From where he stood, the house was clearly visible.
It might have been painted blue at one time, but the sun had beaten all the color out of it. It leaned under the firm and constant hands of weather and gravity. Some of the windows were boarded up; others were just missing. Roof tiles had peeled away like ancient scabs, leaving sagging spots in the wood underneath. The chimney stood tall, even if the top of it had eroded slightly, but it had been years since any smoke had come curling out of it.
The field stretched away from the house in all directions, making it look small and lonely. There was a wall of brown, leafless trees not far behind the house. Above it, the faint specter of a daytime moon hung like a cradle in the pallid sky.
He stood in the grass, surrounded by dwindling patches of snow, while the others fussed with the crate. They were just a few that he’d brought with him, quiet and cooperative. They shimmied the crate across the bed of the truck.
He waited patiently, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his overcoat, the collar turned up to cover his ears. The effects of the ship had gradually been wearing off, something that they hadn’t seen coming. He could feel the cold, he could feel the pain in his numb fingertips. The longer they stayed in the physical plane, the worse it was going to get. Time was catching up with them, and eventually, when it came nose-to-nose, they would all know what real death felt like. They would be nothing.
He worried for them and for himself. Their last hope was inside that house.
A few more minutes passed. The gray day seemed to linger in a constant, pale light. There were no clouds, but he was sure it was going to snow some more.
The crew got the crate down off the truck and started carrying it across the field to the house. The brittle grass crunched under their feet. One of them—Jon—slammed the tailgate shut and then came up beside him.
“Captain Winthrop,” Jon said. “That was the last of it.”
“Good,” Basil replied. “Everything else is already in place?”
“Yes, sir.” Jon had a red baseball hat in his hands that he wrung like the neck of some small animal. The color was jarring against the paleness around them.
They watched the other guys lug the crate up the front steps. After a moment Jon cleared his throat.
“Captain, sir?” he said.
“Yes, Jon.”
“If you don’t mind me asking … I mean, if it’s something you’re able to share…”
“You want to know what all this is about.” It wasn’t a question. Basil kicked at the hard earth with the toe of his boot.
Jon hesitated, then said, “Yes, sir.”
Basil waited, scratching at his chin, pondering his words. Somewhere over beyond the tree line, a crow called out.
“What do you remember about the day the Harbinger sank, Jon?” Basil finally asked.
Jon thought about it. “Not a hell of a lot, sir. It happened so fast.”
Basil nodded. “We lost a lot of good people. Good syllektors.”
“It was awful,” Jon murmured, his focus suddenly distancing, the memories of that day playing back behind his eyes.
“How long has it been?” Basil knew the answer, but he was trying to make a point.
“A long time,” Jon replied. “Years.”
“Yes.” Basil licked his lips. “We lost something else when the ship went down. Something very important.”
“The cube,” Jon said. At the house, the other guys were sliding the crate, a big, tall, rectangular box, through the front door. “We lost the containment tank. It went down with the ship.”
“Correct,” Basil said, nodding again. “And the world’s a different place now because of it.” The images of everything that had happened after, of fighting their way up out of the steam room, of fleeing the ship through the last active door they could find, the dead psychons, the ghosted syllektors. By the time it finally went under, the Harbinger had been so full of ash that it was more like a giant urn than a ship. Maybe that was fitting. But the thought of that cube, still packed with souls, lost out in the water somewhere, had unnerved him from the second they left it behind.
“With all due respect, Captain,” Jon continued. “What does all that have to do with what we’re doing now?”
He’d asked himself that question, too. Maybe they didn’t need to go through any of this to accomplish what they wanted to. It had taken long enough to get here, enough searching and fighting and hiding to bring them to this doorstep, nowhere near New York City, not even in the same state. For what? This whole plan had been built on nothing but what-ifs. And Basil had another one for Jon.
“What if we could get it all back?” he said.
Jon looked at him with his eyes narrowed. When he decided that Basil was serious, he said slowly, “Is that possible?”
“Maybe,” Basil replied. “That’s what we’re here to find out.” He nodded at the house, at the empty doorway that led to more shadows and more dust. “There’s a ghost in there. He’s my friend,” he said. “And he’s coming out alive.”