“At 09:22, Mitchell radioed down. “We’re in position.” Pete peered up into the canopy, but of course he couldn’t see a thing. “How’s it looking up there?” “Five by five.” He snorted at Mitchell’s cheery misuse of the phrase. “Thank you, Faith.” “Any time, Giles. Now go be a good watcher and keep us clear.” “Roger that. Out.”

“Oh, good,” he muttered. “We’re going to discuss it now.”“No discussion,” she said. Her mind was quite clear now, as though a fire had blazed through it, burning away all confusion. “It’s perfectly simple. No One MustEver Know.”He came up onto one elbow and looked at her. “Do you know,” he said, “I can hear those five words in italics. Capitalized.”

“I don't go out with strangers," I said."Good thing I do. I'll pick you up at five.”

“If things go wrong, I'll lead them away. Once it's clear, get back to the car. If you don't see me in five minutes, then I've probably died a very brave and heroic death. Oh and don't touch the radio--I've got it tuned right where I want it and I don't want you messing that up.”

“He died of a breaking heart," Pete said, making a stout log fence of his hands around the glove compartment and leaning forward to peer at the luminous clock, "but he was an old man. He was the king of his Yaquis down there and he couldn't live any more when they took the land away. He couldn't live up in the mountains that way. He hid all the treasures - you understand treasures? - in the mountains down there and he died. Now I'm the king of my Yaquis and someday I'll go down there and dig up the treasures again - maybe soon if they don't catch me too much. Then I buy the land back and we will live in the future like in the past only better." Pete let the fence fall, and sunlight showed the clock to be hours wrong, if not years.”

“There was no up, there was no down. There was a steady, nauseated life five minutes ago, but nothing five minutes from now. And then, very suddenly, there was no 'now.”