Stan appreciated the young Canadian’s colorful commentary. It lent those abstract symbols verve and emotion appropriate to combat. Stan balled his fists and tried for the adrenaline rush one expected in a situation like this. Only what is a situation like this? Maybe if there were bombs going off, or visible foes …

The sky was so peaceful and blue though, with a bracing, wintry breeze coming off the continent of ice. He felt incongruously comfortable and calm with gloved hands jammed into his jacket pockets.

“Uh-oh… Alex has run out of excited states along any path between Rapa Nui and us. I see nothing in reach for ten minutes!”—

“Ten minutes?” Someone nearby sighed. “Might as well be forever.”

Stan read the display. Sure enough, the gleaming filaments along one entire sector had gone dim — still pulsing, but now exhausted, banked back, almost contemplative compared to the glittering ferment going on elsewhere. Until they replenished, Alex’s team would be unable to render any help warding off attacks on Greenland.

“Lustig signals he’s going onto the attack meanwhile… Says good luck and godspeed… Now he’s gone.”

Stan nodded. “Same to you, Alex. Don’t worry about us. Go get ’em.”

He and the other evacuees turned their attention to the distant white dome they had left just a little while ago. Even this far away they were still in danger. In this new, terrifying type of warfare, the ground beneath you might suddenly turn liquid with color, or vanish in a titanic flash, or propel you toward far galaxies. Whatever happened, he wanted to share jeopardy with those brave technicians over there across the moraine valley. He planned on staying when the crane-zep returned for another pickup.

All my life I believed science was a revelation co-equal to scripture. A more advanced text — the Infinite offering us His very tools, now that we’re older, like apprentices learning their Father’s craft.

So isn’t it only right to stand watch over what I helped create with those tools?

Ruby exclaimed, grabbing her headphones. She laughed. “I don’t believe it!”

“What is it?”

“Alex. He’s taken out the Siberian machine!” she announced in triumph. “Vaporized ’em! That’s one enemy down and two to go. Oh eh? Oh no!”

Stan felt the others gather even closer. Ruby’s gleeful expression turned to despair. “What now?” he asked.

“Another one’s come on line to replace it! A new one! Joined in soon as Siberia blew out. It’s… in the Sea of Japan. Damn, they must’ve been holding it in reserve. Where’d all these bastards come from!”

In the display, Stan saw a new triggering beam replace the one Alex had just destroyed, making a total of three foes once more.

“They’re still after us!” she cried, reading the traces.

“Sometimes it’s smarter to take out the weaker opponent first,” he commented. “If they knock Greenland out, Alex’s crew will have to face them all alone.” The Danes and others sighed and nodded. They didn’t have the full picture. (Who did?) But some things were obvious.

“The gor-suckers have hooked a really good band this time,” Ruby said. “Lots of energy. Beta’s responding, and twelve… fifteen threads are active… Beam on target!”

Stan looked around for any sign that coherent pencils of gravitational radiation were hurtling through the Earth nearby. But no symptoms could be perceived. It wasn’t likely there would be any, not until their assailants found a proper coupling with surface matter.

“They’re hunting for a contact resonance. Our guys are trying to parry…” Then Ruby groaned as her instruments flashed fateful crimson. “No good. Here it comes!”

“Everybody down!” Stan shouted. “Lie flat and turn away!”

But even as the others dove to the ground, Stan ignored his own advice. He watched the NATO buildings and knew the very instant the beam matched frequencies with the rock-air boundary. Oval patches of tundra seemed to throb like tympani. Then, within one of those boundaries, the encampment suddenly sank into the ground, like an express elevator called down to hell. It was over in an eyeblink.

At least, the first part was over. Stan mourned good people who had become friends. Dr. Nielsen got up and moved next to him. Together they listened to the continuing rumble of a new tunnel boring straight into the Earth. The growling continued for some time, vibrating their soles.

“Maybe we’d better try to get out of here,” the paleogeologist suggested at last. “The magma in these parts is far below a heavy plate, but it’s not very viscous. Even on foot, a little distance could make a lot of difference right now.”

Mankind had passed yet another milestone today, Stan thought. But then, maybe Nielsen was right. He didn’t have to be exactly at ground zero in order to bear witness when molten rock flooded up that new channel from deep, high-pressure confinement. Watching from further away wouldn’t lessen the spectacle much at all.

Like everyone else aboard the company ship, Crat watched and listened to the hurried, frantic reports. He soon tired, though, of trying to follow events he didn’t understand.

And so he left them all in the comm room and went out on deck alone to wait for sunrise.

Partly, he was still numb. His adventure with the underwater shaft of light hadn’t worn off yet — the enchantment of that strange music, the transient contact with something warm and accepting, or so it seemed at the time. He hadn’t expected his bosses to believe his story when he emerged from the water. But they had, questioning him about every detail, testing his blood and other fluids, putting him next to machines that tugged at his limbs as the light had, though not as pleasantly. At one point as they worked on him, Crat had felt his sense of smell enhance out of all proportion. The company execs’ fine colognes bit into his sinuses and made his nose itch.

That had seemed to satisfy them. He’d been released to rest and perform easy chores aboard a company support ship while the wary tech types hurried back to their secret labs. Crat had wondered how they could be so concerned about such matters at a time like that… and even more so two days later, when people spoke of whole chunks of the planet being blasted into space! Such dedication seemed far beyond him.

Still, all seemed peaceful on deck. From the railing he saw the gangly towers of the Sea State town. Soon the muezzin would be calling Muslim citizens to first prayer, dawn kites would rise to catch the stratospheric winds and solar arrays would catch even the reddish dawn.

Tepid currents lapped the cruiser’s hull, leaving the usual faint scum of surface oils and powdered styrofoam in a pebbly sheen. Phosphorescent, dying plankton gave off iridescent colors. Crat sighed as moonlight broke through the ragged overcast to brighten some obscure patch of sea. That bright beam reminded him of another. It made him hope with the focused intensity of a prayer that he might be lucky again. Maybe next time he met that special light, or heard that music, he wouldn’t be too dumb, too tongue-tied to reply.

“Yeah,” he said, in bittersweet sureness that he had been both blessed and abandoned. “Sure you would, boy-oh. Ever’body’s waitin’ in line just to hear what you have to say.”