Fear

She was fine.

Gaia had healed her.

“Actually, Drake,” Diana said, “I think it means you’d better watch very carefully what you do or say to me.”

Gaia, once more cradled in her mother’s arms, grinned a two-toothed grin.

“Something coming down the highway,” Sam said.

“It’s a light,” Astrid said.

“A light called Darkness,” Lana said in a faraway voice.

“It’s following the Sammy suns. Straight for us,” Caine said. He wasn’t snarking or snarling anymore. Sam saw the same look on his face and Lana’s. They both knew, deep down in their souls, what was coming.

Lana went to Caine and put a hand on his arm. Just making contact. Caine didn’t shake her off.

It was a weird bond they shared: memories of the gaiaphage. Memories of its painful touch deep inside their minds. Scars left on their souls.

“‘Fear is the mind-killer,’” Lana said, reciting from memory. “‘Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I …’ I can’t remember the rest. From a book I read a long time ago.”

To almost no one’s surprise, Astrid said, “Dune, by Frank Herbert. ‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.’”

She and Lana together spoke the last phrase of the incantation. “‘Only I will remain.’”

There was a collective sigh that was almost a sob.

Sam pulled Astrid to him and they kissed. Then Sam pushed her away and said, “I love you. All my heart. Forever. But get the hell out of here, because I can’t be watching out for you.”

“I know,” Astrid said. “And I love you, too.”

Lana took a furious, defiant look down the highway. Sam knew what was in her heart.

“Lana. What you’ve got won’t kill him. What you’ve got may save a bunch of others. Go. Now.”

Then it was just the three of them, Sam, Caine, and Quinn, watching the dim light advance. Seeing now that it was three indistinct shapes. It was as if the one in the middle was carrying a Sammy sun of a different hue. Sam couldn’t make out faces. But he was sure he saw a tentacle twisting, twisting.

“Three of them,” Caine said. “That means most likely Penny is one of them.” Caine took a deep breath. “Get outta here, Quinn.”

Quinn said, “No. I don’t think I will.”

“Hey. I’m letting you off the hook, fisherman, okay? I’m being a good guy. You can go tell everyone the last thing I said was, ‘Just get out of here, Quinn, and try to stay alive.’”

“Quinn,” Sam said. “You’ve got nothing to prove, man.”

They had found Quinn a pistol. A revolver. It had three bullets.

“I’m in this,” Quinn said shakily.

“You have a plan, Sammy boy?” Caine asked.

“Yeah.” He extinguished the nearest Sammy sun, plunging them into darkness. The next one back was a hundred yards down the road. “Quinn, you start walking backward toward the last light. They won’t have any depth perception, no more than we do in this light. They’ll keep coming toward you. Caine, you drop left; I drop right; we hit them when they’re fifty feet out. Hopefully before Penny can find a target.”

“Great plan,” Caine said a little sarcastically. But he melted into the darkness on the left-hand side of the road.

“Quinn. My friend. What Caine said before. Save one bullet.” With that Sam plunged into the deep, enveloping darkness.

He watched Quinn begin to walk backward. It would mean Quinn was in darkness until he neared the next Sammy sun back. If Drake had seen them at all, he probably hadn’t been able to tell how many there were. But he would eventually be able to see Quinn. At that point he would fixate, anxious to take whoever it was standing in his way.

There might be an opportunity there. A few confused seconds where Caine and Sam could strike unexpectedly. If they were fast and lucky they could take out at least one of the three and reduce the odds.

Who was that third person?

Drake. Penny. And someone—or something—glowing like an old headlight.

Whoever it is, he told himself, first go for Penny.

Penny was the one to fear.

“Dada,” Gaia said.

Diana stared down at her bright, glowing child. She was already the size of a two-year-old. There were teeth in her mouth. There was hair—dark like her parents’—on her head. Her movements were already deliberate and controlled, no more wild lack of coordination. Diana wondered if she could already walk.

“Did you say ‘Dada’?”

Gaia was looking fixedly at the dark off to the right. Straight ahead a lone figure stood beneath the light of a Sammy sun. Beyond him at least two fires could be seen, one fairly close and dramatic.

Gaia was in her head again, not straining to use her child mouth, but reaching straight into Diana’s memories. Pictures of Caine. And suddenly it was clear.

“It’s an ambush!” Diana said.

“Shut the—” Drake said, and was hurled bodily onto his back with such sudden force that he skidded clear out of sight.

A beam of terrible green light shot from the other direction.