The American shore, ominously dark as any cannibal coast, was visible in the moonlight as pale cliffs above a thin white hem of breakers. Commander Harvey Coombs knew there were supposed to be houses up there-the famous Newport mansions-but he couldn't see a thing, not a single light. Nor had he seen any other towns or cities: Falmouth, Fall River, New Bedford-all the teeming port settlements of southern New England were dark. To look upon that black coastline now was like peering down a tunnel through the ages. Seeing it the way it hadn't been seen in centuries.

Pilgrims, thought Coombs, lowering his binoculars. We're pilgrims.

That was it exactly. This was now the wilderness, the New World.

Coombs rubbed his puffy eyelids as if to remind himself that he was awake, was not dreaming. The freshly stitched incision on his forehead was real enough; the hole in his skull still hurt. Now that he had no clear mission objective anymore, the events of the past few months were growing in his mind like a tumor, a festering glut of unthinkable knowledge that kept gaining mass and crowding out the consolations of faith, hope, or rational thought.