"Hoffman believes that if anyone can tell us, you can."

Patricia nodded and looked away. "Okay. Can I make conditions?"

"What sort of conditions?"

"I want my family evacuated. I want some friends taken into the countryside, put under protection. Put where the generals and politicians will be."

"No." He walked around the tree slowly. "I'm not angry with you for asking, but no. None of us has asked for anything like that. Thought about it, certainly."

"Do you have family?"

"A brother and a sister. My parents are dead."

"Wife? No. You're single. A girl friend, fiancée?"

"No major attachments."

"So you can be more objective than I can," Patricia said angrily.

"You know that has nothing to do with it."

"I'm going to work up here, for you people, and wait until my parents, my boyfriend, my sister, all the people I love die in a disaster I already know about?"

Lanier stopped before her. "Think it through, Patricia."

"I know, I know. There are hundreds of people aboard the Stone. If we all know and ask, things go haywire. That's why the libraries are off limits."

"That's one reason," Lanier said.

"And to keep the Russians from knowing?"

"That too."

"How smart." Her voice was soft, just the opposite of what he had expected. She sounded rational and if not calm, not terribly upset, either. "What happens when I get mail from home?" she asked. "What if I don't write back?"

"It won't matter much, will it? The dates are only a few weeks away."

"How will I feel, getting letters? How will I be able to work?"

"You'll work," Lanier said, "knowing that if we get the answer soon enough, we might be able to do something about it."

She stared hard at the ground with its dry, yellow grass. "They said shuttle landing areas were bombed. In that book."

"Yes."

"If it happens, we'll be stuck up here, won't we?"

"Yes. Most of us. We won't want to go back soon, anyway."

"That's why you've started farming. We won't get anything from Earth for. . . how long?"

"If there's a war, and it's as described, perhaps thirty years."

"I. . . I can't go into the library now. Is that all right, if I stay out here for a while?"

"Sure. Let's return to the first chamber and have dinner. And remember—I've had to live with this information for some time now. There's no reason you can't, as well."

She got to her feet without responding. Her legs and hands were steady. She was in amazingly good shape, considering. "Let's go," she said.

Chapter Eleven

The travelers gathered by the truck two hours into the morning shift, looking like nothing so much as a bunch of backpackers about to set off on a hike. The truck was very full after loading.

Patricia sat between Takahashi and a brawny mohawked marine named Reynolds. Reynolds was armed with an Apple and a compact machine pistol. Carrolson sat beside the driver, American navy lieutenant Jerry Lake, a tall outdoorsy-looking fellow with sand-colored hair. Lake glanced over the back of his seat to see that everything was in order, nodded to Takahashi and smiled at Patricia. "My men have orders to protect Miss Vasquez at all costs. So don't run away without permission."