“No!” As Liana started to close the door, Teri barged forward, blocking it with her leg. “No, you don’t understand! I need your help to get him out of prison!”
That stopped her. “What are you talking about?”
“Look…last week I was talking to David’s lawyer. She says they’re not letting anyone in to see him. She’s right. I’ve been trying.”
Liana nodded. “They told me he was in transit, whatever that means. And they’re not returning my v-calls and messages anymore.”
“Same here. I…I’ve been thinking about this all week. Trying to, well, trying to work up my nerve to come here and talk to you. His lawyer said that we might be able to rally some support from people David knows.”
“What, all those archeologists and scientists and things?” She shook her head. “I don’t know any of them.”
“I do…what I was wondering was if we could go through his correspondents’ list on your home computer. There might be others on the list who could help. Or people who know people. If you let me copy that list, I could send out a letter, asking for help. Or…you could do it from here, but I’m afraid your home connection might be monitored. I have a system that will get the messages out, no matter what.”
Liana drew herself up taller. “Maybe you don’t understand, Dr. Sullivan. David’s and my marriage, well…maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s all over. So why should I want to help him? Or you, for that matter?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do? Because the damned government is trying to pull a disappearing act with one of its citizens, and can’t be allowed to get away with that shit? Maybe because, even if your marriage is over, you two still loved each other once, cared for each other, and wanted what was best?” When Liana didn’t answer, she added, “Look, I know you want to strangle me, and maybe him, too, but there’s time for that later. The bastards are magleving David, and we’ve got to do something about it!”
Liana stared at the woman for a long several seconds, then finally stepped back from the door. “C’mon.”
She led the way to the E-room and sat again on the sofa. Reaching out, she tapped away at the touch-screen keyboard, closing the novel she’d been watching and bringing up David’s private system. She typed in the word “Sphinx,” then navigated with swift, sure strokes on the touch screen to his correspondents’ list. “There you go.”
Names and v-mail addresses scrolled up the screen…perhaps a hundred of them.
“Lots of scientists,” Teri said. She pointed. “That name, Kaminski. He’s a Marine. David told me once he was exchanging a lot of mail with him.”
“I’ll make a copy of the list for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just take the thing and get out of here. I don’t want to see either of you, ever again.” Her mother wouldn’t have approved, Liana knew, but she was changing her mind about the whole question of divorce. Some things could never be forgiven, even in the light of the Divine Masters.
EIGHTEEN
SATURDAY, 5 JULY 2042
Ramsey Residence
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
1635 hours EDT
“I just can’t tell you how good it is to have you back home again!” Jack’s mother was very much aflutter, now that they were back on her home turf. “I simply can’t believe that you’re finally home!”
Jack felt uncomfortable with the attention. “Yeah, it’s really great to be back. And, uh, thanks again for coming down to see me yesterday.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have missed your graduation for the world!” It had been something of a surprise. She’d taken the maglev down to Beaufort and come out to Parris Island to watch his graduation ceremony, and that, Jack knew, had been truly and act of devotion above and beyond the call of duty. They didn’t have that much money to begin with…and South Carolina in July was not exactly a vacation spot anymore, with its global warming-augmented temperatures, high humidity, and enthusiastic insect population.
The graduation, fittingly enough, had been held on the Fourth of July, with one hell of a spectacular fireworks display that evening for both the graduates and the families who’d come to see them. Even the fact that the evening’s festivities had been cut an hour short—the rumor that a UN arsenal ship had surfaced offshore and launched a pair of cruise missiles at Charleston proved to be false, fortunately—had failed to curb the partylike atmosphere. Jack and his mother had taken the maglev back to Pittsburgh the next morning; by early Saturday afternoon, he was home…and that was a concept as alien as anything Uncle David had discovered inside the labyrinthine caverns of Cydonia.