Tallie knew it was going to happen. One by one the dreams had detailed for her just how things would be and what it was she must do. All she didn't know was when. And she didn't know that she would sleep through the greatest earthquake the continent had ever known because of drugs the doctor had given her for a bad headache.
But when she awoke into the battered, glass-strewn bedroom, she knew at once that the dreams had begun to happen. She knew she was alone, that for reasons she understood all too well, the others had gone. And she knew just how to go about leaving. She had worked it all out in the dreams long before.
With Pandora the cat, also left behind, and with all the gear she had planned to assemble, she set out on the backwash of a tidal wave in Pride, her sailboat, kept in the garage of the apartment building. They sailed over new seas to the place she was supposed to camp. Then she realized she had somewhere else to go. There was a baby that had to be rescued. And finally, there was a fearful trip to a house built high into a cliff, where both security and danger lay.
Tallie and the others who came to join her were all in some way related, all precognitive, all geniuses of one variety or another, all amazingly competent, to a point. And all knew that the dangers that lurked in the house where they had come to shelter, as well as dangers that might come from the outside, could be more than they would be able to handle. Yet to win through to a future that would use the abilities they had, they knew they must try.