"I don't, uh--"
"I didn't ask."
Slam.
Gordon was smiling broadly. "Wonderful! Just like `God's Little Acre.' "
"Shouldn't we be trying to rescue him?" Sherrine looked at the stunned faces around her.
Hudson climbed out of Phoenix and gathered the others around him at the ship's base.
"All right," he said. "It's set. We launch at oh-six-forty-four on the dot. Commander Hopkins has the rendezvous set. He'll go when we report success."
"Who do you need here for the launch?" Miller asked.
"Once we get the roof opened, no one. We'll open that in half an hour, then you people scatter, and I mean scatter. Get off the base and take off in all directions. Can anybody go straight north across the desert?"
"We can," Harry said. "But maybe Jenny and I ought to stay. Stand guard."
"And do what? Not that I need to ask," Hudson said, as Jenny reached toward her boot. "Look: just now I won't be wanted for anything but stealing my own spaceship. I can land in a foreign country and the lawyers can take care of it. Kill somebody and they'll have extradition warrants out everywhere we can land! Not to mention that a bunch of Air Force johnnies who right now sympathize will be gunning for me. I have to come back to Earth to get Annie! No, thanks, Harry."
"No last stand?" Jenny said.
"No."
"Imagine my relief," Harry said. "Look, we'll be going out last, right? I'll take a coil of that stainless steel wire and close off the gates. We can drop broken glass on the road up, too."
"Well, that's all right," Hudson said. "But nobody gets hurt!"
"Except maybe us," Jenny said.
"If that's what it takes to get this ship up--"
"Yeah, Harry," Jenny said. She put the pistol back in her boot. "Where's that wire?"
"Now. One more thing," Hudson asked. "Where's Arteria?"
Everyone looked at each other. "She's still--" "She's with Needleton--"
"It would help to know her weight," Hudson said. "Harry, go ask."
"Well, all right--" Harry walked across the square from the hangar to the engineering building, and stood on the porch outside the closed door to the Operations Planning Room.
He stood there a while, then came back. "Actually, you won't be very far off if you say a hundred and fifty pounds."
Gary Hudson activated the speaker system. It wouldn't matter now, voices wouldn't add to the noise of the turbo expander. "MINUS EIGHTY MINUTES AND COUNTING," the computer said. Damn, it feels good to hear that again!
The door to the Operations Planning Room opened, and Lee Arteria came out wearing the silk kimono that Hudson kept in the shower in his office suite. "Yours, Hudson? I like your taste," she said. "But someone seems to have moved my clothes."
"Next room. You won't need all the weapons, you know."
"I don't need any, do I?"
Hudson frowned. "Not by me. But I haven't told them upstairs about the change in the passenger list. Not too late to rethink it."
"Nothing to rethink. This career's over."
"So you run away. What do you think you'll do up there?"
She shook her head. "I'm not useless you know. I have an engineering degree. Air Force ROTC. I wanted to work in the space program. I got my commission, but they didn't need engineers, and they did need police investigators. I was good at that, but I can learn anything." She smiled slightly, a thin, wistful smile. "I can make babies. My biological clock is going tick, tick, brrinnggg!"
"OK, you convinced me. I gather you already convinced Dr. Needleton."
"Let's say he's no longer objecting."
"All right, the hour's up. Where is she?" Moorkith demanded.
Colonel Murphy looked embarrassed. "She ordered the helicopter to meet her at an area above Cajon Pass, but the place was empty when they got there. We're searching the area."
"Searching the area."
"Yes, Mr. Moorkith. She may be hurt, or taken prisoner."
"I don't believe one word of that," Moorkith said. "And neither do you. She's gone over. Helping them! That's what's happened. Now, Colonel, unless you want to explain all this to the Secretary of Defense, you will cooperate with me."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to think! What could have persuaded her to help the Angels? She must know they'd be caught."
Lieutenant Billings had been listening quietly. Now he drew in his breath sharply.
Moorkith looked at him. "Well, Lieutenant?"
"Nothing, sir. Just a thought."
"Out with it," Moorkith said.
Billings shook his head. "Sir, it was nothing--"
"Tell us," Colonel Murphy said.
"Maybe they won't get caught, sir."
Murphy frowned. "Billings, there's no way! There's no place in this country, on this continent--oh.
"What in hell are you talking about, Colonel?" Moorkith demanded.
"Nothing, sir."
"God damn you people! You know something, you know something--" He stopped and looked thoughtful. "So. Not on this continent. Not on this planet, right? They have a way to get back to orbit, don't they? What is it? Where?"
"No place," Murphy said. "It's silly."
"Silly or not, Colonel, this is a direct order from me acting with the authority of the National Security Counciclass="underline" how might they get those Angels back into orbit?"
Murphy and Billings looked at each other helplessly. Finally Murphy said, slowly, "Phoenix."
"There's a rocket ship in Phoenix?"
"MINUS FIFTY MINUTES AND COUNTING. TAKE YOUR LAUNCH STATIONS. CLEAR THE BASE AREA. CLEAR THE BASE AREA."
Bob Needleton was buttoning his shirt as he came out of the Ops Planning Room. Everyone carefully looked away as he came out onto the porch. "Where is she?" he asked.
"Getting aboard," Harry said. "Uh--you're not going to make trouble?"
"Huh? No. She goes. I'll be staying here to fight the danelaw."
He went down to the Phoenix hangar. The roof was open now, open to the stars burning brightly in the high desert. The moon was just going down, and there was the faintest tinge of dawn to the east, but straight above was cold and dark and clear.
Sherrine and Arteria were climbing up the scaffolding. Hudson and Alex stood at the top, sixty feet above.
"Go with God," Gordon shouted.
"Yo!"
Bob Needleton waved. "Good-bye, Sherrine. Captain Arteria… Lee. Name them after the kids in Doc Smith's Children of the Lens. Guys, I'm hungry."
"There's food left over," Harry said. "Look we've all got our escape assignments. You're to go in Lee's car. They thought that would be appropriate. If you're--Sandy here will drive, he knows the area."
Hudson got into the ship.
"CLEAR THE BASE AREA."
"Guess that's it, then," Bob Needleton said. "Seems like an--I guess it's over. From the Ice to the Desert." He stood at the door to the hangar, reluctant to leave, until Harry pulled him away.
They reached the car. Sandy Sanders was already in the driver's seat.
Wheep! Wheep!
The fax machine startled them.
CAPTAIN LEE ARTERIA THIS IS COLONEL ANTHONY MURPHY. OFFICIAL. MISTER JHERI MOORKITH WITH AUTHORITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL HAS ASSUMED COMMAND OF OPERATION FALLEN ANGEL. HE HAS DECIDED THAT THERE WILL BE AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE OUR JURISDICTION BY ILLEGAL LAUNCH OF A USAF EXPERIMENTAL SHIP CALLED PHOENIX AT PRESENT HELD IN A USAF MUSEUM AT EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE. YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO DO ALL IN YOUR POWER TO PREVENT THE LAUNCH OF THE PHOENIX ROCKET. FYI MOORKITH LEFT HERE TEN MINUTES AGO WITH LIEUTENANT BILLINGS IN YOUR HELICOPTER, DESTINATION EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, REPEAT, DESTINATION EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE.