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center. This was a box of glass and white-painted steel shutters. Outside, they were met by a sober-suited man whose jacket barely concealed the bulge of his own weaponry. He waved a wand to check them over—even Holle, even the day bag with her toys and orange juice bottles—then led them into the aircon-cooled building. The interior space was wide and open, the floors connected by skeletal staircases. They were led down a short corridor to a small conference room.
    Gathered around a table with inset touchscreens were Edward Kenzie, Jerzy Glemp, and a slim young man, perhaps Chinese, who Patrick didn’t recognize. Alice joined a couple of security men on seats by the wall. The air was full of the aroma of coffee from a percolator on a table in one corner, and Patrick thought he detected a stale whiff of cigarette smoke.
    In one corner a couple of kids, both about Holle’s age, were playing with plastic toys. Patrick recognized Kelly, the bright blond daughter of Edward Kenzie, from the session yesterday. The other was a boy, a pretty kid with thick black hair. A young man sat on the floor with the kids, smiling, watching them play. Patrick released Holle’s hand and let her walk tentatively over.
    Kenzie came up to Patrick and handed him a mug of coffee.
    “Edward,” Patrick said. “So you decided to hook up with Jerzy too?”
    Kenzie snapped, “I’ve got other irons in the fire, frankly. But after what Thandie Jones had to say, isn’t the right course obvious? We got to get off this submerging planet. Besides it was Glemp’s contacts through Eschatology, Inc. that set up the session in the first place.”
    “I hope you don’t mind me bringing my daughter.”
    “She is welcome,” Jerzy Glemp put in. “There is my own little boy, Zane. Say hello, Zane!” The boy, who with his thick dark hair and Slavic looks only faintly resembled Glemp, gave Patrick a shy nod. Jerzy said, “Of course our children should be with us—even now they may be old enough to understand something of what is said here. And after all, the project is for them and of them. In the year 2040, we will need crew.”
    Crew. The word thrilled Patrick.
    Jerzy Glemp rubbed his hands. He looked excited, delighted, as if he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment, and perhaps he had, Patrick thought. “So shall we begin?”

9
    T he doors were locked, the walls swept. “We’re sealed in tight as a mouse’s ass,” Kenzie said. He tapped a screen to begin recording. “As you can see we got a bunch of blank screens here. We’ve got secure access to the university servers through these things, and we can look wider if we want. We got reference sources, everything we need to find answers to the questions we’ll raise. All right, let’s start. And you can begin by introducing this gentleman you’ve brought in, Jerzy.”
    Glemp beckoned, and the slim young man stepped forward. “My name is Liu Zheng. I am Chinese. I am twenty-nine years old; I am an engineer.”
    “I found him in IDP processing in the Pepsi Center, right here in Denver,” Jerzy Glemp said with a gleam of satisfaction. “It’s astounding the talent you can filter out of the flood of displaced. Anything you want.”
    Edward nodded. “And what talent have you got that’s so valuable, Liu?”
    The Chinese, his face blank, said, “My father trained as a taikonaut. To fly in space. I design spaceships.”
    There was a long pause. Patrick asked, “What exactly are we talking about building here?”
    Liu Zheng said, “A means to send a viable population away from the Earth.”
    Jerzy said, “An ark.”
    “No less than Ark One, damn it,” Kenzie said. “I made sure we secured that little honor from Nathan Lammockson and those other assholes.” He clapped Patrick on the shoulder. “Did you never see When Worlds Collide ? Let’s get on with it. What’s the first question we need to address, Jerzy?”
    Glemp smiled. “Where are we going?”
    The man sitting on