“I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE SKY. NOW LOOK AT IT! SEE THE HANDIWORK OF THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY! THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR FEAR. IT’S A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH! TO YOUR KNEES AND PRAY. GIVE THANKS. GOD IS SPEAKING TO US IN A VOICE OF FIRE, BUT IT’S A LOVING VOICE. IT’S THE VOICE OF LIFE ETERNAL. WITNESS THE BEAUTY OF IT, THE KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, OF GOD THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, FOR EVER AND EVER…”
The newspapers next morning said that Willie spoke for three straight hours, never faltering once nor leaving that lone circle of light. His voice alone averted a panic that might have crushed thousands in a terrified stampede for the stadium exits.
Jo said good night to Markov at the hotel’s entrance, and even stepped into the foyer, where the sleepy guard sat with his chin on his chest.
With an unhappy shake of her head, she pushed the door open again and stepped back outside. Markov was already well down the street; no sense calling to him. Jo walked across the street, slipped between cement block buildings and headed for the beach.
She wasn’t surprised when she saw Stoner there, walking stolidly alone down the silvery-white sand. He looked up as she approached, and he didn’t seem surprised either.
“Hello, Keith.”
He almost smiled at her. “Well, you said we were two of a kind. Here we are.”
She fell into step alongside him and they walked on the warm sand, beneath the tall, stately palms that rustled softly in the breeze. Jo stopped for a moment to take off her shoes. Stoner sniffed at the warm sea breeze, heavy with the scent of flowers. The surf murmured off in the darkness, endlessly.
Walking alongside him again, Jo asked, “What’s your real reason for backing away from our little scheme?”
“I told you,” he answered in the darkness. “I won’t be party to falsifying data. It sounded good when I was drunk, but now I’m sober.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Yes.”
“The only reason?”
He stopped and turned toward her. “What do you want me to say: that I don’t want to do it because I don’t want you cuddling up to Thompson?”
“Yes, Keith, that’s exactly what I want you to say.”
“It would make a difference to you?”
“I love you, Keith.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Then, “Does McDermott know?”
“Of course he knows. Why do you think he made me go with him? To take me away from you. Makes him feel macho.”
“And why did you go with him?”
“To make sure that you’d be allowed to come here with us, and not be sent to prison.”
“They wouldn’t send me to prison,” he said. But his voice was lower, softer.
“McDermott said they would.”
“And that’s why you’ve been sleeping with him.”
“Yes. And to get what I want out of him, too,” she answered.
His shoulders slumped. “Jesus Christ, Jo. You’re right, we are two of a kind.”
“I’ve known it all along. And now all you really want is to go flying off into space again, isn’t it?”
He shrugged and resumed walking along the beach.
“Everything you’ve done,” Jo said, “all the mountains you’ve moved…it’s really only for the chance to fly out and meet this alien spacecraft.”
“So I’m a single-minded fanatic,” he muttered.
“You’re a human being, Keith. You scare me sometimes, but you’re human. If only you’d act like one more often…”
“I scare you?”
“This single-mindedness of yours. This drive to fly away from everything, away from everyone…”
He put his arms around her. “I don’t want to fly away from you, Jo. I really don’t.”
She let him pull her close and leaned against his strong, sure body and felt all the anger, all the doubts, all the fears wash away like dead fallen leaves swept off in a cleansing torrent.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her, lightly, and she clung to him, eyes closed.
Their lips parted. “You’re so beautiful, Jo. So impossibly beautiful…”
But as she opened her eyes and looked up at him she saw the sky. “Keith…what is it?”
He turned his gaze upward and she felt him tense for an instant. He let go of her and spun around, head flung back, staring, mouth agape, arms spread outward to balance him as he turned again and again and again, gazing raptly at the bright flickering sky.
“What is it, Keith?” Jo repeated, staring herself at the glowing curtains of light that streamed across the heavens from horizon to horizon.
He laughed. “What is it? Take a look! It’s our revolution! It’s the biggest cosmic joke of them all! Look at it! Just look at it!”
The whole sky was alight with blazing veils of color, shimmering reds and greens and palest yellows, curtains of light that shifted magically across the heavens, dimming the stars, scattering their reflections in the calm waters of the lagoon.
Jo felt the breath suck out of her. It was awesome, frightening, overpoweringly beautiful.
“The Northern Lights!” Stoner was laughing, spinning around like a little boy on the sand, drinking in the wonder of it. “Or maybe the Southern Lights. Who cares? If they’re shining here, this close to the equator, they must be shining everywhere. All over the planet! Got to be. Look at them! Aren’t they magnificent?”
She ran to him. “The Northern Lights? But why…?”
Sliding an arm around her, “It’s our visitor, Jo. Don’t you see? He rattled the magnetosphere of Jupiter and now he’s doing the same thing to Earth’s magnetic field. It’s his answer, his signal to us! Magnificent!”
The planet turns. The line dividing night from day races across seas and continents. And as darkness touched the abodes of humanity:
Along the broad avenues and narrow alleyways of Peking, millions of startled citizens stare up at the sky, watching the fire dragons dance across the heavens. With single mind, they rush toward the Forbidden City, thronging in the ancient square, seeking an answer, an explanation, word from their leaders that will expel the dragons and ease the fears that clutch their hearts.
In Tehran the muezzins climb hurriedly to their minaret balconies to proclaim the glory of Allah, the All-Wise, the All-Compassionate. Men fall to their faces in prayer, casting fearful glances up at the fire-lit sky. Women huddle together and weep. The end of the world is very near, they know.
In Warsaw and Cape Town, in Dublin and Dakar, in Buenos Aires and Nova Scotia, the sky blazes and the people gape and cry out and pray to their gods or their scientists for some saving word, some hope, something to take away the fear that turns blood to ice.
And the lights in the sky dance, everywhere, all across the nighttime of Earth.
Book Three
Chapter 31
O Lord, I love the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth…
Since his arrival on Kwajalein, Stoner had worked at a desk in an open office area on the top floor of one of the oldest buildings on the island.
Seventeen men and women whose jobs were deemed not important enough to rate private offices shared this area, which they affectionately called the Swamp. Their desks were jammed together like an old-fashioned newspaper city room. It was almost as noisy as a newspaper office, too. No matter how carefully one tried to avoid irking one’s neighbors, phones rang, computer terminals clacked, voices echoed off the low corrugated ceiling and the bare cement block walls. And when the sun pounded on the low metal roof, not all the air conditioning on the island could make the Swamp bearable.