"Listen," he said, interrupting her.

"To what?" She obligingly listened, obviously hearing nothing. Not sensing what he sensed: the enormous _presence_ nearby.

Sebastian said, "We're going to have to keep a watch on this strange little place. And I want a complete list--absolutely complete--of everyone buried here." Sometimes, studying the inventory list, he could fathom which it was; he had a virtually psionic gift, this ability to sense in advance a forthcoming oldbirth. "Remind me," he said to his wife, "to call the authorities who operate this place and find out exactly who they have."

This invaluably rich storehouse of life, he thought. This onetime graveyard which has become instead a reservoir of reawakening souls.

One grave-and one alone-had an especially ornate monument placed above it; he shone his flashlight on the monument, found the name.

THOMAS PEAK

1921-1971

Sic igitur magni quoque circum

moeriia mundi expugnata dabunt

labem putresque ruinas.

His Latin was not good enough for him to translate the epitaph; he could only guess. A statement about the great things of the earth, all of which fell eventually into corruption and ruin. Well, he thought, that is no longer true, that epitaph. Not about the great things with souls; them especially. I have a hunch, he said to himself, that Thomas Peak--and he evidently had been somebody, to judge by the size and stone-quality of the monument--is the person I sense to be about to return, the person we should watch for.

"Peak," he said aloud, to Lotta.

"I've read about him," she said. "In a course I took on Oriental Philosophy. You know who he is--was?"

He said, "Was he related to the Anarch by that name?"