"She's been gone six days now. The Search Committee hasn't found a trace of her. Yes, I think she's dead, but even now I am not completely sure. She was an amazing woman, completely outside any rational frame of reference. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm almost glad to have her gone is because I'm such a rational old curmudgeon. I like to creep through my daily round, to water my garden - did you see the way I've brought the begonias back? I'm quite proud of that - to read my books, to write my notes for my own book about the plague. I like to do all those things and then have a glass of wine at bedtime and fall asleep with an untroubled mind. Yes. None of us want to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine. If we have to see God in the black face of an old woman, it's bound to remind us that there's a devil for every god - and our devil may be closer than we like to think."
"That's why I'm here," Larry said awkwardly. He wished mightily that the Judge hadn't just mentioned his garden, his books, his notes, and his glass of wine before bedtime. He had had a two-bit bright idea at a meeting of friends and had made a blithe suggestion. Now he wondered if there was any possible way of going on without sounding like a cruel and opportunistic halfwit.
"I know why you're here. I accept."
Larry jerked, making the wicker of his chair strain and whisper. "Who told you? This is supposed to be very quiet, Judge. If someone on the committee has been leaking, we're in a hell of a jam."
The Judge raised one liverspotted hand, cutting him off. His eyes twinkled in his time-beaten face. "Softly, my boy - softly. No one on your committee has been leaking, not that I know of, and I keep my ear close to the ground. No, I whispered the secret to myself. Why did you come here tonight? Your face is an education in itself, Larry. I hope you don't play poker. When I was talking about my few simple pleasures, I could see your face sag and droop... a rather comic stricken expression appeared on it - "
"Is that so funny? What should I do, look happy about... about..."
"Sending me west," the Judge said quietly. "To spy out the land. Isn't that about it?"
"That's exactly it."
"I wondered how long it would be before the idea would surface. It is tremendously important, of course, tremendously necessary if the Free Zone is to be assured its full chance to survive. We have no real idea what he's up to over there. He might as well be on the dark side of the moon."
"If he's really there."
"Oh, he's there. In one form or another, he is there. Never doubt it." He took a nail-clipper from his pants pocket and went to work on his fingernails, the little snipping sound punctuating his speech. "Tell me, has the committee discussed what might happen if we decided we liked it better over there? If we decided to stay?"
Larry was flabbergasted by the idea. He told the Judge that, to the best of his knowledge, it hadn't occurred to anybody.
"I imagine he's got the lights on," the Judge said with deceptive idleness. "There's an attraction in that, you know. Obviously this man Impening felt it."
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Larry said grimly, and the Judge laughed long and heartily.
When he sobered he said, "I'll go tomorrow. In a Land-Rover, I think. North to Wyoming, and then west. Thank God I can still drive well enough! I'll travel straight across Idaho and toward Northern California. It may take two weeks going, longer coming back. Coming back, there may be snow."
"Yes. We've discussed that possibility."
"And I'm old. The old are prone to attacks of heart trouble and stupidity. I presume you are sending backups?"
"Well..."
"No, you're not supposed to talk about that. I withdraw the question."
"Look, you can refuse this," Larry blurted. "No one is holding a gun to your hea - "
"Are you trying to absolve yourself of your responsibility to me?" the Judge asked sharply.
"Maybe. Maybe I am. Maybe I think your chances of getting back are one in ten and your chances of getting back with information we can actually base decisions on are one in twenty. Maybe I'm just trying to say in a nice way that I could have made a mistake. You could be too old."
"I am too old for adventure," the Judge said, putting his clippers away, "but I hope I am not too old to do what I feel is right. There is an old woman out there someplace who has probably gone to a miserable death because she felt it was right. Prompted by religious mania, I have no doubt. But people who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad. I'll go. I'll be cold. My bowels will not work properly. I'll be lonely. I'll miss my begonias. But..." He looked up at Larry, and his eyes gleamed in the dark. "I'll also be clever."
"I suppose you will," Larry said, and felt the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes.
"How is Lucy?" the Judge asked, apparently closing the subject of his departure.
"Fine," Larry said. "We're both fine."
"No problems?"
"No," he said, and thought about Nadine. Something about her desperation the last time he had seen her still troubled him deeply. You're my last chance, she had said. Strange talk, almost suicidal. And what help was there for her? Psychiatry? That was a laugh, when the best they could do for a GP was a horse doctor. Even Dial-A-Prayer was gone now.
"It's good that you are with Lucy," the Judge said, "but you're worried about the other woman, I suspect."