61

As he navigated the boat through the swells and felt the spray on his face, there was a lot of time to think. I’m crazy, he thought at first. I shouldn’t be going back. I was lucky to escape alive the first time. And indeed, he might have stayed on land if Ada hadn’t been dead. But no, as it was, there was no reason to go back to land. He felt he had to end it.

And then he began to think of what the old drunk had said when he met him on the dock: The only way to beat the devil is to take the devil inside you. You must open yourself to the devil. You must learn to think like the devil.

And how would the devil think? Or how, in this case, would the Marker think?

If anyone would know, Altman thought, it would be him. He had seen the Marker many times, had survived close proximity to it even when it was broadcasting fully. It had spoken to him by way of hallucinations again and again.

What had it said most recently, through his memories of Ada? I need you, Michael. I need you to finish what you started. That was vague—like most of what the ghosts told him, it was hard to pin down. Earlier, in the dream, it had been much more specific. But was it really the Marker speaking to him through the dream or was it only a dream, or even something else? A dream was a far cry from a hallucination.

But maybe the dream was his subconscious mind trying to tell him something. What exactly had Ada said? I need you to do something for me, she had said. I want to have a baby. That’s what I need. It’ll bring us closer together.

But was a dream the same thing as a hallucination? Maybe it was a different force altogether—maybe not his subconscious at all but something else. What did she mean by having a baby? Were these creatures, the crewmen that had been transformed after death into monsters, the Marker ’s offspring? Well, yes, he supposed so, in a manner of speaking, if he was right in thinking they’d been created by the Marker ’s transmitted code. But unless he was mistaken, his dream about Ada had not raised the issue with him until after the creatures, whatever they were, had been spawned. Indeed, he must have had the dream just after the creatures had appeared, even though Altman hadn’t known about them until a few minutes later, when the alarm woke him up.

Maybe he should take the dream literally. Maybe that was exactly what the Marker was demanding of them: that they reproduce it. Maybe if he could convince the Marker that he understood, that he could reproduce it, things would return to normal.

It was simple, he thought.

And then doubts assailed him. He was basing it all on a dream, and it didn’t jibe perfectly with what his hallucinations had been telling him. It could mean nothing, or even be something else, another force, trying to manipulate him. It was almost too simple. And even if he was right, who was to say that if he did what the Marker wanted things would go back to normal? Maybe they would just get worse. What if the Marker had no stake whatsoever in the survival of the human species but saw humans only as a means to an end? If that end is fulfilled, he thought, will it still need us, or will it crush us, almost without thinking, as if we were flies?

What if we’re trapped between a rock and a hard place? he wondered. What if humanity is going to die either way?

He shook his head. It was the best he could come up with. He’d have to take a chance. But what choice he would make, what he’d choose to risk, he didn’t know. Altman’s wager, he thought. In any case, the Marker was the key. There was no choice but to return to the Marker, no matter what stood in the way.

It was nearly dark now. There, up ahead, were the lights of the floating compound, dim, running on the emergency backup, but still there. Soon he would be there as well. Soon he’d either have his answer or he’d be dead.