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XVI

Sammi had borrowed a hopper from the docks at the High Command to make the trip to the Sea of Tranquility. She hadn't flown one in ages, and then only a few times after Steve had taught her how. But she didn't want Bob to bring her out to the cemetery, and now that Luna City was gone, she couldn't get public transportation either.

But at least the cemetery was still there. As she was dropping altitude over it, she could see the ripples in the no longer geometrically precise alignments of the headstones. The surface shockwaves from the Phinon bombs had recorded their passage in the markers of the dead, as well as in the minds of the living.

The shields protecting the High Command had been shut off after the seismic activity from the bomb blasts had abated. The bombs had impacted 300 kilometers away, and the High Command escaped relatively unscathed, though the observation bubble that Sammi and Dykstra had been so fond of had been torn off the mountain, it lying just outside the sphere of the shields.

But Luna City was no more. The section of surface where it had been was now inside the perimeter of the new crater created by the blast. Most of the rest of the Lunar assets—the cities, the bases, the astronomical arrays—had suffered extensive damage and fully three-quarters of everything would have to be rebuilt.

Earth didn't get off so easy. Violent storms would rage for years before the climate settled back down. Tsunamis had redesigned coastlines the planet over, geological faults had released their pent-up stored energies, and the Ring of Fire volcanoes, some dormant for millennia, were erupting once again.

There were 160 million confirmed dead. There wasn't even an estimate about how many were missing. The survivors had too many other things to do to continue keeping up with that numbers game. Sammi and Bob had been helping them for months, flying in new portable mass conversion units all over the globe.

The loss of life could have been much worse, she realized. Bob had been able to knock out one of the bombs his last Phinon ship had released. Of the remaining two, one had failed to explode, and the other had landed in Siberia, ironically not a hundred kilometers from Tunguska. And there had been time for the coastal cities to clear out. Still, as they'd traveled around the world, she'd been astonished at how many people didn't know what had happened to them. There were places in Central Asia, Africa, and South America where the folk had never heard of the Phinons, were perhaps dimly aware at best that there was even a Solar System out there on the other side of the clouds.

But from deep space came some good news. Expeditions to the Phinon comets confirmed that the aliens had fled the Oort cloud. Visitors to their worlds had found numerous "bean bag chairs" of dead Phinons scattered around, but not a single live one, and not a single ship in working order. They'd left in a hurry. In most of the comets, they hadn't even turned out the lights.

Sammi's genanites had had their day after all.

Captain Brinn and his retinue of talented refugees reported from the Tau Ceti system that one of the planets, although a tad bit hot, was likely only a few years of terraforming away from being shirtsleeve habitable.

Sammi would be joining them soon. But she needed to say good-bye to Steve one last time.

She brought the hopper down at the visitor center. This time there was no attendant to meet her, though two scooters were still sitting in their stalls. Good thing. She couldn't find Steve's marker without one.

The scooter worked. Sammi programmed it for Steve's spot and it set out as if nothing had even happened to disturb the surroundings.

From ground level the place didn't look too bad. Some markers were overturned completely, but most were only leaning, and a very few seemed to have been oblivious to the attack altogether.

After a few minutes, she spotted another figure out among the markers. She didn't even have to confirm that the cross the person was beside was Steve's to know that it was Dykstra.

Dykstra had turned to watch her approach, and Sammi hopped off the scooter and came to stand beside him. "Did Bob tell you I'd be here?"

"No," Dykstra replied. "But this is your last day on Luna. Jenny would have waited until the last day before visiting Jamie's monument if she were headed to the stars. I knew you'd do the same."

"You were right," she said. "First to Ceres for a week. I guess a lot of Belters are going, too. Brinn reported there's a sizable asteroid belt around Tau Ceti. Then six months in hyperspace. Then . . . my old friends again."

"How did Bob take the news?"

"I think he knew our time was almost up," Sammi said. "He's a wonderful man, Chris. But I was starting to resent the parts of him that weren't like Steve. I'm not ready yet. The war confused that. The war confused a lot of things."

Sammi looked up at the Earth, the beauty of her pearly clouds indicating the presence but hiding the impact of the climatic upheavals that would make living there a dangerous game for years to come. "I need a clean break, Chris. And I'm lucky—I can have one. Not like the people up there. Their break with the past is as dirty as they come."

"But at least they are still there to remember a past," Dykstra said, also gazing at the Earth, that cradle of humanity.

"There is that," she said. "But there are seven billion people on Earth. Why didn't we let them in on the secret when the Phinons first showed up? Maybe one of them would have had a better idea than what we came up with, something better than Doomsday genanites." Her tone was getting bitter. She didn't care. "If we'd lost the Earth, would we even care that five thousand years from now the last Phinon in the galaxy will be choking on its own body fluids and not knowing why?"

"It's a little late for guilt, Samantha—"

"Late? It's the perfect time for guilt. The dirty deed is done. When else were we supposed to feel guilty? You can't look at that," she said, pointing at the Earth, "and say you're proud of our rousing success."

"Proud? No. Happy? No. But that we're still here to mull it over is important, Sammi. It's the most important thing to ever happen to the galaxy, and I think history will judge us that way."

"God, too?"

"He'll say, `Well done.' "

Sammi was quiet for a moment, then softly she said, "Not me."

It was time to confess. God already knew. History would find out. But Dykstra had to know.

"How long do we have, Sammi?" Dykstra asked to her surprise.

"You knew?"

"I suspected. I came here to find out for sure."

"One thousand years, Chris. In one thousand years, the genanites will cease to work. They won't be able to manufacture their nanotools anymore," she answered.

"How did you decide upon a thousand years?"

"The Phinons gambled that they could take us on and win. I gambled that a thousand years of decimation still won't kill them all. How did you know I'd do it?"

"Because it's what Jenny would have done. When I had my heart attack, I had what they call a `near death experience.' " Dykstra related the episode to her. "It could have been real. It could have been a dream. But I was sure there was a reason for it, and for why Jenny figured in it so prominently.

"Limiting the destructive scope of the genanites was always a possibility. I would have argued against it. Safer that way. But something happened to you when you watched that Phinon die. It was then that I suspected you might alter the genanites just that twinge to let them off the ultimate hook. But remembering Jenny, I deliberately didn't look, nor tell anyone my suspicion."

"Thank you. But why did remembering Jenny . . . ?"

"Because Jenny had a way of being more right about some things than I was. For whatever reasons, Destiny put the fate of the Phinons into the hands of Samantha MacTavish. And I can't help but think Destiny—God—would have made the right decision."

"I think He did," Sammi said. "I hoped Knoedler wouldn't catch me until it was too late. I didn't know he had other things on his mind, though. But I'm surprised Security still hasn't come looking for me. Divine intervention there, too? Or maybe something closer to home?" She looked at Dykstra.

He winked.

"Now you tell me something, Sunshine. Can the human race be trusted with a weapon that can blow up a star?"

Sammi had no idea what to say to that.

"That's okay. It was a rhetorical question. I used to think I knew the answer to it. But the Earth, the whole human race, just received a massive wake-up call. We've been so stupid. I've been stupid. The Universe is bigger than the prejudices we bring to it, and will humble us the second we think we have it pegged," Dykstra said, but now he was musing.

He trailed off after a minute and Sammi felt free to change the subject. "How are the others? Arie? Rick and Paula?"

"Dr. Hague and his sister are back on Earth. Wayne made good on his promise to take them in. For a supply of squirrel food, Arie's already improved the mass converter twice. And right now Rick and Paula are both out in deep space, still honeymooning, I think."

Sammi looked again at Steve's marker. It was one of those still standing straight up. " `Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13,' " Sammi read from the inscription plate. "Steve always liked the way the King James version said it the best." Then she turned to Dykstra again. "You mentioned something about John 15:13 just before the bombs hit."

"Yes," Dykstra said. "Those Phinons said `good-bye.' I was wondering if maybe they understood that verse, too, despite all my blather about them lacking souls."

"We'll never know," Sammi said.

"Sure we will. You let them live, remember? That's more than they ever did for all the other races that they must have encountered. Well, at least Fermi's question is answered, though now we have a new one," Dykstra said.

"What's `Fermi's question'?"

"Enrico Fermi. Built the first nuclear reactor last century. He said that, given what we knew of the Universe—the number of stars, the likelihood of planets, etc.—and what we knew about technology, that there should be millions of races out there, and that some should be able to cross the gulf between the stars. So, `Where are they?' he asked.

"Now we know. The Phinons were killing them. And the Phinons themselves don't otherwise come inside Hague volumes, so we didn't know about them, either."

"I understand," Sammi said. "What's your new question?"

"I told you that what we did was the most important thing that ever happened to the galaxy," Dykstra said. "Think about it—for over a billion years, every race that the Phinons have encountered they've destroyed. Until now."

"So what does that make us?" Sammi said.

"Indeed."

Though they were wearing suits, Sammi put her arm across his shoulders, and they watched the stars together for a time.

* * *

"We'll be at Fort Conger Station in a few minutes, Chris," Commander Robert Nachtegall said from the pilot's bubble of the Hyperlight II, repaired and good as new.

Dykstra looked up from his terminal and acknowledged. "Okay, I'm coming up front to watch." He turned back to the terminal, considering whether or not he'd return to it soon enough to leave it on, or if it'd be just as well to turn it off. He'd been reading files about the aftermath of the Phinon attack; the state of the Earth, the reconstruction of Luna City, the flight of the Phinons from the Oort cloud, and even the latest from Brinn concerning the planet Tropic, in her comfortable orbit around Tau Ceti.

He decided he needed an extended break and turned it off.

"Beautiful station," Dykstra said, arriving in the bubble and taking the copilot's seat. "But, are those drive nacelles I see?"

"That's right," Bob said. "Booker's station was the only trans-Hague Limit place that survived the Phinon attack completely intact. After they'd sent the last of the impeller units to Knoedler's Mercury crew, Booker had what skeleton crew remained outfit some tugs with the new drive and automated controls, and also had a unit attached to the station. When the Phinons arrived he moved the station and sent the tugs after their ships. And . . . Well, he's still here and they're not."

The trip to the station had been suggested by Bob since, as he said, the inventor of the hyperdrive should certainly have the chance to see hyperspace. It had been eight months since the battle with the Phinons; Dykstra was sure that Bob had been fretting that, at 127 years of age, he'd better get the old coot out beyond the Hague Limit as soon as possible.

The Hyperlight II docked with the station. "It will be good to see Rick and Paula again," Dykstra said. The two had married as soon as Paula was well enough to stand on her own in the little High Command chapel, and they'd immediately left for the station after that to "take care of some business" as the new Mrs. Vander Kam had put it.

Rick and Paula were there to greet them as they walked off the ship, as was Mr. Booker. Paula was all set to rush in and give Dykstra a hug, but Booker beat her to it. "Chris! My God man, it's good to see you again. We took 'em! By God, we took 'em!"

Dykstra returned the embrace as solidly as he could. "Yes, we took them," he said. Then he sighed. "But at a great cost."

"I think history will record that it was a debt worth paying," Booker said.

Then Rick shook his hand and Paula got her turn to hug him, which revealed a surprise. "You're pregnant," Dykstra said.

"After months of rather vigorous practice, yes I am," Paula confirmed, and this news required yet another hug.

"Dad says there can never be too many Vander Kams," Rick put in.

"Did you hear the news from Brinn, Rick?" Bob asked. "They found a near habitable planet out at Tau Ceti. Sammi's all excited about heading out there and joining up with her friends."

"No, we hadn't heard," Rick said. "That's great news! But wait a minute. It would have taken them six months to get there. There hasn't been enough time for a ship to come back and tell us what they found. How . . . ?"

"Dr. Hague and I finally constructed an FTL radio," Dykstra told him. "It only works outside the Hague Limit, but it transmits through hyperspace two. We sent a ship with a unit out after all the fleeing liners once we had it finished. Brinn's news came in just a few weeks ago."

"Bob, will you be going with Sammi?" Paula asked.

"Um," Bob said, obviously uncomfortable. Then, "We came to an agreement on that and I lost. No, I'll be staying with the System Patrol."

"Sizzled and fizzled?" Rick asked.

Bob shrugged.

Booker stepped in with a question to change the subject. "Colonel Knoedler? Nikki Le? Any news?"

"Still listed as missing," Bob said. "Everyone hopes they're not dead and that their radio is just permanently out. At .4c they would have been past Pluto in twelve hours. We sent a ship to follow along their last known trajectory. Didn't find anything, not even debris. We hope no news is good news."

Booker started them all walking toward the other side of the dock facility. Dykstra noticed a tarp-covered ship that way. A tarp? In a space dock? he wondered.

"Chris," Paula said. "Rick and I have another surprise for you. We think you'll be pleased."

"Oh?"

They reached the covered ship and Paula said, "Mr. Booker, would you do the honors?"

"My pleasure," he said, and at the touch of a button the tarp was lifted off the ship.

It was the Hyperlight, all bright and shiny.

"Paula and I tracked her down and brought her back," Rick said. "And Dad bought her from the Patrol. She's yours, Chris. We had to take the weapons out, but we put in a standard control board so you can fly her like any other ship. Giving her to you is the least we can do."

Dykstra, ever-present cane in hand, walked slowly up to the ship. He patted her with his hand. There's always something special about the first of anything. And I worked on this one with my own hands. He walked around her, slowly, doing one full orbit. He tapped her side with his cane, then turned to them all. "The Hyperlight is mine?"

"That's right," Booker said.

"And I can fly her whenever I wish?" he asked, a twinkle of youth in his eye.

"That's right," they all answered, laughing.

"Let's rock and roll," Dykstra said, and entered the ship.

The others followed, though unsure of what the old genius meant by "rock and roll."

He showed them.

* * *

The End 

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