"It won't work, Alex, will it? It won't fly. We'll be marooned down here forever. Crushed and tripping and staggering like drunken fools until they finally catch us. Never to see my semya again, never to plavat in the old ESO module. Never rift my broomstick on lazy orbit to Peace. If only--" Gordon sagged and Steve grabbed him under the armpits to keep him from falling.

"If only what?" Alex snapped at him. "If only what? I'd strangle fucking Lonny if my arms were long enough, but it wouldn't change anything. If only I'd waited another orbit! We could have scooped our air on the next pass."

He tried to jerk his arm away from Thor, who was trying to calm him down. If Thor noticed, he didn't react. Sherrine stepped between them, saying something that Alex refused to hear. "We are stuck down here, Gordo," he persisted. "Stuck. Forever. It doesn't matter whose fault--"

"Quiet, there! Quiet, I say!"

The sudden voice came from above. Alex looked up with the rest and saw wild hair and a long New Englander face, party white in the uncertain fluorescent light, staring down at them from an opening high up in the Titan. The face showed nothing. He said, "Get away from that. It's not yours."

Nobody moved.

A knotted rope snaked down from above and the tall, thin man came down hand over hand. He landed too hard, staggered, recovered. He took his place before the Titan, in no evident hurry.

"I bought the parts and put it together and held it together for forty years. You're not going to hurt it."

Thor stepped up to him and reached for his arm. "Ron? Ron Cole? Is that you?" His hand stopped, because that was a gun in Cole's hand.

The creature looked at him. "Yes." He squinted at Thor's face. "I know you. Don't I?" His other hand stroked the discolored flank of the Titan. He held the gun with evident negligence, but it was still pointed at Thor's belly.

"They took away her boosters, they did. Her boosters. Too dangerous, they said. Hah! What did they know? Without the fuel…" His lips clamped into a straight line.

Thor had backed away a bit. "What fuel is that, Ron?"

Cole backed against the Titan, shaking his head. "No, no. Things are seldom as they seem; skim milk masque… masquerades as cream." He nodded his head wisely. His gun hand drooped.

"Ron, what happened to you?" Thor demanded.

"Heh. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest--"

"Electro shock," Fang said. "And drugs. They must have helped him, in one of the mental health centers."

When Thor turned back, Alex could see tears staining his beard. "I knew Ron," he said. "I knew Ron back in the old days, in Boston. We had dinner together at a Thai restaurant there. He told me stories, wonderful stories. About how the Boston Globe made him the world's sixth nuclear power; about Wade Curtis and the machete; and Reynolds and the Great Duel… He was the brightest man I ever knew, and look what they've done to him. Look what they've done." He bowed his head and Steve stepped to his side and put an arm around his shoulder.

It had all been in vain, Alex realized. The harrowing trip across Wisconsin; the blizzard; the narrow escape from slavery… All for nothing. The shining vision of the old Titan had gone before them like a pillar of fire in the desert night. And at the end, they had found only junk and an old man who had been helped by mental health professionals.

No one said anything. Bob studied the Titan, checking out every part of it; as if he could will it into flight worthiness, as if he could somehow find something they had overlooked that would make everything all right. Steve consoled Thor, while Sherrine comforted a weeping Gordon. Even Fang seemed bereft of ideas.

Alex watched Gordon cry. Thor had lost his friend. Sherrine had lost her job; or would when she failed to show up for work in the morning. Bob had lost his van, and probably his job, too. But Gordon cried uncontrollably. Okay, for Gordo this is a totally alien planet. I could acclimate myself. I was born here. I loved Kansas; I cried when my parents took me up. I could learn to love it here again. I could convince myself that I was only coming home again.

The Titan had given their sojourn a purpose. They had had a goal, as quixotic as that goal had been. Now, they had nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"See What Free Men Can Do…"

"She's dead, then," Bob said. "Goddam. The rumor was right. Cole had a rocket. Maybe it was alive, once."

"For all the good it does us," Sherrine said bitterly. "Oh bloody hell, I'm, sorry. I'm really sorry."

"Don't look now," Bob said. He jerked his thumb

toward the entrance. The homeless pair who had claimed the corridor were now in the room, still wearing their blankets. Sherrine wondered if they had clothes on under them. The pair seemed to be hustling a girl in her teens. The girl tried to move away from them, but the pair followed, evidently begging.

The pantomime dance was curving them toward the rocket. Cole eyed the three warily and took a tentative step to place himself between them and it.

One of the blanketed figures began to sing, very softly. The other joined in, then the girl they had been begging from. Even as close as they were, they could barely be heard.

"Star fire! Star fire!

It's singing in my blood, I know it well!

We can know the promise of the stars.

Star fire! Star fire!

The promise of the universe is ours-"

"Harry?" Bob said quietly.

"Nobody else," Harry said. "Been waiting for you. 'Lo, Ron."

" 'Lo, Harry," Cole said. "Wade send you?"

"Yup. Says it's getting on for time to move on."

Some of the mad glint faded from Cole's eyes.

"Harry, what are you doing here?" Bob demanded.

"Better yet, what are you talking about?" Sherrine said.

"Shh," Jenny said. "Come on where we can talk." She eyed the two spacemen. "Huh. You're walking now! You had me fooled."

"Not me," Harry said. "I guessed in Minneapolis. Come on--"

Thor looked at Harry and shook his head. "Same old bullshit. Like hell you guessed." He looked suspiciously at the girl who had come in with Harry and Jenny. "Who's this?"

She had dark hair, soft brown eyes, exotic features. Sherrine thought that with a little makeup and some attention to her hair she would be beautiful. As it was, she seemed to want to look plain: no makeup at all, not even lipstick, hair brushed severely back and tied in a bun. She wore a skirt and sweater, both drab brown, with black leggings and ugly leg warmers over those.

"Who's this?" Thor demanded again.

"Violetta Brown," Harry said. He looked around the room, saw no one, and lowered his voice. "Oliver Brown's daughter."

"Oh," Sherrine said. "Pleased to meet you, Violetta. Is your father--"

"Waiting for us," Violetta said. "Come on. Harry has a lot to tell you."

"That I do," Harry said. He turned to Cole. "You, too, Ron. Wade says it's time. Said you'd know what I meant."

Ron Cole nodded slowly. "And past time. You'll be back?"

"Tomorrow," Harry promised. "Maybe tonight."

"Let's get out of here," Thor said. Outside he turned to Harry, "You get picked up as homeless--"

"Lots," Harry said.

"But you're no crazier than you ever were. Why?" He stabbed an arm back toward the dim lit space center. "Why the hell did they do that to Ron? And not you."

Harry shrugged. "He was interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Yeah," Jenny said. "The last thing you want to be is different. Those mental health centers are filled up with graduate students, all just alike, no future, unless they can find an interesting case to write a thesis about."

"Ron couldn't be ordinary, no matter how hard he tried," Thor said. "Yeah. I see."