By that evening, as he lay in bed again beside his wife, as yet more rain pattered gently on the roof and windows, he knew that:

Lehrman, McClennan, and Rotterjack had formed a delegation to inform the President of the destruction of the Furnace bogey. (Lehrman was one of the Possessed.)

The President had listened to the information, delivered largely by Rotterjack, and had said nothing, simply shaking his head and gesturing for them to leave.

He saw:

A Soviet vacationer from Samarkand (Arthur did not know whether male or female) watching a conifer forest burn in the Zerafshan Mountains, sending thick white walls of smoke over the craggy alpine ridges.

Large sections of New York (Queens and the Bronx), Chicago, and New Orleans on fire, with no sign of the blazes being brought under control. Much of Tokyo had been leveled by four major fires in the past week. Half of Beijing had been consumed by fire following an apparently natural earthquake.

Lying awake, not knowing whether Francine was asleep or simply lying still, Arthur received these memories that were not his, and made decisions about his family's immediate future.

Wherever he went, they would go with him; their unity was far more important than any home or security. In approximately a month, they would remove Marty from school and travel together.

He would soon be called to Seattle. From there, he would work his way down the Pacific coast to San Francisco, performing his duties along the way. Apparently, most of his work would consist of gathering records of culture—documents, music, films, whatever was on a list that would be fed to him a section at a time. The decisions as to what should go on this list were being made by others on the network. And who does the choosing?

He had again the nightmare thought:

The Possessed are simply being used. There are no saviors. There are only plunderers, and they use us as slaves to loot the Earth of all they can carry away.

How many were Possessed now?

Ten thousand.

A round number, growing larger each day.

And room on the arks for as few as two thousand.

If he was chosen, he decided, and Marty and Francine were not, he would stay. He would refuse. Won't I? And that was the worst nightmare thought of all. Arthur could not be sure that when the time came, given the opportunity denied to his wife and son, he would not leave them.

I can stay. I will stay.

"Are they talking to you?" Francine rolled over in the dark and faced him. He smiled at her and pulled her close.

"No," he said. "Not right now." "Where are the spiders?"

"In their box." He had taken a wooden box and given the spiders a home on the upper shelf of the office closet. Neither of the spiders had moved for days.

"What kind of people do they need?"

"I have no idea," Arthur answered.