“He’s not bloody listening. Nadine is on board, too. Can’t reach her either. I’ve three colony vehicles here, and one functioning brain—trying to pull it from the grader and put it in the fire truck.”
“Copy. Ian, make sure Rod’s getting the data, but tell him to stay put. I don’t want him coming down. We don’t know if Nadine’s cure will work and I don’t want to risk breaking quarantine until I know it does. See if you can’t trigger some of the Yeager’s safety shutdown systems; they aren’t all tied to the main computer. Mills might not think of everything in his present state. Ian, be careful yourself. Think everything through, because this virus ruins your judgment. You can’t trust your feelings because your feelings will try to maneuver you into destroying yourself. Think it through!”
“Roger, Mike,” Ian said, coolly.
Do as I say, Mike thought. Not as I do.
Wearing only his shorts, Mike slipped the comm set in a pocket and was out the door and headed to the launch pad on a dead run, leaning low to the ground to keep from bouncing in the moderate gravity. Warm air, flowery smells, and the still plaintive notes of some night bird gave the evening a surreal voluptuousness.
Out of shape, his lungs started burning, and that felt good. Every stone and thorn in the path under his bare feet gave him a little high as well. But the desperate situation helped clear part of his mind. His mission was in jeopardy. He and everyone else might have only minutes to live—but the pleasure of abusing his body nearly overwhelmed him.
Then he was there. Ian, surrounded by various tracked vehicles, panels, and tools, had managed to get a spotlight on the shuttle. Steam was venting, signaling that its mass converters were already coming up to temperature. The warning tone sounded: full thrust was imminent.
“I’ll try to get inside!” Mike yelled, passing by Ian on a dead run and charged at the shuttle. His feet tore through, and were torn by, the overgrowth on the field.
He forced himself to think. There were at least three systems that would abort the launch if people were close. Mills couldn’t have gotten all of them. Not that it would really matter if he had. Mike had no more fear of flame.
The hatch above the landing leg ladder opened. That should shut it down, he thought, almost disappointed. Nadine appeared in the hatch, carrying her black case, five meters above the ground, and started down the ladder.
“I have the countervirus!” she yelled. “Bailey cracked it and I replicated it. It works!”
How could she be sure without trials? Mike wondered, briefly.
The turbine whine increased—no shutdown. So Mills had been insanely thorough. Bless him.
Too late, Mike thought; it would end here. His responsibilities would be over and he could give himself to the flame of the rockets and dissolve in sensual joy. No. Not alone. Not without Nadine.
“Jump,” he screamed at her. “Now!”
Nadine heard either him or the turbines and jumped the last five meters. Only two meters worth back at Tau Ceti III—survivable. She landed hard and rolled, then struggled to her feet and limped toward him through the vines and grass, clutching the bag to her chest, sheltering it with her body.
His legs were cramping from almost a kilometer of dead run. Thrills of pain ran through his legs. He was probably tearing things. It felt great, but he was slowing down. If he could only get to her, they could go together—no, save the countervirus. One of them might make it back.
She limped toward him.
“Get down!” he tried to yell. It came out like a croak from his air-starved lungs.
Five pillars of steam appeared below the shuttle and a deafening blast of sound hit him. The pressure wave struck and Nadine leaped, or was thrown, the last meter right at him. He pulled Nadine down into the blast shadow outside the rim of the shuttle’s landing crater as the engine noise built to a deafening roar.
She screamed as an ecstatic wave of fire passed over them. He wanted the fire, but her body was in the way. He rolled her under him. The sample case fell to the ground within his arm’s reach.
Why was she screaming? The fire was wonderful. It felt good… too good. The last vestiges of his suspicion, skepticism, and paranoia surfaced in his mind. Too good to be true. He reached for the sample case and pulled it under them as the fiery blast passed over them in earnest. To give others a chance, he thought, just in case this wasn’t the way to paradise.
A torrent of cold water hit them, first stinging, then numbing as the roar of the shuttle increased to incredible, then diminished as it gained altitude.
Ian, somehow, had put a fire hose on them. He didn’t understand either! Mike caught a glimpse of Ian, at the pad’s edge, in the open cab of the fire truck, aiming the hose manually. He seemed on fire. No, perhaps Ian did understand.
Mike, bemused to be still alive, noted the contrast between the delightfully sharp cold water on one side and the equally sensual burning on the other. He knew he was a mess, but this had felt much, much better than sex had ever been. Nadine’s face was a mask of intense emotion, but otherwise intact.
“Murphy’s law,” she gasped.
“Huh?” He stared at her dumbly. If only Ian would turn off the damn water. It was starting to numb him and he wanted more stimulation, he wanted to be consumed, he was delirious.
“I dreamed about getting burned alive for weeks.” Nadine gasped. “But I took the countervirus to see if it works. It works, goddamn it. Mike, this hurts, God it hurts.” Her eyes glazed over; she’d lost consciousness.
“Nadine?” He felt an awful chill of sadness in the midst of his ecstasy. He had wanted to share.
A scream above announced the Yeager’s suicidal dive on the settlement. So it would be over for everyone as well. Pull up! he willed. No problem though; the blast would be the peak experience for which all life was made. There was nothing anyone could do with the rest of their lives that would equal this. No!
But the shuttle’s dive changed pitch. He looked up, surprised to be still conscious, in a kind of blowsy afterglow, with the cold water numbing his body, though even the shivers were pleasant. The shuttle had pulled up for some reason.
Curious. Had Mills changed his mind? There it was, carefully, hesitatingly moving sideways on its tail to the far end of the pad. Landing.
There was another roar in the sky.
Rod, damn him. Rod had disobeyed his orders, broken the quarantine, and come down in another shuttle. They must have taken control of the Yeager through some data link that Mills hadn’t cut.
Commander’s priority override, he remembered. Rod had assumed command. So Mills hadn’t thought of everything. He felt the sample case under him. Not necessary, after all. Rod would have more. The colony was probably saved.
But he just wanted more fire. Why didn’t Ian turn that damn hose off?
Mike was there when Nadine emerged from the Eisenhower’s autodoc. It had her up to normal weight, and Mike, who had emerged from the Yeager’s autodoc three days earlier, felt the effect was spectacular. But the effects of the rocket blast were not entirely gone; her skin was a patchwork of tan and soft pink, and her hair was a golden fuzz. He whistled, and handed her coveralls to her.
“OK on the outside. But, that was close, lover. Damn close. I feel a million years old inside.” She gave him a brief hug, stepped into the one-piece garment, wiggled her feet into its boots, and touched the seals. “You look a little different yourself.”
He smiled crookedly—he’d seen the video of what he looked like when he went in—then saddened. “Ian didn’t make it. I thought I should tell you first.”