'Who's he?' Lissa whispered. She was still working at the ankh. Julia thought she'd snap the chain soon, if she kept at it. 'And what are they doing over there?'
'Trying to get us out,' Julia said. 'And after the rather spectacular failure earlier in the day, I'd have to say they're wise to do it on the quiet.' She started forward. 'Hello, Colonel Cox - I'm your favorite newspaper editor. Good evening.'
Cox's smile was - to his credit, she thought - only slightly sour. 'Ms Shumway. You're even prettier than I imagined.'
'I'll say one thing for you, you're handy with the bullsh - '
Barbie intercepted her three yards from where Cox was standing and took her by the arms.
'What?' she asked.
"]The camera.' She had almost forgotten she had it around her neck until he pointed to it. 'Is it digital?'
'Sure, Pete Freeman's extra.' She started to ask why, then got it. 'You tthink the Dome will fry it.'
'That'd be the best-case scenario,' Barbie said. 'Remember what happened to Chief Perkins's pacemaker.'
'Shit,' she said. 'Shit! Maybe I've got my old Kodak in the trunk.'
Lissa and Cox were looking at each other with what Barbie thought was equal fascination. 'What are you going to do?' she asked. 'Is there going to be another bang?'
Cox hesitated. Barbie said, 'Might as well come clean, Colonel. If you don't tell her, I will.'
Cox sighed. 'You insist on total transparency, don't you?'
'Why not? If this thing works, the people of Chester's Mill will be singing your praises. The only reason you're playing em close is force of habit.'
'No. It's what my superiors have ordered.'
'They're in Washington,' Barbie said. 'And the press is in Castle Rock, most of em probably watching Girls Gone Wild on pay-per-view. Out here it's just us chickens.'
Cox sighed and pointed to the spray-painted door shape. 'That's where the men in the protective suits will apply our experimental compound. If we're lucky, the acid will eat through and we'll then be able to knock that piece of the Dome out the way you can knock a piece of glass out of a window after you've vised a glass-cutter.'
'And if we're unlucky?' Barbie asked. 'If the Dome decomposes, giving off some poison gas that kills us all? Is that what the gas masks are for?'
'Actually,' Cox said, 'the scientists feel it more likely that the acid might start a chemical reaction that would cause the Dome to catch fire.' He saw Lissa's stricken expression and added, 'They consider both possibilities very remote.'
'They can,' Lissa said, twirling her ankh. 'They're not the ones who'd get gassed or roasted.'
Cox said, 'I understand your concern, ma'am - '
'Melissa,' Barbie corrected. It suddenly seemed important to him that Cox understand these were people under the Dome, not just a few thousand anonymous taxpayers. 'Melissa Jamieson. Lissa to her friends. She's the town librarian. She's also the middle-school guidance counselor, and teaches yoga classes, I believe.'
'I had to give that up,' Lissa said with a fretful smile. 'Too many other things to do.'
"Very nice to make your acquaintance, Ms Jamieson,' Cox said. 'Look - this is a chance worth taking.'
'If we felt differently, could we stop you?' she asked.
This Cox did not answer directly.'There's no sign that this thing, whatever it is, is weakening or biodegrading. Unless we're able to breach it, we believe you're in for the long haul.'
'Do you have any idea what cavised it? Any at all?'
'None,' Cox said, but his eyes shifted in a way Rusty Everett would have recognized from his conversation with Big Jim.
Barbie thought, Why are you lying?Just that knee-jerk reaction again? Civilians are like mushrooms, keep them in the dark and feed them shit? Probably that was all it was. But it made him nervous.
'It's strong?' Lissa asked. 'Your acid - is it strong?'
'The most corrosive in existence, as far as we know,' Cox replied, and Lissa took two large steps back.
Cox turned to the men in the space-suits. 'Are you boys about readv?'
They gave him a pair of gloved thumbs-up. Behind them, all activity had stopped. The soldiers stood watching, with their hands on their gas masks.
'Here we go,' Cox said. 'Barbie, I suggest you escort those two beautiful ladies at least fifty yards back from - '
'Look at the stars,' Julia said. Her voice was soft, awestruck. Her head was tilted upward, and in her wondering face Baxbie saw the child she had been thirty years ago.
He looked up and saw the Big Dipper, the Great Bear, Orion. All where they belonged... except they had smeared out of clear focus and turned pink. The Milky Way had turned into a bubblegum spill across the greater dome of the night,
'Cox,' he said. 'Do you see that?'
Cox looked up.
'See what? The stars?'
'What do they look like to you?'
'Well... very bright, of course - no light pollution to speak of in these parts - ' Then a thought occurred to him, and he snapped his fingers. 'What are you seeing? Have they changed color?'
'They're beautiful,' Lissa said. Her eyes were wide and shining. 'But scary, too.'
'They're pink,' Julia said. 'What's happening?'