The imager emits a shriek. “The connection has been made, I believe,” the proprietor declares.

“Why don’t you just tell me what it is?” Logan asks Wilcox.

“Oh, believe me, it’s better if you see this for yourself.”

A series of mechanical clunks and the machine draws a piece of paper from the tray. As the print head moves noisily back and forth, Logan becomes aware of a second sound, coming from outside—a kind of rhythmic beating. He has only just realized what he is hearing when Nessa enters the room, dressed for dinner. She looks animated, even a little alarmed.

“Logan, there’s a lifter out there. It looks like it’s about to land on the front lawn.”

“And here we are,” the proprietor announces.

With a triumphant smile, he places the transmitted picture onto the desk. It is the image of a house, seen from above. Not a ruin—an actual house. It is encircled by a fence; within this perimeter are a second, smaller structure, a privy perhaps, and the neatly planted rows of a vegetable garden.

“Well?” Wilcox says. “Did you get it?”

There is more. In the field adjacent to the house, rocks have been arranged on the ground to make letters, large enough to be read from the air.

“What is it, Logan?” Nessa asks.

Logan looks up; Nessa is staring at him. The world, he knows, is about to change. Not just for him. For everyone. Outside the walls of the inn, the racket reaches a crescendo as the lifter touches down.

“It’s a message,” he says, showing Nessa the paper.

Three words: COME TO ME.

* * *

92

Six days have passed. Logan and Nessa, in the observation lounge, sit in silence.

On an airship, time moves differently. The excitement of travel quickly wanes, replaced by a kind of mental and physical hibernation; the days seem shapeless, the ship itself barely to move at all. Logan and Nessa, the only passengers, the objects of obscene fussing by a staff that far outnumbers them, have passed the time sleeping, reading, playing cards. In the evening, after eating by themselves in the too-large dining room, they have their pick of movies from the ship’s collection and watch alone or with members of the crew.

But now, with their destination in view, time snaps back into line. The ship is headed north, tracing the northern California coastline at an altitude of two thousand feet. Towering cliffs wreathed by morning fog, mighty forests of ancient trees, the indomitable greatness of the sea where it collides with the land: Logan’s heart stirs, as it always does, at the sight of this wild, untouched place.

“Is it what you thought it would be?” he asks Nessa.

Looking raptly out the window, she has barely spoken a word since breakfast.

“I’m not sure what I thought.” She turns her face toward him, lips pressed together and eyes slightly squinted, like someone puzzling out a problem. “It’s beautiful, but there’s something else to it. A different feeling.”

Not much later, the platform appears. Standing a hundred meters above the ocean’s surface, it has the appearance of a rigid structure, though it is, in fact, floating at anchor. The airship moves gracefully into place and attaches at the nose to the docking tower; ropes and chains are lowered; the vessel is drawn slowly downward to the deck. As Logan and Nessa disembark, Wilcox strides toward them with a rolling gait: a heavyset man with an untidy beard peppered with gray, his face and arms bronzed by sun and wind.

“Welcome back,” Wilcox says as they shake. “And you,” he says, turning, “must be Nessa.”

Wilcox is aware of Nessa’s role, although he is, Logan knows, not entirely comfortable with it, believing it is too soon to involve the press. But that is part of Logan’s design. Security is never as tight as it should be; word will get out, and once it does, they will lose control of the narrative. He’d rather get ahead of the situation by giving the story to one person, someone they can trust.

“Do you need to eat, clean up?” Wilcox asks. “The bird’s fueled and ready whenever you want.”

“How long will it take to get to the site?” Logan asks.

“Ninety minutes, about.”

Logan looks at Nessa, who nods. “I see no reason to delay,” he says.

The lifter waits on a second, slightly elevated platform, its props pointed upward. As they walk to it, Wilcox brings Logan up to speed. Per Logan’s instructions, no one has approached the house, although the building’s inhabitant, a woman, has been sighted several times, working in the yard. Wilcox’s team has moved equipment to the camp in order to bag the house, if that’s what Logan wants to do.

“Does she know she’s being watched?” Logan asks.

“She’d have to, with all those lifters going in and out, but she doesn’t act like it.” They take their seats in the bird. From the portfolio under his arm, Wilcox removes a photo and hands it to Logan. The image, taken from a great distance, is grainy and flattened; it shows a woman with a nimbus of white hair, hunched before a vegetable patch. She is wearing what appears to be a kind of thickly woven sack, almost shapeless; her face, angled downward, is obscured.

“So who is she?” Wilcox says.

Logan just looks at him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Wilcox says, holding up a hand in forbearance, “and pardon me, but no fucking way.”

“She’s the sole human inhabitant of a continent that’s been depopulated for nine hundred years. Give me another theory and I’ll listen.”