A VIOLENT WIND began to howl across the desert in the early afternoon, sounding very much to Kerry Wellington like a chorus of the damned.

The sky grew darker as flying sand blotted out the sun. Anxiety began to churn Kerry’s stomach. They shouldn’t have been out in this kind of weather. They shouldn’t have been out here at all.

“Perhaps we should stop and wait for this to pass!” he shouted to Hugh Treviño, his boss and mentor, as their transport lurched ahead over the uneven ground.

Hugh didn’t even turn his head. His gaze was fixed on the windshield in front of him, or rather the drab terrain which lay beyond that.

Kerry spoke again. “Sir, I’ve heard that the storms out here can be extremely dangerous. I really think we should wait here for the winds to let up.”

“Nonsense!” The old man’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white. “The storm will cover up our tracks.”

Kerry sighed. Though he hated to admit it, the man was right. Neither of them had sought permission to set out on this little jaunt. The paperwork alone would have taken weeks! And all because management back at the base thought that the radiation levels were still too high, even though centuries had passed since the land had been fried in a bomb blast. Furthermore, the former management had permitted them to work out here without radiation-proof suits, so where was the sense in that?

Kerry had never been overly concerned about the possibility of radiation poisoning. What worried him the most right now, aside from the storm, was the machine sitting in the trailer they were hauling. It had been Hugh’s idea to bring it with them. And sometimes, Hugh had very bad ideas.

He leaned back in the passenger seat and folded his arms, trying to distract himself by watching the needle on the dashboard compass gradually sway from left to right and back again. Airborne grains of sand ticked against the windows. The outside world had been reduced to a yellow-brown haze.

“You know; we could drive off a cliff in this mess and not know it until we hit the bottom,” he said, hoping to talk some sense into his mentor.

Hugh tapped the topographical map displayed on the screen embedded next to the compass in the dashboard. “No cliffs for miles. If we’re to die out here, it won’t be from a fall.”

“Always so quick to dismiss my fears, aren’t you?” Something white on the ground before them suddenly caught Kerry’s eye, but they passed it before he could get a better look. “Hang on. I just saw something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Stop the car.”

“You’d better not be bluffing.” Hugh gently applied the brake. “Make it quick.”

“I’ll try. This wind’s so bad, I just might blow away.”

Hugh rolled his eyes. “I mean it.”

“Well, if I’m not back in five minutes, send out a search party.” Kerry undid his seatbelt and slipped on a pair of safety goggles; then stepped out into the gale.

The white object now lay about thirty yards behind the trailer. It must have been heavy to have remained still in the wind. He trudged toward it, shielding the lower half of his face with one hand to prevent his mouth from filling with grit.

He squatted down beside the object. It looked like a small, white dome protruding from the earth, like a child’s toy ball. There were a few dents in it; and some thin lines traced their way around the dome like threads. No, not lines. Sutures. Kerry had seen his fair share of skeletons in his lifetime. The thing sticking out of the ground was a skull.

He returned to the transport.

“Well?” Hugh asked when Kerry opened the door. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel with an air of impatience.

“It’s a skull.”

Hugh lifted an eyebrow. His fingers grew still. “And?”

“I’m fairly sure it’s a human skull.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“If you don’t believe me, come look for yourself.”

Hugh muttered some kind of profanity and killed the engine. “Where is it?” he asked when he joined Kerry at the passenger side of the vehicle.

“This way.” Kerry led him to the place and pointed at the ground. “See?”

Hugh dropped to one knee and scraped some dirt away from the skull. “Looks like whoever this was took quite a beating. See these marks here? Blunt force trauma. Maybe a club of some kind.” He straightened. “Kerry, you can give yourself a pat on the back. I suppose we’ll stop here after all.”

HUGH moved the transport into reverse and angled it so the trailer sat ten feet to the windward side of the skull. The goal was to block most of the stinging grains of sand from hitting them once they began to exhume the rest of the skeleton. Kerry thought it was a foolish idea to begin digging before the storm was over, but he kept those thoughts to himself. Nothing short of death could convince Hugh Treviño to change his mind once it was set on something.

The winds finally died down an hour before nightfall.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” Hugh murmured as he extracted part of a pelvis—a female hip bone, by the look of it—from the dirt.

Kerry stared at the tarp on which the bones were being laid. So far, in addition to the skull, they had unearthed most of the vertebrae; both femurs; an assortment of ribs, metacarpals, and metatarsals; and two entire arms sans the flesh. He and Hugh had placed the bones on the tarp in an approximation of their original positions, gradually giving shape to the person who had been buried there.

“I suppose so,” he said at last. He didn’t like the speed at which Hugh was digging and feared that the man might accidentally crush the bones with his shovel. Besides, bones so old needed to be handled delicately, not tossed around like worthless stones. “Shouldn’t you be more careful with those?”

Hugh laughed and shook the hip bone in his hand. “Kerry, my boy, when I’m finished here, these bones should be as good as new.”

That’s what Kerry was afraid of.

Hugh picked up the damaged skull and turned its grinning face toward Kerry. “What do you think she’ll look like? White? Black? Blonde? Brunette? I’m guessing blonde.”

Kerry suddenly felt queasy again. “I still don’t see what good it’s going to do.”

“It’s our last resort to learn anything about these people. You didn’t have much of a problem with the idea before.”

“That was before I got to look at it face to face.” Or face to skull.

“Come on. These people were the ones foolish enough to not leave a written record behind to sate our curiosity.”

Kerry sifted absentmindedly through a bucket of sand with his fingers. “The records might have been destroyed.”

“Didn’t they teach you anything in school?” Hugh pointed the tip of his shovel at the ground and leaned his weight into it, forcing it to plunge into the dirt. “Some of our records made a reference to a group of people who banned the use of paper to help combat excessive deforestation. Everything they ever wrote was made digital. None of the gadgets of theirs we’ve uncovered has worked. So until we can resurrect a load of melted microchips and see what the fools had to say, this will have to do.”

“It sounds like we do know something about them, then, don’t we?” Kerry sneered.

“Only broad generalizations. Horton wants to know what went wrong with their society so we don’t make the same mistakes.”

“Not banning paper might be a good place to start.”

“How astute of you. The use of paper is certain to solve all the world’s problems.” He picked up another bone; this one a clavicle. “This thing is fractured, too.” He set it on the tarp.

Kerry gulped. “Horton said he’s never tested the process on humans before. He was going to run several more tests before…attempting this.”

Hugh gave a snort. “A human’s just a big animal who has weapons and fancy clothes. The felines he brought back appeared to be quite healthy.”

Actually, two of the cats that Gabriel Horton had brought back from the dead had died again during the past week; most likely from internal anatomical defects. Hugh must not have heard the news.

“But how do we know that whatever soul enters the revived body is the same one that left it at death? What if the revived body has no soul at all?”

“Kerry, in all my seventy years, I have seen no evidence that human beings, or any other living creature for that matter, possess a soul. Quit your worrying. You’ll live longer.”

“Fine, we have no souls. But have you considered the idea that the resuscitated brain may not hold any of the knowledge or memories that the person had in their previous life?”

Hugh scratched an ear. His face looked paler than it had moments before. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“How do you suppose this woman was killed?”

“Like I said, it could have been a club. It might have been a bad accident, too.”

“So you’re saying she might have been murdered.”

“Listen.” The man’s wrinkled face was stern. “I don’t care how she died. I want to know how she lived.”

“I hope you don’t plan on asking her what happened.”

“Why should I?”

“Because that’s what you do. Besides, seeing as she was buried without a coffin…”

“Go get me the flashlight out of the glove box. It’s getting dark.”

“Funny, I hadn’t noticed.” Hugh’s abrupt changes of subject generally meant that the previous conversation was in need of no further comment. Kerry clenched his teeth and retrieved the light, hoping that they wouldn’t be caught when someone all the way back at the base spotted a distant speck of light on the horizon. If caught, the pair would surely be fired for having breached protocol and arrested for the theft of Gabriel Horton’s monstrosity of an invention.

Kerry had considered calling the base to report Hugh’s transgressions while the man slept, but doing so would be a cruel betrayal. Hugh had been a kind of grouchy, immoral father to him over the long years. And he had been a friend.

“Here.” Kerry handed him the flashlight and resumed sifting through the sand that Hugh had already gone through, to ensure that no smaller bones had been overlooked.

Hugh clicked on the light and swept its beam over the pit. “Hmm. Looks like we’ve got about all of her. A few missing pieces shouldn’t matter.”

Kerry cleared his throat. “Are you going to do it tonight, then?”

“No, I’d rather wait until full daylight. Right now the things to do are set up camp and get some shut-eye so we can do this thing right in the morning.”

Kerry smiled. Full daylight would be about eleven hours away. That was eleven more hours during which Hugh might change his mind.

KERRY’S hopes were shattered when Hugh threw open the trailer doors the next morning and heaved the tarp of bones inside.

“What are you looking so glum about?” Hugh asked as he slid out the restoration chamber door of the casket-like machine and dumped in the bones. Kerry winced. “This thing was designed for humans.”

“Yes, I know. Did I tell you that some of Horton’s cats died?”

Hugh slid the compartment shut. His eyes took on the countenance of stone. “Is there a reason that you didn’t?”

Kerry pretended to examine a bit of sand that had gotten stuck under one of his fingernails. “I assumed you had heard.”

The old man’s face remained cold. “What did they die from?”

“I don’t know. They thought that the machine might have put some things together the wrong way. Like a bad birth defect.”

“That’s very unfortunate.” Hugh gazed at the machine for a few long moments; then shook his head. “But imagine what this woman could teach us even if she were alive for only a few days.”

He threw the power switch. The machine began to whirr.

Kerry slipped back outside and sat down on an overturned bucket by their little pit. He hoped that this experiment would turn out well, if only to make Hugh happy. And if the woman did somehow regain all of her memories, she could indeed teach them much about the forgotten past. She would be history itself brought to life in human form.

The sun inched its way across the sky. The process would take several hours, at the least.

Kerry was not sure how the machine was able to read traces of DNA and reconstruct entire living organisms based on the genetic instructions that the DNA provided. All he knew was that a small fan sucked air and water molecules into the machine, where they were to mingle with pre-installed canisters of carbon and other elements integral to life. Somehow, the DNA would tell the machine how to put all of the molecules together.

While Kerry waited for the inevitable, he picked through the sand to see what else may have been buried with the woman. It bothered him how her body had been laid to rest in such a manner. She had probably had loved ones. Loved ones would have interred her in a coffin. Therefore, it was possible that the woman had been buried without her loved ones’ knowledge. What grief had they felt when their daughter or sister or wife failed to return home? Did they search for her? Did they care?

He noticed that a tiny object was poking out of the sand in one of the buckets. Kerry plucked it from the dirt and discovered that it was attached to a thin metal chain: a necklace, no doubt. He held the pendant up to examine it better in the sunlight. It was a simple piece of tarnished metal shaped like a lower-case T. He smirked. T for Treviño. Hugh would be so proud.

He pocketed the necklace and resumed looking through the sand, finding nothing else of interest.

A sudden cry issued from the trailer three minutes shy of noon.

Kerry jumped up and hurried to the open doors of the trailer. Hugh was frantically turning off switches and trying to open the restoration chamber drawer to let the woman out.

“Here.” Kerry slid the drawer open, revealing a young, dark-haired woman lying in an inch of grayish water. She stared at him with accusing eyes the color of chocolate and made an anguished moan in her throat.

Hugh reached his arm out to her, obviously wishing to help her climb out of the drawer; but she stared at his hand as if it were the most vile object in all of creation.

“It’s okay,” Hugh said softly. “Come on.”

She stared at the hand a moment longer; then looked at his face. She drew her legs up and climbed out of the drawer on her own.

Kerry found himself awestruck by the sight of the resuscitated woman. Her bronze skin was unmarred by blemishes, like the skin of an infant. She looked no older than twenty. She did not appear to be disturbed by his ridiculous fascination with her.

“When you’re done gawking like a teenaged idiot,” Hugh said, “could you kindly be a gentleman and get the lady something to wear?”

“Yes. Of course.” Kerry felt his face heat up. This was like his adolescent years all over again; making a total fool of himself in front of an attractive member of the gentler sex, much to the laughter of his peers. At least this lady didn’t seem to care as the other girls had.

He went to the tent and rummaged through his pack, finding a spare work shirt and some flannel pants he’d worn to bed. Both would be enormous on the woman. Both would have to do.

The woman was standing in the doorway of the trailer, seemingly oblivious of her nudity. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she gazed off into the distance as if trying to spot something that was out of sight below the horizon.

“Here, put these on,” Kerry said as he handed her the too-big garments.

She reached out a slender arm and fingered the fabric with an almost childlike wonder. She furrowed her brow and glanced up into Kerry’s eyes.

“Go on,” he said. “We won’t watch you.”

He gestured for Hugh to follow him away from the trailer. Hugh shrugged and tore his own gaze away from the woman.

“Spill it,” Kerry said when they were safely out of earshot. “Something is bothering you.”

“If you’ll have noticed, she hasn’t spoken a word since we let her out of that contraption,” Hugh said in a low voice. “I’m not so sure she understands us.”

“I would say that’s one of many things she doesn’t understand. And why should she understand what we’re saying? Languages alter considerably over time.” He paused. “Did she say something before we let her out?”

“Well, you obviously heard her shout, since you came running.”

“It only sounded like someone yelling.”

“It was a word. Sounded like el-lo-heem.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. It could be a swear word, for all I know.”

Kerry felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned. “Why, hello there.”

The woman was standing behind him. She looked silly in Kerry’s clothes, but at least she had figured out how to put them on.

“Are you going to talk to us now?” Hugh asked.

Kerry shot him a warning glance. He was sure that the woman’s muteness did not stem from a stubborn demeanor, as Hugh would have implied. “Can you tell us what your name is?” he asked.

The woman cocked her head. The whites of her eyes had turned red from her weeping.

“Maybe we should let it rest for now,” Kerry said to Hugh. Women were mysterious creatures, and many would not be so willing to open up to strangers. Especially ones who had just seen them undressed.

To his surprise, the woman covered her face with her hands and sank to the ground. Kerry crouched down beside her and put a hand on her bobbing shoulder. “It’s okay now. We are your friends. We won’t hurt you.”

She threw him a tear-streaked look of disgust. Again, he was reminded of the various times in school when he had unsuccessfully asked different girls out to dinner.

“She almost seems upset to be alive,” Hugh commented. “You would think she’d be grateful.”

“Yes, you would think.”

“But perhaps she isn’t aware that she died. In fact, I’m almost sure of it. This must be to her like awakening from a long night’s sleep. She probably wonders who on earth we are.”

“Then we should introduce ourselves.” Kerry had never been good at introductions. However, he did not think that the woman would be aware of his inadequate social skills. He smiled at her. She did not return the favor, for she was studying him again with that angry gaze. “My name is Kerry Wellington. Can you say Kerry? Ker-ry.” He pointed to himself with the hope she would make the connection.

The muscles in the woman’s mouth twitched as they struggled to form the words. “Keh-reee,” she said. “Keh-reee-well…welli…” She grimaced as if speaking were causing her pain.

“Well, that’s not bad for a first try. I’m sure you’ll get better at it.” He pointed at Hugh, who had crossed his arms and lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “And this here is my friend, Hugh Treviño. Can you say that, too?”

The woman took a deep breath. “Hoo-te-vee-nyo.”

“Hugh, knock that look off your face. You should be celebrating.”

“There’s nothing to celebrate,” Hugh scoffed. “She’s only repeating the things you say.”

The woman pointed at herself in clear defiance of his criticism. “Meer-yam.”

Kerry almost laughed. “Repeating, huh?”

But Hugh was already ignoring him. “Miriam?” he said to the woman. “Did you say your name is Miriam?”

The woman showed her teeth in a humorless smile. “Meer-yam. Meeryam.”

“Miriam, can you tell us what el-lo-heem is?”

Her fake smile swiftly transformed itself into a wistful one. More tears glistened in her eyes. “Elohim,” she said. The new smile was instantly replaced by a look of rage. “Elohim!” she screamed, jumping to her feet. “Wyoot eykmi weyfrom Elohim?” She kicked sand at them and ran.

Kerry watched her receding figure, amazed by the swiftness at which Miriam’s moods had changed. Was this the typical workings of a resuscitated mind? It was said that some of Horton’s cats had exhibited peculiar behavior before they died. Perhaps Miriams’s hours were already numbered and she would soon return to the dust from which she had been raised.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Hugh said, interrupting Kerry’s thoughts.

“Oh! No, I’ll get her.” Kerry started to feel as though he deserved a Fool of the Year award. “Miriam, please stop!” he called, running after her. He caught up to her in less than a minute and grabbed her by the shoulders. He whirled her around to face him. She began to squirm to get away, so he tightened his grip. “Calm down,” he said, pitying her for the fear she must have felt. “We only want to ask you some things about the way you used to live.”

She stopped struggling. Her gaze bored into his with the intensity of lightning. “No.”

Kerry was more taken aback than amazed by her comprehension. “No?”

“Yooar a fool.”

Evidently, Miriam understood more about him than he had expected. “Your people are gone. Maybe you didn’t know that. But they are. We know very little about them. My friend and I were hoping you could give us some answers.”

“Is vapors,” she said. “Wha tyoo do is waste.”

Oddly, Miriam’s speech was becoming clearer with each word she spoke, like she was slowly regaining her knowledge of language. Still, since her words made little sense, there may have been some kind of communication error; perhaps from a difference in dialects.

“How is our job wasteful?” Kerry asked. Archaeologists were generally praised for their efforts where he came from. Miriam’s criticism was as unexpected as her sudden ability to speak.

Miriam pursed her lips. “Then is dead.”

“What?”

“Then is dead. Truth lives. Why ask for then instead of truth? The truth will set you free.”

This was madness. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

She waved her arms. “Vapors. Like smoke. Watch smoke too long, it stings your eyes. How can you see truth, when you are blind?”

Kerry sighed and glanced toward the trailer, where Hugh was waiting for them with crossed arms. He doubted that the old man would be able to comprehend this any better than he. “What kind of truth are you talking about?”

“Elohim. The way. The life. Then is not the truth.”

This conversation was going nowhere. “Come on, let’s get back to our little camp. Maybe you’ll start making more sense if you’ve had something to eat.”

MIRIAM would not eat.

She also refused to speak in anything other than her enigmatic gibberish.

Hugh decided that they had remained in one place for long enough, so Kerry helped him load everything back into the trailer before someone from the base found them. They set off again toward the fabled ruins, hoping to reach them by two o’ clock.

“So, when were you born?” Hugh asked as they cruised along the bumpy desert floor faster than Kerry would have advised.

Miriam, sitting in the back seat behind Kerry, let out an exaggerated sigh. “I do not matter.”

“Of course you matter. You’re a spokesperson for your era. You know that, right?”

“Are you a ‘spokesperson’ for yours?” she spat. “You want history, raise us all. I am a fragment. You cannot see a picture from one fragment.”

“One small fragment is more than we’ve had before.”

“Your picture does not matter. Truth matters. Then is not the truth!”

“Fine, then.” Kerry could tell that the man was growing cross. “Tell us the truth.”

“You cannot see.”

“It seems that Horton’s machine may have put some of Miss Miriam’s brain cells together in the wrong order, don’t you think?” Hugh said to Kerry.

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Well, I do. She’s an ungrateful little brat who thinks she’s entitled to give us a hard time just because she knows more than we do.”

Miriam burst into peals of sardonic laughter that sent scores of goose bumps down Kerry’s arms. “A child can know more! Maybe you should become a child again so you will understand.”

“Throwing insults around isn’t doing anything to improve my opinion of you,” Hugh growled.

“Your opinion is like the vapor!”

Kerry butted in before the atmosphere inside the transport continued to deteriorate. “Miriam, if you won’t tell us when you were born; can you at least tell us where you lived?”

She hesitated. “It is beautiful.”

“What else?”

“It is the most beautiful place there has ever been, and ever will be.”

“What was it called?”

She shook her head.

Kerry resisted the urge to groan. “Is there anything that you will tell us?”

“I have told you all there is to tell.”

“I doubt that very much,” Hugh said. “What was your home like?”

“There was love. No tears. I was…very happy.”

“Well, if that’s the case, it hardly seems fair that it got flattened in a bomb blast.”

“It is not flattened,” she retorted. “It lives, as you and I.”

“It lives in us?”

“It lives like us. It will always live.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The place where you lived has been gone for centuries. You see the desert around us? It used to be farmland, judging from ancient satellite imagery the government’s kept on file.”

“And to dust we shall return,” she murmured.

Hugh glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

“Where are we going?”

Kerry smirked. Miriam was just as sly to change the subject as Hugh generally was.

“Ruins,” he said. “Kerry and I were there with a team about five years ago. We didn’t find much so we were assigned to a different project. But I remember there was a lot of ground we didn’t cover, so there could be a lot of artifacts still hidden out there.”

“You are not supposed to go there?”

“No. But that won’t matter, once we find something valuable we missed before. I know that if it’s valuable enough, we’ll be forgiven for breaching protocol.”

“How will you know its value?”

“Simple. You will tell us. Tell us enough, and we won’t get in trouble for having—ahem—borrowed the machine that brought you back.”

Miriam sniffed. “Vapors. All is vapors.”

“Enough with that.”

“Then enough with you being a fool.”

THEY arrived at the ruins without incident.

A gap appeared in the land in front of them. Hugh put the transport in Park and shut off the engine.

“I see no ruins,” Miriam said disapprovingly.

Hugh laughed. “They’re down in the gorge. That’s the only reason they didn’t get flattened along with everything else.”

“We are going to walk?”

“We certainly aren’t going to fly.”

“There’s a path,” Kerry said to her, silently cursing Hugh for his sarcasm. “We built it when we were here the last time. It’s kind of rocky. You should probably put something on your feet.”

“Pain is vapors. I will be fine.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out of the vehicle.

Kerry looked to Hugh with raised eyebrows.

“If she wants the soles of her feet to turn into bloody confetti, it’s her problem,” the old man said. “Go grab the supplies. And make her carry something, too.”

Kerry nodded and went outside to the trailer, where they had stored totes and cases full of food and equipment as well as the large pack containing their tent. He shouldered the latter, glancing around for Miriam, who seemed to have vanished like the fog on a sunny morning.

“Miriam?” He came around the front of the transport and saw her standing at the edge of the gorge, staring straight down. “Get back from there. You’ll fall.”

She turned her head slightly. “If I do?”

“We would be very unhappy. Hugh would like you to help us carry some things.”

“Very well.” She strode to the back of the trailer and picked up two of the totes. “Is this sufficient?”

“Perfect,” Hugh said, joining them. “Try to take it easy on the way down.”

The “way down” was a man-made route that zigged and zagged back and forth across one cliff face. As they carefully made their way closer and closer to the floor of the gorge, Kerry recalled how one of their team members had slipped in the loose stone five years before and fell fifteen feet to the next switchback, shattering one of his legs in the process. Kerry made a conscious effort to stay back from the edge. No need to return home in multiple pieces. Or dead.

The bottom of the gorge was populated by stunted trees that reached their gnarled limbs to the sky as if shaking fists in anger at the one who had created them. Several ancient buildings nestled among the trees, lying in wait for their mysteries to be revealed.

The steel-and-wood buildings still standing numbered five. A sixth was nothing more than a pile of collapsed rubble. Of the former, four were houses with sloping, shingled roofs and the other seemed to have been a workshop or garage of some sort, judging from the sagging bay doors that dominated the front wall. Every last artifact that had been discovered inside the buildings and out had been catalogued and sent back to the base for further study.

Hugh had always assumed there was more they had overlooked.

“This is what you came to see?” Miriam’s face bore a dubious expression. “Surely there are better places to look for your history.”

“It’s one of the best-preserved ancient settlements on this side of the continent,” Kerry said. “We found all kinds of things out here five years ago. Furniture, utensils, a load of computer equipment and gadgets that wouldn’t work; you get the idea, I’m sure.”

Miriam smiled. “What about skeletons?”

“We found plenty of those, too. We think that they probably died of radiation poisoning after the blast. What we didn’t find were written records. No books. No scrolls. No nothing.”

“Such a pity.”

The sarcastic tone in her voice sent a wave of irritation through him. “Listen. It wasn’t my idea to bring you back. But the least you can do is act cheerful to be here. It would make Hugh a little less cantankerous if you did.”

Hugh was striding over to the nearest dwelling with a visible spring in his step.

“He looks happy enough already.”

“True.”

“What shall I do while you two are…busy?”

“I don’t care if you wander around a bit, but keep yourself handy in case Hugh needs to ask you anything.”

“Pff. Handy. I am not a tool to be used at will.”

“I understand that. I really do.”

“Good. I think that maybe you are the lesser fool.” And with that, she set the bags on the ground and walked off in the opposite direction.

AS it turned out, they did not need to ask Miriam any questions because they found nothing new to ask her about. Kerry and Hugh spent five hours sweeping the ground with metal detectors, finding nothing but a rusty bolt hidden under twelve inches of dirt.

“I think Miriam was right,” Kerry said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “This is turning out to be a waste.”

“Come morning, we can move further on down the gorge and see if we missed anything down there the last time. There’s got to be something out here worthwhile.”

Kerry was no longer so sure. Hugh’s obsession seemed to have blinded the man to the fact that little would be left out here to find.

Miriam surprised the pair by offering to help them set up the tent. She still refused to eat when Kerry offered her dinner.

“She’s probably trying to starve herself back to death,” Hugh remarked at one point when Miriam had wandered off to explore more of the gorge.

“That’s ridiculous,” Kerry said, but for once he wondered if Hugh might be correct.

THAT night, Kerry awoke hearing someone crying off in the distance. There was only one person it could be.

He crept out of the tent gripping a flashlight and spotted Miriam sitting up on one of the trail switchbacks with her head in her hands.

He ascended the trail and sat down beside her. “Is everything all right?”

She shook her head.

Kerry sighed and looked up at the stars, which twinkled like a million tiny diamonds lying on a vast swatch of black silk. “I think I know what the matter is. You want to go back. Not to where you lived before, but where you’ve been ever since.” He paused. “That was the beautiful, happy place, wasn’t it? It was never here at all.”

Miriam continued to weep.

“It wasn’t fair for me and Hugh to do this to you. I tried to convince him it was wrong.”

“Yet you didn’t stop him.”

“Miriam, I’m sorry. I guess in reality I was just as curious as he.” He tried to swallow an embarrassing knot that was forming in his throat. “Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you. I cannot blame you for your curiosity. I only hope that you will begin to see.”

They were both silent for some time. One certain question kept buzzing in the back of Kerry’s mind like a trapped insect.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you,” he said at last. “I hope you won’t take it personally.”

“You want to know how I died.” The statement was so blunt and would have sounded so absurd to any eavesdropper that Kerry nearly laughed.

“Do you always read people’s minds?”

“No, but I can read people’s hearts. Let me tell you something, Kerry. There are people who hate the truth. It is a poison to them. The only way to protect themselves from the poison is to eliminate those who bring it.”

“That’s terrible!”

She shrugged. “That is the way of things.”

“If you were saying things people didn’t want to hear, why didn’t they just ignore you and move on?” Kerry had ignored plenty of so-called “preachers” whose peculiar views conflicted with his own. He’d never considered bashing them over the head to shut them up, though.

“The fact that we existed at all was enough to drive them to murder. Better to silence us than to allow us to travel somewhere else with the truth.”

“Why would you have anything to do with this ‘truth’ if you knew you would be killed for it?”

“Only the flesh dies, Kerry. The flesh is vapor. When the vapor drifts away and is gone, only we remain.”

“You’re talking about souls.”

“Call it whatever you want, as long as you understand the meaning.”

“I’ll try to understand it.” Kerry yawned. The lateness of the hour was beginning to wear away his alertness. Besides, her words had spooked him. He stood up and brushed off his pants. “I’m going to go back to bed. You should probably get some sleep, too.”

“I will be down soon. I would like to stay here awhile longer. The stars—I never saw them like this before.”

The statement struck Kerry as odd. How terrible must her old homeland have been if she had never seen a clear nighttime sky? Perhaps she had lived in one of the more populous cities in the far west; not in this wasteland at all.

“Fine,” he said, “just be careful on the way down. I knew a man who broke his leg slipping off the trail just about right here.”

“I will be careful. And thank you for caring about me.”

“Goodnight, Miriam.”

He clicked on the flashlight and saw her smiling. “Good night.”

“WHERE is she? Where is she?”

Hugh’s accusing cries startled Kerry awake. The sun had risen, and in the pale light of morning Kerry could see that the only occupants of the tent were he and Hugh.

“She didn’t come back?”

“Come back from where?”

“The trail. She was sitting up there last night watching the stars. She may have fallen asleep there.” A horrifying thought dawned on him: the trail was only a few feet wide. If she had dozed off while stargazing there, so close to the edge…

Kerry jumped up and ran out of the tent, praying to whatever powers ruled the universe that the young woman was fine.

He halted at the bottom of the trail. Hugh stopped at his side and swore.

A female figure lay unmoving on the first switchback above them. It was the same place where Kerry’s old comrade had fallen and broken his leg.

“She’s dead!” Hugh roared, his face turning crimson. “You should have made her get down from there! Now we’ll have to put her in the machine and revive her all over again.”

“She might not really be dead,” Kerry said, jogging up the first incline. He wished that he could believe his own words. “She could have knocked herself unconscious.”

He knelt down where Miriam lay and brushed her tousled hair out of her face. Her skin was gray. Not a good sign. He leaned his ear close to her mouth to feel for a breath; then grabbed her wrist to check her pulse when he had detected none. Her flesh was cold.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Hugh arrived, panting with exertion.

Kerry dabbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “I had hoped…to get to know her better.”

“And you can. Let me see her.” The old man nudged Kerry out of the way and placed his hand on Miriam’s neck. “That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“She’s smiling.”

It was true. In the few hours that Kerry had known her, Miriam’s face had never looked so serene, like that of a sleeping infant cradled in its mother’s arms.

KERRY’S muscles were burning by the time he and Hugh made it to the top of the cliff with Miriam’s body. Her head kept listing to one side at an unnatural angle, a sure sign of a broken neck.

Kerry briefly contemplated breaking Hugh’s neck so the old man wouldn’t put the poor girl through another round of misery.

“This is foolish, Hugh,” he said while the man unlocked the trailer doors. They had laid Miriam’s body on the ground. “Nobody should have to be brought back like this only to die a third time at some point. I say we should bury her like respectable men would.”

“Are you saying I’m not respectable? She’ll be thanking us for this.”

“Yes, just like she thanked us before.” Kerry crossed his arms. “You’re such a considerate human being.”

Hugh shook a finger at him. “You watch it. Now help me put this lady back into the resuscitation chamber. She’s a bit heavier now that she’s got some meat on her.”

Kerry shook his head. It was high time that his years of giving in to every one of Hugh’s whims came to an end. “No. If you want to bring her back again, you’re going to have to do it yourself. I won’t be held responsible.”

Hugh’s face twisted into an ugly expression that Kerry had only seen him use with unruly students at the base. “If you don’t help me, I’ll leave you out here with the rest of— A low rumbling noise in the distance cut him off.

Kerry recognized the sound immediately. Air copters.

Hugh swore. “And the cavalry comes at last.” He tugged on Miriam’s arms in an attempt to lift her; then let her body drop back into the sand. “Oh, forget about this. Get in the car.” He slammed the trailer doors shut.

“I’m not going to leave her here like she’s a bag of waste!” Kerry shouted at him. Miriam had not been given a proper burial the first time. She did not deserve to receive the same treatment again.

“Then stay here and be charged with murder! That’s what it will look like, and nobody is going to be able to prove otherwise.” Hugh marched toward the transport and got in.

He was right. Being found here with a dead woman did not look good on his part. “Fine! I’ll go with you.”

Kerry scrambled into his seat, giving Miriam one last look through the window. He hated to leave her here. But what else could he do?

Only the flesh dies, Kerry. The flesh is vapor. Her words echoed through his thoughts. Maybe it meant that leaving a lifeless body behind wasn’t such a terrible thing to do, after all.

The rumbling noise outside grew so loud that Kerry felt his internal organs vibrating.

Hugh threw the transport into gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. Kerry was thrown back into his seat.

“You should have unhooked the trailer,” he said. “We might have been able to go faster.”

Hugh appeared not to have heard him, lost in his own world where the only thoughts were those of escape.

They had driven a scant tenth of a mile when the first law enforcement copter swooped over them. The transport’s engine died the same instant. They gradually drifted to a stop.

“Engine jammers,” Hugh growled. “The bastards.”

To Kerry’s surprise, Hugh opened the car door and ran. He wasn’t about to stop him.

Kerry closed his eyes and took a deep breath while he waited for the inevitable. He would be arrested for theft and lose his job, that was certain. And was it worth it? Miriam had spoken of a truth, one that was worth dying for. Maybe once this whole mess was sorted out and behind him, he would seek out other adherents of the truth and learn it for himself.

It was a truth he never would have heard of had he not broken the law. How funny that some things in life worked out that way.

Something inside his pocket moved when he shifted his leg. The necklace! He had forgotten it was there. He pulled it out and studied the T-shaped pendant again. Miriam had probably been wearing it when she died the first time. He had joked that it stood for Treviño, but now he understood that it represented the Truth for which the woman had been martyred.

He put it around his neck.

“Put your hands up!” A disgruntled police officer appeared in the doorway Hugh had left open. He was holding a gun.

Kerry did as he was told. “I don’t have any weapons,” he said.

“Just makes my job easier,” the officer stated in a flat tone. “Please step out of the vehicle.”

Kerry stepped out onto the desert sands once more and saw Hugh being apprehended by two more officers some fifty yards away.

The officer led Kerry to the nearest copter, handcuffed him, and urged him to climb aboard.

Vapors. All this was vapors. He would not let this situation upset him.

He heard shouting in the distance. Evidently, Hugh was being uncooperative. As always.

“Sometimes the price we pay is worth the knowledge gained,” Kerry said, smiling.

The officer scowled at him. “You can bet your sorry hide it is. What are you so happy about?”

“Nothing.” Kerry felt his smile broaden, and for a few fleeting seconds he could have sworn he felt Miriam’s presence standing beside him. “Nothing at all.”