Continued From Part 2

WHEN PAUL OPENED his eyes, he did not find himself in the motel room as he expected. Rather, he was sitting in a grassy, breezy meadow, next to a small, swiftly-flowing stream. Above him, ragged sheets of cirrus draped the sky and caught beams from the setting sun. His eyes drank in the serene wonder of it all and he was enchanted by the quiet yet intense beauty of this place. The brisk babbling of running water soothed his ears and the grass was soft and cool under his bare feet.

He stood and stretched. On the other side of the stream, on his left, rivers of flowers plunged across the hillsides in a dazzling mosaic of color. On his right, a forest of huge sunflowers bordered the other end of the meadow. Paul stood up and walked towards them. He stopped at the first one and examined it closely. The enormous bloom, studded with seed, towered three feet over his head. It suddenly bent down and a shower of blue stars poured from it, cascading over him like raindrops.

A feeling of sweet sadness touched his heart. Somehow, this strange flower reminded him of Scott. That brief deluge of bright blue stars felt like the special child Paul so cherished. My son is growing up, becoming a man, Paul thought, a little sadly. I'm glad he still needs me, and I'm so glad I didn't come back too late.

The sunflower righted itself, as if sensing the strength of Paul's love for Scott. Tingling in the glow of that magic stardust, Paul smiled and faded back to sleep.

"Tell me about yourself," Scott said to Rob.

The young astronaut was packing tools into the pockets of his spacesuit. "What do you want to know?"

"The important things."

Rob shrugged. "Not much to tell. My parents live in Utah. I have a twin brother, James, and a younger sister, Emily. I was married once, but it didn't work out."

"Why not?"

"She was great, I was a jerk," Rob said. "I blew it. She's better off without me anyway."

"Why? You seem like a nice enough guy."

Rob laughed. "Yeah, well looks can be deceiving," he said, as he picked up a crescent wrench. He turned and looked at Scott. "I hope you find your mom. Your dad did the right thing, coming back to Earth to help you. I envy you, Scotty. You have something important to live for."

Scott looked at him in shock. "What about you? The Air Force, an astronaut, what do you call that?"

"Stuff to keep me out of trouble. If you knew what I was really like, you wouldn't be here to help me. I'm a screw-up."

"I don't buy that," Scott said. "Don't expect me to go into agreement with your negative perceptions about yourself. But-even if it was true, I'd still like you. We have something in common."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Rob let go of the wrench and it slowly drifted away from him. "I like you, too. It's kind of funny. You're not really my type of guy."

"What makes you so sure?" Scott grabbed the wrench and handed it back to him.

"I don't know what to think anymore," Rob said. "About anything." He paused for a moment, twirling the wrench with his hands. "What about you, Scott? What things do you like?"

Scott shrugged. "Oh, books, good movies, music, football. Pizza and pancakes."

"Yeah? What else?"

"Oh, simple things," Scott said, looking away. "Stuff you probably wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"The sun and the moon," Scott said, savoring the words. "The wind and the rain. Things like that."

Rob looked down. "I'd be ashamed to tell you what I like. Or at least what I used to like. If I make it out of this thing alive, I think I'll change a lot of things."

"Good," Scott said. "And you're not a screw-up. That's just an excuse for not trying. Rob, the best thing for you to do now is to start believing in yourself."

A light rain had begun to fall by the time the President's helicopter arrived at the main runway of Andrews Air Force Base, some eleven miles from the Capitol. The President's Airborne Command Post, a custom-built Boeing 747, was waiting nearby. "What's the latest?" the President asked Marlin Hewitt, as they boarded the jet. Fox, Cavanaugh, and Jennings followed.

"He should be starting the press briefing soon," Hewitt answered. "He's already briefed Congress and Epstein has told the families." They ducked into the plane and sat down, and one of the President's aides turned the TV on.

Fox looked at the President. "What's Ed going to say?"

"Half of the truth," the President answered. "He's very good at that, you know."

Edward Finch, the young, boyish-looking Vice-President, took the podium in the East room at the White House. "I have a statement to read first, after which I'll answer questions," he said to the press corps. He pulled a sheet of paper out of his vest pocket. "At approximately 7 o'clock this evening, contact with the space shuttle Inferno was lost due to a communications malfunction. The condition of the astronauts is uncertain at this time, but as far as we know they're just fine. As you know, the shuttle is on a classified Department of Defense mission, but the communications failure was not related to the military payload in any way..."

Scott listened intently as Rob gave him a very basic lesson about the shuttle's components and how its major systems worked. After that, the two of them discussed what their plan of action would be. Rob told Scott about his original plan to separate the tank and the shuttle, thus taking the orbiter out of danger until NASA could launch a recovery mission.

"But now we know the Buran is coming, thanks to you," the astronaut concluded. "That puts us in a whole new ball game. We can't abandon this baby, because if we do the Russians could waltz in and steal the works. We can't let them have that satellite."

"We can't let our country have it, either," Scott added pointedly.

"Why not? Why are you so bent on destroying that thing?"

"You know why," Scott retorted. "War, that's why. War is not the answer to anything." His face twisted with disgust. "You know I have no great love for the military, but this is really sick. It's sad to see our own government stoop this low. That thing's a free ticket to Armageddon."

"That's not its purpose," Rob countered. "It's a last chance device, the bottom chip in the bargaining pile. The arms control negotiations are whittling away our nuclear defenses, Russian-bred insurrection is growing in Central America and Mexico, and the conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact outnumber NATO's ten to one. The threat of us striking first is the only thing that's going to keep those bastards in line."

Scott shook his head. "This is unbelievable. You know what this is like? It's like the Germans in World War Two. Those people had concentration camps in their back yards, but they thought they couldn't do anything about it—or even worse, just ignored what was going on. Sure, everyone's against nuclear weapons, but hardly anybody does anything about it. We all just ignore them like they'll go away. But they won't go unless we make it happen. Those bombs could wipe out the human race, but we just let the government have its way, putting missiles in the ground and in semis and in orbit and God-knows-where next. And it'll just get worse and worse until finally there's no way out. Doesn't anybody care about the future anymore?"

"Maybe it's for the better," Rob said dejectedly. "We've made such a mess of everything. Maybe the human race needs to be destroyed before the Earth can be free."

"No," Scott said, shaking his head. "Hate can never cure hate. I just don't understand it. There are so many good things we could be doing. Helping each other. Teaching each other."

Rob looked at him and nodded slowly. "Yeah. That's a good dream to have, Scotty. Maybe the world can be like that one day." He put his arm across Scott's brooding shoulders. "Okay, we'll kill the satellite. But I want to save the orbiter. If we can."

Scott nodded. "Okay. What can we do?"

"What I want to know is what you can do with that sphere-thing," Rob said. He floated over a little so he was facing Scott. He smiled. "You seem pretty average for an alien. If it weren't for the sphere—or the fact that you're here at all—I wouldn't have believed your story. You don't look..." His voice trailed off uncomfortably and he cleared his throat.

Scott nodded. "Yeah, I know. Well, maybe I don't look different, but I feel different." He put his hand to his chest and his eyes got watery. "In here is where I feel it the most."

Rob was touched by the look in Scott's eyes. They were eyes that had seen too much sadness, too much grief, too much loneliness. He squeezed Scott's shoulder again. "Are you ready?"

Scott blinked back the tears that had threaten to flood his eyes. "Yeah. What are we going to try to do?"

"I want to see if you can launch the Skyhunter with the sphere."

Scott nodded. He pulled the shiny object from his pocket, and for a moment he remembered the time when Paul had told him, "I'll be in your pocket." He smiled, and wished that Paul were really here--although this experience had him wondering just how "real" reality really was. Heeding his call, the sphere glowed blue, a radiant, brilliant blue. He focused on the Skyhunter; tried to envision it lifting out of the cargo bay. He mentally went over every launch he'd ever seen, to no avail. His thoughts were finally distracted to the point where the sphere began to fade, and Scott hurled it towards the wall in frustration. "Damn," he said, his eyes flooding with tears again. He looked at Rob apologetically. "Sorry. I'm not so good at using the thing yet."

"Hey, take it easy," Rob said. "Don't feel bad if it's too hard," Rob said. "There are probably too many things you'd have to do in order to make it work, and you don't know enough about any of them. Don't worry about it." He picked the rebounding sphere out of the air and handed it back to Scott. "Someday you'll be a virtuoso."

Scott nodded tersely and dried his face with his sleeve. "What now?"

"Well, the first order of business is to disconnect the automatic systems, so that if the Russians try to start us up again, it won't be easy to control anything important. That'll also prevent NASA from taking us down on autopilot, which would be the normal procedure. That should keep the Skyhunter out of everybody's hands for awhile. Satisfactory?"

"Affirmative," Scott said. "How do we start?"

General Justin Braithwaite had been a lieutenant when the Cuban missile crisis happened in '62. He remembered being scared, and feeling very glad that he wasn't "wearing the brass hat." Back then he never in his wildest dreams imagined he'd be commander of NORAD one day. But it had happened; the "brass hat" was his to wear now. He was charged with the defense of the North American continent, and tonight he had his own crisis to deal with.

"The Buran is moving into position for rendezvous," one of his subordinates informed him. "ETA two hours six minutes." The man gave Braithwaite a faltering glance. "Sir, do you think it could go all the way?"

"If it does we'll blow them vodkas and fish eggs to Hell and back," the General vowed sternly.

"Gee, sir. I kind of like vodka."

Braithwaite smiled. "Get me a report on the missiles."

General Braithwaite's contemporary, Vladmir Peredenkov, had left all thoughts of truffles behind. He was busy coordinating the massive military muscle of the Iron Curtain.

"Our submarines are moving into position," one station reported. "Missile operators standing by," another told him. "All systems functioning normally on Buran," another said. Peredenkov looked at his watch. In two hours the pride of the Soviet space fleet would be there. And in three hours, the world might not be anywhere.

Marlin Hewitt handed the red phone to the President. "It's Josef Orlov, the Soviet Defense Minister," he said.

The President thought for a moment, then lifted the receiver. "Hello?"

"Good evening, comrade. Tell me, are we going to blow up the world tonight, or will we be civilized?"

"That depends on you," the President said. "If your cosmonauts attempt to board the Inferno or threaten it in any way, we will consider it an overt act of war and respond accordingly."

"We cannot allow the deployment of the Skyhunter satellite weapon," Orlov said in his thick baritone. "Such a threat to our national security is unacceptable. I regret the unfortunate action we had to take in order to insure the failure of the Inferno's mission, but you left us no choice. Destroy the satellite or we'll destroy it for you."

"Out of the question," the President said. "That satellite is a vital element of the defense structure of the United States. Any attack upon it will be considered an attack on this country."

"This was discussed in Iceland, or have you forgotten? Your stealth weapons have already given you a great advantage. Any further shift in the balance of power is intolerable."

"Don't lecture me about advantages. What do you call the conventional forces in eastern Europe? Stand down or I'll show you what's really intolerable."

"Nyet," Orlov said coldly. The line went dead, and the President calmly handed the phone back to the ashen-faced Hewitt. "Why is that goon on the phone? Where the hell is the Soviet President?"

"Unknown, sir. We've run into a stone wall at the Kremlin. No luck, even on the hotline."

The President nodded. "Get me Braithwaite at NORAD."

"Yes sir." A few moments later Hewitt handed the phone back to the President.

"General Braithwaite? This is the President. Scramble the bombers." He handed the phone to Hewitt. "Find my wife and get her in the air."

"Yes sir."

Rob was doing quite a job of tearing the shuttle apart. If it survived, it would take months of work to get everything functional again, but he was really beginning to doubt that it would survive. The Soviet booby trap had put the Inferno in a coma; Rob was giving her a lobotomy, disconnecting everything but the manual controls and the telemetry and communications systems. Scott interrupted him with another picture from the sphere.

"Those are bombers," Rob said. "The President is probably sending them to fail-safe. We've got to work fast."

"Yeah," Scott said. Suddenly, he saw a glow from the flight deck. Curious, he and Rob went up to investigate. "Probably the sun rising," Rob said offhandedly.

It wasn't the sun. It was the glow of the Buran's reaction jets. The Soviet shuttle was "parked" in orbit about a thousand yards in front of the Inferno. "They're here already!" Scott said in shock.

"Showtime," Rob said. He grabbed some wire.

"What's that for?" Scott asked.

"The external tank has explosives in it that are set off if the shuttle goes off-course during liftoff. That destroys the orbiter, but it's considered uncontrollable if it goes that far off-course." He began packing a bunch of parts into a bag. "What I'm going to do is connect the pressure gauge on the tank to the explosives, so that if the pressure goes above a certain point it'll trigger a blast."

"But that'll blow up the Inferno!"

"I know," Rob said, "but it's the only option we have time for now. Besides, it's the only sure way to destroy the satellite. I just hope it doesn't melt down or something."

Scott's eyes bugged out. "That sucker's nuclear?"

"Plutonium," Rob said. "If the core goes down in an inhabited area it'd be a real mess. I hope it hits the ocean."

"You wouldn't think that if you were a fish," Scott retorted.

Rob ignored the challenge in Scott's reply. "I wonder how far we've fallen," he said, peering down at the Earth.

"I thought we were in orbit," Scott said.

"We are, but not high enough. There's still some drag, and without the RCS to counteract it, she's been slowly drifting down." They floated down to the mid-deck and Scott helped Rob climb into his spacesuit. "Okay, here's the plan," Rob said. I'll hook up the detonator and wait for them to get here. Then I'll use the EMU to go over and try to commandeer their ship."

"Good thing you brought this," Scott said, handing him the gun. "Just don't use it unless you absolutely have to."

"I won't," Rob promised. "After I've taken over their orbiter, I'll move it closer. That's your cue to put your suit on. There's only one EMU so I'll come out and help you get over to the Buran. If all goes well we'll land at Edwards within hours. The pressure gauge and the explosives will finish off the Inferno and the satellite. Use the headset in your suit if you need to talk to me. Wish me luck."

"Yeah," Scott said. They went back to the mid-deck and he helped Rob into the airlock.

Marlin Hewitt, on the phone with General Braithwaite, gave the President an update. "Sir, the Buran has arrived. The bombers are in position and the subs and ICBM's are in launch mode. All you have to do is give the word."

"Not given," the President answered. "Not yet." He fingered his chin nervously. "I wish we knew what was going on up there."

Hewitt looked grave. "Are we going to go through with this, sir?"

"We might have to. It's what we've always said we'd do, what we've always threatened to do."

Nearby, George Fox was looking out of one of the plane's windows. Down below the lights of cities shimmered in the thick night air. For so long he had thought that the alien he was chasing was the greatest threat to the Earth's future. He found it hard to believe that this conflict had escalated so far so quickly. Being here with the President gave him the unenviable opportunity to stand at the very edge of the abyss and look down. Standing face to face with the Grim Reaper, Fox had to concede that the greatest threat to the Earth's future was the Earth itself. The human race had exploited the planet's resources for the most insidious causes. Would the rest of the Universe care if humanity annihilated itself tonight? Would Paul Forrester care? "He came back to help his son," George murmured. But why? What were the alien's hidden motives? What would be gained by allowing Scott Hayden to grow up and become a man? Would the alien infection spread through humanity like a plague? If so, the sharply divided factions of the human race would succumb rapidly. Only by joining together was there any chance of fighting off the invaders. Fox went to the President.

"Don't give the word," Fox urged. "Let's wait and see what happens."

"What if we launch one," Jennings suggested. "A remote strike in Siberia, perhaps."

The President shook his head. "No. This is the real deal, gentlemen. There are no limited spheres of influence or tactical arenas. If we launch one bird the rest will follow."

"But we can't stand down," Jennings said. "They're probably boarding the Inferno now. You have to do something."

The President was clearly distressed. He knew that the next escalation could bring wholesale destruction to an entire planet, but the prestige of the United States would be permanently damaged if he simply backed down. "Let's see how strong their resolve is." He looked at Hewitt. "DLO for fifteen minutes."

"Damn," Rob said, when he saw the pressure gauge on the external tank. The pressure inside was already uncomfortably close to the critical point. He wanted to have a safety margin, but he couldn't set the detonator mark too high or the tank might blow up without triggering the high explosives that were buried in a pencil-thin core in the tank's backbone. If the Skyhunter's reactor pile wasn't destroyed, it might plunge into the atmosphere and threaten human lives—or fish lives. Scott's pacifist logic was starting to make a lot of sense, and Rob found himself wondering why he'd always been such a warmonger. For a moment, the truth pressed close to him, and it frightened him. He hated himself. He'd never been able to admit that before, but now it was so obvious he couldn't deny it. His own lack of self-esteem had fueled a appetite for destruction-especially self destruction. Suddenly, everything Scott had said seemed terribly important. He couldn't change the world, but he could change himself. If he survived this, he promised himself that he'd do exactly that.

He was almost finished. He snipped off some bits of extra wire, set the detonator, and taped it to the side of the tank. He looked at his watch. It had taken him about twenty minutes to do the job.

He saw a small flash of light and looked at the Buran. A cosmonaut was leaving the Soviet orbiter's airlock, trailing a rope behind him. Rob slipped into the space between the tank and the Inferno so he was out of sight. He switched his headset on. "Scott, can you hear me?"

Inside the Inferno, Scott had been floating next to his suit. He heard Rob's call and strapped the headset on. "I'm here, Rob. What did you say?"

"One of the cosmonauts is coming over."

"Great," Scott said sarcastically. "What should I do, send out the welcome wagon?" He pulled himself up to the flight deck, dragging the suit along. He got to the windows in time to see the Buran's cargo bay doors open. Two cosmonauts with extravehicular mobility units came out of the bay, towing an equipment-laden sled behind them. "What's that?" Scott asked.

"I don't know, but I don't like the looks of it," Rob radioed. Scott watched as the cosmonaut with the rope came along the Inferno's port side-out of the Buran's line of sight-and tied the rope to one of the handles near the escape hatch.

"Scott," Rob said, "it looks like I'm going to have to shoot them."

"No!" Scott yelled back. "No. Three people have died already, Rob. There's got to be a way out without killing anybody else. Besides, there must be more of them in the orbiter. They might come after you, or even worse, just turn around and go home."

Outside, Rob was strapping himself into his EMU. "Yeah, you're right," he relented. The military discipline that had supposedly trained him for moments like this had failed him utterly. He had to force himself out of old thought patterns and improvise. "That ugly thing's our only ride home," he said. He paused, analyzing the situation. The cosmonauts with the sled had also gone around to the Inferno's port side. "They're probably going to feed in some external power," Rob said. "If I stay in the Inferno's shadow I should be able to get over there and still be out of sight."

"Go for it," Scott said. "Good luck."

"Here goes." Rob pushed off and headed towards the Soviet orbiter. He became nervous, out there alone with no protection. "Talk to me, Scotty," he said. "I'm getting the jitters. Tell me about your dad."

"Oh, he's great," Scott said. "Before he came here he was a navigator. Made maps of the Universe and stuff like that. You'd think Earth would be anti-climatic compared to all that, but he seems to love it down here."

"Well, for a primitive, warlike species, we do have some good points. Like Mexican cooking. Jalapeno and cheddar pizza topped with jicama salsa and peppers, with a side order of cajun shrimp. That's my favorite."

"Oh, gross!" Scott exclaimed. "What do you drink with that, the Pacific Ocean?"

"The Atlantic," Rob said, with a chuckle. "I've been scuba diving in the Caribbean several times. It's incredible, all the fish and underwater life. It's another world-like space, only more beautiful." He found himself touched by what Scott had said about the fish, by Scott's respect for life. He grunted. "I'm almost there; only a few yards to go."

Inside the Inferno, Scott was getting into his spacesuit. "Be careful," he said on the headset. He jumped as the lights suddenly came on. A cacophony of hoots and honks assaulted his ears as various alarms sounded. "What's happening, Rob?" he radioed.

Rob was now alongside the Soviet orbiter. He was just about to move over to the airlock when he saw it opening. He dived for cover underneath the shuttle. "They've fed in some power, Scotty. I don't have time to tell you how to cut off the alarms," he said. "Just hang tight."

Inside the American shuttle, Scott's attention was distracted by one of the suddenly-active computer displays. "Ah, Rob, what does Red Rain DLO fifteen mean?" he asked.

"What?" Rob radioed. "Did you say DLO?"

"Yeah. The number's counting down. Looks like minutes and seconds."

"Oh my God," Rob said. "Red Rain is a code. It means NORAD has locked target instructions into the ICBM's. DLO means 'delayed launch order.' If the President doesn't countermand the order, the missiles will launch when the timer expires."

"Fifteen minutes?" Scott exclaimed. "Is that all we have?"

"I'm afraid so," Rob replied, as he clung to the Buran. He looked down at the Earth. "Looks like we've got front row seats in the theater of mutually assured destruction."

Another Soviet came out of the Buran and used the rope to haul himself to the Inferno. He left the outer door of the airlock open. Once the man had gone around to the far side of the American shuttle, Rob cut the rope, then pulled himself up to the airlock and got in. The pressure equalized and he shed his helmet and gloves, then cocked the gun. He opened the inner door.

There was no one on the Buran's mid-deck. Rob floated cautiously up to the flight deck. A sole cosmonaut was sitting in the commander's chair. Rob sucked his breath in. It was a woman. He didn't want to hurt her, but he couldn't afford to have her in the way, either. So he shoved himself off hard and sprung up next to her.

Her mouth dropped in surprise when she saw him. Her hand reached for the mike switch, but Rob was faster. "Greetings," he grunted, as he struck her in the forehead with the gun. She slumped back, unconscious. Rob got some tape from the mid-deck and bound and gagged her so she wouldn't be in the way when she came to. "Sorry," he said, "but I had to do that." Then he secured the airlock and started disconnecting the automatic controls. "Good thing they stole all this technology from us," he said. "This'll be a piece of cake." He switched his mike on. "Scott? I'm inside the Buran. I had to bop someone on the head, but no shooting so far."

There was no answer. After he finished hot-wiring the controls, Rob drifted up to the flight deck windows. "Come in, Scotty. Do you copy?"

"Hi Rob. Sorry, I've got a bit of a problem here."

"What's wrong?"

"It's the tank. The detonator was about to go off. I'm holding it back with the sphere."

"Oh my God. Look, I'm coming back for you. Hold onto that thing."

"No!" Scott yelled. "It's too dangerous! See if you can get the Russians away from here. I don't know how long I can hold this thing off."

"I'm not going to leave you, Scotty," Rob said emphatically.

"You have to," Scott answered. "You have to go back and tell everyone what happened—and why it can never happen again."

"But if you stay there you'll—"

Scott interrupted him. "No! I'm not going to die. I'm down there, remember?"

"We don't know that, man. We can't take that chance." Rob's voice was pleading.

Inside the Inferno, Scott heard noises from the vicinity of the airlock. "I think they're coming in," he said, trying to keep his attention focused on the sphere. If his concentration wandered for so much as a second, the tank would go. "Don't give out on me now," he said to the sphere. He glanced at the DLO timer and gulped. There were less than eight minutes left.

Outside the shuttle, the two Russians who weren't manning the power sled got into the Inferno's airlock. After they had gone through it, they found something they weren't expecting-namely the three bodies.

On the flight deck, Scott could see them and hear them yelling but couldn't understand what they were saying. One of them, who was clearly in charge, was pointing out some of the damage Rob had done. He pulled a gun out of a pocket in his suit.

Scott ducked out of their line of sight. "Guess they like target practice too," he said half-humorously. The sphere was holding the tank steady without hardly any support on his part. Scott hoped it would stay that way. He looked into its depths and saw mercenaries of steel crouched in concrete caves. They were ICBM's, waiting for the President's command.

Inside the Buran, Rob typed in the command for an RCS burn. The reaction control system fired, moving the Soviet shuttle down towards the Earth.

In the Inferno, The unarmed Russian stuck his head up into the flight deck, saw Scott, and cried out. His comrade rapidly moved to his side, brandishing the gun.

"Please," Scott pleaded, as he floated by the pilot's seat. "You have to leave. If you don't you'll die." The sphere wavered and he gasped. The Soviet cocked the gun. Scott's face turned ashen white. "No, please! Don't shoot me! If you do the#&151;"

The Soviet muttered something and fired the gun. The bullet hit Scott full in the chest and he sprawled backward. The sphere flew from his hand. It impacted into the commander's control panel with a metallic, unmusical thud. It rebounded like a spring, blinking on and off as it did so.

Scott felt a sharp pain in his chest as the bullet hit. As unconsciousness folded around him, his vision grew dark. The last thing he saw was the glow of status lights on one of the nearby instrument panels. Their soft colors reminded him of Christmas lights, of video games, of autumn leaves. He felt blood running down his belly, hot and sticky. "I'm sorry," he whispered. His elbow hit the manual OMS ignition switch as he crumpled against the pilot's control panel.

Despite all the damage Rob had inflicted, the OMS engines of the Inferno somehow managed to fire— a tribute to all the backups and double-backups. The recoil from the sudden motion tipped the armed Soviet backwards. He cried out and accidentally discharged the gun. The bullet zinged past Scott's head and hit one of the cockpit windows. The window shattered and Scott, the cosmonauts, the sphere, and everything else that wasn't bolted down surged towards the opening as the cabin explosively decompressed.

From his vantage point inside the Buran, Rob saw a bright flash in the space between the Inferno and its external tank. That flashed segued into an eruption rivaling the sun as the tank exploded. The blast consumed the Inferno, sending fragments in all directions.

Rob swore as he saw a few good-sized chunks of metal flying towards the Buran. He hastily tapped in the coordinates for an OMS burn and the Soviet ship plunged downward and away from the blast. Hot tears poured from Rob's eyes. He turned the craft around so he could see the expanding cloud of debris. The glowing embers were fading, but some of them would burn ever more brightly as they plummeted into the atmosphere. The Inferno was no more. "Scotty," he cried.

Out of the explosion's white cloud of smoke came a light, a light like Rob had never seen. It looked somewhat like a sphere, small and radiant. And it was the most beautiful blue color, so bright and warm, the shade of electricity and cloudless summer skies. And in his heart, Rob knew that this was the real Scott. "I won't forget you," Rob whispered, as the strength, peace, and joy of that light swept over him.

"I'm afraid you will have to forget," Rob heard Scott's voice say, although it sounded like it was inside his own head. "I won't, but I'll think it was just a dream. I'm sorry it has to be that way. But I'm glad I got to know you."

"Me too," Rob said sadly. "We did it, buddy. The world's going to be safe."

"Yeah. Goodbye, Rob. Take care of yourself." In this, his other natural form, Scott felt confident about his capability, but he still felt uneasy. His fears were unfounded, though#151;the sphere excised Rob's memories of Scott Hayden as neatly as a knife slicing through butter.

Rob blinked as his consciousness was crushed by this sudden darkness. The blue light began to fade, and once again Rob was impressed with its ethereal beauty. He blinked his eyes. Beauty? What was he thinking about? "The Earth," he said quietly, reminding himself. "It is lovely." He discarded his headset and put on the Soviet one. He punched in a new frequency.

"Mission control, this is Robert Barnes. I have assumed command of the shuttle Buran. Do you copy?"

Aboard Air Force One, Fox was trying to give the President the latest news as delicately as possible. "The car your wife was taking to Edwards has a flat tire. She's still on the ground."

"And in a primary strike zone," the President said. He looked terrible, almost apoplectic. "Has there been anything from the Soviets?"

"No sir," Fox replied. "Not a—"

Hewitt interrupted with a bombshell. "The Inferno has exploded," he said. "They've destroyed it. Sir, General Braithwaite is standing by. Less than one minute until the DLO launch. You have to make the final decision."

The President looked stricken. His hand suddenly flew up to his chest, and he buckled over with a strangled cry. The others rushed to his aid.

The President's doctor pushed his way through. "Please gentlemen, out of my way." They lowered the President to the floor and loosened his shirt. The doctor examined him rapidly. "My God, he's having a heart attack. We need to get to a hospital."

The President closed his eyes. The pain inside his chest was excruciating, but he also felt something else—the presence of someone. But the person seemed to be inside him, not beside him.

The image in his mind's eye focused and he saw a handsome young man, who smiled at him. "There will always be hope for peace, Mr. President," the young man said gently, "even in the darkest hour." Then he faded away.

"Hewitt," the President called weakly. The FSA Director crouched at his side immediately. "Yes sir?"

"Tell Braithwaite to stand down. Cancel the DLO."

Hewitt's face showed vast relief. "Yes sir."

Paul was back in the meadow. He saw a bird flying high overhead, a dark silhouette against the high clouds. It might be an eagle, or an osprey, or a peregrine. He couldn't tell. He looked at the stream for a moment, and then remembered the treasure he had found here before. He jogged to the edge of the meadow, and stopped abruptly at its end. His face and his eyes dropped sadly.

The sunflower was dead.

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