The door sprang outward. At the same moment a laser blast seared toward them. Donovan flung himself down, rolling, firing as he went. Diana went down.
They threw themselves into the Master Control center. Elizabeth stood backed against a wall, while Diana and John lay sprawled next to each other
"Can you stop this thing?" Donovan asked Martin as he looked at the metallic box, with its pulsing red eye.
"No," Martin said. "It's programmed to a specific countdown. The standard default is three minutes to detonation."
"It took us damn near thirty seconds to get in here!" Julie cried, feeling her lifelong nightmare threatening to overwhelm her. She wanted to throw down her weapon and run shrieking down the corridor. She was shaking so violently she nearly dropped her gun.
"All I can do is try and pilot us out of the orbit," Martin said, working desperately at the controls. "Then, at least it will only be the six of us who die. But I don't think there's enough time."
While Julie, Donovan, and Sancho stood guard at the door, the two Visitors worked feverishly. The Mother Ship seemed to shudder, then the vibrations of its engines increased. It strained upward. The blue of the sky began to darken to indigo.
"Julie," said Diana. softly.
Juliet turned, wondering if she were hearing things, and walked over to the fallen Second-in-Command. She gazed at Diana's face, that face so much a part of her subconscious horrors of the past months.
"Julie, I can help you . . . Let me help you." The words were nothing but a drifting breath from the shattered creature lying sprawled on the deck. Only Juliet heard them. "Who is the one who hurt you, Julie? You must kill him . . ."
Juliet turned uncertainly to look at Donovan's back. Her left hand trembled, inching toward the gun in her right. "Kill him, Julie . . . kill him . . . kill him . . ."
Then, somehow, the gun was in Julie's left hand as she aimed at Mike's back, The muzzle wavered in her hand, as her finger groped for the firing stud. "Kill him . . ."
"NO!!" Juliet flung the weapon out the door and, turning, dragged Diana up. With a savage hatred like nothing she'd ever felt, she shoved the wounded officer through the open hatchway in back of her, feeling her fall, then hearing a thud.
"What happened?" Donovan and Sancho turned to face Juliet, staring at her uncomprehendingly.
"We've got less than a minute, by my watch," Martin said from the pilot's seat, ignoring the humans. "We're not going to make it. I can't get the altitude."
With an abrupt, darting swiftness Elizabeth stood before the console, her eyes intent on the keyboard. She punched in a command, her fingers flying with single-minded swiftness. A glowing sequence of Visitor code came up on the monitor.
"What's she doing?" Donovan asked.
"She called up the main destruct-sequence program. She can't hurt anything," Lorraine said wearily. "What difference does it make?"
Elizabeth's eyes scanned swiftly, her hands moving again, entering a command. Then she turned to smile up at Julie and Donovan, slipping her hand into Juliet's. Kneeling, Julie hugged her. "Poor little thing. She doesn't understand."
Donovan put his arm around Juliet as they watched the seconds tick by on the chronometer of Martin's pilot's console. The droning whine of the alarm continued inexorably. Julie looked up at Donovan, her eyes welling up. "For what it's worth in the last twenty seconds of our lives, I love you."
"It's worth a lot. I love you too."
"Eight," said Martin, staring at his watch. "Seven . . . six . . . five . . . good-bye, everyone. It's been fun . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Here we go . . ."
Juliet held her breath, waiting for the wash of nova-energy to obliterate her body.
After a long, long moment, she let her breath out. Drew another deep breath. So Martin timed it wrong by a couple of seconds—here we go . . .
She was forced to breathe again, feeling dizzy. The alarm continued to sound. "God!" Julie threw up her hands. "I can't stand this! Get it over with!"
"This is crazy," Martin said. "It should've detonated ninety seconds ago."
They all looked at each other, wondering if they'd gone mad.
"If this is heaven," Sancho said, "I think I want to try the other place."
"What's going on?" Donovan demanded, then, as a thought hit him, looked at the little girl standing pressed against his side. "It has to be Elizabeth. What did she do?"
Martin was already at the doomsday console, his, eyes scanning the program still glowing on the screen. "It's been a long time since I messed with these things. Lorraine, can you tell what's going on here?"
The Visitor female moved to the console with the flashing red button, eyeing the Visitor characters intently. She began reading the program, mumbling to herself. "Here's the default . . . three minutes, that's right . . . but—"
She looked up at them. "She did it! Diana left a timing option in the program, I suppose so she could get away. Elizabeth reprogrammed it to feed back into itself. It'll cycle infinitely."
Julie had taken an introductory programming class as an undergraduate. "An infinite loop?" she asked cautiously.
"That's it," said Lorraine. "We can dismantle the device at our leisure." Bending over, she hugged the child. "Thank you, Elizabeth."
"You're welcome," Elizabeth replied, staring at her solemnly.
"You mean we're gonna live?" asked Donovan, dumb-founded.
"For a while, anyway," Julie deadpanned. "Maybe another fifty or sixty years,"
Donovan stared at her, then grinned. "Hey . . . hey! This is wonderful!" He sat down on the floor suddenly, as though his legs would no longer hold him. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
"I have a feeling I'll do both, maybe at the same time, as soon as I stop shaking," Julie said, slumping down beside him, pulling Elizabeth into her lap.
They all sat there for several minutes, grinning at each other, light-headed from relief.
Finally Martin stirred. "Maybe I'd better check our heading. We must be past your moon, and still picking up speed. We don't want to pay a visit to your Sun or something."
He busied himself at the controls for a moment, then the viewsereen came alive before them. "Take a look, Donovan. This is the highest you've ever flown."
"Yeah," Mike breathed. "This is something for the records. Wonder if I'll make the papers—the papers! Oh, damn!"
"What is it?" Julie asked.
"Here's my camera. I forgot about it. All this wonderful dramatic footage, and I missed it all."
"We were rather busy," Juliet said. "It's probably going to take some getting used to, to go back to recording the news."
"As opposed to making it? I'll be only too happy to trade in my grenades and laser pistol for something more peaceful. Maybe I'll do weddings. Speaking of which, will you marry me, Julie?"
She frowned. "Oh dear That's so . . . permanent. Our generation gap is showing."
"Come on, make an honest man out of me. Please."
"I'll think about it. Maybe we should live together for a while first."
"I'll give you a pre-nuptial agreement . . . anything you want. We can go to Mars for a honeymoon."
"You're babbling, Donovan."
"Damn straight."
"That's funny," Martin said. "The escape shuttle was just launched out of the Master Control deck."
"How do you get to it?"
"Through there." He pointed to the hatchway with the descending ladder. Juliet crawled over to look down it. Diana's body was no longer sprawled where she'd pushed it.
"Diana?" Mike guessed.
"Maybe," she said. "But she was badly wounded."
"The escape shuttle doesn't have the range to get back to Earth from here," Martin said. "And if she goes back, she's doomed anyway."
"You're right," Mike looked up at his friend. "Julie and I have decided on our plans. What are you going to do now, Martin?"
"First I'm going to disconnect the destruction device and shut off that alarm. Th
en—" He thought for a moment, looking at Lorraine. "We'll go home. We've got a lot to do there." He stood up, saluting them all, and went out into the corridor.
Lorraine watched him go, then nodded somber agreement. "What about Elizabeth? We could take her with us . . . but a planet at war is not the place for a child."
"Earth probably isn't the most peaceful place in the galaxy," Mike said, "but at least ours is no longer a global conflict. Until tomorrow, maybe."
"She can come with us," Julie said. "Perhaps now we can actually fulfill that bargain John offered us—" She looked at the Supreme Commander's body. "But for real, this time. We have things you need, you have things we need. Maybe we can trade. Elizabeth might turn out to be the bridge Father Andrew thought she was." She looked pensive. "I wonder if he's still alive?"
Elizabeth shook her head and whispered, "Diana killed him."
Several hours later, Martin reappeared. The alarm had stopped about an hour before. "Everything fixed?" Donovan asked.
"Yes," the Visitor Officer said, nodding, then resumed his seat at the pilot's console. "The device is dismantled. We can go home now."
"Good," Julie said, checking her watch. "How long will it take?"
"Not long. About an hour."
They sat on the floor, staring at the viewscreen as Martin skillfully reversed the mammoth ship. They could see the Earth now. Donovan watched the small bluish crescent that was his world grow steadily, seeing and appreciating its loveliness as never before.
Too bad Tony couldn't see this, he thought. The memory of his friend sparked another in his mind. "When we get back," he said, "you'll have to layover for a day or two, Martin. We're gonna be so busy, Julie, it'll make V-day seem like a Sunday picnic. It's a good thing we can rest for a few minutes now."
"Why do they have to stay?" Julie asked.
"The people in the hold. We have to revive them. Martin, unless the authorities disagree, I guess you folks can keep the water. As a gesture of good will."
"Thank you, Mike," Martin said. "Frankly, I can't think of a feasible method for returning it."
"Neither can I."
"How awful!" Julie exclaimed, sitting up straight. "I forgot all about those poor people. That's terrible! How could I?"
"As you said yourself, you were kind of busy." Mike smiled at her, then sobered. "What's terrible," Mike said, "is that the other Mother Ships won't return their shipments."
"Perhaps, if we win," Martin said, "we can bring them back."
"Yeah, maybe someday," Julie agreed, trying not to sound ungrateful. It wasn't Martin's fault. But thoughts of the others reminded her that no joy is completely unsullied, no victory is won without many individual deaths and defeats. She sighed, looking up at Donovan. "You're right," she said. "Tomorrow we're going to be very busy."
"Responsibility," he said, with his old wry grin. "If you prove that you're someone who can handle it, they're not going to let go of you. But look on the bright side, Doc. There's gonna be a tomorrow. There almost wasn't."
They sat side by side, watching the Earth grow in the viewscreens, resting while they could.
V01 - V Page 41
