The Way was coming apart. The flaw station had moved out of sight, retreating in the face of the Engineer’s accelerating destruction. Ry Oyu gave up his human form then, hovering as a twist of light and pattern over the double gate, searching across a different Earth, an Earth without the Death, reaching through the geometry stack some decades back in time, finding a specific moment.

Even in his immaterial form, the stresses on the Way began to dissolve him. He shifted character again, hid himself within the geometry of the gate, found the gate itself dissolving, struggled to keep integral long enough to complete this last but not least important of his duties—

Patricia Luisa Vasquez stepped from the car of her fiancé, Paul, clutching a bag of groceries. The air was chill with California’s mild brand of winter, and the last light of day spread gray and yellow fingers along the scattered clouds high overhead. She started up the flagstone path to her parents’ house—

And dropped the bag onto the lawn, arms thrown wide, neck jerked back, eyes seeming to vibrate in their sockets.

“Patricia!” Paul shouted from the car.

She rolled onto the ground, then straightened again, bucking against the grass, grunting and whining incoherently.

Then she lay back limp, spent.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Paul said, bending over her, hand on her forehead, other hand waving, not knowing what to do.

“Don’t let Mother hear you say that,” Patricia whispered, her throat raw.

“I didn’t know you were epileptic.”

“I’m not. Help me up.” She tried to gather up the spilled groceries. “Oh, what a mess…”

“What happened?”

She smiled fiercely, sweetly, triumphantly, and then the smile faded and was replaced by puzzlement. “Don’t ask,” she said. “I’ll tell you no lies.”

If I know where I am, she thought, I know who I am. Nothing was very clear; she had only vague, scattered recollections of a group of people trying valiantly to help her, and succeeding. But she was home, on the walkway just outside the little bungalow in Long Beach, and that meant she was Patricia Luisa Vasquez, and the worried young man kneeling on the grass beside her was Paul, whom she had mourned for some reason, just as she had mourned…

Looking around at the streets, the houses, unburnt, solid, skies clear of smoke and flame. No Apocalypse.

“Mother will be so pleased,” she said in a hoarse croak. “I think I’ve just had an epiphany.” She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him so hard he grimaced.

Around his head, she peered up with sharp, cat-like eyes at the stars just beginning to shine overhead.

No Stone in the heavens, she told herself. Whatever that means.

82

In the Flaw

With grave misgivings still, Korzenowski submitted to being “stored.”