Shiraz stopped beside her, bent over to set the bomb container down against the wall. When he straightened again she saw the despair on his face. And she knew then, just as certainly, that this was all they would ever know, all that they had ever been meant to understand…They had not been chosen receivers of an alien secret to be shared with all of humanity; they were the chosen destroyers, because humanity had never been intended to know of this. “We’re going to blow it up.” Not a question. “Nothing will be left.” And the mindless presence within her reveled at her understanding—at its own victory, and their defeat—without any comprehension of the significance of the act.
He nodded wordlessly, prying the lid loose on the box. He lifted out a small remote control unit and set it aside; the detonator, she supposed. She watched him begin to flick a switch, twist a knob, inside the box.
“Is the process very complicated?”
He shrugged, flicking another switch. “A bit. Not terribly.”
“Is there any chance of making a mistake—?”
He looked up at her, bitterly. “Not intentionally.” He looked down again, a stiff, resisted movement. “I have to concentrate. ...”
She turned to gaze out over the rim of the ledge, down the valley, seeing the sun washed canyon floor beyond like the ruddy golden fields of heaven. Searching for movement, fruitlessly.
“All right.” He stood up finally, dust coating his knees. The detonator was in his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
They began to walk back toward the sunlit rim of the ledge, toward the buggy waiting below, toward safety. And every step became slower, more leaden, more difficult…more impossible. “Shiraz?” Her panic leaped with the terror she heard in her own voice. She stood straining like an animal at the end of a leash.
“Petra ... I can’t go any further. I can’t—” She saw his empty hand reaching as his body jerked around to face her. Five meters beyond him lay the path down to the buggy, and escape.
But they would not be allowed to use it. “No witnesses?” she said softly, meeting his eyes.
“No…” He looked down at the detonator in his hand. She watched him try to throw it away, and fail.
She swallowed, wetting her dry throat. “Oh, God. I wonder if our medical plan covers blowing yourself up while mind-controlled?’’
“Allah! Can’t you do anything but make jokes—”
She laughed uncertainly. “I’ve either got to laugh or cry, and if I have to die I’d rather die laughing.”
He made a noise that was either amused or disgusted. “What are the rules of this game? I wonder if we’re allowed to lie down flat?”
“Try.” She fought her trembling body with one last, frantic calling-up of outrage and fear; felt her knees give way, dropping her painfully onto the rocks. But her spine was a steel rod and she knelt, paralyzed, watching Shiraz struggle to do the same. “It’s a good position for prayer, at least…”
Help me, God, help me—
She was sure it was a laugh, this time. “Where’s Earth; I’ve lost track of Mecca.”
“You can’t see it from here.” She twisted, trying for one more glimpse down the canyon. “If you had a last wish, what would it be?”
“That I was somewhere else.”
“Scared?” Her own voice broke.
“Shitless.” He raised his hands unsteadily, holding the detonator out like an offering, kneeling in this alien temple where they were about to become a human sacrifice. ... He murmured something in a language she didn’t understand. And he pressed the button.
She kept her eyes open, staring in agonized disbelief: As a blinding ball of orange light blotted out the silver dome, a cloud of smoke and rubble rose to blot out the fire, a fist of smoke and shock and sound swept toward them through a split-second’s eternity—struck her with sickening force, throwing her back and over the rim of the ledge like a rag toy.
Awake, aware, she found herself lying dazed on the slope. Still alive. She felt her body with her mind: sprawling twisted on its side, head down, faceplate down in the red dust. Stones and pebbles still pelted her. She thought she heard, dimly, the bang of a stone on metal; tried to raise her head, gasped as pain like an electric shock stabbed at the base of her neck. But before her head dropped forward again she saw the buggy, barely three meters below her, and the still body wedged against it. ...
“Shiraz?” She lay face down again, putting all her strength into the one word. “Shiraz—?” No answer. Grimly she drew a leg in, pushed off; crawled and slid on her stomach down the slope, whimpering and cursing. She reached his side, saw his face through his helmet glass, saw blood on it. And his eyes shut, no response. She couldn’t tell whether his bulky, insulated suit was still pressurized, whether he was even still alive. But one leg lay crumpled beneath him, like a twisted branch, like nothing that belonged to a human being. She almost shut her eyes; didn’t, as she focused on the faintest whisper of whiteness in the air above it. A tiny, fragile cloud of condensing moisture ... the suit had torn. She fell back, bright fire exploding in her head as she struggled to release the catch on the equipment belt at her waist. She pulled it loose, forced it under his suited leg above the tear, not even aware that she was sobbing now. She drew it tight and jammed the catch, barely able to see her hands through golden fog, the rushing water of noise that drowned her senses. The radio. If she could only get to the radio. She tried to push herself up, to reach the door handle. But the one meter to the door handle might as well have been the distance to the sun. She collapsed helplessly across his legs, her strength gone.
But she knew, with ironic grief, before her senses left her too, that she was free to use it if she could. That her mind was free of the compulsion at last, that at least she would be free forever when she died…
“Hello, Shiraz.” Petra entered the quiet, dim-lit room where Shiraz Mitradati lay, sat down in the chair at his bedside with exquisite care. “Dr. Leidu told me you felt like talking. I’m glad. So do I.” She drew the collar of her robe closer around the thick, white neck brace. “There’s not really anyone else who understands. ...”
“I know.” He smiled at her from the pillows, his face hollow and tired. “Thanks for coming. It’s good to see you—up and around already.”
“All it took was a little chicken soup. It works miracles. You should try it.” Her mouth twitched, still not quite ready for laughter. Her head hurt, as it had hurt for the past four days, relentlessly. “It will be good to see you up and around again, too.”
“Not for a bit, I’m afraid.”
She glanced down, uncomfortably.
“But I’d never be up again at all if you hadn’t stopped that leak in my suit. I want you to know how grateful I am for that.”
She looked up again, smiling, embarrassed. “I never believed they’d ever find us, anyway; not in time. But they saw the dust cloud from the explosion. The thing that almost killed us saved us, in the end.”
“But why didn’t it kill us in the first place? We had no right to survive; it was impossible, we should have been incinerated—’’
“Didn’t they tell you?” She turned her head too quickly, felt the drug-dulled ache flare up, making her wince.
“Tell me what? ... I haven’t been in the mood for much conversation since I woke up.” His hand moved along the cold metal rail at the edge of the bed, tightened.
“That you made a mistake.” Her smile felt real, and warm, and right to her this time. “You never disengaged the fail-safe on the bomb; only the core explosive went off, there was no atomic blast. That’s the only reason we’re still in— still here to talk about it.”