'Hard or soft?'
'Moderate. I don't necessarily want Everett and Barbara captured right away, but I wouldn't mind knowing where they are.'
On the step outside, Big Jim breathed deeply of the smelly air and then sighed with something that sounded like satisfaction. Carter felt pretty satisfied himself. A week ago, he'd been replacing mufflers, wearing goggles to keep the sifting rust flakes from salt-rotted exhaust systems out of his eyes. Today he was a man (if position and influence. A little smelly air seemed a small price to pay for that.
'I have a question for you,' Big Jim said. 'If you don't want to answeir, it's okay'
Carter looked at him.
'The Bushey girl,' Big Jim said. 'How was she? Was she good?'
Carter hesitated, then said: 'A little dry at first, but she oiled up a-country fair.'
Big Jim laughed. The sound was metallic, like the sound of coins dropping into the tray of a slot machine.
14
Midnight, and the pink moon descending toward the Tarker's Mills horizon, where it might linger until daylight, turning into a ghost before finally disappearing.
Julia picked her way through the orchard to where the McCoy land sloped down the western side of Black Ridge, and was not surprised to see a darker shadow sitting against one of the trees. Off to her right, the box with the alien symbol engraved on its top sent out a flash every fifteen seconds: the world's smallest, strangest lighthouse.
'Barbie?' she asked, keeping her voice low. 'How's Ken?'
'Gone to San Francisco to march in the Gay Pride parade. I always knew that boy wasn't straight.'
Julia laughed, then took his hand and kissed it. 'My friend, I'm awfully glad you're safe.'
He took her in his arms, and kissed her on both cheeks before letting her go. Lingering kisses. Real ones. 'My friend, so am I.'
She laughed, but a thrill went straight through her, from neck to knees. It was one she recognized but hadn't felt in a long time. Easy, girl, she thought. He's young enough to be your son.
Well, yes... if she'd gotten pregnant at thirteen.
'Everyone else is asleep,' Julia said. 'Even Horace. He's in with the kids. They had him chasing sticks until his tongue was practically dragging on the ground. Thinks he died and went to heaven, I bet.'
'I tried sleeping. Couldn't.'
Twice he'd come close to drifting off, and both times he found himself back in the Coop, facing Junior Rennie.The first time Barbie had tripped instead of jigging to the right and had gone sprawling to the bunk, presenting a perfect target. The second time, Junior had reached through the bars with an impossibly long plastic arm and had seized him to make him hold still long enough to give up his life. After that one, Barbie had left the barn where the men were sleeping and had come out here. The air still smelled like a room where a lifelong smoker had died six months ago, but it was better than the air in town.
'So few lights down there,' she said.'On an ordinary night there'd be nine times as many, even at this hour. The streetlights would look like a double strand of pearls.'
'There's that, though.' Barbie had left one arm around her, but he lifted his free hand and pointed at the glow-belt. But for the Dome, where it ended abruptly, she thought it would have been a perfect circle. As it was, it looked like a horseshoe.
'Yes. Why do you suppose Cox hasn't mentioned it? They must see it on their satellite photos.' She considered. 'At least he hasn't said anything to me. Maybe he did to you.'
'Nope, and he would've. Which means they don't see it.'
'You think the Dome... what? Filters it out?'
'Something like that. Cox, the news networks, the outside world - they don't see it because they don't need to see it. I guess we do.'
'Is Rusty right, do you think? Are we just ants being victimized by cruel children with a magnifying glass? What kind of intelligent race would allow their children to do such a thing to another intelligent race?'
' We think we're intelligent, but do they? We know that ants are social insects - home builders, colony builders, amazing architects. They work hard, as we do. They bury their dead, as we do. They even have race wars, the blacks against the reds. We know all this, but we don't assume ants are intelligent.'
She pulled his arm tighter around her, although it wasn't cold. 'Intelligent or not, it's wrong.'
'I agree. Most people would. Rusty knew it even as a child. But most kids don't have a moral fix on the world. That takes years to develop. By the time we're adults, most of us have put away childish things, which would include burning ants with a magnifying glass or pulling the wings off flies. Probably their adults have done the same. If they notice the likes of us at all, that is. When's the last time you bent over and really examined an anthill?'