Under the Dome

'Al Timmons would let us in, I think,' Linda said. 'And he'd let Stacey Moggin in for sure. She's with us. The only reason she's not here right now is because she's got the duty. Why risk it, Joe?'

'Because…' He was speaking with uncharacteristic slowness, feeling his way. 'Well… there's radiation out there, see? Bad radiation. It's just a belt—I bet you could drive right through it without any protection at all and not get hurt, if you drove fast and didn't try it too often—but they don't know that. The problem is, they don't know there's radiation out there at all. And they won't, if they don't have the Geiger counter.'

Jackie was frowning. 'It's a cool idea, kiddo, but I don't like the idea of pointing Rennie right at where we're going. That doesn't fit with my idea of a safe house.'

'It wouldn't have to be like that,'Joe said. He was still speaking slowly, testing for weak spots.'Not exactly, anyway. One of you could get in touch with Cox, see? Tell him to call Rennie and say they're picking up spot radiation. Cox can say something like, "We can't exactly pinpoint it because it comes and goes, but it's pretty high, maybe even lethal, so watch out. You don't happen to have a Geiger counter, do you?"'

There was a long silence as they considered this. Then Rommie said, 'We take Barbara and Rusty out to the McCoy farm. We go there ourselves if we have to… which we probably will. And if they try to go out there—'

'They get a radiation spike on the Geiger counter that sends them running back to town with their hands over their worthless gonads,' Ernie rasped. 'Claire McClatchey, you got a genius there.'

Claire hugged Joe tight, this time with both arms. 'Now if I could only get him to pick up his rooni,' she said.

20

Horace lay on the rug in Andrea Grinnell's living room with his snout on one paw and his eye on the woman his mistress had left him with. Ordinarily Julia took him everywhere; he was quiet and never caused trouble even if there were cats, which he didn't care for because of their stinkweed smell.Tonight, however, it had occurred to Julia that seeing Horace alive when her own dog was dead might cause Piper Libby pain. She had also noticed that Andi liked Horace, and thought that the Corgi might take Andi's mind off her withdrawal symptoms, which had abated but not disappeared.

For a while it worked. Andi found a rubber ball in the toybox she still kept for her one grandchild (who was now well past the toybox stage of life). Horace chased the ball obediently and brought it back as was required, although there wasn't much challenge in it; he preferred balls that could be caught on the fly. But a job was a job, and he continued until Andi started shivering as if she were cold.

'Oh. Oh fuck, here it comes again.'

She lay down on the couch, shaking all over. She clutched one of the sofa-pillows against her chest and stared at the ceiling. Pretty soon her teeth started to clatter—a very annoying sound, in Horace s opinion.

He brought her the ball, hoping to distract her, but she pushed him away. 'No, honey, not now. Let me get through this.'

Horace took the ball back in front of the blank TV and lay down. The woman's shaking moderated, and the sick-smell moderated lalong with it. The arms clutching the pillow loosened as she first began to drift and then to snore.

Which meant it was chowtime.

Horace slipped under the table again, walking over the manila envelope containing theVADER file. Beyond it was popcorn Nirvana. O lucky dog!

Horace was still snarking, his tailless rear end wagging with pleasure that was close to ecstasy (the scattered kernels were incredibly buttery, incredibly salty, and—best of all—aged to perfection), when the deadvoice spoke again.

Take that to her.

But he couldn't. His mistress was gone.

The other her.

The deadvoice brooked no refusal, and the popcorn was almost gone, anyway. Horace marked the few remaining blossoms for later attention, then backed up until the envelope was in front of him. For a moment he forgot what he was supposed to do. Then he remembered and picked it up in his mouth.

Good dog.

21

Something cold licked Andrea's cheek. She pushed it away and turned on her side. For a moment or two she almost escaped back into healing sleep, and then there was a bark.

Shurrup, Horace.' She put the sofa pillow over her head.

There was another bark, and then thirty-four pounds of Corgi landed on her legs.

'AW,' Andi cried, sitting up. She looked into a pair of brilliant hazel eyes and a foxy, grinning face. Only there was something interrupting that grin. A brown manila envelope. Horace dropped it on her stomach and jumped back down. He wasn't supposed to get on furniture other than his own, but the deadvoice had made this seem like an emergency.