The Ganymede Project
Page 36
She said the house trembled, as if caught in the aftershock of a distant earthquake.
Billy woke up. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. When it happened again, he fretted about impending disaster. He shouted, trying to wake up his wife.
She was paralyzed—eyes closed, brain recording events her eyes couldn’t see.
He shook her several times, then gave up. He put on his slippers and robe and shuffled downstairs. “Probably just a jet going supersonic,” he muttered.
In the darkened hallway of his plush Washington, D.C. residence, he heard a noise. Someone or something knocked at his door. It was a soft tapping sound, but the entire house shook in sympathy, like the drumbeat of Armageddon.
He pulled a gun from a drawer, made certain it was loaded and moved to a controlling position. He pressed against the wall next to the door.
“Is somebody there?” he asked.
Words seemed to form from the sound of wind in swaying tree branches and the scratching of leaves on masonry steps, driven by an erratic breeze.
“Yesss,” came the reply.
Billy began to sweat.
“Who is it?” he asked.
He was startled when the answer came in his own voice, like the echo of some half-forgotten thought. “An acquaintance of Richard Chandra’s... I have some information for you, Billy. An answer to something you’ve been thinking about for a long time. The end of a riddle.”
“Come back tomorrow,” he said.
Pins in the door lifted slowly from their hinges, then dropped to the floor. The door groaned and fell inward. The hallway flooded with brilliant light.
His wife heard a single shot.
THE END