He was ready-the air hose connected to both the diaphone and the compressor, the cotton in one hand, the pillows and blankets in the other. All that remained was to swaddle and insulate himself against the noise and vibration, lie on the floor, reach out a hand to open the air valve on the compressor. He was ready.
And he couldn’t do it. No matter what happened here, he couldn’t do it. Not because of what it might do to him; because of what it would surely do to the light, the Fresnel lens.
A hell of a thing to be worrying about at a time like this, and yet the thought of destroying all those carefully cut and polished prisms and bull’s-eyes had been like a canker all along, paining him, filling him with revulsion. It would be like willfully destroying a rare painting or sculpture, something old and beautiful and virtually irreplaceable. In a fundamental way it would reduce him to the level of those animals down below. Fighting them, hurting them, wasn’t worth the price of the Fresnel, and it wasn’t worth the price of his own humanity. There had to be another way.
He threw the bedding down, turned to the window glass again. The pain behind his eyes was worsening, not to the critical point yet but not far from it either. He pressed his forehead against the chilled glass, squinting, blinking, trying to bring the grounds and the terrain beyond into focus.
Somebody was running on the road.
Not toward the lighthouse; away from it. A man. One of the invaders? He couldn’t tell, couldn’t see clearly enough. Running… why?
His vision cleared completely for a few seconds, the way it did at intervals, and he realized the van was gone. Reese’s van, the one they’d all come in. It had been parked out there beyond the fence; he’d seen it earlier. Now it was gone.
And the man was running… running away, was that it? One drunken vigilante giving up his act of terrorism?
Or was he running after something, someone?
Alix, he thought.
He peered harder through the glass. Couldn’t see anything in the distance; the clarity was gone as suddenly as it had come and the distance was just a blur. The running man had become part of the blur: gone.
Jan struggled to think logically. Alix had been gone at least half an hour, more like an hour; the running man couldn’t be chasing her, not after all this time. But the van… how long had it been gone? He didn’t know, couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it.
Maybe they’re not up to something, he thought. Maybe the running man is running because he’s running away.
The words chased themselves around inside his mind like a nonsense jingle. But they weren’t nonsense; they were a statement of fact. He wouldn’t let himself believe otherwise. The running man is running because he’s running away.
And somebody else drove the van away.
And there had only been four of them to begin with.
How many are still here?
He pushed away from the glass, went to the edge of the stairs. Bonner was still shouting obscenities below the trap, still pounding on it-but not so loudly or so often now, as if he were winding down. Jan listened. Bonner’s was the only voice, had been for some time. Hadn’t it? Yes, he was sure it had.
Just Bonner left, then? Or was somebody with him, somebody who didn’t make noise?
If it’s Bonner alone, he thought, I can handle him. There’s a way
… there’s a way. Have to do it quickly, though, before the pain and my vision get any worse. No time to waste-make a decision!
It’s just Bonner, he thought, and started quietly down the stairs.