set to one side, had been kept in reasonable repair, and I heard horses moving within as I drew near.

The Tower soared above the ruin, seven stories of bone-white granite and thick glass. Porches and bays and arches disconnected it from the prairie, as if it belonged to a less mundane reality. The roof melted into banks of curved glass panels capped by a crystal spire. Its lines whispered of lost power and abandoned dreams, passion frozen in stone.

I released the straps on my crossbow, and loosened it in its sheath.

Several windows on the second and third floors were illuminated. The Tower lights themselves, red and white signature beams, blazed into the murky night.

In the windows, no one moved.

The base of the Tower culminated in a broad terrace surrounded by a low wall, elevated from the road by about twenty wide stone steps. The steps were flanked by dead hedge.

I rode past, down a grass-covered street, and dismounted in front of the barn. Max made some noises to indicate he was glad the day was over. I hoped he was right.

The barn had sliding doors. I opened one and we went inside. Three horses moved restlessly in their stalls. The place smelled of them, warm and pungent. I tied Max up, but did not remove his saddle. Just in case. I debated whether to take the crossbow, but in the end left it, on the ground that guests arriving with weapons were a lot more likely to be turned away.

Wind shook the building, and snow rattled against it like sleet. On the plains, the stuff has the consistency of rock salt. And when the wind is up the way it was that night, it can beat you down pretty good. I burrowed into my coat, pulled my hat low to protect my eyes, and strode back out into the storm.

I climbed the steps and crossed the terrace. There was a statue of someone out there, in an old dried-up fountain, a rumpled woman in Old World clothes, with the name Margaret Hanbury, and the inscription: FROM THIS NARROW SPACE, WE TOUCH THE INFINITE.

Six heavy glass doors guarded the entrance. I looked up at the Tower, cold and remote, its aspect growing and shifting in the changing texture of its spectral lights.

The doors had no give. Beyond them lay a dark lobby. I could see furniture, wall-hangings, a stairway illuminated from above. I banged on the glass.

For several minutes nothing happened. I tried again, and was thinking about moving in with the horses when the terrace lit up. A man descended the staircase, came to a stop midway across the lobby, and stood for a time studying me. Finally, he came forward, threw a bolt, and pulled the door open.

“Good evening,” he said, in a rich baritone. “Sorry to leave you standing out here, but I’m inclined to be careful these days.”

He was a half-foot taller than I, with lean, almost cruel features, and dark intelligent eyes. His buckskin jacket covered a white denim shirt. His black trousers were creased. He was a dark and somber man, and his manner suggested he was accustomed to command. He wore a neatly trimmed beard, and his hair was black and quite thick.

“Thank you,” I said, moving past him. It was good to be in out of the wind.

More lights went on. The interior was quite long, perhaps two hundred feet, although it was only as wide as an ordinary room. It was decorated with Indian art, totems, weavings, pottery, and a few oils depicting teepees by sunset and young braves in canoes. Chairs were scattered about in no particular order, and with no effort to match their styles. There were rattans, fabric of a half-dozen different colors, a wooden bench, and several small tables.

He extended a hand. “This is not a good day to be on the road.”

“No,” I said. “It’s downright brisk out there.” I shook the snow off my shoulders. “I’m Jeff Quincey.”

“Edward Marsh. Where are you headed, Quincey?” His voice changed texture, not precisely softening, but rather growing consciously more amiable.

“I’m bound for the Forks. I’d expected to spend the night in Sandywater, but I got off to a late start this morning. And the weather—”

He nodded. Snow whipped across the glass. “You’ll want to stay the night with us, of course.”

“If it’s no trouble, I’d be grateful.”

“None at all. We don’t get many visitors here.” He turned on his heel and led the way to the staircase.

On the second floor, carpeted corridors ran off in three directions. The carpet was frayed and, in some places, threadbare. Closed doors marched uniformly along the walls. “This way,” Marsh said, striding off into the right-hand passageway. “What business are you in, Quincey?”

“I’m a trader. And an occasional agent for Overland.”

He nodded. “It’s the traders that’ll open up this country.” Halfway down the hall, the place began to look lived-in. The gray walls gave way to dark-stained paneling, rugs were thrown over the weary carpet, and someone had hung a series of prints. The prints alternated between abstracts and sketches of Old World city scenes. One depicted Chicago, crowded with traffic; another, New York at night; and a third, a Parisian sidewalk café. “I’ve been there,” I told him.

“Where?”

“Chicago.”

“Really?” He glanced at the image. “Odd, all the times I’ve walked by this, and I don’t think I ever really looked at it.” He pushed his hands deep into his jacket pockets. “Why?”

Why indeed? It had been one of the more oppressive experiences of my life, wandering through those gray, cold canyons. Climbing past the rusting metal that filled its ravine streets, looking up at thousands of empty windows, and knowing what lay mouldering behind them. “I was hired to help with a survey. An historical project.”

He nodded. “I do believe you’re a man after my own heart, Quincey.” We entered a sitting room half-lit by a low fire. Several pieces of oversized upholstered furniture filled most of the available space. Crossbows and bison trophies were mounted in strategic locations, and a battered garrison hat hung on a peg. Yellowing books were stacked on wall-shelves, more than I’d seen in one place this side of Port Remote. Some appeared to be military histories. But there were also travel journals, and technical titles whose meaning escaped me, like An Orderly Approach to Chaos, and The n-Particle. That was old stuff, pre-Crash, and I wondered whether anyone now living really understood them.

He switched on an electric lamp, and motioned me to a chair. “I stay out of the cities,” he said. “I don’t like places where you can’t see what’s coming at you. Anyway,” he winked, “you never know when some of the concrete is going to let go.” He took glasses and a decanter from a cabinet. “Port?”

“Yes. Fine.”

“Good. We don’t have much of a selection.” He filled them and held one out for me. “To the outside world,” he said.

That was a strange toast. I glanced through the window at the endless plain. “Cheers,” I said.

We talked for a few moments of inconsequentials. How short the summer had been this year; the apparent withdrawal of the raiders who had harassed stages and attacked settlements in the area (“too cold for them here in winter,” offered Marsh); the rumor that a firearms manufacturing plant had been set up in Nevada, and was now turning out weapons and ammunition in quantity. We refilled the glasses. My host was friendly enough, God knew, and solicitous for my welfare. But I sensed a barrier, and a lack of warmth in his smile. “You’re in time for dinner,” he said at last. “We’ll eat shortly.” He studied me thoughtfully. “If you like, I believe we can replenish your wardrobe.”

Marsh enjoyed his role as host, but I sensed he would have been uncomfortable in my position, as suppliant. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re very kind.” And I thought of Max. “I’d like to take some water out to my horse.”

“Is he in the barn?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take care of it. Meantime, if you’re ready, let’s look at your quarters.”

He provided me with a spacious and, by prairie standards, luxurious room on the third floor. A big double bed stood in its center, with pillows piled high and a quilt thrown over. I lacked a fireplace, but there was a steady flow of warm air from a vent. The atmosphere was masculine: varnished walls, a mounted deer’s head, an antique pistol over the bed, and a military ensign bearing rifles and bugles and the numeral IV by the door. A small desk had been placed near the window. An ancient dictionary lay on the desk, and a battered copy of Pierce’s Travels Through the Dakotas on a side table.

I threw off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and retreated into a tan-tiled bathroom. I showered in glorious hot water, toweled off, and tried the garments my host had provided. They were a size large, but they were clean and smelled faintly of pine. I washed my own clothes and hung them to dry.

The smell of steak and potatoes drifted up from the kitchen. I wandered downstairs, pausing to look through a window at the rooftop lights. They blazed through the rushing snow. What a prodigious waste of power it all was. I wondered how they were able to manage it?

Marsh must have heard me coming: he was waiting when I arrived on the second floor. “I hope you feel better, Quincey,” he said.

I did. Very much so.

We returned to the room in which we had talked earlier. A pot of coffee was waiting. He poured, and we sat down by the fire. We were barely settled when he looked up, past my shoulder. “Eleanor,” he said, “this is Mr. Quincey.”

I rose and turned, and was astonished. So, I might add, was Eleanor.

“Jeff,” she said, and I watched dismay, relief, fear, affection, and everything between, ripple across her face.

And I: my God, it was Ellie Randall.

For those few seconds, I could only stare.

Probably, no one ever quite recovers from the first big passion. Ellie had been mine. We’d had three months together when we were both growing up in the Forks. And that was all there was. She lost interest and walked out of my life. I didn’t even have the consolation of losing her to someone else. Shortly after that I left the area, and when I went back ten years later she was gone and nobody knew where.

So I stood gaping back, shackled by the old resentment, breathless again. She was as gorgeous as I remembered. And that too shook me: I think in some dark corner of the mind, I’d hoped eventually to come across her and discover that the near-supernatural creature of my twentieth year had been a figment of youthful daydreaming. That, to a mature adult, she would really be quite ordinary. Perhaps even a trifle dull. That I’d conclude I’d been lucky to have got away.

But in that darkened room she seemed composed of firelight and shifting shadows, more spirit than flesh. (Although the flesh was not to be overlooked.) Her familiar features were classic, dark, and, now that she’d recovered from her initial shock, amused. She shook her head in sheer pleasure and her black hair swirled across her shoulders. Delight filled her eyes, and I felt the entire room, the chairs, the lamps, the fire, and certainly me, come erect.

I knew already I would lie alone on the plains during years to come and replay this meeting. From that moment, I developed a loathing for Edward Marsh that nothing could ever efface.

We embraced, a fleeting, phantasmagoric thing, her lips brushing my cheek, her shoulders vibrant and alive in my hands. Her eyes touched mine. “Jeff, it really is you, isn’t it? What have you been doing all these years?”

Her smile melted me into my socks, and I was twenty years old again. I didn’t trust my voice, so I grinned, foolishly no doubt, retreated to my coffee, and mumbled something about traveling extensively.

Marsh moved into the gap. “Well, that’s interesting,” he said, eyes brightening. “How odd that you two would know each other.”

“We grew up together. Jeff and I were good friends for a long time.” Her eyes settled on me. “It is good to see you again, Jeff.” The smile never faded. “Listen, I have to finish dinner. But we have a lot to talk about.” She swung round and trooped out. And the room sank back into the normal flow of time.

“She hasn’t changed,” I told Marsh. He was watching me with interest, and I knew what he was wondering. The rational tack, of course, was to change the subject. “What kind of installation was this originally?” I asked, heading in the first direction that suggested itself.

He took a long breath and examined his coffee. “A research facility of some sort,” he said. “Ellie can tell you more about it than I can.”

“Oh?”

He shrugged. “Yes, she’s closer to the history of the place than I am.” There was something dismissive in his tone, as if there were more important matters to consider. His eyes glided over me.

“Will there be others at dinner?” I asked.

“No,” he said distractedly. “There is no one else here.”

I looked down at my shirt.

“It belonged to Ellie’s brother-in-law, actually,” he said. “He left a few years ago.”

Ellie’s brother-in-law? Why not “my brother”? “Where is he now?” I asked conversationally.

“We don’t know. Occasionally, someone comes by with a letter from him. Last we heard, he was in Zona.”

I gradually received the impression, one that was reinforced through the evening, that he was measuring me, that he was involved in a calculation and that I was somehow a variable.

Marsh had traveled widely. He explained that he had been born in Canada, in a town not far from Ottawa. “We all grew up in the shadows of that enormous wreck. And I’ve stayed away from the ruins since. Don’t like them.” He shook his head. “No sir. Don’t like them one bit.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, not sure at all that I did.

“We’re headed backward, Quincey. All of us. Still losing ground even while you and I sit here. And I don’t like being reminded of it.” He raised his arms in a sweeping gesture that took in the walls, or maybe the world. “They’re all yellow now,” he said. “Fading. And when they’re gone, I suspect none of us will even remember who we were.”

I realized finally he was referring to his books, marshaled around the room like a military guard. I repressed a shrug. I’ve never read a book, and am barely able to manage trade documents, if the truth be known. “I’m not so sure,” I said. “Life is hard, but it could be worse. I mean, there’s always food and drink, if a man’s willing to work. And women enough, God knows.” I wished Ellie had been there to hear that. I hoped he would repeat it to her, and she would understand that I had been having a very fine time on my own, thank you.

A few minutes later, Ellie announced that dinner was ready. We retired to the dining room, and she flashed me another big smile. I thought I saw in it a glint of regret. I applied the construction most favorable to myself, and attacked dinner with a sense of good cheer.

The table would have supported dinner for ten. We ate by candlelight, warmed by two fireplaces.

The meal consisted of steak and potatoes and green beans and buttered corn and hot rolls. Marsh broke out a decanter and filled the glasses, and we toasted “old friends.” His proposal. I was still wondering about the nature of the facility. “What,” I asked, “is the ring? The ring-shaped ridge?”

Ellie tried her drink, and obviously approved. “They used this place to break into atoms,” she said. “They were trying to discover what matter really is.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

“Did they leave records?”

“In a way. They wrote their results into computer banks.”

“Oh.” The computers don’t work anymore.

She sliced off a piece of steak, turned it on her fork, and slid it between her lips. “Not bad,” she said, eyes gleaming. “Given time, maybe we’ll figure out how to fix them.”

We ate quietly for a few minutes. “How do you come to own a place like the Tower?” I asked Marsh.

“I don’t own it,” he said. “It’s Ellie’s, actually.”

She tried her wine and let me see she approved. “I married into it. Two or three years after you left, I married Corey Bolton. His family had been here for generations.” She propped her chin on her fist and looked right through me. “Corey died in a raid several years later. After that his brothers cleared out, and I more or less inherited the place.”

“It’s big,” I said.

She smiled. “You don’t know the half of it. Most of the complex is underground.”

Marsh smiled reflexively. He looked uneasy.

I expected him to say something. But he only patted his mouth with his napkin. The silence stretched out.

“I wonder what does lie inside atoms?” I said.

“Energy,” said Marsh.

“Yes.” Ellie nodded agreement. She had changed, of course. The buoyancy of the adolescent had given way to cool dignity. Her eyes, which had been unabashedly playful, glowed now with mystery and intelligence. The sense of what I had lost began to overwhelm me, and I was sorry I had stumbled into the place. Better a cold night on the plain than this. “But there’s obviously more to it than that.”

“And the ridge?” I asked again.

“Oh. It’s a tunnel. We can reach it from here, actually. They fired atoms, or parts of atoms, I’m not sure which, through it. When they collided, they broke apart, and it was possible to see what was inside.”

“It’s hard to believe,” I said, “that anyone could ever do that.”

“So.” She announced the subject change with her tone. “What have you been doing since you left the Forks, Jeff?” She touched a wall panel and Mozart filled the room. We talked about greenhouses (the Tower had two), and the source of their power (solar), and Marsh’s trip to the Pacific, and how Chicago looks from offshore.

I learned that Marsh had been a colonel with irregulars formed to defend a group of Minnesota settlements. That Ellie was trying to pull together a comprehensive account of pre-Crash activities at the Tower, that the trail seemed to lead to Minneapolis, and that eventually she would make the trip. Ellie’s comment to that effect ignited the colonel’s disapproval, and I understood that I had blundered into an old argument. “Too dangerous,” he said, dismissing the matter.

When we’d finished, he insisted on clearing the table, and carrying the dishes into the kitchen. I was impressed by the manner in which he stayed with her and made himself useful. But I noticed also, on several occasions, silent exchanges taking place between them. Was she reassuring him about our relationship? I suspected so, and was pleased that he might, even momentarily, consider me a potential rival.

In all, it was a delicious and entertaining evening. I was sorry to see it end.

The storm had eased off, and the sky had cleared. But the wind had lost none of its force, and it drove the loose snow across the landscape.

The clothes I’d washed were still damp. I waited, listening for the last footsteps to come upstairs, and then I went down and arranged my garments in front of the fire. I threw an extra log on, and sank into a chair in front of the blaze. It was warm and pleasant. And it was not long before sleep overtook me.

I dreamt of her that night, as I had on other nights. And, as was the usual climax to these nocturnal reunions, I awoke depressed with the weight of her loss. I sat staring at the fire, which was now little more than embers, aware of the wind and sounds deep in the belly of the building and the flow of moonlight through the windows.

And I realized I was not alone.

A patch of darkness disconnected itself and came forward.

Ellie.

“Hello,” I said.

She wore a heavy woolen robe, drawn up around the neck, her black hair thrown over the collar. I could not see her expression, but the glow from the window touched her eyes. “Hi, Jeff,” she said. “Is there anything wrong with your room?”

For a wild moment, I wondered whether she had just come from there. “No,” I said. I pointed at the clothes strung by the fire. “I just got too comfortable here. There’s no problem.”

After a brief silence, she said, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

I had got up, but she gestured me back into my seat, and stirred the fire. “You’ve a lovely home,” I said. “You’ve done well.”

She nodded. The robe was frayed, oversized. But it didn’t matter: she was breathtakingly beautiful. “Corey was good. I couldn’t have asked for more.”

“I’m sorry you lost him,” I said.

“Thanks. It’s a long time ago now.” She slipped into an adjoining chair. “Jeff, I’m glad to find you here. I was afraid I wouldn’t really get a chance to talk to you.”

I was prodding myself to be generous, to avoid letting any of the old anger show. But it was hard. “We don’t really have much to talk about,” I said.

“Yes, we do.” She gazed at me steadily, and I imagined I could see sparks reflected in her eyes. “I can’t change what happened between us. I can’t even say that I would, if I could. I loved Corey, and I wouldn’t have missed my years with him for anything.” She touched my forearm, just her fingertips, but the effect was electric. “You understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes,” I said. But I had no idea.

She stared past my shoulder. “You know that Ed is not my husband.”

“I’d guessed.”

“When we were attacked, when Corey was killed, Ed was the one who came to the rescue. He rode in with a detachment from Sandybrook and personally killed two of the sons of bitches.”

“And afterward,” I said, “he stayed.”

“Not immediately. Corey’s brothers couldn’t take it anymore out here and they left. When that happened, he tried to persuade me to leave, too.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She took a deep breath. “This is my home.” But her eyes looked away. “When I wouldn’t leave, he came out. Used to sleep in here. Like you. Eventually…” She shrugged.

“This place is dangerous. For two people.”

“We have defenses. Corey wouldn’t have been killed if we hadn’t been surprised.” She shook her head, maybe reassuring herself. “No. I’ll never leave here, Jeff. I love this place.”

We sat quiet.

“But I did want you to know,” she said, “that I’ve never been able to forget you.”

That and fifty bucks, I thought. But I didn’t say it.

The room got very quiet. It occurred to me that Marsh might be standing within earshot. Marsh, who had killed two raiders. “I’m happy to hear it,” I said.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, mischievously.

“What am I thinking?”

“He won’t care,” she said. “Ed doesn’t care about me.”

That made no sense. He doesn’t own the property. If he had no feelings for her, why on earth would he stay in this godforsaken place? I replayed the evening. The way Marsh had introduced her. The way he’d responded when he had discovered we’d known each other. The way he talked to her. “I don’t believe it,” I said.

“Nevertheless it’s true. He feels trapped here, and he blames me.” She pushed up out of her chair. “He stays out of a sense of duty.”

Her grip tightened on my hand, and a tear ran down her cheek. It was a moment I’d contemplated many times when I was younger. Ellie perhaps realizing at last what she had lost. Asking me to forgive. In my imagination, the moment had always seemed delicious. But when it came, I took no pleasure in it.

“You never married,” she said.

“I never stayed in one place long enough. Anyway, no one ever seemed much interested.”

“Well, we both know that’s not true,” she said. She stared at me for a long moment, and, without another word, got out of her chair, pressed her lips against my cheek, and left the room.

I went to bed. I didn’t sleep well, though, and I was tempted to clear out during the night. But that might have raised questions and embarrassed Ellie. So I determined to get through breakfast, and leave as quickly as I reasonably could.

Bacon and coffee were already on when I started down. I poked my head into the dining room first, saw no one, and made for the kitchen. Ellie was there, manning an electric stove. But I saw immediately that something was wrong. She looked tired, and the joie de vivre of the previous day had been replaced with knife-edged intensity. “Good morning, Jeff,” she said. Her tone was cordial, but not warm.

She wore a white jumper open at the throat, and a knee-length knit skirt. Her hair was brushed back, revealing pale, drawn features. “You okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine.” She delivered a dispirited smile. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Medium well.” I looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

She poked at the bacon. “He’s gone, Jeff.”

“Gone? Ed?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Out. Skedaddled. Left for parts unknown.”

“My God. What happened?”

She turned her attention to the eggs, scooping at them and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. I pulled the pan from the burner and set it down where things wouldn’t burn, and then I caught her up. “Talk to me,” I said.

“He left before dawn.”

“Did he think something happened between us?”

“No,” she said. “No. Nothing like that.”

“What makes you think he’s not coming back?”

“I know he’s not coming back.” She shook her head. “Listen, I’ll be okay. Best thing is for you to eat and head out.”

“Tell me why,” I said.

“I’ve already told you. He felt trapped here. I warned him what it would be like, but he wouldn’t listen, or didn’t really understand. When you came, last night, when he saw that we had been friends, maybe more than friends, he saw his chance.”

“To bolt?”

She nodded.

“Knowing that I wouldn’t leave you here alone?”

“I’m sure that’s what he thought.”

“A creep with a conscience.” I sank into a chair.

“That’s not true,” she said. “He waited. He stayed for years. Most men would have just walked out. Jeff, he never committed to this.”

“Sure he did,” I said. “When he moved in, he made a commitment.” But I could see it hurt her. She wanted to think well of the son of a bitch, so I let it go.

We abandoned the kitchen, left breakfast in ruins, and wandered into the room with the fireplaces.

“Okay,” I said. “What happens now?”

She shrugged. “I’ll manage.”

“You can’t stay here alone.”

“Why not?”

“Alone? Rattling around in this place?”

“It’s my home.”

“It will be a prison. Close it up and come back with me. To the Forks. It’ll be safe for a while. Give yourself a chance to get away from it.”

“No.” Her voice caught. “I can’t leave here.”

“Sure you can. Just make up your mind and do it.”

She nodded and took a long breath. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe it is time to let go.”

“Good.” I saw possibilities for myself. “Listen, we’ll—”

“Take my chances.” She was beginning to look wild. “There’s no reason I should have to be buried here—”

“None at all,” I said.

“If it gets loose, it gets loose. I mean, nobody else cares, do they?”

“Right,” I said. “If what gets loose?”

She looked at me a long time. “Maybe you should know what’s in the basement.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

I tried to get her to explain, but she only shook her head. “I’ll show it to you,” she said.

So I followed her down to the lobby. Outside, the snow cover ran unbroken to the horizon. I looked at the Native American display. “Corey’s idea,” she said. “He thought it provided a counterpoint to the technology.”

We went downstairs, down four more levels in fact, into the bowels of the building. At each floor I paused and looked along the corridors, which were dark, illuminated only by the lights in the stairway area. The passageways might have gone on forever. “How big is this place?” I asked.

“Big,” she said. “Most of it’s underground. Not counting the tunnel.” As we got lower, I watched her spirits revive. “I think you’re right, Jeff. It is time to get out. The hell with it.”

“I agree.” I put an arm around her and squeezed, and her body was loose and pliable, the way a woman is when she’s ready.

“Jeff,” she said, “I meant what I said last night.”

During the time we had known one another, I had never told her how I felt. Now, deep below the Tower, I embraced her, and held her face in my hands, and kissed her. Tears rolled again, and when we separated, my cheeks were wet. “Ellie,” I said, “for better or worse, I love you. Always have. There has never been a moment when I would not have traded everything I had for you.”

She shook her head. No. “You’d better see what you’re getting into first before you say any more.”

We turned on lights and proceeded down a long corridor, past more closed rooms. “These were laboratories,” she said, “and storage rooms, and libraries.”

The floor was dusty. Walls were bare and dirty. The doors were marked with the letter designator “D”, and numbered in sequence, odd on the left, even on the right. There had been carpeting, I believe, at one time. But there was only rotted wood underfoot now.

“Doesn’t look as if you come down here very much,” I said.

She pointed at the floor, and I saw footprints in the dust. “Every day.”

She threw open a door and stepped back. I walked past her into the dark.

I could not immediately make out the dimensions of the room, or its general configuration. But ahead, a blue glow flickered and wavered and crackled. Lights came on. The room was quite large, maybe a hundred feet long. Tables and chairs were scattered everywhere, and the kind of antique equipment that turns up sometimes in ruins was piled high against both side walls.

The blue glow was on the other side of a thick smoked window. The window was at eye level, about thirty feet long, and a foot high. She watched me. I crossed to the glass and looked in.

A luminous, glowing cylinder floated in the air. It was a foot off the floor, and it extended almost to the ceiling. Thousands of tiny lights danced and swirled within its folds. It reminded me of a Christmas tree the Sioux had raised outside Sunset City a couple of years ago. “What is it?” I asked.

“The devil,” she said softly.

A chill worked its way up my back. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a result of the research they did here. A by-product. Something that wasn’t supposed to happen. Jeff, they knew there was a possibility things might go wrong. But the bastards went ahead anyway.”

“Wait,” I said. “Slow down. Went ahead with what?”

“With what we were talking about last night. Smashing atoms. Jeff, this was state-of-the-art stuff.” She moved close to me, and I touched her hair. “Do you know what protons are?”

“Yeah. Sort of. They’re made of atoms.”

“Other way around,” she said. “The thing about protons is that they are extremely stable. Protons are the basic building blocks of matter. There is nothing more stable than a proton. Or at least, there used to be nothing.”

“I’m not following this.”

“The people who worked here knew there was a possibility they might produce an element that would be more stable.” Her voice was rising, becoming breathless. “And they also knew that if it actually happened, if they actually produced such an element, it would destabilize any proton it came into contact with.”

“Which means what?”

“They’d lose the lab.” I was still watching the thing, fascinated. It seemed to be rotating slowly, although the lights moved independently at different speeds, and some even rotated against the direction of turn. The effect was soothing. “In fact,” she continued, “they were afraid of losing the Dakotas.”

“You mean that it might destroy the Dakotas?”

“Yes.”

“Ridiculous.”

“I would have thought so too. But apparently not. Not if the records are correct.”

I couldn’t figure it out. “Why would they make something like that?” I asked.

“They didn’t set out to make it. They thought it was possible. A by-product. But the chances seemed remote, and I guess the research was important, so they went ahead.”

I still couldn’t see the problem. After all, it was obvious that nothing untoward had occurred.

“They took steps to protect themselves in case there was an incident. They developed a defense. Something to contain it.”

“How?”

“You’re looking at it. It’s a magnetic field that plays off the new element. They called it Heisium.”

“After its discoverer?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s contained. What’s the problem?”

She stood with her back to it, looking away. “What do you suppose would happen if the power failed here?”

“The lights would go out.” And I understood. The lights would go out. “Isn’t there a backup?”

“It’s on the backup. Has been for almost two hundred years. The Crash took out their electrical source, and it’s been running on the Tower’s solar array ever since.”

“Why do you come down here every day?”

“Check the gauges. Look around. Make sure everything’s okay.”

That shook me. “What do you do if it isn’t?”

“Flip a circuit breaker. Tighten a connection. Rewire whatever.” She inhaled. “Somebody has to do this.”

“Jesus.”

“They kept this place manned for forty years. Then, after the Crash, the son of one of the people responsible for the original decision, Avery Bolton, the guy the Tower’s named for, stayed on. And kept the place going. When he died, his daughter succeeded him. And brought her family. In one way or another, that family has been here ever since. Until Corey. And his brothers. His brothers weren’t worth much, and now I’m all that’s left.” She shook her head. “Seen enough?”

“Ellie, do you really believe all this?”

“I believe there’s a good chance the threat is real.” We were sitting in the lobby. “Why else would I be here?”

“Things get twisted over a long time. Maybe they were wrong.” Outside, the day was bright and cold. “I just can’t believe it.”

“That’s good,” she said. “You should continue to think that. But I’m going to have to continue to assume that Corey knew what he was talking about.”

“My God, Ellie, it’s a trap.”

She looked at me, and her eyes were wet. “Don’t you think I know that?”

I looked up at an oil of a Sioux warrior on horseback, about to plunge a lance into a bison. “There’s a way to settle it,” I said.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Ellie. We can shut it down. Nothing will happen.”

“No. I won’t consider it. And I want you to promise you won’t do anything like that.”

I hesitated.

“I want your word, Jeff. Please.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Not ever. No matter what.”

“Not ever.” She looked fragile. Frightened. “No matter what.”

She looked out across the snowfields. “It must be time to go.”

“I won’t leave you,” I said.

That evening was a night to kill for. The consummation of love, denied over a lifetime, may be as close as you can come to the point of existence. I took her, and took her again, and went limp in her arms, and woke to more passion. Eventually the curtains got gray, and I made promises that she said she didn’t want to hear, but I made them anyway. We had a magnificent breakfast, and made love again in the room with the fireplaces. Eventually, sometime around lunch, we went down and looked again at Bolton’s devil. She took along a checklist, and explained the gauges and circuit breakers and pointed out where the critical wiring was, and where things might go wrong. Where they’d gone wrong in the past. “Just in case,” she said. “Not that I expect you to get involved in this, but it’s best if someone else knows. Edward hated to do this. He rarely came here.”

She showed me where the alarms were throughout our living quarters, and how, if the power supply got low, the system automatically shunted everything into the storage batteries in the lab. “It’s happened a couple of times when we’ve had consecutive weeks without sunlight.”

“It must get cold,” I said. The temperatures here dropped sometimes to forty below for a month at a time.

“We’ve got fireplaces,” she said. “And we’ll have each other.”

It was all I needed to hear.

I stayed on, of course. And I did it with no regrets. I too came to feel the power of the thing in the lab. I accepted the burden voluntarily. And not without a sense of purpose, which, I knew, would ultimately bind us together more firmly than any mere vow could have.

We worried because the systems that maintained the magnetic bottle were ageing. Eventually, we knew, it would fail. But not, we hoped, in our lifetimes.

We took turns riding the buckboard over to Sandywater for supplies. Our rule was that someone was always available at the Tower. In case.

And one day, about three months after my arrival, she did not come back. When a second day had passed without word, I went after her. I tracked her as far as the town, where I found the buckboard. There was no sign of her. Jess Harper, who works for Overland, thought he’d seen her get into a buckboard with a tall bearded man. “They rode west,” he said. “I thought it was odd.”

That was almost a year ago. I still make the rounds in the Tower, and I still believe she’ll come back. In the meantime, I check the gauges and occasionally throw a circuit breaker. The power in the living quarters shut down once, but I got through it okay. We got through it okay.

What I can’t understand is how I could have been so wrong. I know who the bearded man was, and I try to tell myself that they must have been very desperate to get away. And I try to forgive them. Forgive her.

But it’s not easy. Some nights when the moon is up, and the wind howls around the Tower, I wonder what they are doing, and whether she ever thinks about me. And occasionally, I am tempted to break my promise, and turn things off. Find out once and for all.