"That was a shabby trick, Ramos," he complained. "Running out on me like that." With a look of wounded dignity, he grabbed the free end of his artificial arm and clapped it into the receptor housing that Fleet surgeons had hollowed into his shoulder. A few hearty thumps hammered the connector jacks into place. "You make me feel unloved," he said as he flexed the prosthetic fingers experimentally. "You have something against amputees?"

I signed with relief. He was only irritated, not angry. For all his faults, Tobit was a true Explorer — not like Jelca, overreacting to tiny slights.

"You were busy with your friends," I answered lightly. "It would have been rude to interrupt the party." I glanced at the eagle's cockpit. "You didn't bring anyone with you?"

"There was room for only one Morlock, and I didn't want to pick favorites." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand: his artificial one, which now seemed fully functional. "To tell the truth, they were such pathetic sots I didn't have a favorite. Except you, of course, Ramos." He threw a smacking kiss in my direction. "You're looking good."

"If one more person says that to me, I'll rip the damned skin off."

"Don't rip off your cheek to spite your face." He gestured toward Oar. "What's wrong with your friend?"

"Jelca shot her."

Tobit's eyebrows raised.

"It's a long story," I said, "and I don't have time to tell it. Do those missiles of yours work?"

"Yes. No thanks to you." He looked at me warily. "Are you thinking of blasting Jelca?"

"No. I'm thinking of blasting a door."

The Blast Radius

Neither Tobit nor I could guess how much damage the missile might do. We didn't even know what payload it contained. Chemical? Nuclear? Matter-antimatter disintegration? "Phylar," I said, "before you mount weapons on a plane, shouldn't you find out how much bang they have? It might help to know whether you should keep back a hundred meters from your target or a hundred kilometers."

Tobit scowled. "I never intended to use the bombs, Ramos; I just wanted them there for completeness."

"Completeness," I repeated.

"I liked the look of them; besides, flying an eagle is so damned gauche, I needed something to make me look less precious. As soon as I figured out how to command the AI, I had the missiles reactivated and put back."

"So you armed the plane as a fashion statement?"

"Stop bitching, Ramos. You're the one who wants to blow up a mountain."

Difficult though it was, we loaded Oar into the eagle with us, sitting her up on my lap like a limp heap of laundry. She wouldn't be safe on the ground; there was no way to gauge the blast radius. Anyway, if the missile was nuclear or worse, she'd have to be dozens of klicks away to avoid damage, and we couldn't carry her that far on foot. Better to have her with us, and simply order the plane to remove itself an adequate distance from the explosion.

Before boarding the plane, Tobit got a fistful of dirt and smeared a huge brown X on the outcrop that hid the elevator door. The mark would be easy to see at a distance of at least five kilometers. Hitting the mark was another matter — we had no idea what guidance mechanisms the missiles had. Since the eagle possessed no controls, all we could do was say, "Shoot that," and let the plane do all the aiming.

Oar and I perched in the right-hand seat, strapped down as best I could manage. Tobit climbed in beside us and stuffed his head into his tightsuit helmet. "Why are you wearing that?" I asked.

"So I don't get blinded by the sun," he replied.

I looked dubious. The helmet's visor was clear, evidence that the overcast sky was no danger to anyone's eyes. If there had been any excess brightness, the visor would have automatically tinted itself.

"We don't have any sun today," I told him.

"There might be a break in the clouds. Or," he muttered in a lower voice, "there might be a nuclear fireball of apocalyptic proportions."

"Oh," I said. "I better close my eyes."

"Nah," he answered with an airy wave. "Just hide behind your girlfriend. She'll soak up the rads better than forty meters of lead." Then before I could respond, he told the plane, "Up. Let's get this show on the road."

Boom

The eagle rose straight up on its wing-jets, a smooth vertical liftoff. "Keep track of that X mark," Tobit said to the plane, "that's our target. Fly to a safe range, then blast it."

The plane banked away neatly, then angled into a steep climb on a straight line course away from target. Acceleration squashed me lightly between Oar and the back of my chair, but not painfully so. A small distance short of the cloud ceiling, the eagle leveled off and continued on the same heading, cruising comfortably short of Mach 1.

"Can you still see the X?" Tobit asked.

I turned around. The entrance was now far behind us. In the overcast light, I could make out the rocky area where we'd fought Jelca, but not the X itself. "The plane must see better than we do," I told Tobit. "Telescopic sights or something."

"Bet you also believe admirals are your friends," he muttered.

I opened my mouth for a retort… but at that moment, the plane rolled sideways, wing over 180 degrees, and we were abruptly dangling upside-down in our safety straps, our heads pointing at the ground. A moment later, the eagle's beak pushed itself sharply upward: up and around in a buttonhook maneuver that ended with us right — way up again and now pointing toward the target.

"Cute," Tobit said with a quaver in his voice, "but it should give us warning when it's going to—"

The plane shuddered as a missile launched.

I thought the eagle had been flying at good speed. No — the eagle was virtually standing still compared to the missile. It cracked the sound barrier as it lanced out, riding a plume of smoke that pointed straight toward the target. For a second, all we could see was the smoke, not the missile itself…

"Shield your eyes!" Tobit yelled, and I closed them fast, ducking behind Oar's lolling head in case that really offered some protection.

The flash was still visible through my eyelids.

Into the City

When I opened my eyes, there was a smoking hole in the mountain. Not a crater — a hole straight into the city, with glass buildings visible below. The blast site was circular, a hundred meters in diameter and remarkably well-contained. That pleased me; I preferred not to kill too much wildlife if I could help it.

"Eagle," Tobit said to the plane, "see that nice hole? That's where we're landing."

I stared at him. "You're taking the jet into a glass city?"

"The hole's big enough," he answered. "And I suspect the elevator's not working at the moment."

The elevator was not even visible — the whole mechanism was simply gone, unless it was part of the surprised cloud of smoke that drifted in shock around the site. The automatic repair systems would clock a lot of overtime in the next few weeks.

"All right," I told Tobit, "into the hole, then head for the center of the city. Just watch out for the killer whale."

"The what!"

"Your ride home," I answered. Then I tried to explain what was happening.

Not Dead Yet

After slipping and weaving around the skyscrapers, we touched down in the main square, not far from the whale itself. The noise of our engines should have brought Explorers flocking around; but only a handful ventured away from the whale to greet us.

One was Ullis. She stared at me for a moment, then smiled wearily. "I never believed you were dead."

"Who said I was dead? Jelca?"

Ullis nodded. "He's gone crazy. He used loudspeakers to send an announcement all over the city. You had attacked without provocation and he'd been forced to kill you." She looked at me stonily for a moment. "Why would he say that when it wasn't true?"