Chapter 24: The Roof

Nolan pulled on his jeans and went down the ladder first.

The dome door stood open on its track, and the gray morning light fell across the floor in a long stripe.

Harold Wexford sat at the main console in yesterday's navy suit.

He had slept in a chair.

His rimless glasses lay folded beside a single sheet of paper, and he got to his feet when he saw Nolan, slowly, one hand on the desk.

"Joan let me in at four," he said. "I asked to wait here. I didn't want to knock on a cabin door."

"What do you want, Harold?"

"To give her this. Whatever you decide about the rest."

He held out the sheet.

It was a transfer form, Northwestern Branch, with the Institute's header and a line at the bottom for the director's stamp.

The stamp was there, in blue ink, still a little wet.

The date was the day Lydia had first filed it.

"I told her I'd never stamp anything for her," Harold said. "I've stamped it. Back-dated to the day she filed."

Nolan did not take the form.

"Give it to her yourself."

Harold's hand shook very slightly.

"Will she see me?"

"I don't know."

"I'll wait."

"Do it outside," Nolan said. "The ceremony's at six. There's a chair at the back."

Harold looked at the floor, and then at him.

"Thank you," he said, and it cost him, and Nolan let it cost him.

The wedding was on the roof of the dome at dusk, because Lydia would not have it anywhere else.

Joan stood at the ledge in a clean canvas coat with the sleeves down, holding a paperback she had not opened.

Forty staff sat on folding chairs and on the steel, in their coats, with paper cups.

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