Strangers

heaviest bags, which leaves one sack for each of you. Ginger, you'll come second. Dom, you'll bring up the rear. When you come across, the rope will sag more the closer you get to the center of the span, even as taut as we've made it, but don't worry. It won't droop far enough to put you in contact with the ground and set off the alarm. Keep your feet locked around the line, and for God's sake don't accidentally let go with both hands at the same time as you're pulling yourself along. Try to make it all the way to the tree, just to be safe. But if your arms and legs give out, you can come down ten or twelve feet this side of the pine if you must, which'll probably be past the other end of the alarm grid."
        "We'll make it all the way," Ginger said confidently. "It's only thirty or thirty-five feet.."
        "In just ten feet," Jack said, fastening the second rucksack to his chest, "you'll feel as if your arms are coming out of their sockets. In fifteen feet, you'll feel as if they have come out of their sockets."
        

        
        Something about Brendan Cronin's reaction to his rector's death had jolted Leland Falkirk. When the young priest demanded to be given time and privacy to deliver the last rights to Stefan Wycazik, there had been a fierce fire of indignation in his eyes and such hot grief in his voice that his humanity could not be in doubt.
        Leland's fear of alien possession was voracious, eating him alive. He had seen - and others had discovered - strange things inside that starship, enough to justify his fear if not his total paranoia. But even he found it difficult to believe that Cronin's anguish was the clever play-acting of an inhuman intelligence in disguise.
        Yet. Cronin, with his bizarre powers, was one of two prime suspects, one of the two witnesses most likely to have been taken over, the other being Dominick Corvaisis. Where did the healing and telekinesis come from if not from an alien puppet-master living within the man's body?
        Leland was confused.
        With powdery snow pluming up around his feet, he walked away from the kneeling priest, then stopped and shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts. He saw the other six witnesses by Jack Twist's Cherokee, still under guard. He saw his soldiers caught between the need to do their duty as they were told and a confusion worse than Leland's own. He saw the stranger who had been with Wycazik - now up and moving around, miraculously whole. That healing seemed wonderful, an event calling for celebration, not fear; a blessing, not a curse. But Leland knew what lay inside Thunder Hill. That dark knowledge put things in a different perspective. The healing was a ruse, clever misdirection to make him think the benefits of cooperation with the enemy were too great to justify resistance. They were offering an end to pain. And perhaps an end to all death other than that too sudden to be avoided. But Leland knew the very essence of life was pain. It was dangerous to believe escape from suffering was possible. Dangerous, because such hopes were routinely destroyed. And the pain following in the wake of shattered hopes was far worse than it would have been if you had just faced it and endured it in the first place. Leland believed that pain - physical, mental, emotional - was the core of the human condition, that survival and sanity depended upon embracing pain rather than resisting it or dreaming of escape. You had to thrive on pain to avoid being defeated by it, and anyone who came along with an offer of transcendence must be greeted with disbelief, contempt, and deep distrust.
        Leland was no longer confused.
        

        
        The big Army truck - Jorja supposed it was a troop transport - had hard metal benches along both sides and also against the forward wall that separated the driver's compartment from the rear. Dangling leather loops, riveted to the walls at regular intervals, provided those on the benches with something to hang on to when the ride got rough or steep. Father Wycazik's corpse had been laid on the forward bench and secured with lines that tied under the seat and then to the wall straps, forming a rope basket to restrain the body's movement. Everyone else - Jorja, Marcie, Brendan, Ernie, Faye, Sandy, Ned, and Parker - sat on the side benches. Usually, the rear doors were held shut only by the interior latch, allowing soldiers to get out quickly in case of an accident