Sebastian wasn’t really a journalist at all; he was a retired professor of theology from Wesleyan University who had written one of those books that becomes an inexplicable bestseller — God the Quantum Vacuum, it was called, and it was that ampersand in place of the conventional “and,” Chris suspected, that had made it acceptably fashionable, fashionably elliptical. The magazine had wanted a spiritual take on the New Astronomy, to complement Elaine’s rigorous science and Chris’s so-called “human angle.” But Sebastian, who might be brilliant, was also terminally soft-spoken. He wore a beard that obscured his mouth, which Chris took as emblematic: the words that found their way out were sparse and generally difficult to interpret.

“The van,” Elaine said, “has been waiting ten minutes.”

The van from Blind Lake, she meant, with a young DoE functionary at the wheel, one elbow out the open window and a restless expression on his face. Chris nodded and tossed his luggage in back and took a seat behind Elaine and Sebastian.

It was past one in the afternoon, but he felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over him. Something to do with the September sunlight. Or last night’s excesses. (The coke, although he had paid for it, had been Lacy’s idea, not his. He had shared a couple of lines for the sake of companionability — more than enough to keep him buzzed nearly until dawn.) He closed his eyes briefly but refused himself the indulgence of sleep. He wanted a glimpse of Constance by daylight. They had come in late yesterday and all he had seen of the town was the Denny’s, and later a bar where the local band played requests, and then the inside of Lacy’s apartment.

The town had done its best to reinvent itself as a tourist attraction. As famous as the Blind Lake campus had become, it was closed to casual visitors. The curious had to make do with this old grain-silo and rail-yard hamlet, Constance, which served as a staging base for Blind Lake’s civilian day employees, and where the new Marriott and the newer Hilton occasionally hosted scientific congresses or press conferences.