He pushed past the ocular roses, pushed aside their fleshy stems, because somewhere in that cloistered darkness Isaac must still be alive, alive and in conversation with the forces Dvali had loved and feared ever since they embraced the Earth and stole it out of time: the Hypotheticals.

The roots of the Hypothetical trees had pulled back from the excavation they had made and lay in a motionless tangle at the entrance to the buried room. Dvali hesitated at the brink of that hole, which was just large enough to allow him to pass through, knowing it was unwise to go farther—the weight of the debris must be immense, tons of it balanced on the partially-intact ceiling with nothing to support it but a few joists and groaning timbers—and knowing at the same time that he couldn't stop himself.

The rising wind had begun to keen through the ruins with the urgency of a siren.

He took another step into the shadows and wrinkled his nose at the dismaying smell. Unmistakably, something had died here. His heart sank. "Isaac!" he called out. The dim ambient light showed him nothing until his eyes adjusted to it. Then certain shapes became apparent.

The Martian woman, Sulean Moi: was she dead? No. She looked up at him from the floor of this half-collapsed room with an expression of shock, her own eyes perhaps blinded by the sudden daylight.

What a hell this imprisonment must have been, Dvali thought. She scrabbled on hands and knees toward the opening, and he wanted to help her, but his thoughts remained focused on Isaac. He wished he had a lamp, a flashlight, anything.

The wind howled like a wounded dog. A dust of plaster shook loose from the ceiling. Dvali pressed on into the stink and muck.

The next body he encountered belonged to Diane Dupree. The Fourth woman from the coast was dead, and as soon as he was sure of that he moved past her. The ceiling was low. He stooped as he walked.

But in the deeper darkness he was able at last to see Isaac—thrillingly, Isaac alive, Isaac kneeling over the prostrate form of Anna Rebka.

Isaac inched away as Dvali approached. The boy's eyes were luminous, the golden flecks in his irises prominently aglow. Even his skin seemed faintly alight. He looked inhuman— was inhuman, Dvali reminded himself.

Anna Rebka remained inert. He asked, "Is she dead?"

"No," Isaac said.

* * * * *

"Leave her!" Sulean Moi called from the fading daylight just beyond the entrance to the buried stockroom. "Isaac, leave her, come out, it isn't safe!"

But her throat was dry, and the command emerged as a feeble plea.

* * * * *

Dvali put his fingers on Anna's throat, feeling for a pulse but knowing as soon as he touched her that he wouldn't find one. Isaac was wrong, or was denying an obvious truth. "No, Isaac," he said gently. "She's dead."

"That's just her body," Isaac said.

"What do you mean?"