Tomas' father waited for him as he limped down the road following the pilgrims.

"Is it a miracle, son?" He held his straw hat in one hand as he mopped his forehead with a large, white handkerchief.

Tomas shook his head. "I don't know." He didn't think he should tell his father about the shining woman. His father, he knew, was controlling himself by a thread. If he knew, he'd call the woman a witch and an evoker of demons.

Tomas' father marched silently beside him for a short time, his walk stiff and his face locked in a grimace. After about a quarter mile, his dad dropped back abruptly to talk to people behind them. Tomas was relieved. He dreaded his father's disappointment when the woman would be gone, and the noise blasted him into helplessness again.

The townspeople stared at him. Tomas had never before taken so much of a part in any community activity. He'd stayed safe within the murmurs of his mind. But they all knew of him. When he was three, a fire burned the rectory, and his mother died trying to save him. They all thought he'd died, too, until they found his severely burned body lying on the grass. They assumed his mother had thrown him from a second-floor window but didn't know she hadn't followed him out. They'd found her body outside the door to his room.

They felt there was something strange about him, and now they stared as he walked so steadily among them. He'd grown up scarred and twisted and listening to the voices that invaded his mind and ruined his speech and motor control. He stuttered and sometimes stopped talking in the middle of a sentence so he could listen to his voices. Sometimes, his limbs jerked as he listened, and he stumbled and fell. But they didn't know that what he heard had taught him the shape of a bird's song, the scents a dog's nose smelled, and the cold tunnels of an earthworm. As he grew older and went out to play with other children, he tried to tell them about it, but they looked at him as if he were crazy. He soon learned to be quiet.

His attention snapped back to the present as the shining woman and the girl reached the ramp that curved up to the bridge. Most of the townspeople stopped as they were crowded off the narrow shoulder, so Tomas trailed down towards the borrow pit as it sloped into the river bottom. He pushed through brush as the ridge hid him from the others.

Where the bridge began, the shining woman and the girl stepped onto the side of the road to let the other pilgrims pass. Tomas stopped below them, and the girl turned and flashed a smile at him. It was like a beam of light breaking through clouds. It held more promise than just a come-on.

His emotions blazed, causing the sphere the tall woman had built around his mind to collapse. The wind roared back, and he fell, twitching, into the brush. He knew the pilgrims were hurrying by, and the woman and girl had followed them onto the bridge. He felt the loss of them but couldn't react. He knew, too, when his father had bent over him, flushed with anger, and then sent a rifleman after the pilgrims.

Tomas couldn't move or even lift a hand to stop the others from lifting him back to his feet. He stood and watched the shining woman walk a bit farther before turning back.

When the tall woman made her witch-like gestures, shining with silver light, he felt waves of love pulse through him, bringing the voices back into a rhythm, even though it didn't completely clear his mind. He cried when she turned back and disappeared over the top of the hill. His father slapped him for that.

His father's mouth twitched with anger and fear. "You shall not win, demon!" he swore. "I shall drive you from his body." He prayed over Tomas, his voice rising to a shriek as he shouted disappointment with God. After a time, he stopped and stared at the boy. Nothing had changed. He pulled the boy roughly down the road. The townspeople looked away as the minister dragged his son through the streets and into their tiny house. As they passed inside, Tomas' father reached to one side without letting Tomas go and took down a heavy leather strap hanging just inside the door. He dropped the boy on the floor and stood raging over him, waving the strap threateningly. Tomas watched, unable to change, unable to feel anything, unable to move. His father held the strap over his head, stretched tightly between his hands - and prayed.

"Oh, Lord, please find it in your will to release my boy from the chains of the Devil. Return my son to me even as your own son was returned from the dead."

He turned his gaze to the boy. When Tomas' eyes were vacant, he brought the strap across the boy's chest. Tomas cringed at the pain yet did not really feel it.

"Leave him, Devil!" The minister raised the strap and brought it hard across Tomas' back. "Release him, God!" he chanted. Help me!" He brought the strap down again and again.

Tomas did not feel it. His body reacted against a pain he could not feel, and it went outside onto the grass. Tomas didn't know how - but the strap was coming down one second, and he was standing in the grass the next. As Tomas stood in wonderment, his father lurched wildly through the door, face aghast, waving the strap and yelling incoherent words.

Tomas' body took charge again, reeling down the road, staggering from side to side, yet with surprising speed. His father ran after him, but Tomas' body kept him just out of his father's grasp until Tomas suddenly found himself at the crest of the hill where he had last seen the woman.

His father stood in the road, staring blankly at the empty space where Tomas had just been. He slowly raised his head until he spotted the boy, a tiny figure standing against the brassy blue sky. He fell to his knees.

Tomas remained aware only a few moments more, then felt his body turn to follow the pilgrims. The voices of the ship swelled within his mind.

When the voices dimmed enough, he remembered little of the journey. From the number of cuts and bruises he found later, his body had - apparently - let nothing get in its way or slow it down. Pellet wounds in his backside indicated that at least one person had tried to stop him. He thought he remembered a farm where he had tried to steal food.

He'd come awake at the top of a low ridge. Below him, campfires flickered against a moonless night. Amid the fires, a muted silver light moved from fire to fire. "It's her," he thought, "the woman who shines." He waited on the ridge until the fires dwindled, never taking his eyes from the silvery glow. Then he ran, pushing through brush and stumbling over the rough ground toward her.

***

The pulsing of the ship's light against the car produced a monotonous rhythm that replaced the usual thrum of the tires for the last day and a half. Mike was glad the interstate had stayed clear. It had been since they started, even though there was a smattering of others on the roads. They'd spent the night in an empty farmhouse where the borrowed toothbrushes from owners long disappeared. Many had fled their homes in favor of the local towns where the food was still coming in. Others abandoning town for more isolation.

Two weeks after the President's broadcast, Mike knew that the world's knowledge wasn't up to solving the riddle of faster-than-light travel. Behind the question of the drive hid another: Why had the ship come to Earth in the first place? The commander's explanation didn't sound plausible.

When he'd told Judith he wanted to enlist with the starship, she'd looked frightened and then put a hand on his arm. "Then, I'll go with you." She'd been expecting it, she told him. She'd already been packing.

A curve rushed at them, and Mike rode the Esprit high onto the shoulder before getting it back into the lane with a screech of tires. He blinked and then grinned sheepishly at Judith, who was gritting her teeth quietly. "If we see an open restaurant, how about a snack before I put us in a ditch ?"

"I'd like that," she smiled, relieved. "If you like, I can take it for a while afterward."

Mike smiled at that and then wrinkled his brow as the steering wheel shuddered. The car's electrical system fluttered in and out under the pulsing light, causing the spark plugs to misfire. The charge in the air seemed to be getting stronger, and he wondered if the shielding he'd installed would be enough to keep the car going.

He realized he'd not answered her question and smiled again. Until he'd met her, no one drove this car but him - and each time he let her have the wheel, he felt a pang. But she was a part of him now, and he trusted her. And they would only get where they were going if they shared the driving.

"This static is worse than fog. It not only blinds you to what's ahead, but it hypnotizes you at the same time. I can't believe the way it makes the car buck." A road sign floated out of the haze. Valiant, 1 mile. A small town appeared in the distance on the right - an island of trees.

"There's probably a restaurant there," he said. "These small towns have at least a diner for the farmers."

Some of these towns continued along as if nothing had changed. Others were abandoned entirely. In others, the population just hid behind closed shutters, refusing to expose themselves to the light, while the town ran on a skeleton crew of the bravest (or stupidest, depending on who you asked.) Most places still had something operating, however. So far, they'd found restaurants and gas stations before they starved or stalled, but Mike wondered how long their luck would last - especially as they got closer to the source of the chaos. He didn't want to use the sparse supplies in the back until they absolutely had to. Pulling off the road, he scanned the buildings for an open gas station.

"There," Judith pointed. A white Shell station stood with open service bay doors. As Mike pulled into the pumps, he saw someone moving inside a dumpy concrete building marked "cafe."

"We're in luck."

A surly-looking youth scarred by acne slouched out from the station and blinked at them.

"Fill it up?" Mikes asked.

The kid rocked back on his heels and stared. "What'chu got to trade?" It had come to this already. Mike had been expecting it.

"I got a two-pound can of coffee for 5 or 6 gallons."

The boy squinted and shook his head.

"Got a can of powdered cream to go with it."

The attendant shook his head again.

"Okay," Mike nodded. "We'll try someplace else. The coffee ought'ta buy a lot."

The youth rocked forward. "Yeah, maybe so," he mumbled after a moment. "Okay, fill it up. No more'n six gallons." He let Mike run the pump, watching the gauge closely. Mike put six gallons on the meter, even though it overfilled the tank. He hung the nozzle back up and pulled the coffee out of the back. The boy took it and held out his other hand. "Powdered cream. "

Mike stared at him momentarily, then smiled and got the cream out of the car. The kid went wordlessly back into the station. "Quite the little horse trader. He'll do alright," he thought to himself.

Mike slid behind the wheel and grinned at Judith. "Knew that stuff would come in handy." He pulled away from the pump and parked in front of the cafe, where they could keep an eye on the car through the window. They hopped out, locked the doors, and went inside.

It wasn't fancy: a counter covered in ancient gold-flecked Formica bent at several awkward angles to fit more red-vinyl-covered stools around it. A few booths lined the wall by the windows. A couple of men were at the counter's far end—the only customers in the place. Both looked up suspiciously as Mike and Judith entered but quickly returned to their quiet conversation. A waitress got up from her seat at the end of the counter and followed them to the first booth.

"What'll it be?"

They'd already learned that looking at menus was a waste of time. Most were outdated because of inconsistent supplies.

"What have you got?" he asked.

She smiled nervously. "Some eggs, maybe some bacon, homemade bread, potatoes. Water to drink." She glanced at the two men at the counter and lowered her voice. "Might could rustle up steaks if the cook's in a good mood. But, it'd cost you."

Mike smiled. "Bacon and eggs sound good with hash browns and toast. Got coffee in the car--two pounds to trade. Make the eggs sunnyside and runny."

"Gotcha." She hadn't been as tough as the boy running the pumps. Maybe coffee had more value when you were in the restaurant business. She nodded and went behind the counter to hand their order to the man in a white apron peering in from the kitchen.

Mike and Judith sat in silence, conscious of the men at the counter still eyeballing them. The food came quickly.

"Anything else?" she asked, "Not that we got much else."

Mike glanced at Judith, then shook his head.

"That's a fancy car, you got," the woman said, waving toward the Esprit. "Don't think I've ever seen one before."

Mike smiled slightly. "They're not common."

"Sure aren't. Where y'all from? We haven't saw many travelers lately."

"Back there," Mike waved east.

"We're going to the spaceship," Judith said.

The woman sucked her teeth. "I wouldn't say that aloud around here much," the waitress rolled her eyes toward the men at the counter and lowered her voice again. "You got more courage than me. I'd like'ta see California, though. The way people'd talk, I figgered the streets'r paved in hundred dollar bills. I'll believe that when I see it." They laughed, and she headed back to the counter so they could eat.

Mike grinned at Judith, his mouth full. He'd sure fallen into some luck. His mind slipped into the memory of this morning. After they'd rolled apart, she'd looked up at him with long lashes darkening her eyes. "So what now? That didn't feel much like a one-night stand to me."

He'd grinned. He'd been thinking the same thing. He honestly wanted little more than to stay right there in bed with her, but he also had an uncontrollable curiosity about the spaceship.

He shrugged. "I guess I'll go back to the lab and look at the data about the spaceship." He paused dramatically, "...although I was thinking about maybe checking out the source."

Fear momentarily darkened her eyes as she held her breath. With a sudden exhale, she exclaimed, "I'm coming with you."

He laughed. "I don't think I could go without you." He ran his hand lightly up the smooth skin of her hip to her breasts.

The squeak of a stool at the counter interrupted his thoughts. The shorter man had turned to stare openly at Mike and Judith. He ignored him but ate faster.

The man kept staring, his forefinger drumming the Formica. Mike was considering just suggesting they leave now when the man stood and came around to their table.

"Did I hear you goin' to help the Devils steal the Soul of Earth?" He capitalized the words.

"What?" Mike glanced up at him.

The man raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the waitress. "I'm sure I heard you tell her you were goin' to join the Devil Ship."

Mike laid his fork carefully across his plate and leaned back.

"We're going to join the ship. I don't think the Devil has anything to do with it." He glanced at Judith, whose skin had tightened across her cheekbones. "I'm a scientist. I specialize in the study of light waves. Since we aren't getting answers about the light coming off that spacecraft or why it emits it at all, I thought I'd go to the source."

The man stared at him with greasy eyes. "It causes people to act in strange...fornicatin'...ways with strangers and other such works of the Devil!" His voice rose. "It's an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Those who join it will burn forever in Hell!" The man leaned in and looked at Mike through narrowed eyes. "You already doomed to perdition for tinkerin' with the mighty works of the Lord, scientist," he murmured. "The Beast wears the name of Science."

Mike turned to Judith. "You finished?"

She nodded pensively.

"Are you saved?" The man kept looking at them.

Mike shrugged. "Sure."

"If you ain't sure, you ain't!" The man glared from him to Judith and back. "When you take our Lord as your personal savior, you know it! In here!" he leaned in aggressively as he thumped his chest. "When you put your life in His hands, you feel that righteousness wash away all your sins!" He yelled.

The other man, taller and broader through the chest, moved up beside the first - working the heavy muscles under his short-sleeved shirt. He didn't say anything; just stood there threateningly. Mike figured the men had played this game before.

"The Scriptures tell us that the Devil's works must be destroyed along with all those who do his works," the short man thundered. "False gods entice the righteous with promises of the knowledge denied by God in the Garden." His voice rose into preaching mode as he pointed to the floor. "Get down on your knees and pray for His forgiveness! Pray that He will keep you from that Devil on the horizon!"

Mike started to grin. The small man leaned forward, but Mike rose up into it, so they stood nose to nose. "Yeah, I don't think so. Thanks, though," Mike said as he looked him in the eyes. With as much pleasantness as he could muster, Mike smiled politely and said, "Fuck off."

The big man grabbed Mike's collar from behind, kicked the back of his knee, and pushed Mike down into a kneeling position. With one hand still on Mike's collar, he pointed at Judith. "You too! On your knees!"

Judith started sliding out of the booth slowly, her hands in her lap as if willing to comply when she arced her arm over her head and chucked the glass ketchup bottle at the big man's head. With unexpected agility, the big man let go of Mike, ducked, and grabbed her arm. The bottle smashed into the counter, splattering the red sauce over the floor.

Mike pushed to his feet, catching the big man's stomach with his shoulder and a fist. The man's breath burst out, and he bent. Mike threw an uppercut toward the big man's jaw when a shot rang out, rattling his ears.

Suddenly distracted, his punch barely grazed the big man's ear as Mike's head snapped toward the direction of the blast. Everyone froze, ready to duck.

The cook stood behind the cash register, pointing a large bore shotgun at them. The waitress hid behind him, a hand over her mouth.

"Okie-dokie," he said, "eyes on me, kids." Mike didn't move as the others slowly turned. "No bullshit now. Strict 'no brawling' rule in my place!" He motioned with the shotgun at Mike and Judith. "You two get away from them."

Mike and Judith moved slowly towards the bar to the left. He wondered if the cook was just moving them away from the two men so he could get a cleaner kill shot. He wasn't sure what he could do about it if he was.

"Far enough." The man was moving the shotgun in short arcs, covering them equally.

"Anyone hurt?" he looked sharply at Mike and Judith. They shook their heads. The man turned to the other two. "You two git back to your spots at the counter."

The short man spoke carefully. "Len, we don't want no trouble. We were just teach'in these fine folk what it means to worship the Devil."

Len shook his head. "I don't know about no Devil. But there ain't gonna be no brawlin' in my place, Mason. No teachin' neither! Sit!" He thrust the shotgun toward the counter. The two men slunk across the restaurant and creaked into their stools. Len looked back at Mike and Judith. "You, two, git. Don't need any troublemakers. That ship's made enough grief for me already."

Mike glanced at the cash register. Len shook his head. "Forget it and get out!" He gestured toward the door.

Grabbing Judith's hand, Mike walked quietly but briskly toward the door. With his hand on the handle, Mike glanced back. The small man Len called Mason stared at him through dead eyes. Mike shuddered and led Judith out, followed by Len holding the shotgun at waist height and the waitress following close behind him.

Mike and Judith walked to the car.

"Quite a ride," Len said as he continued to follow. His voice had softened. "Sorry about all that in there," he said as he let the shotgun barrel drop to point at the ground. "The little man's Ed Mason...a preacher. When the trouble started, he grabbed hisself one of them little country radio stations. He and his dogs just pushed the owner right out. Now Mason's on the radio every night tellin' how the spaceship is the big, bad wolf."

He twisted his jaw up like he was about to spit and nodded towards the south, "Some people say he's collectin' an army up in them hills. Some even say he's got men hiding around where the ship lands."

Mike nodded. "Yeah, I heard him last night." Mike and Judith got in and started the car. "I guess he's no friend of yours anymore," Mike said as the engine rumbled and stuttered, finally catching on the third try.

"No nevermind," Len said. "I don't know if that ship is Heaven or Hell, or both or neither...but if I didn't have a coupl'a kids without a ma, I'd go join. But it's about time to leave, anyways. Too much trouble around here." He gestured a thumb back at the waitress, "I'm closin' up, takin' Julie here and my kids, and headin' for the hills." he said. "Maybe it's runnin' away, but I want them safe." He glanced up at the ship. "Wish I was goin' with you, though." He tapped the shotgun barrel against the door. "Now, git!"

Mike nodded. "Good luck, Len."

He backed the car out and shot toward the interstate, spraying gravel.

"I thought we were done," Judith said after a moment, her voice quivering. She was pale, and Mike realized he'd been careless - callous - in his entire handling of the situation.

Mike grabbed her hand, "I'm sorry. Let's get some miles between us and that preacher before we stop again." She squeezed his hand in what he hoped was an acceptance of his apology as he stepped on the accelerator. The car shuddered, but the speedometer needle climbed.

***

A sting in his hip woke Mayo. He opened his eyes to see a snake's head drawing away from his hip. He squealed and scrambled to a coil against the head of the bunk. The snake faded and was replaced by a hand holding a hypodermic, but he continued to cower, not trusting what he saw. His eyes traced the hand up to a shoulder, to a head when he yelped again. A dog grinned at him; a mean hound with thin lips curled over sharp fangs. It barked, and Mayo clamped his eyes shut, saliva drooling down his chin. He waited, and when nothing happened, he warily reopened his eyes. A woman with the head of a snake stood at the foot of his bed, hissing. He screwed his eyes closed again and curled into a tight ball. Something cool, scaly, and dry touched him. He jerked away and fell off the bed onto his shoulder, hitting the side of his head.

The shock calmed him, and he lay with his eyes closed, hyperventilating until something soft and warm touched his arm. Guardedly, he opened his eyes. The dog and snake faces melted into those of a concerned man and woman. He could still glimpse the animals behind the human features.

Mayo drew a deep, shuddering breath as the man lifted his head from the floor. "Are you all right?"

Mayo nodded. "I think so." He sat up, back leaning against the bed, and tried to put his feet under him as they scrabbled against smooth, worn floorboards. The man smiled, gripped Mayo's hand, and pulled him up. Mayo kicked away the sheet tangled about his feet and became aware he was naked. He looked up with embarrassment at the woman as he bent for the sheet. Dizziness swept him, and he started to fall. The two of them grasped his arms and lifted him onto the bed together. He was blushing!

The woman gave him a motherly smile, picked up the sheet, and covered him. Mayo looked around, shielding the glaring lights with his hand, and pushed up onto his elbow. He was in an Army barracks looking directly into one of the bare bulbs. He turned away from the blur and looked around. Three beds away, a man in clean underwear sat carefully smoking a cigarette, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were fragile, drawing each lungful in slowly. Farther away, a woman in a slip was blissfully dragging a comb through the same strands of hair over and over, shivering each time. On other beds, other bodies lay in mounds under white sheets, the slow rise and fall of breath the only sign they lived.

Mayo's body felt different. He looked down at himself, lifting the sheet so he could see full length. He then looked carefully at his hands. They had been wrinkled, spotty, and gray, but now the skin was smooth and clear. The skin looked alive again for the first time in years. He felt clean.

The awareness surfaced abruptly. "I can think!" He considered his mind. There was no brain fog. He could find the words he wanted on the first try. He understood the meaning of the word "collated" without having to puzzle it out. Most of all, he remembered where he was.

He turned his head to look in wonder at the man and woman bending over the next bed.

"Are you a doctor?" His voice came clearly, though still rusty-sounding. What did you give me?"

The doctor came to his side. "Two shots of nanites the aliens gave us. The first acts on the body," he said, "the second on the brain."

"What's a nanite?"

The doctor continued, "Whatever your addictions were, they're gone now and won't come back." He paused. "We gave you the first shot when we found you outside. You've been asleep for a while. You've been bathed, and you'll find some clean clothes in the locker there behind your head. What little you had with you are in there, too. "

Mayo puzzled on the word for a second. "Aliens?"

The doctor smiled. "I forgot. You were on your way here when the President made his announcement. So was I." The doctor told Mayo what he knew. Mayo blinked and recalled the huge white shape he'd seen from the train. He looked around the barracks, "All of us?"

The doctor nodded grimly. "All of us. There's a dozen more barracks like this one."

Mayo nodded a question toward the man smoking and the woman combing. The doctor smiled. "They're on the same path as you. Mr. Busche hasn't smoked a regular cigarette in five years. Pretty soon, he'll lose the taste for that, too. She hadn't combed her own hair in three years." He smiled again at Mayo. "I don't know how long it's been for you…."

Mayo blinked and mumbled, "Four years, maybe five . . .er six. . ."

"Well, you'll feel much better now." the doctor said. "You had a pretty rough time drying out, but quicker than some." He glanced at the still-sleeping bodies. "You'll sleep normally now, too. Food will taste better...in fact, I suspect you'll be starving soon. The mess hall's out the front door to the left, about two barracks over. Open 24 hours, with the best all-you-care-to-eat buffet. Aliens' orders." He paused. "Other things are going to start working again, too. We're co-ed here, so maybe use some discretion," he proffered in his best medical professional tone.

Mayo watched the physician's assistant as she bent over another bed, her dress tightening around her curves. His penis stirred, surprising him. He hadn't felt desire for much of anything but booze for as long as he could remember. He looked at the ceiling, thinking of Ruth and the kids. Ruth next to him on the couch, Donnie trying her bike without training wheels for the first time, Bill casting into the lake like a pro. He cried until he fell asleep.

He woke feeling someone watching him. He turned his head to see the person in the next bed staring back at him. He stared back. The last time he'd been awake, there'd been nothing but a form under a blanket. He remembered that she'd offered her body for a fix. She must have remembered, too, as she abruptly looked away. His stomach growled. He threw back the sheet and sat on the edge of the bed, forgetting he was naked. Embarrassed, he grabbed a corner of the sheet and wrapped it around his hips. She was watching him again. He crossed his legs defensively, and she looked away. He took the opportunity to dart to the locker behind the bed. It wasn't locked, and he quickly jerked on a pair of shorts he found there. A white T-shirt and some jeans followed. They fit. More casually, he found some socks and shoes and sat back on the edge of the bed to put them on. He was looking at the woman again, and she stared back.

He knitted his eyebrows at her, and her mouth twitched as if she was trying to smile. He chuckled jerkily, "After all these years without shame, I'm embarrassed."

She laughed loudly and abruptly slapped a hand to her mouth. She looked surprised. "I haven't laughed in years." She looked scared and pulled the sheet up tightly under her chin. "Was I awful?"

He sobered. "Yeah." He wanted to say no, but her eyes demanded honesty. "I think we all were. I guess this is a sort of detox ward. I remember screams, I think, other than yours and mine."

He glanced around. Some of the beds that were full the last time he was awake were empty now. People ambled around in the aisle. A kid from the other end of the barracks passed by, and she grimaced.

"Someday, I'm gonna kill him!"

"You remember?"

She nodded, winced, and turned to stare at the ceiling. "I remember."

He cautiously went and sat on the side of her bed and rubbed his temple. "We've all got too many memories." He sat quietly for a moment, back to contemplating his own memories. She pulled his hand from his head.

He rallied. "If you feel up to getting dressed, we could go find that mess hall together. I'm starving." His stomach growled again.

"I'd like that."

She sat up, naked, watching him shyly. She was boney thin from undernourishment, but her body excited him. Her nipples were the same dark brown as the blood clotting along the scratches of her breasts and belly. The flush of her skin gave away the challenge she seemed to be making.

He walked to her locker, found a thin robe, and handed it to her, continuing to look her in the eyes. "That past is gone," he said slowly. "Those shots made us human again."

She took the robe and stood, unembarrassed. She wrapped the robe around her and edged past him to the open locker, taking inventory of its contents. "They'res a comb and makeup in here!" She shuffled a few items around. And shampoo!" She giggled as she turned to him, clutching the items to her chest. "I want a shower right now. You'll have to wait for dinner. Where's the bathroom?" They looked around and found it. Just the one - unisex. She looked wide-eyed at him. He nodded. "I'll stand guard."

When she came back out, he blinked. Her clean, combed-out hair fell in waves past her shoulders. Belying the matted nest that she had when she went in. She'd covered the worst scratches on her face with makeup and added a touch of highlight to her cheeks and mouth.

"You look...really good," he said.

She reddened, looking down at herself, "You really think so?"

He nodded. "I really do." The look in his eyes apparently convinced her.

She twirled in a light dance step. "God, I feel so good. I feel so clean, even inside." She turned to him with her eyes wide. "I used to be pretty once, you know!"

She smiled at him and whirled away, dancing down the aisle to her locker, where she pulled out a bra and panties, a pale blue chambray shirt, and jeans. The clothing fit her comfortably, although she had to roll the jeans up at the bottom. She managed to find a red ribbon and tied it through her dark hair to hold it out of her eyes. She slipped her bare feet into some flat-soled, hospital-looking shoes.

A spark passed between them when she took his arm as they left the barracks. "I'm Alice, by the way," she said. She giggled, and he breathed a bit faster.

As they found the right direction toward the mess hall, scuffing gravel ahead of them, a low-pitched hum began outside the camp. It sounded far off at first but then rose until it became a scream. She clapped her hands over her ears. "It hurts!"

A giant white bubble flattened on top and bottom, floated slowly into the sky - filling the horizon. It continued its rise, spilling pulsating light as it gained speed, becoming a tiny bright dot merging with the great golden disk resting low on the horizon. They watched as the larger disk moved with the sun below the horizon.

He looked at her. "It's true," he mumbled, aghast.

"What' s true?"

She'd still been unconscious when the doctor had made his rounds, and no one had filled in the gaps. He told her about the spaceship and everything the doctor had said. She peered into the graying sky, her eyes somber, and he wondered what she was thinking.

His stomach growled again. Laughing, she turned to look at him to him. "C'mon, we'd better feed that animal you're smuggling in there."

She grabbed his hand and led him toward the mess hall. He was suddenly ravenous after the smell of food hit him. They ate quickly and returned for second helpings. He told her about Ruth and his children. Ruth had finalized a divorce. He knew because he'd found the papers in his pocket during a lucid period. She might have remarried, but he didn't know what made him think that. He told her about Bill, who looked like him, and Donnie, who looked like her mother, and what his drinking had done to their lives.

Her name, she told him, was Alice Martin. She'd gotten hooked on heroin in college, but her parents had put her into an expensive rehab where she'd kicked it. After she married, however, she and her husband moved and started hanging out with a party crowd. She'd gotten hooked again, and her husband walked out one day when she was crying for a hit. The landlord eventually put her out. She was on the streets for a long time until one day, the cops found her curled up in an alley, suffering the DTs, dying maybe. They hit her up with some methadone and sent her here.

Depressed into silence, embarrassed by sharing their pasts, they finished eating and wandered outside - not touching, not looking at each other. It wasn't yet full dark, and they sat on a dirt pile outside the barracks where a light breeze cooled the desert of the day's heat. The people inside the barracks cast shadows that moved eerily over them.

She rested her chin on her knees as she drew them to her chest. "I wonder what was in those shots? I didn't feel this good the first time I was 'cured.' I'm not sure I've ever felt this good."

"Don't know. The doctor said it came from the aliens."

She has a puzzled look on her face.

"From the spaceship," he pointed up.

"Oh," she stared into the desert beyond the fence. "I don't remember." She looked lost.

"I don't remember much either. Not of the last few weeks; too much of the last few years. But, I woke up while somebody was around to answer questions."

She nodded. He followed the direction of her gaze and wondered what she saw in the tumbleweeds drifting through cactus shadows beyond the fence. In the mess hall, he'd heard rumors of people beyond the fence who wanted to keep them from the ship.

She looked up at the sky. "What do you suppose they really want with us? Do they really intend to steal the Soul of Earth?"

He laughed. "I don't think so. I'm not sure Earth or the human race has a soul. If it does, they've given mine back to me, not stolen it." He looked at her, puzzled. "Where'd you hear that phrase?"

"Someone said it in the mess hall. While you were getting coffee."

He laughed again. "I hardly think the handful of us going to the ship, compared with the billions staying behind, could carry the Soul of Earth." He sobered. "I guess the aliens lost most of their crew in some 'space war,'" he said, looking at the stars. "I'm not sure I believe that either. As a kid, I always laughed at science fiction space wars. I thought any race that had star travel would be wiser." Disappointment misted his eyes. She moved slightly, and their hips touched. The reflection of starlight in her eyes brightened them.

"I'm scared," she said.

He nodded. "Me, too." Mayo waved at the area beyond the fence. "Someone at the mess talked about breaking out to join them." He drew a shuddery breath. "If the chance came, would you go?" He waited tensely for her reply.

She looked into the darkness a long time before she shook her head. "No. Not by myself." He started breathing again. "Maybe when the time came, I'd be too scared to stay. If you went, I'd probably go with you. But I wouldn't want to." Her cheeks glistened. "I feel human, maybe for the first time in my life. I feel like a whole person, like someone I could like. Whatever they gave us did more for me than kicking the habit." She smiled, but her lips quivered. "I feel human for the first time and want to leave humanity's home. There's nothing here for me now. Is that weird?"

He laughed and swung his arm around her shoulders. She tensed, then let him draw her close. "So, not weird then?"

He laughed again. "I don't want to go back out there, either. I feel as if Earth dirtied me. Maybe I'm running away, but I feel like I'm going toward something, not away. Like Galahad," he laughed, "or maybe Frodo."

She laughed and glanced at him through her eyelashes. A spark ran between them again. They looked away from each other and gazed silently at the stars until the night got too chilly. They rose stiffly and went back into the barracks.

Things had changed. A woman told them that soldiers had come through draping the sheets now hanging between the beds - forming little cubicles. The beds remained open on the aisle, but two women had already removed the sheet between their beds and hung it on the aisle to make a little private room.

Mayo glanced about. "We're becoming civilized again." Alice smiled tensely and said, "Good night," softly. She went to her area, and he went to his own, undressing and putting on a pair of blue pajamas from the locker. Stretched out on the bed, he gradually slipped into the familiar space between sleep and waking - where half-dreams that had no relation to anything he knew or heard roamed. He slipped into sleep.

Something scraped on the floor by Alice's bed, snapping Mayo awake. He turned to see her cot outlined against the hanging sheet. A moment later, her head popped around the edge of the curtain. "Nesting. Sorry," she apologized shyly.

He grinned when she retreated again behind the curtain and drifted back toward sleep. She woke him again by coming around the end of the curtains and sitting on his bed. He opened his eyes with raised eyebrows. She wouldn't meet his gaze.

"What?" he asked quietly.

She looked away. "Mayo, do you think we could...fix our curtain like those women did?" She glanced toward the far end of the barracks where the angry kid slept. "I'd feel safer." She shuddered.

Mayo wondered if he'd be much protection. He'd been doing a number of years of heavy aging.

"I'd feel safer," she repeated into the pause.

"Sure." He stepped up onto the bed and took down the sheet between their areas. Five minutes later he'd refastened it along the aisle with a door gap on his side.

"You'll be exposed."

He smiled. "I've been exposing myself for so long that doesn't really seem important." He shoved her bed against the curtain on the other side, then sat down on his and watched her.

She wandered into the pocket of privacy where the sheets met. "Thanks," she laughed, doing a little dance twirl. "I took ballet lessons once." She stared off for a moment, reflecting inward. You could move your bed to this side, too. Then you can have some of the privacy."

The sheets only gave an illusion of privacy at best, but he nodded and shoved his bed until it fit against hers like the two halves of a queen bed.

They both sat on the edge of the bed and talked quietly of their lives - avoiding the recent years. He learned the name of her favorite doll, Isabelle, and she learned about "Pal," his first dog. When lights out came, she went into the private corner to put on a white nightgown she'd found in the locker. They walked together to the washroom, passing the angry young man's bed. He curled against the head of it, staring at the aisle, watching them without expression. He was still like that when they came back. Alice shuddered.

"Forget him," Mayo murmured. "He's the past. That's gone." The fear and anger slowly faded from her eyes as she looked at him.

The lights went off except for faint glows at each end of the room and the starlight that silvered the windows. Mayo couldn't sleep again, staring into the darkness. He could live with his memories but grieved for what he'd lost. His thoughts drifted to the spaceship and then to Alice. They'd come together so quickly and so easily. He wondered if it was like how baby chicks imprint on the first thing they see after hatching. He wondered if it would last.

Alice's bed creaked, and her hand snaked out of the dark to find his shoulder. He clasped it in his as she lay on the edge of her cot so close to him that her hair tickled his shoulder. Her hand was trembling slightly.

Wordlessly, he lifted his sheet, and she slid across the gap between to lie stiffly at his side, touching yet holding herself back. Gradually, the warmth of their bodies together eased the tension. For the first time in years, he had a full-fledged erection.

Her breathing quickened as she pressed against him, touching him. He put his arms around her naked waist and kissed her. The sex was clean, and loving, and joyful.

***

Didi watched the needle slide easily into the man's arm. She pushed the plunger slow and even, just like the doctor showed her. When the syringe was empty, she removed the needle and covered the tiny spot of blood with a Band-Aid. The man moved and got up, and a woman took his place. Didi dropped the used needle into the little plastic container and reached for a fresh one.

She glanced over to where the doctor lanced a cyst on the backside of a man bent over a table. When it was finished draining, he caught her eye. He made a wide-eyed "What a day" face at her and turned to dress the wound.

Sick call was always busy. When she'd first done rounds with the doctor through the wards full of drunks and addicts, she thought the work would lighten up a bit later, but it hadn't. The daily urgent care usually consisted of an endless stream of minor aches, bruises, cuts, and bug bites. The man she'd just treated had cut himself on some old razor wire buried in the dirt. Later, she and the doctor would do rounds through the two wards set up in the barracks. She'd mostly change dressings on knife wounds and battle scrapes from the volunteer camp. When they got out of hand there, they got sent here.

The problems the doctor had been expecting from the addicts who'd received the shot hadn't developed so far. The real crazies (the pimps, the killers) had been culled - usually by each other during transit. Some had died in fights. Others like Jackie had just disappeared. When she'd got off the train and been put in an ambulance, she'd looked warily for him. But he never showed up.

"He's dead, Didi," the doctor had told her at one point. "A guard said he'd tried to tackle him as he jumped out a window, and Jackie went under the wheels." He didn't look at her. "At least, that's what I was told."

She'd wanted to cry. When she'd met Jackie, he'd made her feel special. He'd take her around town, and when they went up to his place, she felt like a queen – up until the night he'd brought another man back with him. She'd said no to the man, and – after he left - Jackie slapped her around. Later, Jackie cut her for the first time. Just a little cut, but she'd thought he was going to kill her. She'd said she was leaving and was never going to see him again. But he begged and pleaded and told her he loved her. So, she stayed. The next time he asked her to go with another man, she did it – and it got easier each time after that. After a while, she didn't see Jackie very often anymore. When he did visit her, he just threw her on the bed, pumped until he came, emptied her purse, and left. If the money wasn't enough, he'd throw her around a bit.

She was glad he was dead. She wished she'd killed him.

The woman waiting for her shot coughed. Didi jerked back to reality. Another tetanus shot. The recruits kept stumbling over old junk lying around the camp, abandoned when the government had abandoned it years before. She gave the shot and called for the next person. Although the government had sent the doctor – a reprieve from his prison term - it hadn't sent much additional staff. So, as her own wound had healed and she could move about, Didi had started helping. He taught her a bit of nursing, and she found she liked it. She still did, even as the rounds got tedious, and he walked through them like a robot.

By the time they had finished with the line of patients, the sun was low but shining. The heat still danced in the dusty streets. They usually didn't eat until after things cooled off a bit outside.

"Let's celebrate your finally getting out of those bandages with a swim," the doctor suggested.

When the military had run the camp all those years ago, a swimming pool was standard issue. Although it was half-filled with weeds when the Army returned to revive the camp, the soldiers had cleaned it and patched the cracks so it would at least hold water. They put up a fence and restricted pool access to military personnel and certain privileged civilians, among whom was the doctor.

Didi and the doctor returned to their rooms in the barracks adjacent to the hospital. When he'd given her that room, Didi expected him to visit her at night. She'd wanted him to, but he hadn't. Sometimes, she wondered if he liked girls. But, honestly, she supposed an educated man like him wouldn't want an ex-whore. She was clean, though. The physical she got when she arrived said so.

She stripped and reached for a halter and shorts to swim in, pausing to bask naked in the light flowing in from the window. It highlighted the angry scar that ran along her ribs. The door opened, and the doctor walked in. Usually, he knocked before he came in. But this time, he just walked in wearing the robe he always wore on his way to the pool. He shut the door and slipped off the robe. He was naked and erect. She looked from his erection to his eyes. There was no warmth there. His pupils were bright like Jackie's were when he slapped her around. The corners of his mouth were pulled back into a caricature of a grin.

"Not like this," she muttered as he moved closer, reaching for her breasts. But she waited for him. He touched her breasts and then gripped them until they hurt. He dragged her against him, and she flinched with pain as his teeth bit into her lips. She tasted blood as he bent her back on the bed.

It was swift and brutal, but she'd had worse. She didn't fight him; in fact, her legs curled around his as she felt his hardness within her. When he was done, he'd shoved her away, stood, and slipped on his robe.

"Fuck! Why did you do this?" The flat of his fist hit the wall. And suddenly, he slumped into remorse. The anger gone, he turned back to her. "Didi, I'm sorry!"

She looked at him steadily. "I still would like that swim." He had to know that he couldn't change things this way. She would remain with him.

"Get dressed and come on," he said. He left and returned a few minutes later in his swim trunks.

The water cleaned her, but she remained dirty inside, the way she had after every trick, or after Jackie had beat her for not making enough.

That night, the doctor came to her again. When she went to touch him, he grasped his hands together in one of his and pulled them away. He screwed her quickly and efficiently. When he left, she ached, and her ribs hurt. She hugged herself and cried.

***

The Reverend Ed Mason stood tense on the hillside, staring down at the building sprawling behind the fence in the night's shadows. It was quiet, not a light showing. The hillside around him was quiet, too, even though a battalion of men waited in the brush with rifles and pistols they brought from home. Thousands of others waited back at the camp near the radio station.

The building, a National Guard armory, would supply them with more rifles, automatic weapons, tanks, and artillery. With them, the traitor camp and the space shuttle wouldn't stand a chance!

"Soon, we shall have what we need to conquer the evil one!" He muttered.

His aide glanced at him, but he was talking to himself. The reverend raised his right arm over his head and brought it down again in a sudden forward-sweeping motion. The hillside came alive with shadowy figures darting from bush to bush as they slipped downhill. He focused his attention back on the armory. It remained quiet, and he didn't expect much opposition. The informant who told him about the isolated site said the armory had been on twenty-four-hour alert since the spaceship arrived, but it was lightly manned.

Mason jumped as someone touched him on the shoulder. It was John, Sarah's husband. Even in the dim light of the stars and the ship's pulsing aurora he could see the man's eyes remained expressionless. He wondered if John held suspicions as to whether he was the one who had been with Sarah. He wondered if John knew Mason should be lying under the rocks beside her. Mason shivered, yet what did it matter? He and John hated the ship equally. After all, it was the actual cause of what made him have sex with Sarah.

He felt himself relax. Once again, he'd been waiting for the barrel of a gun or at least a punch. He grunted to acknowledge John's presence. He tried not to act wary, or John might put two and two together.

"Reverend," John said quietly, "you need to be behind cover when the attack starts. We don't want to take the chance that a stray bullet will hit you."

Mason nodded. That was certainly possible, but it wouldn't happen tonight. It wasn't his time. Until his role in this was done, he'd led a charmed life. God wouldn't call him tonight. He had too much left to do and wanted to watch the attack. He shook with excitement.

He looked at John and shook his head, "I will watch from here. This is our first strike against the ship and its worshippers." Tonight was important. They needed the tanks and artillery.

There was a soft "crump" as the armory was suddenly flooded with bright light. Gunfire lanced from the brush below him, windows shattering on the near side of the building. Under cover of the rifle fire, men raced to cut the fence wire. The flare faded as another burst to life. His men were inside the compound, and others poured down the hillside toward the hole in the fence. It didn't look like anyone was returning fire yet. Maybe they'd abandoned the armory.

A hole opened among the charging men, hurling bodies away from it.

"Mortars," John murmured. Mason nodded.

A machine gun began chattering as the soldiers defending the armory opened fire, and more of his men went down. Mortar fire dropped among them. It had been a mistake to use flares.

Mason turned to the silent aide standing ten feet away to his right. "Fire the red flare."

The man nodded and spoke briefly into a hand radio. Another flare arced Skyward and burst into crimson light that spilled over the building like blood. The attackers disappeared back into the hillside or lay among their comrade's bodies inside the compound. For a few seconds, the machine gun continued to fire, and two more rounds of mortar fire stirred the dead, after which it was dead silence. Then, a wave of Mason's men poured in from the brush on the other side of the armory. They'd cut the wires in advance under the cover of darkness and were inside before the defenders realized it. He heard the machine gun start up again and the crump of a mortar, then both fell silent. The men who'd been hiding among the dead jumped to life again and charged. Some of them reached the armory walls.

Mason put an open hand out toward his aide, who responded by putting a pair of night glasses in his hand. Mason studied the battlefield. From this angle, he could see one small entrance door with his men clinging to the walls beside it and the oversized doors of the garage. The tanks would be behind those doors, but the armory soldiers would surely have that area well covered.

A man crouching under a window abruptly stood up and fired rhythmically through the broken panes. Mason watched the flashes and smiled. His fighter threw a leg over the sill and was then abruptly hurled back, crumpling to the ground outside. Mason grimaced and wished they had grenades.

The smaller armory doors flung open, and two men jumped through, back to back, firing down the sides of the building. The surprised attackers along the wall went down to a man. The two dove back inside and slammed the doors under a hail of bullets. Mason sighed. Brave men, but foolish. They would die soon enough without those kind of heroics.

For a moment, the battle stilled, and a light breeze blew away the haze of dust and smoke obscuring the armory from view. The silence was broken by a roar of heavy engines. For an instant, Mason thought the soldiers were using the tanks against them but smiled as five giant bulldozers rumbled into the compound with their blades raised to shield the drivers from rifle fire. Squads of Mason's men followed, shielded behind the excavators with their rifles at the ready. The machines clanked abreast across the compound directly at the big garage doors, but the doors flew open before they reached them. A heavy cannon fired, and the center bulldozer lurched wildly - crashing into the one on its left. Both machines stopped.

A tank rolled out through the doors, firing its cannon steadily. A third and then a fourth bulldozer blew apart, the men behind them falling to the ground. The M60 Patton wheeled toward the fifth bulldozer, its machine gun spitting death toward the ground troops even as the big cannon came to bear. The bulldozer's operator rammed the throttle to full speed and bailed out as the machine rumbled forward, its blade nosing into the side of the building and collapsing the corner post just as the tank blew it apart.

Another tank rolled out of the building, followed by four M113 armored personnel carriers dragging light cannon. Mason blinked. After he'd thought he'd been beaten, they were abandoning the armory. Keeping up a steady fire, the tanks and APCs retreated through the main gate and disappeared down the highway. Mason's men cheered and dashed for the armory doors.

The building came apart in a sheet of flame that rose to eye level with Mason as the shock threw him to the ground. He lay there spinning, although managed to keep consciousness. His head cleared, and he slowly sat up. All that remained where the building had been was a huge pit, dimly lit by a few shattered pieces of burning debris. Fires burned along the hillside, and the bodies of his men lay where the blast had thrown them. The men closest to the building would never be found.

"Fuck!" Mason swore. The arms were gone. The tanks and artillery ... gone. He looked at John, who studied him with those hooded eyes. Smears on his face and clothing indicated that he, too, had been knocked down by the blast. Mason looked for his aide. The man still lay on the ground, twisted obscenely. Mason knew he would not get up again.

He glared down the road the armory soldiers had taken. "May God damn you all in Hell," he said quietly, but his eyes burned with wild anger. As if his quiet curse was a signal, screams and cries began filtering up through the brush.

A lieutenant approached him from below. "What now, chaplain?"

Mason shook his head. "We return to camp. There are other armories. Next time, we will not let this happen." Mason turned to climb the hill to where the trucks waited. He was silent except for a comment to John, "I didn't think they'd defend it so hard. God has tested us."

He found his car near the top of the hill and climbed in. John slid behind the wheel.

"Take me to the radio station, "a new fervor stirred his voice. We must gather new forces and try to convince the Army to join us against the ship."

***

Roberta and Father Joseph crept cautiously through the brush toward the campground. The highway, built on a hill above, was to their right, while a gully cut through the soil on their left. When the attendant at the gas station, general store, and café up the road had told them about the campground, he'd mentioned it was quite populated. They'd decided to take a look before going in for the night.

Roberta held her skirt up to keep the hem out of the sand. She almost giggled as Father Joseph was doing the same with his cassock. He'd donned the formal black robe after the Manuterge had become, as he put it, "almost lewd." As his hairy legs stuck out under the lifted hem, she suppressed another giggle and crept forward. Two trailers and a motorhome huddled in the brush on the near edge of the campground.

Joseph waited for her. "Maybe," he whispered, "we should just keep going and not camp tonight." His voice was wistful. They'd talked that out with the others. She shook her head and repeated the earlier argument. "We'd lose some in the dark. The desert really sucked the life out of them today. They'd never make it, no matter how much they tried."

As he gaped at her, so she moved around him and stared toward the campground. Unless more were hidden farther back in the brush, those three vehicles seemed to be the only ones. As she watched, six people gathered in a small clearing outside the campers. She relaxed and climbed onto the road, motioning the priest to follow her. All six were white-haired, with one man tottering around with the help of a cane.

"It seems safe," she said and waved for the others to come. As the pilgrims appeared piecemeal along the road, the old couples faded back into their vehicles – watching them through cheaply curtained windows as two hundred some people appeared. Roberta had dropped back to walk with Melissa, Carrie, and Carrie's two children. She left the entourage and knocked on the door as they passed the motorhome. A white-haired woman pooped her head out through the cracked door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a frightened voice. "Who are you?"

Roberta smiled. "We're pilgrims going to the starship. We'd like to stay here in the campground tonight. There isn't another place with water anywhere close. We won't bother you."

The woman looked back and forth between Roberta and the passing pilgrims. "You've children with you."

Roberta nodded. "A few. With their parents."

The woman glanced into Roberta's eyes, then nodded. "You aren't with the Army of God, then?" Her voice shook.

Roberta shook her head. "I don't know what that is. "

The older woman frowned. "The Reverend Ed Mason's army." Roberta heard the scorn. "We hear him on the radio every night. He's going to attack the starship. He's got people around the base camp already, and there's supposed to be a lot more coming. We plan to leave before he gets this far but thought we'd waited too long."

Roberta smiled again. "We're not members of his Army, nor have we seen any. I think we'd prefer not to run into them."

The woman smiled tensely and opened the door all the way, coming out onto the metal step to stare warily at the pilgrims. The pilgrims glanced curiously back at her as they passed. Many limped, far too tired to care. Roberta was glad the priest agreed to camp here. They wouldn't have made it much farther.

The old woman told Roberta that she, her husband, and the other two couples had lived full-time in their vehicles before the starship arrived. Now, gangs prowled their usual campgrounds, so they'd sought a safer place and found this place. They hadn't realized, at first, how close they were to the space base. They hadn't seen many people since most of them were going to the base from the west. There'd been one deeply unusual man from the east who'd warned them about the bigger Army coming behind him. They were going to leave in the morning.

Roberta nodded. "I've heard about Mason, but we ran out of batteries for our radios a long time ago."

"He sounds deranged," the woman said firmly as if saying that would nullify the threat.

The last of the pilgrims straggled past. Roberta knew Melissa and Carrie would be looking for her before it got dark, so she left the older woman. "Tonight, we'll post guards around the camp. At least you'll have some warning then if the Army of God shows up," she said as she turned to head into the camp.

"Thank you," the woman said softly, touching her shoulder to stop her from leaving. "Why are you going to the starship? You must have a proper place on Earth. You're a handsome woman."

Roberta looked at her wide-eyed and blushed. She wasn't handsome. She shook her head, "I've never thought of myself that way."

"What about a husband and babies?" Roberta frowned and waved toward the pilgrims spreading through the campground. "Plenty of men will be joining the ship - and we have a priest," she said with a smile in her voice. "Besides, no one has ever wanted me." She paused thoughtfully, "Besides, something seems to be pulling me to the ship and…" she looked up, "…out there."

The woman patted her arm in a motherly fashion. "If no one's chased after you, they've been blind or fools. Or maybe your terms were too rigid." She smiled to take away the sting.

Roberta pulled away, annoyed. She'd never had a chance to set terms. She waved goodbye awkwardly and walked off to find Carrie and Melissa. She found them setting up camp and dropped her pack onto the smooth sand. Roberta tried calming herself but was responding angrily to the usual onslaught of petty complaints like who had first choice of a site and got to be first for water. She snapped at a woman who whined that the ground was too hard, and as she passed Joseph, the priest put out his hand.

"Gently, child."

She stared at him, took a deep breath, and nodded. She had been taking out her frustration on them. She went back to where Melissa and Carrie had a fire going. While Melissa kept an eye on the two children running noisily through the camp (energized after a brief rest) Roberta and Carrie cooked between interruptions from campers. After the last few weeks together, most of them accepted Roberta's decisions, although a few still eyed her suspiciously as they did so - wondering how she had come to be in charge.

Carrie said she'd camped a lot and knew how to quickly put meals together from meager supplies over a campfire. A mousy-haired woman with a pinched mouth, a narrow face, and a long nose worked happily and efficiently to dish up some plates. The woman smiled more now than she had when she first joined them.

The children nodded over their plates and were asleep before they finished. The women quickly stuffed them into sleeping bags and sorted out the campsite. Melissa gathered brush for the morning coffee fire, and Roberta made rounds of the camp to check the guards she'd assigned. More pilgrims were awake than usual - murmuring excitedly or staring with fear into the darkness, wondering what tomorrow would bring when they arrived at the starship base. Harlan and Margaret invited her for coffee, but she declined and returned to her own bedroll.

By the time she got back to the campsite, Carrie had crawled into her blankets between the children. Melissa had waited and climbed into hers once Roberta was back. Roberta sat and stared into the fire as the camp quieted, the flame drawing strange pictures of fairy-tale towers shining with starlight. She was dozing, her head propped on her knees before the fire, when a guard padded into the circle of dim light and touched her shoulder. She started awake, her hand knocking the guard's hand off her shoulder. He gestured silently for her to follow. She was grateful he'd awakened her. Her joints were stiff from the awkward position she was sleeping in.

The guard whispered as he led her into the darkness, "We caught someone sneaking into camp."

"By the trailers…?" Roberta felt a twinge of fear for the old couples.

"No. On the other side."

The guard stopped and pointed to three starlit shadows standing by a cactus. "He's the one in the middle. We spotted him coming over the ridge and watched until he got down here."

"Is he armed?"

The guard shook his head and turned the flashlight on the prisoner. Roberta recognized him. It was the Harlequin. The shadows from the flashlight made him appear even more sinister, more like his true character, than when he had accompanied them to the bridge.

She crouched outside the light to watch him.

He turned to face her. "Hello," the boy said. "I can see you out there. I can see you shining for me. And I can think and see and hear again! You're the only one who can do that for me!"

"What do you want?" She took a few steps away from the guard and the flashlight. His eyes followed her, even though the flashlight was pointed right into his face.

He smiled happily, his delight apparent even as the light dancing across his face made his scars distort and twist. "You! The Shining Lady! Whenever I'm near you, I can hear and think and see!" His voice came softly, filled with awe. You make me whole."

My God, he thinks I'm some sort of goddess or something. She wanted to cry. The pilgrims had all started to avoid her, giving her weird looks and deferring to her judgment right after they'd passed through this boy's town. She'd heard murmurings about "shining," and someone had referred to her (when they thought she was out of hearing range) as "a witch." But they seemed to have gotten over it and accepted her tenuously, occasionally even arguing about her decisions. This would stir all that shit up again, for fuck's sake.

"Who are you?" She sounded angry, even to herself.

The boy blinked and peered at her, "Tomas…Romero."

"How long have you been following us, Tomas?"

The boy shook his head like he didn't know. "Since you passed through my hometown."

"Why did you follow us?"

"I had to," he stumbled toward her. "I had to. My body wouldn't let me stop. It came on its own."

She stepped back, and the guards grabbed his arms. He looked at her with wild appeal, "You gotta let me stay with you!" He paused and looked intently at her. "When I was a baby, I was burned real bad in a fire. It messed up my face, and my arm, and my leg, and my head. There's been a murmur, like voices, inside my head ever since - like a big wind - and when the starship came, it got really bad. I couldn't do nothin'. I couldn't even think." He gulped for air. "Then when you came through, all-a -sudden I could hear and think again! It was like the wind was turned off." He gasped again. "And then you left, and it all came back. I had to find you again. I had to!"

"How far back are your father and his friends?"

The boy bit his lip and looked toward the ridge. "I don't think they're after me." His eyes filled with tears. "After you left and the noises came back in my head, my old man was mad as Hell. He tried to whup the Devil outta me." He sighed, "I think he's glad to be rid of me. They didn't chase me. 'Sides I came across the scrubland on foot. They'd be comin' by car if they could get one to start."

She nodded. He'd walked. She could see it in the shape of his clothes and the scratches on his body. If his father had followed, he'd have been here in a car by now. I hope. The night became friendlier.

"How did you find us?"

"I dunno..." Tomas mumbled. "My body knew where to go. I didn't have control over nothin' until I came over that ridge and could think. I knew you had to be down here. I figured nobody'd notice me coming in at night." He looked sullen. "Didn't know you'd have people watchin'. "

Roberta smiled. "It's all right." She looked at the guards. "I'll take him. "She turned to the boy. "Come with me."

She trudged back to the campsite. The boy limped heavily in her wake. She hoped he'd be all right with just a little rest tonight.

When they reached the low glow of the campfire, Melissa awoke. For a moment, she looked uncomprehendingly at the boy, then recognizing him, blushed and snuggled deeper into her blankets. But when Roberta stirred up the fire to make the boy something to eat, she got up and helped. He ate hungrily and, later, settled in some blankets on Melissa's side of the fire. Roberta heard them talking - the usual getting-to-know-you kind of questions and answers.

She ignored them and thought about what he'd called her: The Shining Lady. It must have been the haze of the sun behind her. But Tomas said he could see her tonight. No wonder the townspeople hadn't followed them. She wouldn't have been much of a deterrent in broad daylight, but a witch who glowed in the dark would have. They would have probably thought she was an emissary from the ship. But no one else had ever said they could see her glowing at night. What the fuck was going on?

She thought about what the woman in the motorhome had said. Maybe she had been too rigid. Maybe she'd been too intimidating. She frowned as she slept, shamed by the idea.

As they prepared to leave the campground the next morning, filled with enthusiasm at the thought of reaching their destination that day, Roberta saw that the trailers hitched to vehicles. One of the men was under a hood, tinkering with the electromagnetic shield. The others stood around, waiting and watching the pilgrims pass.

Roberta approached the white-haired woman, "You're leaving right away?"

The woman nodded. "We listened to the radio again last night. Mason says the Army of God is on its way. There's going to be trouble, and the rest of the country doesn't look like it's in much better shape. We're going to try to find some quiet backwater where we can hole up."

"Smart," Roberta said. "Good luck," as she turned to join the rest of the departing crowd.

"Good luck to you, too, handsome!" The woman called after her. Roberta walked away with her face hot. Looking back as she topped a rise, the woman still stood in view. Roberta raised her right arm, and a wave flashed back. Roberta smiled and moved on out of sight.

Shortly after noon, with her and Joseph in the lead, they topped a ridge and saw the great shape in front of them. They stopped and stared as other pilgrims crowded up beside them. Roberta looked from the white ball on the ground to the disk above.

"The landing ship," she breathed, "a shuttle."

The size took her breath away. She and Joseph stared at it until the chatter of the others broke their awe. Roberta looked at the priest. "An hour or so, maybe? Those buildings on this side of it must be the camp." The camp seemed like a scattered bunch of toys compared to the ship. The priest nodded. "Should we rest before heading down?"

Roberta smiled. That had been hard for him to ask. She looked pointedly beyond him at pilgrims already starting down the slope, running in their eagerness. "They'll make it now. Let's go on in."

Joseph nodded and stepped out as eagerly as the others. They wound down the slope between the sagebrush that seemed to thrive only beside the dusty, graveled road. Even Carrie's children were hushed. Roberta found Melissa in the moving masses. She'd missed the red-haired girl this morning, who'd decided to walk with Tomas a bit away from the main crowd. Beauty and the beast, she thought to herself – and then immediately regretted it. The boy was certainly no beast; he just looked like one with all the scars. As he limped beside Melissa, Tomas seemed older than he had in his hometown, even with his ragged clothes flapping around him. He'd be OK.

Roberta kept walking.

Three hours later, as Roberta wondered if they should have taken the rest the priest had suggested, they topped another rise and stared down into the camp. A fence surrounded a cluster of white buildings on short pilings. Beyond the buildings, white, uniform tents lay in rows. Sunlight, and the flashing light from the ship, glittered like gold and silver city off everything - a Camelot. The pilgrim leaders stopped and gaped while the stragglers caught up, some running.

Joseph dropped to his knees, "Father, we thank you for guiding us here safely." Roberta started. It was the first time she'd heard him pray since they started. She surveyed the pilgrims as many bowed their heads. A few were also on their knees. Roberta let the silence hold for a moment, then touched the priest's hair.

"Father, would you lead us into camp."

The priest gripped her hand to pull himself to his feet. He glanced about at the group, smiled, and stepped out firmly. She followed, Melissa and Tomas now at her heels. She turned to smile at them and bumped into the priest as he stopped abruptly.

Stern-faced men had formed a line across the road, one carrying a rifle. The priest hesitated, then stepped out firmly again directly toward the camp. The man in the middle held up a hand.

"No one enters the camp."

"Let us pass, son," the priest said with authority, ignoring the rifle.

The man shook his head, "No one enters the camp."

The priest turned toward Roberta, bafflement in his eyes. She stepped to his side.

"Who are you to bar passage?" she asked.

"We're the servants of God! We let no one steal the Soul of Earth. No one enters Hell!" the man with the rifle replied

Roberta smiled, "God does. He gives us free will - a choice of Heaven or Hell. By what arrogance do you deny us His gift of that right?" She felt the calmness coming over her again, even as her knees trembled.

She started forward. The man grabbed her arm, and she snapped her head to stare him in the eyes, "He who denies the choices God gives us will be condemned to the fires of Hell!" she intoned the words like an old fire and brimstone preacher. Part of her was astounded by the archaic phrases and tone. Where was this coming from? The rest of her calmly waited as the man stepped back and gave them room. She saw terror rise in the man's eyes, and her knees had stopped quaking. Abruptly, he turned and ran with his brute squad behind him.

Joseph looked around and – seeing the threat removed - stepped out boldly again towards the camp. Roberta followed him, and the dazed pilgrims, unsure as to what had just happened, followed them both.

A crowd had collected by the camp gate, and Roberta felt her spirits drop as she came close enough to make out individuals. Hard-eyed, unshaven men grinned in anticipation. She glanced at the women and untested men and boys behind her. Up close, the camp neither looked nor smelled like Camelot.

"Have I brought them to Hell?" She thought as she continued walking.

But an army second Lieutenant met them at the gate. "Follow me."

As Joseph followed, Roberta stepped off to one side with Melissa and Tomas to watch her group straggle through the fence. Huddling together, they cast fearful glances at the gathered crowd inside the camp even as they drooped with relief at reaching their destination. Only a few of the pilgrims acknowledged her presence. Sam smiled, Harlan and Margaret nodded, and Carrie and her kids grinned and waved before hurrying on.

"God help the innocents!" a man's voice rang out from behind them as the last of the pilgrims trailed into the camp. She turned and looked for the source, even as her thoughts reflected the same sentiments.

The man behind her was tall, several inches over six feet, so she had to look up to him. His shoulders were broad enough to blot out the background. White scar tissue fell across the bridge of his nose while the scar on his cheek twisted his smile. He pushed his hat back to expose dark but graying hair. Roberta didn't move, so he reached gently forward to push her hat back so he could see her face.

"Sorry. Hyperbole," he said conversationally. "Rupert Jane. We have a police force of a sort. They'll all be safe. Probably. "

He gave her the twisted smile again. "You're a good-looking woman even when you're not shining."

Her stomach plunged. He said she'd been shining. She peered up at him warily. "When did you see me shine?"

He nodded his head back towards the slope they'd taken to enter the camp. "Out there. When those dipshits tried to stop you."

"Was I really shining?"

He nodded. His gray eyes regarded her intently, and something strange was happening to her stomach.

"I'm Roberta Mickelson," she murmured. She reached as if to fasten the second button on her shirt, then extended her hand instead. Her knees were shaking again.

He took it. Long ago, she'd held a formless image of the idealized man in her dreams. With his scarred face and silent eyes, this man did not come close to her ideal. But for the first time in her life, she wanted a specific man, and it surprised her. She felt the calmness blanket her again, and as the crowd wandered away from the gate now that the show was over, she licked her lips as her mouth was suddenly dry.

He released her hand, and Roberta gently reached up to touch the scar across his cheek. He knit his brow, not in irritation but perhaps amusement at her boldness. She traced down from the scar to the angle of his jaw, feeling the hard muscles there. She felt weak and dropped her hand, closing her eyes on the rising faintness.

It went away, and when she opened her eyes, he regarded her with bemused questioning. He held out his hand. She swallowed, nodded, and took her hand in his as he led her away. She stopped suddenly and looked back at Melissa and the boy. The girl's freckles stood out in her white face, and the boy regarded her with fear.

"Come with us," she said softly.

The man looked at them, "It's OK. Follow me."

He led them across the graveled grounds toward a white building on the far side.

***

"That's all I can remember, Father."

Ben finished his list of sins and leaned back in the chair in his half of the makeshift confessional. Father Joseph sighed at the same old, same old. 'fighting, swearing women. Nothing would make them stop; he could only make them feel more comfortable with themselves. Since arriving in camp, he'd learned that religion had a small but important place here. The men and women making up the recruits were going to sleep together with or without matrimony, "but weddings were the best part of the job," he thought to himself and smiled.

"My son," he said to the confessor, "do you really care for the woman?"

The big man nodded and then added, "Yeah," hastily as he remembered the screen between them. "Yeah. We came here together. If things were different, I'd ask her to marry me."

"Others have found they can marry under these circumstances."

"I know, but it just doesn't seem right. We don't know what's gonna happen. So it doesn't seem right to ask a woman to take that on."

"That's up to her, don't you think? Think about it and ask her yourself." He smiled again, "I'd be delighted to marry you." He said in that same reassuring voice one offers a tempting treat to a child. "It would give you both some comfort in our strange future." He paused for emphasis. "I'm going to give you absolution. For your penance, say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. Now, say a sincere Act of Contrition." Automatically, the big man rose and left. Joseph got up from his cramped position in the confessional and looked about. No one waited.

He took a deep breath and sat. The time allocated for confessions wasn't over, so he'll have to wait. He sighed again. He hadn't really wanted to do this. He didn't feel comfortable dealing with other denominations, not to mention other religions altogether. But the General had been persuasive. When he'd heard he had a priest in camp, he named Joseph camp chaplain.

"Look, I get it," the General had said. "It won't hurt, even if you don't feel it so much anymore. You've got the practice and habits to carry you through it. You know the rituals. People prepping to leave Earth need the rituals more than they do the belief. You'll help me keep a lid on this powder keg." He had leaned back in the chair and smiled. "We'll need you with all these nutjob preachers on the radio."

Lieutenant General Wilson Beauregard was a formidable man. Although he usually wore a smiling, Eisenhower-bland face, he'd crack the whip when he needed to. You didn't want to see that face turn to anger. He'd once been considered for chief of staff, but his lack of combat experience prevented the appointment. In the wars of his career, General Beauregard had been a desk soldier. His first commanding officer discovered that the young second lieutenant had an uncanny ability to make operations run smoothly. As promotions followed, initially following that first C.0. up the ladder, he'd never escaped the reputation. Each time his application for combat duty was denied, he was told he was needed to keep the supply lines running. So, when the Army needed someone to handle Operation Starship, it reached down and pulled the retired officer from his Montana horse ranch, his blue-eyed wife, and his thirteen children. He wasn't particularly happy about it.

He ran the camp in two branches. The majority of the soldiers were volunteers for the starship and guarded those who had been "drafted." The remainder guarded the main camp along with an auxiliary force of former military and mercenaries. Only those who fit a specific and limited profile moved between the camps. The General hoped to keep the operations separate, at least until people started boarding the starship. He feared mixing would create trouble.

Some of this he'd told the priest, some Joseph had heard as scuttlebutt. The general eyed the priest sternly.

"Father, I hear what you're saying. Believe me, I understand. It's difficult to carry on when a man's had a lifetime of belief yanked from under him. After all, God was always up there," Beauregard said as he waved at the sky. "Now, 'up there' is too full for Him. But I need you. This camp needs you. This is a rough bunch, but most of 'em still have some respect for the church. Up to a point. That may be enough to help keep them on our side."

He waited for a reply and, when it wasn't forthcoming, slammed the flat of his hand against the desktop. And said, almost in a whisper, "Goddammit. I need you bad enough that if you don't come through, I'll make it damned hard on you."

The priest believed him and reluctantly nodded. He gathered some makeshift supplies and set up a schedule of services.

Bu Joseph was glad he complied. The old routines helped him stay sane. Without them, he felt lost. The camp was nothing but chaos and anarchy. Daily, he walked fuzzily through it, watching the men and women who had travelled with him merge into the chaos and fade from his awareness. Watching the women had been the worst. Even those who had seemed staunchly independent, like Carrie and Roberta, had abruptly paired off with men after reaching the camp. Carrie took her children to live in a tent next to a tall man with red-rimmed eyes who carried the kids around on his shoulders. And Roberta....Roberta had been the worst to watch. They hadn't been in the camp a day before she'd taken up with that scar-faced mercenary. When Joseph ran into her on the parade ground, he'd asked her why, and she'd looked at him like it was the first time she'd asked herself that question. She'd abruptly said it was none of his business and walked off to join the limping boy and the red-haired girl standing with the mercenary outside the barracks.

Chaos. But at least he could provide some order, for some people, himself included.

A man coughed. Ah. Sam had quietly entered the confessional and had been waiting. Now, he sounded impatient. Joseph wondered how long he'd been sitting there and leaned forward.

"Yes, my son?"

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

Joseph sighed contentedly. Almost without thinking, the recruits had slipped back into old rituals, the familiar orderliness of a world that existed before the ship came. The fog lifted from the priest's brain. He forgot about the camp and leaned even closer to listen.

***

"I really was shining?" Roberta asked the question in a frightened voice

Rupert nodded. She asked it every day, "Like a saint."

"It must be the ship's light."

He shook his head, "Nah, that was there before the man accosted you. You weren't shining before then. It started when he threatened you - you lit up like a sunrise. And when he grabbed you, you went off like a magnesium flare. That's why he ran off. "

She remembered the terror that had surfaced in the man's eyes and nodded.

"I've talked with Tomas," Rupert added gently. "The same thing happened at his town. When you talked with his father, you flickered. By the time you got to the bridge, you were glowing. And when you faced them at the bridge, you flared like you did here."

She closed her eyes and pressed against him. "I remember those times," she said wearily. I was so calm as if someone else was controlling me. "She leaned against him harder. "Rupert, what does it mean?" she trembled. He gently stroked her hair.

"I dunno. What does it mean when a face I've known in dreams my whole life shows up on a TV screen being called a Goddess?"

He felt his hesitancy to talk about himself fall over him like a hood. It annoyed him. He wanted to talk to her about it. He wanted to tell her that the face of that goddess was what drove him here, but she'd become the only thing that mattered to him from the moment he'd seen her. Still, he felt his destiny lay with the goddess. It was a compulsion. He couldn't tell her that.

He still couldn't fully believe that Roberta had walked through that gate and right up to him. She'd reminded him of the goddess right from the moment he saw her light on the hillside. Now, she was even more similar, particularly in the way she carried herself: shoulders back, breasts out – like she was no longer ashamed of her body. He didn't think she was. She'd found new delight in it. They both had.

That first afternoon, after he'd found some beds nearby for the two kids, he'd brought her to his room. He'd looked at her, and it seemed natural for her to come into his arms like she was coming home. He'd been surprised to discover it was her first time. They were as gentle as they were hungry for it. Now, she turned eagerly to him again.

It seemed strange, what they felt between them, he thought even as he answered her body with his own. Home…a place where we belong. I trust her, yet I can't tell her everything about the goddess. And she hides her fears from me…most of them. She gives herself freely but not fully. With reserve. It's as if we both know this is temporary. What do we know about the future, or what waits for us out there?

As she moved in his arms she was the only thing that existed in the world. She came against him like a flame, and he moved with her. Later, he lay in half-sleep holding her. She sighed, moving her hand over his chest.

"I'm glad I came with you."

He leered, "I'm glad you did, too."

She giggled and pushed him away. She rolled onto her back and said, "I always feel so calm when I'm shining. I'm not shining now."

He grinned, rolling onto his side and touching her chest. "Maybe they've been helping you," he said as he glanced toward the window. It was dark now, except for stars shining in the clear desert air and the ship's aurora flickering against the glass.

She shivered. "I'm scared. Why do you suppose they need us so badly?"

He stroked her cheek, and she snuggled against him, shivering.

Somebody banged on the door. "Rupert, the general wants you."

Her arms tightened, "Do you have to go?"

He nodded, an irritated grimace forming at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," He said in a resigned tone. "I'm supposed to represent the mercenaries on the camp council."

He slid out of bed and into his clothes without turning on a light, "I'll be back."

The night felt cool as he walked to the low wooden headquarters building. He was always amazed at how hot the desert got in the daytime compared to how cold it was at night. A voice floated through a window at headquarters, and when he went into the commander's conference room, a radio blared at him.

"We will not allow the devils from space to steal the Soul of Earth," the voice on the radio trumpeted. "Look over your heads and see it. Its evil influence has driven us to fornicate with strangers and sin against God! They call their whore of Babylon a Goddess!

"We've warned those going to the camp that the Devil lives there – so none can claim blamelessness! I call on all true Christians everywhere to march against the camp. And I say unto the sinners who serve the Devil, 'we shall destroy you! Every day, the Army of God grows stronger, and only those who flee the camp and accept the righteous Word of God will be saved. We will cleanse you!'"

The voice on the radio paused, then continued even more savagely. "It will be war to the death. We spare no one! The will of God be done!!"

Rupert looked at the fifteen others the General had called in as the maniacal voice boomed. The representatives of the other camp factions regarded him gloomily, raising eyebrows toward the radio.

Abruptly, the General turned the radio off and faced them. "That gentleman, if you haven't heard, is the Reverend Ed Mason. He's on-air every night with that bullshit. Calls himself the chief chaplain of the Army of God. He claims the men out in the bush are his and, in the few contacts we've had with them, they talk just like that. It sounds like he's finally gotten his scrotum sucked up tight enough to march on us. Damned morons!"

He surveyed his audience. A few were Army. Some had military experience. Most, like Rupert, represented groups that had formed in the camp, bound by one common tie or another. The general studied each and his eyes seemed pleased enough as he looked at Rupert.

"The only men in this camp with real combat experience, including most of the military, are with you," he said to Rupert. "Will you help defend this camp, as well as yourselves?" He paused, then added, "There'll be little help from the government. It'll continue sending supplies as long as possible, but that may not be long. It's hard-pressed to defend against the factions forming in Washington. Two attempts have already been made on the President's life. Internal attempts. The next may succeed."

He looked grimly at all the men of the council. "Will you fight?"

One by one, they nodded.

"Good. We'll have a training schedule set up by morning. The last supplies going to the ship from North America should be in camp by next week. We'll load them ASAP, and once loaded, the women from this camp will start embarking on the ship..." He paused and looked around the room. "You all know there is another camp beyond this one?"

The men nodded.

"I didn't think it was a well-kept secret," the General said drily. "The people from the other camp were pressed into service from skid row and the prisons. That change any of your minds?"

The men shook their heads. "Speaking for the mercenaries," Rupert said, "I don't think so. We've seen people treated worse by better. This one's our fight."

The General looked relieved. "As soon as the supplies are loaded, we start sending up the women and noncombatants from this camp; the ill, the injured, and the impressed recruits. The rest of us will fight a rearguard action."

Rupert worried about sending Roberta to the ship early before he could go with her. That thing was the size of Manhattan, the President had said. He might never find her.

"That may be a problem, General," he said quietly. "Some of us have formed attachments to women here. If they go up before we do, we could be permanently separated. I think we should give them the choice to remain behind and go up with us."

The General laughed. "That tough blonde, huh?"

Rupert's eyes suddenly looked like a cat's spotting a mouse, but then he gave a crooked smile through the anger erupting within him. The others in the room smiled with the General or, if they'd picked up on Rupert's mood, got ready to hit the deck.

Rupert pushed it away. "Yessir. 'The tough blond.' She's important to me."

The general kept his smile. "I thought you boys were the love 'em and leave 'em type?"

Rupert smiled grimly. "We hang onto our own." He paused to organize his thoughts. We'll take responsibility for training them should they choose to stay."

"And if I say no?"

Rupert's smile got colder and toothier, "Don't matter to me if I go up before the fight or after. But her and me, we'll be going up together."

The general lost his characteristic smile and then nodded. "I can't afford to lose any of you. It's your responsibility to make sure they're ready."

A window in the room shattered, followed by a rifle report and a handful of distant pops as fire was returned. Rupert stepped casually but quickly out of any potential line of fire from that window. You could tell who did and didn't have combat experience by who fell out of their chairs versus getting on their feet.

The general shot a look at a lieutenant, who ran from the room. The firing stopped, and as they waited, they listened to the swearing and yelling erupting around the camp. A few minutes later, the Lieutenant returned.

"Sniper outside the base took a couple of shots at lit windows. Managed to hit a few. The only casualty is a woman nicked by shattering glass. She's being treated. Return fire seems to have ended it."

The general looked grim and killed the lights. "The shot's been fired on Sumter. Tell your people to shade the windows and to keep under cover."

Another shot cracked, and the sound of another distant window shattering. Then, another shot and another window. Again, scattered and uncoordinated return fire rang out.

"One man, moving around," the General said, echoing Rupert's thoughts. "A sniper who thinks he's going to keep us pinned down until the army arrives." He turned the radio back on. For a few seconds, the airwaves were quiet, and then Mason's voice came into the room, quietly jubilant but with a hard edge of madness that made Rupert shiver.

"We've just fired on the starship base camp!" Mason exclaimed. "The first shots in our crusade to save the Earth! Join us against the Devil! Again, we warn those within the camp: Anyone continuing to act against the will of God will receive no quarter! "

The general looked grim as he surveyed the men in the gloom. "Gentlemen, I believe it's started!" He looked at his assistant, "Lieutenant, get this base dark. Get a sharpshooter on that sniper and follow up with a squad approaching from the east side of the ridge. Tell them to be careful; we don't know how many are out there. Engage only the sniper if possible. Don't turn it into a firefight."

***

Verna rested her forehead against the cracked window and watched the bus' shadow ripple and jump against the sagebrush lining the highway. Combined with the erratic vibration of the engine as the starship's aurora leaked through the ignition shielding, she fell into a light trance. Her mind attached to anything that kept her from thinking.

The mesmer glossed over the despair she'd wallowed in, after donning the clothes they'd thrown at her in the recruiting station. White cotton underwear, a shirt, and trousers – both plain khaki, scratchy socks, and heavy practical shoes. The clothing was loose, even though it was the size she told them. She'd lost weight. The shirt and trousers bunched about her waist and hips and buckled at her knees.

After dressing, she'd sought the darkest corner of the station, rousing only enough to take a bite of sandwich and a sip of the coffee they'd brought her. The bus was loaded from the alley behind the building around nightfall, just after they had brought in more sandwiches. Verna choked down a few more bites as she waited to board. The big vehicle had a greyhound logo on its side, although the driver was wearing fatigues. Surprisingly, she'd managed to find a seat to herself near the rear where the smell of exhaust and blue toilet chemical was strong. As the bus moved slowly from the alley to the street, men and women surged against it. The bus rocked as they shouted with twisted faces and hands slapped against the windows. Verna recognized a man who'd told her about beating a woman to death. She shuddered.

The mob linked arms across the alleyway, trying to force the driver to stop, but instead, he laid on the accelerator, forcing bodies to jump aside at the last minute. The woman beater didn't jump fast enough, and a mirror caught him above the temple, causing him to drop to the pavement, bleeding. She hoped he died.

The attackers ran alongside the bus, hurling stones and bricks. Most missed, but Verna watched as one cracked the window by her head. She hadn't even twitched. Funny, she thought. Whole one moment and then shattered, just like that.

A woman with a staff armband hurried back and asked if she was all right and if she wanted to change seats. "I'm all right. I'll stay here," Verna said. She didn't even look at the woman as she answered but watched the familiar dirty streets roll by, distorted through the roadmap of cracks in the window - like the crayon lines Timmy scrawled over the pictures in his coloring books. The cracks blurred out each street, erasing them as the bus passed. She'd never see Timmy again.

As the bus rolled out of town, darkness came down. Interior lights came on and turned the windows into mirrors. The webbing of broken glass cracked her face into a Dali portrait of a dirty, uncombed woman. That's how she felt, too. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool glass – feeling the edge of one of the cracks scrape against her skin. Later, the inner lights dimmed for sleep, and she watched the yellow roadside markers shooting out of the night like lasers. Existing for a brief moment as the headlights flashed on them, dying the next. "Just like people. Little pointless flashes of existence," she thought as she passed into sleep.

Twice during the night, the bus stopped. The first time, Verna twitched and realized she'd been sleeping with her forehead against the window. The second time, she left the bus to use the restroom. She'd ridden the bus a few times to and from college and marveled at how similar everything seemed. Men and women collecting at the wooden lunch counter and around the metal magazine racks reminded her of those trips. The outside world should have changed as much as her inner world. She resented its callous sameness. It's utter indifference to collapsed life.

Back on the bus, the lights resumed their march, forming patterns that reminded her of the Harlequin. He smiled brightly, with just a trace of malice. She. Hated. Him. She passed out again.

Shortly before dawn, they made a breakfast stop at an army camp in a desert. She ignored the food but used the restroom. After pulling out, the sun rose, and the bus started its erratic vibration again. A man was going on about the ship's pulsing light affecting the ignition. She ignored him and kept the shade pulled to keep away the "tickle." After the lunch break, which she also ignored, the sun and disk were coming in from the other side. She watched as they cast shadows across the seats and floor. She leaned against the cracked glass and let the desert massage her.

Late that afternoon, they rolled past a small gas station/restaurant combo and, an hour later, pulled onto a rough dirt road. The bus bounced as dust rolled against and into the windows. Verna leaned away from the smell of dust coming through the cracks.

People with armbands moved anxiously up and down the aisle. A woman sat in the empty seat next to Verna, staring out. As the bus came around a curve, the roadside filled again with people surging against the vehicle - rocking it until Verna thought it would go on its side. The driver hit the gas, and the big vehicle slewed sideways into a group of the attackers, hurling them away. A gun cracked. glass shattered. A woman screamed toward the front.

The woman beside Verna slid to the floor and pushed Verna down into the seat. The already broken window shattered, and flying glass stung Verna's head and arms. She tried to sit back up.

"Stay down!" The woman pressed harder on Verna's shoulder. A gun boomed overhead, and Verna smelled burned gunpowder. More gunshots from inside and outside. The vehicle rocked, skidded, and straightened. The gunfire stopped, and the bus settled on a straight course. The woman slapped Verna's shoulder, "You can sit up now."

Verna leaned back. "What happened?" Dust rolled in through the broken windows and choked her.

"Those damn nuts is what happened!" The woman's expression was grim. "Like that bunch when we left your town." She glared out the window, "We out-raced them." Verna's eyes widened as the woman tucked a heavy black semi-automatic pistol into her shoulder bag. The woman looked into Verna's eyes curiously and then stood to tuck her blouse back into her slacks. Without another look, she went to the front of the bus, checking with passengers as she passed them.

Eventually, the bus slowed and passed through a gated fence into a camp made up of white buildings and tents. The bus pulled to a stop before a low, theatre-like building. Men and women clustered about as the passengers were guided off the bus and directed into the building. It was a former camp movie house turned orientation center where "recruits" were warned to behave themselves and given their living quarter assignments. Single men were assigned to tents, while single women and couples to barracks. A map on the wall showed where the camp store, mess hall, and recreation center were.

Verna left the building and stood in its shadow, watching the light pulse over the simmering gravel of what had been a parade ground. She ignored the small man with a pockmarked face and beaky nose staring at her, although she kept an eye on him. He'd been standing with those who'd gathered when the bus unloaded and had been watching her since. He made her nervous, but she wanted to cross the field toward her barracks once the light was gone. As she turned to wait instead inside the building, she caught a reflection of herself in the glass doors. Her black, uncombed hair snarled around her shoulders, and her clothing hung rumpled on her body. Her usually pale skin seemed even whiter, flesh tight against her bones, with eyes peering from dark sockets. She was always immaculate about her appearance, but now she turned away, unconcerned about how she looked and stared again blindly across the field. The sun sets quickly in the desert, and the ship followed it. She identified her barracks and started toward it, walking heavily in the strange shoes. The beaky man fell into step beside her, his eyes gleaming up at her from three below her eyeline.

"You're mine!"

She scoffed, "I'm nobody's."

The scarred face stretched a mean, twisted smile. "Ain't I good enough for you?"

She ignored him and quickened her leaden march. The man trotted by her side. The crunch of gravel under their feet rasped into the night. They came off the parade into the deeper shadows of the buildings. The man grabbed her arm and pulled her into the darkness beside a building, fumbling with the front of her shirt.

"I'll show you how good I am."

She was too tired for this shit. Part of her just wanted to give in. It would be easy and quick and probably painless. But a spark of self-respect still flickered within her, and she shoved him away. He grunted and grabbed her by the throat, a knife flashing in front of her eyes.

"Don't fight me," he hissed. "I'll cut your eyes out."

She stood very still, and the man put the knife away. "I can get it out again real quick," he said.

She understood and waited as he grabbed again at her clothing, ripping open the front of her blouse and working at her belt. She shivered as cool air touched her bare stomach. He was pushing her down, forcing a leg in between her legs when she brought her knee up so hard it even surprised even her.

The man clutched himself, howled, and dropped. Her trousers drooped around her hips, tangling at her knees, and she fell backward onto the ground. The scarred man staggered to his feet, yelling, and came at her. She rolled and raised both legs as the man dove at her, his knife flashing in the starlight. Verna's heels caught him in the chest, and he flew backward flat onto his spine. She could hear the wind knocked out of him, but he rolled up to his feet, still grasping the knife. His breath rasped as he came at her sucking in huge gulps of air through his mouth. She had the impression screaming would be a waste of breath, but if she could make it into one of the barracks, she might be OK. She kicked her trousers away and scrambled to her feet. The man crept more cautiously toward her this time, his teeth flashing in the dim light and the knife low by his side. She ran, but he caught her right arm. As she tried to pull away, a huge shadow blotted out the stars.

"Hey, fuckhead" A voice rumbled. The man released her arm and immediately lunged past her with the knife. She couldn't see what happened, only that it happened quickly. Verna heard the knife clatter under the building, followed by a crack and the limp body of the beak-nosed man.

The huge man turned to her.

"Is he…did you…?" she muttered.

"Oooh yeah." The voice boomed casually with the obvious. "He's not a problem anymore. They'll find him in the morning. Don't worry; they don't really spend much time investigating these types of things around here." He reached to touch her cheek, and she yanked back – wondering if she'd just saved her for himself.

He dropped his hand, "You all right?"

She nodded. "Scared, mostly," she forced the words against clenched teeth. She wanted to hide the weakness of it.

"Well, considering what just happened, that seems reasonable. You put up a good fight. "

He put his big hand gently on her shoulder. It seemed to swallow her up. He'd been so casual about the beaky man, and she wondered what she could do if he tried to strangle her. The touch was comforting, not threatening, but she still cringed at being touched at all. He pulled his hand away and turned, searching the ground. Her trembling slowed, and she started to breathe again. A moment later, he handed her a bundle of cloth.

"Your trousers. "

She leaned against the wall as she pulled them on and tugged her buttonless shirt closed in the front.

"Come on," he said softly. "I'm Muhammed. Come stay in my barracks tonight. Tomorrow, we'll get you new clothing and find your building. "He touched her arm, and she flinched. "No, it's not like that. Strictly plutonic." She took his hand and guided her toward a barracks entrance. "That wasn't smart," he said as they walked. "Best to stay in your barracks after dark unless you have an escort." He held the door for her. "You'll be safe here tonight."

She wondered who this man was as she followed him through the barracks to a door off the long hall. His accent was British. What was he doing here? How did he rate a private space in the barracks? At orientation, they'd said only single women and couples rated barracks. He didn't seem like the couple type.

He must have read her mind. "We mercenaries are jolly well pampered." He grinned, "We say who lives in this building."

"I just got here tonight," she said. "I didn't know."

"That explains it," he smiled.

Muhammad's room was at the far end of the hall. He opened the door and, after she entered, shut it briskly behind her. She whirled, grabbing at the doorknob, but hesitated. He said she could stay with him and be safe, but was she? She thought about his massive size. She wouldn't be able to fight him off as she had the little beak-nosed weasel. She felt suddenly weak from fear and her collapsing adrenaline. Her muscles hurt from the previous struggle.

The room was mostly empty except for two beds. She sank onto one of them and stared at the wall. What did she care if he fucked her? He was a hell of a lot better than the one Tim had caught her with or Tim himself. She felt like she owed him something.

She shoved the question to the back of her mind and surveyed the room. Two beds parallel to each other against opposite walls with a desk between. A window in the wall opposite the door, with lockers off to one side. Curtains covered the windows to the sill. God, it's bare.

He came in again, towering above her with shiny red hair, and dropped his burdens on the other bed. He turned to look at her. "It's the first time he's actually seen me in the light," she reminded herself as he stared. Crap! She tugged at her hair, trying to take the tangles out with her fingers. After a moment watching her, he smiled slightly and gestured toward the items on the bed: a beige flannel nightshirt, white bathrobe, grannie panties, bra, khaki blouse, slippers, and pants.

"I borrowed these. I suspect they'll be too big, but they'll do until you can get something better tomorrow."

He opened the drawer under one locker. She glimpsed items neatly laid out, military style, on a white towel. He straightened and handed her a clean towel, washcloth, soap, and a plastic shampoo bottle.

"You'll feel better after a shower."

"And look better, too, no doubt," she thought. Why does it matter? A small piece of her old pride surfaced as he looked at her expectantly. She looked like a tramp. She nodded and stood.

He pointed down the hall toward the showers. She took two steps and suddenly stopped, trembling. She couldn't go down there alone. Her quivering increased. He gently laid his hands on her shoulders until the shivering subsided.

"I'll stay with you," he said, guiding her down the hall to the showers. She looked curiously at the bare rows of wash basins, the doorless toilet cubicles, and the line of open showers. This was where she had to bathe? She looked at him questioningly, and he nodded but made no move to leave, and she felt glad. With one hand clutching the front of her shirt, she hesitated. She was suddenly shy, turning her back on him and then looking over her shoulder. She wanted him here, but not here here.

He smiled, "I'll be over here." He walked over to a slightly rotted-looking wooden bench between rows of lockers and sat with his back to her.

Quickly, she undressed and stepped under a shower. For a long time, she let hot water flow over her body.

"Washing away the old stains as well as the new," she thought. She came out of the shower and put on the nightshirt after drying herself. They headed back to the room. He put away the toiletries and pointed at one of the bunks.

"That is yours for tonight. I'll be down the hall a while. I'll lock the door, but I'll be close. Yell if you need me. "

He went to the door, paused, and walked back to the desk. He took a key from a drawer and set it on the desktop. "The extra key." He left, shutting the door. She heard the lock click and instinctively reached for the key on the desk, gripping it in a hand on her lap. She lay back on the bed, waiting for him to return, wondering if she could fight him off. She wasn't sure if she wanted to. She fell asleep with that thought.

When she awoke, the ship's light pulsed around the closed curtains. It was morning, and she hadn't heard him come in. She glanced at the other bed, still neatly made up as it had been last night. Except for a handful of new items on the desk, she would have assumed he hadn't come back. She'd been so tired, but now she felt rested and calm. For the first time in a while. "I should get up," she thought, "Lying in bed when I'm not ill is a sin." She rolled her eyes and laughed at herself … and then abruptly caught the laugh in her throat. She's not allowed to feel laughter again.

She wasn't sure how she lay there, floating on the edge of sleep, but she didn't move except to open her eyes when a key turned in the lock, and he entered the room. Her blood pulsed in her ears in time with the light from the window. He glanced sharply at her and smiled when he saw her eyes were open. He had a kind smile. A khaki robe hung to his knees, and he carried a shaving kit. Without wasting time, he stowed the kit and looked back at her. She blushed. Tim had never made her feel the way she was feeling as if all her nerve ends were exposed.

"If you're up, we can have some breakfast and see about getting you to the proper barracks."

It wasn't what she had wanted him to say, and unconsciously, her full lower lip curled into a pout.

He watched her. For a moment, she continued to pout and then smiled and stretched.

"Can't I stay with you?"

"Do you want to?"

Relief swelled within her. She smiled for what seemed like the first time since the disk had arrived. "Yeah."

She reached a hand out to him.

He hesitated. If he accepted the offer, she knew they would both be making a commitment. At least, she would be. She looked into his eyes, feeling the light ripple across her skin. His eyes softened at the corners, and she knew he'd made up his mind. He came to her. Under the scratchy robe, his body felt hard. His hands, gently in motion, were rough against her skin. She liked how they felt.

Momentarily, she pushed him away.

"Open the curtains," she said.

He rose, pulled the curtains open, and came to her again.

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