He waited for her, not far from the tentholds, in the quiet that precedes dawn. Saw her coming, pale and wraith-like, from the direction of the desert.
“Yalith.”
She stopped, startled, head up.
“Yalith, it’s Sandy.”
“Oh. Twin Sand.” Relief was in her voice. “What is it?”
He took her hand. “Yalith, what are you going to do?”
“When?”
“When the floods come.”
She spoke in a low voice. “We don’t know for sure that the floods are going to come. It is only what my father says.”
“Yes, but what do you think? Do you believe your father?”
She was barely audible. “Yes.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Nothing. This has already given my father and mother much grief. My mother doesn’t understand why El has not called me to be in the ark with the others.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Dennys said flatly.
“But the stars have told me not to be afraid.”
“And you believe the stars?”
“Yes.”
“Well, somebody’s wrong, either your father or the stars.”
“I trust my father. And I trust the stars.”
“Well. Somebody has to do something. I mean, we can’t just sit back and let you get drowned. Would you consider coming home with us?”
She looked at him, startled. “But where is your home?
Is it on the other side of the mountains?”
“On the other side of time,” Sandy said.
Her fingers tightened in his. “You and the Den are leaving?” She answered her own question. “Of course. You have to. As soon as the ark is built. As soon as the rains start.”
“Will you come with us?”
“With you both?”
“Well—yes.” He would love to go off to the end of the world, alone with Yalith. But he knew that he would not try to leave her world without Dennys.
“Is it many days of travel?”
“We got here sort of instantaneously. I have an idea how we might be able to get home, but first I want to know if you’ll come with us.”
“Oh, twin Sand.” She sighed, long and deeply. “Everything is so strange. Ever since you came, nothing has been the same. Grandfather Lamech is dead. The ark is being built. I don’t want to drown, but—is it very different, where you come from?”
Sandy acknowledged, “Very different. It isn’t nearly as hot, and we have lots of water, so that we can take showers, and drink as much as we want. What I wouldn’t give for a long glass of cold water when we’re hammering away on the ark! And we wear different kinds of clothes.” He looked at Yalith’s small and perfect body, barely covered by the loincloth, her breasts delicate and rosy, and had a moment’s absurd vision of her in one of the classrooms at the regional high school. But wouldn’t anything be better than drowning? “You’ll consider it, won’t you? Coming with us?”
She was solemn. “Of course. It is very hard for me to imagine what it would be like without you and the Den. You are part of me. Both of you.”
Sandy slipped back into the tent, Dennys was awake, waiting for him.
“Where have you been?”
“I asked Yalith to come home with us.”
There was a heavy silence. At last Dennys said. “No. No, Sandy. We can’t take her back with us. I mean, even if we could, we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t have any immunities. Haven’t you noticed, there aren’t any diseases here? Don’t you remember that all the natives at the bottom part of South America got killed by German measles, because they didn’t have any immunities?”
“Couldn’t we give her vaccinations?”
“Not for everything. Even if she caught a cold, an ordinary head cold, it would probably kill her. She doesn’t have any protective antibodies. She couldn’t adjust to our climate. It’s too cold, too damp, It would be murder to try to take her back with us.”
“Then what’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“If she stays here, she’ll drown. Wouldn’t it be worth the risk to try to take her home with us?”
Dennys shook his head. “How do you think she’d get on with the kids at school?”
“She wouldn’t have to go to school. She’s nearly a hundred years old.”
“And she doesn’t look any older than we do. How would we prove her age to the school authorities? And i£ she is a hundred years old, and we bring her back to our time, what would happen? Would she shrivel all up and be ancient and die of old age?”
“Why are you thinking of all the bad things that could happen?”
“We have to think of them. If we love Yalith.”
“Maybe it would be all right.”
“And maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe what we should do is stay here with Yalith and wait for the flood.”
“I’m not willing to give up that easily.”
“It’s not easily.”
“But we have to do something!”
Maybe, for once, we don’t, Dennys thought. “There’s time yet,” he said. “Maybe something will come to us, but it will have to be something real.”
“Hey,” Sandy said. “I’m not sure anymore what’s real and what isn’t. I mean, nephilim and seraphim!”
“I believe in a lot more than I used to,” Dennys said. “Even i£ we’re not supposed to change the story, we’re changed, you and I.”
“We are, oh, we are. And what about Yalith?”
“Wait,” Dennys said. He did not tell Sandy about his talk with Alarid. Or what the wind had shown him. Or that the stars had told him to have patience, and wait. Wait.
The new moon was once again a crescent in the sky-Ripened, filled out to a sphere. Dwindled and diminished. Was born again.
Noah sent Japheth and Oholibamah to warn the people of the oasis of the impending flood.
Ham asked, “What’s the point? They ail know you’re building this big boat. They all know you’re expecting rain out of season.”
Noah was stubborn. “They have a right to be warned. To prepare. And who knows—if they repent, then perhaps El will not send the flood.”
“If there’s no flood,” Ham said, “people will laugh at us even more than they’re laughing now.”
Anah looked troubled. “I do not think the people of my tent will repent, They are very angry.”
Noah said, “They must be given the chance,”
When Japheth and Oholibamah returned from their trip about the oasis, they had been laughed at, spat at. Japheth had an ugly bruise on his cheek where an angrily thrown stone had hit him.
Even Noah and Matred’s older daughters and their husbands had met them with scorn. They laughed at Japheth’s earnest warning, and complained of being made to look like fools because of Noah’s folly. Seerah had thrown a bowl of mash at them and screamed at Oholibamah to leave her alone. “And don’t you come near my babies, you nephil woman.”
Japheth had put his arm protectingly about his wife and taken her away.
Hoglah’s husband had threatened to strangle them if they kept on spreading stories of flood and doom throughout the oasis. “It reflects on us,” he said. “Don’t you see how you’re making us look with this idiocy? Can’t you just keep quiet about Noah’s delusions?”
Japheth and Oholibamah left the oasis, to go home by the desert. Oholibamah began weeping, strangely, quietly.
Japheth stopped, putting his arms around her. “My wife. What is it?”
Oholibamah struggled to stifle her silent tears. Said, “If it is all true, what El has told your father, if there is to be a great flood, then our baby will be born after—“ She choked on her tears.
Japheth’s face lit with delight. “Our—“
Oholibamah leaned her head against his strong shoulder. “Our baby. Japheth.” Suddenly her tears turned to laughter. “Our baby!”
The result of the attempt to warn the people of the oasis was that now they gathered about the perimeter of Noah’s land.
The desert wind rose hotly. Noah’s eyes were fixed on the ark. He tried to ignore the catcalls and hoots of the mob.
Grimly, Matred heated wine to the boiling point. “I prefer to use it on manticores, but if they try to hurt my husband, I will make them sorry.”
Ham slunk into the tent.
“What are you doing here?” his mother demanded.
“I’m tired of being laughed at.”
Matred spoke fiercely. “You go right back out and help your father.”
“He’s insane.”
“Whatever he is, it’s your place to be with him. And with your wife. She’s not too proud to work, and carrying your child, too.” Matred smiled. There would be three babies coming. She brimmed with joy.
“Can’t you stop him, Mother? He’s a wild man, his eyes blazing, his beard whipped by the wind, his— Can’t you speak to him.”
“I have spoken,” Matred said. “Go out to him. Now.” Reluctantly, Ham went out into the glaring sunlight, the burning wind. The muttering, jeering crowd was larger, as the people of the oasis gathered to stare.