Cornelius grinned coldly. “And who knows ‘what that might

be? The answers to everything, perhaps. The purpose of life.

Who can say?”

Malenfant said desperately, “The logic of my whole life has led me to this point, Emma. I’m trapped. And so is Michael. He’s been trapped ever since he was born, with that damn blue circle turning in his head. And I need you.”

She felt oddly dizzy, and the colors leached from the world, as if she was about to faint. “What are you saying?”

“Come with me.”

“To Cruithne? “

“It’s the only way. Michael is terrified of me. And Cornelius, come to that. But you—”

“For God’s sake, I’m no astronaut. The launch would kill me.”

“No, it won’t. It’s no worse than a roller coaster. And once we’re gone, we’re gone. These assholes from the FAA can’t reach us in outer space. Anyhow, at least you’ll be out of the country when they prosecute.”

She sensed the great divergent possibilities, of past and future — for herself, Malenfant, perhaps the species itself — that flowed through this moment, as if her awareness were smeared across multiple realities, dimly lit.

She said, “You’re frightened, aren’t you?”

“Damn right. I’m terrified. I just wanted to go mine the asteroids. And now, this.” He looked down at Michael’s round eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here, Emma. But I can’t get off the ride. I need you with me. Please.”

But now the others were crowding around Malenfant again. Here was Mary Howell, yammering about her FAA regulations. Cornelius had picked up a headset and was shouting about how the gate guards were going to have trouble stalling the NRC inspectors. And George Hench, his face twisted, was watching the clock and following his endless prelaunch checks.

Michael was crying.

Howell stepped forward. “Face it, Colonel Malenfant. You’re beaten.”

Malenfant seemed to come to a decision. “Sure I am. George, get her out of here. We have a spaceship to fly.”

George Hench grinned. “About time.” He wrapped his big arms around Howell and lifted her bodily off the floor. She screamed in frustration and kicked at his legs and swung her head back. She succeeded in knocking his headset off, but he just thrust her out of the room and slammed the door.

Emma was glaring at Malenfant. “Malenfant, have you any idea—”

George said, “Enough. You can debate it in space. Get out of here. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Malenfant clasped George’s beefy shoulder. “Thank you, my friend.”

George pushed him away. “Send me a postcard from Alcatraz.” He snatched another headset and started to yell at the technicians at their improvised consoles.

Malenfant faced Emma. He reached out and took her hand and gave it the gentlest of tugs.

As if in a dream, she followed him, as she always had, as she knew she always would.

As they walked out of the blockhouse into the gray of the Mo-jave dawn, she heard screaming, a remote crackle.

Gunfire.

Art Morris:

The Rusty performed beautifully. It was built to reach seventy on regular roads and maybe forty on anything, from sand dunes to peat bogs. Meanwhile he was sitting inside a shell of carbon-fiber composite and ceramic plating that was tough enough to stop a rifle bullet. Art didn’t have to do much more than point and hope.

He drove hell for leather at the fence. In his IR viewer he saw company guards running along inside the fence, pointing to where he was coming from, then getting the hell out of the way.

He laughed.

He hit the fence. He barely noticed it as it smashed open around him.

Guards scattered before him. He heard the hollow slam of bullets hitting the armor. He hit the ignition and powered up the diesel; there was no point in running silent now. The engine roared and he surged forward, exhilarated.

“Look what you did, Malenfant!”

He saw the pad ahead of him, the booster lit up like a Disney-land tower. He gunned the engine and headed straight for it.

Emma Stoney:

It was as if time fell apart for Emma, disintegrated into a blizzard of disconnected incidents, acausal. She just endured it, let Malenfant and his people lead her this way and that, shouting and running and pulling, through a blizzard of unfamiliar places,

smells, and equipment.

Here she was in a suiting room. It was like a hospital lab, gleaming fluorescents and equipment racks and medical equipment and a stink of antiseptic. She was taken behind a screen by unsmiling female techs, who had her strip to her underwear. Then she was loaded into her pressure suit, tight rubber neck and sleeves, into which she had to squeeze, as if into a shrunken sweater. The techs tugged and checked the suit’s seals and flaps, their mouths hard.

Gloves, boots.

Here was a helmet of white plastic and glass they slipped over her head and locked to a ring around her neck. Inside the helmet she felt hot, enclosed, the sounds muffled; her sense of unreality

deepened.

She heard Michael, elsewhere in the suiting room, babbling in his own language, phrases she’d picked up. Give me back my clothes! Oh, give me back my clothes! Her heart tore. But there was no time, nothing she could do for him.

In some other world, she thought, I am walking away from here. Talking calmly to Representative Howell, fending off the NRC people, figuring out ways to manage this latest disaster. Doing my job.

Instead, here I am being prepped for space, for God’s sake, for all the world like John Glenn.

She was hurried out of her booth. The others were waiting for her, similarly suited up. Malenfant peered out of his helmet at her, the familiar face framed by metal and plastic, expressionless, as if he couldn’t believe he was seeing her here, with him.

And now, after a ride in an open cart, she was hurrying across the compound, toward the glare of light that surrounded the booster. Pad technicians ran alongside her, applauding.

Then they had. to climb, with a single burly pad rat, into the basket of a cherry-picker crane, enduring a surging swoop as it lifted them into the air. They rose through banks of thin, translucent vapor that smelled of wood smoke. She saw smooth-curving metal, sleek as muscle and coated in condensation and frost, just feet away from her, close enough to touch.

Michael seemed to be whimpering inside his helmet; Cornelius was still gripping the kid’s fist, hard. The pad rat watched this, his expression stony.

The cherry picker nudged forward until it banged against the rocket’s hull. The tech stepped forward and began to fix a ramp over the three-hundred foot drop that separated them from the booster.

Malenfant went first.

Then it was Emma’s turn. Hanging on to the pad tech’s arm, she stepped forward onto the ramp. She was looking through a gaping hole cut into the fairing that covered the spacecraft itself. The hull was covered by some kind of insulating blanket, a quilt of powder-white cloth. There was a hatchway cut into the cloth, rimmed with metal. Inside the hatch was a gray, conical cave, dimly lit, the walls crusted with hundreds of switches and dials. There were reclining bucket seats, just metal frames covered with canvas, side by side. They looked vaguely like dentist’s chairs, she thought.

There was the smell of a new machine: the rich flavor of oil, a sharp tang of welded steel and worked brass, the sweet scent of canvas and wall coverings not yet pumped full of stale body odor. The cabin looked safe and warm and snug.

Again, the crackle of gunfire, drifting up from the ground.

George Hench:

For George Hench, in these final minutes, time seemed to slow,

flow like taffy.