"Then tell me how I can help." Brian couldn't help adding, "If you'd been straight with me about this before I talked to her—"

"Would you have done anything differently? We can't just hand out this kind of information. And neither can you, Brian. Just so you know. We're taking you into our confidence here. None of this is to be discussed except between you, me, and Sigmund."

"Of course not, but—"

"What we'd like you to do is keep trying to get in touch with her. She may be aware of your calls even if she isn't answering them. She might eventually feel guilty or lonely and decide to talk to you."

"And if she does?"

"All we want right now is a clue to her location. If you can talk her into meeting you, with or without Turk, that would be even better."

Much as he disliked the idea of handing her over to the Executive Action Committee, surely that was better than letting her get more deeply involved in some criminal enterprise. "I'll do what I can," Brian said.

"Great." Weil grinned. "We appreciate that."

The two men shook Brian's hand and left him alone in his office. He sat there a long time, thinking.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The up-coast roads hadn't been entirely cleared of the ashfall (or the muck it made when it mixed with rain), so Turk had to pull over at a truckstop and rent a room while the route was plowed at some critical switchback by the overworked road crews of the Provisional Government.

The motel was a cinderblock barracks cut into the boundary of the forest, dwarfed by spire willows that leaned across the building like sorrowing giants. It was designed to cater to truckers and loggers, Lise gathered, not tourists. She ran her finger along the sill of their room's small window and showed Turk the line of dust.

"Probably from last week," he said. "They don't spend a lot of money on housekeeping out this way."

Dust of the gods, then. The debris of ancient Hypothetical constructions. That's what they were saying about it now. The video news was full of poorly-interpreted facts about the ashfall: fragments of things that might once have been machines, fragments of things that might once have been living organisms, molecular arrangements of unprecedented complexity.

Lise could hear voices from the room next door arguing in what sounded like Filipino. She took out her phone, wanting another fix of the local broadcast news. Turk watched her closely and said,

"Remember—"

"No calls in or out. I know."

"We should reach the village by this time tomorrow," Turk said, "as long as the road's cleared overnight.

Then we might actually learn something."

"You have a lot of faith in this woman—Diane, you said her name was?"