In any case, our scholars had estimated that at their current rate of progress the Hypothetical machines wouldn’t reach Vox for months or even years. In fact certain pious elderly citizens were petitioning to be flown to the machines so they could be Uptaken before they died.

They needn’t have worried. Only hours after the Festival of Ido, our unmanned aircraft delivered unsettling news from the Wilkes Basin. The Hypothetical machines had begun to move more quickly than before. In fact they were accelerating—doubling their speed every few hours. That didn’t amount to much at the moment, but if the acceleration continued they would arrive sooner than expected. Much sooner, the scholars said: a matter of weeks. Possibly days.

Vox rang like a bell with the news.

Chapter Twenty. Turk’s Story

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SANDRA AND BOSE

“We’re not safe yet,” Bose said when they pulled into a parking space outside Ariel Mather’s motel room.

Sandra had no trouble believing him. She had seen how vigilantly he watched his mirrors as he drove away from State. The plan, he said, was to check Ariel Mather out of her room and put her and Orrin in a different motel for the night. In the morning, Bose’s “friends” would drive them to a safe place out of town.

Sandra stayed in the car with Orrin while Bose knocked at the door of Ariel’s room. Moments later he was back, followed by Ariel with her single scuffed plastic suitcase. Ariel wore denim jeans frayed at the cuffs and a black T-shirt with UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA printed on it. Sandra doubted Ariel had been any closer to the University of North Carolina than the thrift shop where she bought her clothes.

“There are people out there who might still think of Orrin as a threat,” Bose explained to her as she crouched into the backseat. “So we’re taking you to another motel, just overnight. Tomorrow you can get out of Houston and away from all this. That all right with you, Ms. Mather?”

“Yeah,” Ariel said abstractedly. “I don’t have any better idea. What’s the matter with Orrin? Orrin, you all right? Wake up!”

“He was sedated,” Sandra said. “He’ll be fine in a few hours. In the meantime it might be better just to let him sleep it off, if that’s what he wants to do.”

“They drugged him?”

“Just a sleeping pill.”

“Huh! Honestly, I don’t know how you can stand to work in a place that drugs up innocent people for no reason.”

“I guess I can’t stand it,” Sandra said. “I don’t work there anymore.”

*   *   *