I got a grip on myself and tried to explain.

“This…this thing,” I said, pointing, “stole my daughter.”

“I’m still here, Mother.”

I stared at her. “Are you?”

Ellie didn’t answer. Instead she turned and stared at the infernal machine, saying, “The generator will transmit its last signal tonight and then destroy itself.”

“I wish it had done that a year ago.”

“The time wasn’t right then. Now it is. It has begun in the Heavens and it will end in the Earth.”

“When tonight?” Hill said.

“After dark, for certain, but the exact time will be for someone else to decide.” Ellie moved toward the door. “I’ve seen what I came to see. We can go now.”

“Well, thanks for the permission,” Hari muttered.

But she followed Ellie.

Hill moved to my side. “Not much point in staying. I made a circuit of the thing while you stepped out and found no writing or sign of controls or power source. Right now it’s just a big dull inert device.”

I nodded and led him out. We found Hari waiting for us in the passageway.

“I’ve still got a lot of questions about these signals,” she said. “Like where do they come from?”

Hill waved an arm. “Out there.”

“Oh, well, that clears up everything,” she said with a sour expression. “Can we be just a smidgen more specific?”

I could have relayed what Ellie had told me about vast cosmic entities toying with us but I didn’t understand it and wasn’t sure I believed it myself, so how could I explain?

But even if I’d wanted to give it a try, I would have been interrupted by the banging sound that echoed through the passage.

“It’s coming from over there,” Hill said, pointing to one of the mysterious doors embedded in the right sidewall. He started moving that way.

Hari said, “Oh, you can’t seriously be thinking of opening one of those.”

I agreed with her, but Hill paid us no mind.

Placing an ear against one of the doors, he said, “There’s someone in there. He’s pleading to get out.” He starting flipping through his key ring.

“Think about this!” Hari cried. “It might not even be human—just pretending!”

Which struck me as another odd thing to say. But only for a heartbeat. After what I’d seen in the past few days, it made perfect sense.

But what had she seen?

“I’m not leaving someone locked up down here,” Hill said. He nodded toward the symbol on the door. “One of these keys has to match that.”

He apparently found the key he sought, for he stuck it in the lock and turned. The door slammed open and a bedraggled man staggered out, holding a sheaf of papers clutched against his chest.

“People!” he cried. “Oh, thank god, people! I thought I’d never see another human being again!”

HARI

1

He said his name was Winslow—P. Frank Winslow—and he was a novelist. Hari had never heard of him, but she imagined a million writers were out there she’d never heard of.