The Gordons had lived in the cabin for six months, since the end of Arthur's stint as science advisor to the President of the United States. He had used that time to catch up on his reading, consuming a whole month's worth of astronomical and scientific journals in a day, consulting on aerospace projects one or two days a week, flying north to Seattle or south to Sunnyvale or El Segundo once a month.

Francine had gladly returned from the capital social hurricane to her studies of ancient nomadic Steppes peoples, whom she knew and understood far more than he understood the stars. She had worked on this project since her days at Smith, slowly, steadily accumulating her evidence, pointing toward the (he thought, rather obvious) conclusion that the great ecological factory of the steppes of central Asia had spun forth or stimulated virtually every great movement in history. Eventually she would turn it all into a book; indeed, she already had well over two thousand pages of text on disk. In Arthur's eyes, part of his wife's charm was this dichotomy: resourceful mother without, bulldog scholar within.

The phone rang three times before Francine could travel from the patio to answer it. Her voice came through the open bedroom window facing the river. "I'll find him," she told the caller.

He sighed and stood, pushing on the corduroy covering his bony knees.

"Arthur!"

"Yeah?"

"Chris Riley from Cal Tech. Are you available?"

"Sure," he said, less reluctantly. Riley was not a close friend, merely an acquaintance, but over the years they had established a pact, that each would inform the other of interesting developments before most of the scientific community or the general media had heard of them. Arthur climbed the path up the bank in the dark, knowing each root and slippery patch of mud and leaves, whistling softly. Gauge bounded through the ferns.

Marty watched him owlishly from the edge of the lawn, under the wild plum tree, the monkey puppet hanging loose and grotesque on his hand. "Is Gauge with you?"

The dog followed, ears and eyes locked on the monkey, which he wanted passionately.

Becky lay on her back in the middle of the yard, luminous blond hair fanned over the grass, gazing solemnly at the sky. "When can we get the telescope out, Dad?" Marty asked. He grabbed Gauge's collar and bent down to hug him fiercely. The dog yelped and craned his neck to nip air as the monkey's plastic face poked him in the withers. "Becky wants to see."

"A little later. Tell Mom."

"She'll get it?" Marty was passing through a stage of doubting his mother's technical skills. This irritated Arthur.

"She's used it more than I have, buddy."

"All right!" Marty enthused, releasing the dog, dropping the puppet and running for the steps ahead of Arthur. Gauge immediately grabbed the monkey by the throat and shook it, growling. Arthur followed his son, turned left in the hallway past the freezer chest, and picked up his office extension.