Strangers

grains of sand on that beach, none of us so very much more important than any of the rest of us, but more than that. She gave a small cry of frustration. "Oh, I wish I had words, I wish I had words and knew how to use them better."
        "You're doing all right," Faye said quietly. "By God, girl, you're doing all right."
        And Sandy said, "But even though we're just grains of sand, we're also… also part of a race that might some day go up there, out there into all that darkness, out where the creatures in that ship came from, so even as grains of sand we have a place and purpose. Do you see? We just got to be kind to one another and keep going. And one day all of us - all the billions of us who were and are - we'll be out there with those who'll come after us… out there on top of all the darkness, and anything we ever endured will have been worth it, somehow, because it'll have been a part of our getting there. All of that hit me in a flash while we stood there along the interstate. And suddenly that night, right there, I started crying and laughing both…"
        "I remember!" Ned said from his part of the darkness. "Oh, God, now I remember, I do, it's all coming back. We were standing there on the side of the road, and you grabbed hold of me and hugged me. It was the first time you ever told me you loved me, the first time, though I'd known you did. You hugged me, you told me you loved me, it was crazy, right there with a spaceship come down! And you know what? For a few minutes, you holding me and telling me you loved me… the spaceship didn't matter. All that mattered was you telling me, telling me after so long." His voice filled with emotion, too, and Jorja sensed that he was putting his arms around Sandy, in the gloom on the other side of the truck. "And they took that away from me," he said. "They came with their damn drugs and their mind control, and they took away from me the first time you told me you loved me. But I got it back now, Sandy, and they're never taking it away from me again. Never again."
        Faye said plaintively, "I still can't remember anything. I want to remember, too. I want to be a part of it."
        Everyone was silent as the transport rumbled through the night.
        Jorja knew the others must be pondering some of the same thoughts that were rushing through her mind. The mere existence of another - and superior - intelligence put human strife in a different context. Mankind's endless, violent struggles to dominate and enslave, to impress one philosophy or another upon the entire race at any cost in blood and pain - that seemed so hopelessly petty and fruitless now. All narrow, power-centered philosophies would surely collapse. Religions that preached the oneness of all men would probably thrive, but those that encouraged violent conversion would not. In some way impossible to explain but easy to feel, just as Sandy had felt it, Jorja was aware that extraterrestrial contact had the potential to make one nation of all mankind, one vast family; for the first time in history, every individual could have the respect that only a good, loving family - no king, no government - could bestow.
        Something had come down from the sky.
        And all humankind could be lifted up.
        "Moon," Marcie murmured against Jorja's neck. "Moon, moon."
        Jorja wanted to say: Everything'll be fine, honey; we'll help you remember now that we know what it is you've forgotten, and when you do recall it, you'll realize it's nothing to be scared about; you'll realize it's wonderful, honey, and you'll laugh. But she did not say any of that, for she did not know what Falkirk intended to do with them. As long as they were in the colonel's custody, she did not hold out much prospect for a happy ending.
        Brendan Cronin said, "I remember more. I remember descending the embankment from the interstate. Moving out toward the ship. It lay like shimmering amber quartz. I walked slowly toward it with the jets swooping overhead, other people coming with me… including you, Faye… and you, Ernie… and Dom and Ginger. But only Dom and Ginger came all the way to the ship with me, and when we got there we found a door… a round portal… open…"
        Jorja remembered standing on the shoulder of I-80, afraid to go closer to the ship and blaming her reluctance on the need to keep Marcie safe. Wanting to call out a warning and at the same time wanting to urge them on, she had