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Chapters (43)
  1. PART TWO - THE OCULAR ROSE
  2. PART THREE - INTO THE WEST
  3. PART FOUR - RUB AL-KHALI
  4. PART ONE
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. PART TWO
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. PART THREE
  20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  24. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  27. CHAPTER TWEWTY-TWO
  28. PART FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. PART FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. PART SIX
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

She took a room in a hotel. Genomic Security seemed to have lost interest in her after Dvali's Fourths detonated their bioreactors at Kubelick's Grave, but her name might still be on someone's list. So she rented a room under an assumed name and thought about how she might begin to reassemble her life.

And finally, a week after she had arrived—not by trawler, as she had once imagined, but on a bus with forty or fifty other refugees from the Rub al-Khali—she had gathered up her courage, what remained of it, and called Brian Gately.

When his exclamations of surprise and disbelief subsided she agreed to meet him on neutral turf: Harley's, in the mild afternoon, at a table overlooking the hills where the white city tumbled down to the bay.

She showed up early and spent the hiatus considering what she wanted to say to him, but her mind refused to focus. A waiter brought ice water and bread to the table as if to distract her. The waiter's nametag said mahmud, and she asked Mahmud if Tyrell still worked at the restaurant—she remembered Tyrell from the night of the first ashfall, August 34th, when she had brought Turk here to look at the photograph of Sulean Moi. No: Tyrell had gone back to the States, Mahmud said. Many people had left Port Magellan after the strange things fell from the sky. Everything the same, Lise thought, yes, everything different. And as Mahmud left the table she saw Brian come through the door. He smiled tentatively when he spotted her. She nodded.

He came and sat at the table. Brian Gately, no longer of the Department of Genomic Security. That was one of the first things he had told her when she called. I don't work for them anymore, he said, as if establishing his bona fides, solemnly. I quit. He hadn't said why.

"You caught me just in time," he said. "Next week I'm out of the apartment. All I own right now is four packed bags and a ticket home."

"You're going back to the States?"

"No reason to stay. I'll tell you a secret, Lise. I hate this city. By extension, this entire planet."

Because he was no longer with DGS he couldn't help her. But neither could he hurt her. As a threat, he was more or less neutered. So the question was, would she tell him what had happened in the desert?

Because he was going to ask. She was certain he would ask.

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