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She shook her head She looked around the tavern She could see the barely checked panic in people who, y, tactics, and the possibility of survival Now they believed the mirror They expected to die horribly, and soon

"I’ this pretty well so far…but I’ to lose it"

Neil put his ar

Molly treainst him She listened to his heart Steady Neil

When her heart had begun to tiuided her into the booth and sat across frorateful for the shadows She didn’t want anyone but Neil to see her tears She prided herself on her toughness, her resilience

Maybe honest pride didn’t matter anyht it ure out what to do, ot to ask ourselves e know"

"Less and less"

With irony, he repeated the Eliot quote: "‘All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance’"

The booth benches featured open space under the seats Molly tucked her legs back--and thought of thedoll

In the brief darkness between the loss of public power and the lighting of the candles, the doll could have crawled into this booth, under her seat Eyeless but all-seeing Tonguelesspredator

She resisted the urge to scraht To do so would be to succumb to the most childish of fears, after which she would find it e to face the real and

It was just a doll And if she should feel a small hand on her ankle, it would be only the hand of a doll, no matter how demonically animated, just the hand of a doll

She wiped at her da our world from us?"

"The evidence says so"

"Or is that just the e’re reading the evidence?"

"I don’t see how else to interpret it"

"Neither do I That thing in the janitor’s closet…" She shuddered

She could still feel the airborne titan overhead, and nohen she turned her attention to the ceiling, she could sense the vessel’s h the storly sensitized to it

"But fast-track terrafor is Derek’s theory," she said, "and I don’t trust him"

"What is it with Derek?" Neil asked "Why did he act like that with you?"

"I don’t know"

"You said maybe Render wasn’t only Render"

"And I still don’t knohat I mean by that"

"Is Derek really Derek but not only Derek?"

"For sure, there’s so the nape of his neck with one hand, he said, "I’m back to the alien-parasite movies"

"Then why haven’t they burrowed into all of us? Why aren’t we all controlled?"

"Maybe ill be soon"

She shook her head "Life isn’t science fiction"

"Submarines, nuclear weapons, television, coan transplants--it was all the stuff of science fiction before it was reality And the biggest sci-fi thee a world--why the psychological warfare? They could just crush us like ants, which they see anyway, in the cities if not here"

"You an, and this T S Eliot weirdness If they can replace our entire environment with theirs, scour away human civilization in days or weeks, eradicate it more efficiently than a seven-continent nuclear war, they wouldn’t bother to screith ourthe doll as it had stared at the ceiling just before it ain and wondered if increased sensitivity to the stor leviathan would open her mind to its influence Perhaps, eventually robbed of her free will, she would e out her eyes

"We aren’t already dead because they have some sort of use for us," she suddenly realized

"What use?"

"I can iood"

"Reet movies That’s the way they want us to think, that’s hoe’re being guided to think But this is nothing like anyanimatedly to a e froone

"Maybe they don’t have a use for all of us," she said, "but certainly for soeted, not for death but for manipulation That stuff with the doll and the bar mirror--everyone saw it, but maybe it was only meant to influence you and me"

"Maybe only you," he said "Derek caan caht that their individual destinies ht differ radically, and that therefore their paths e "I don’t knohat itthat ere the only ones not reflected in that mirror"

"Not the only ones," he corrected "The kids weren’t there, either"

The six children now stood together near the booth in which they had previously been seated If earlier they had exhibited soiven way entirely to fear They appeared to be ready to bolt at the slightest provocation

Acting on instinct and with natural purpose, the dogs gravitated where they were needed olden retriever, a German shepherd, and a black-and-tan y face of a Scottish terrier--had gathered around the children to soothe troubled hearts as dogs have always done, and no doubt to defend their young charges against any threat

Watching the kids and the dogs, Molly again felt enlighten her froht, a shapeless shapeand disturbing

"Besides the children," she asked Neil, "who else didn’t cast a reflection in the mirror?"

"I don’t know It all happened so fast, there wasn’t time for a head count Maybe a couple others Or ht of us--you,in the bones, the blood, the lyines powering the beheht and theoff them as the vast ship moved south, and to avoid despondency, she dared not think about the hordes of inhuman creatures that must be aboard it and the cruel irresistible power it represented