Wolfgang nodded. “Good luck.”

He made his way slowly back along the corridors. They were deserted; everyone on the station had retreated with their thoughts. Wolfgang, usually impervious to fatigue, felt drained and beaten. The explosions on Earth rose unbidden in his mind, a collage of destruction with Jan de Vries’ sad face overlaid on it. The morning optimism and the joking inventory of supplies with Charlene felt weeks away.

He finally came to the control room. Hans was alone there, watching the displays. He seemed in a shocked trance, but he roused himself at Wolfgang’s voice.

“The missile defense system has been turned off. They were too busy with themselves — down there — to waste their time on us. Your ships will start docking any time now.”

“What’s the situation?” Wolfgang nodded his head at the screen, where the big display showed the smudged and raddled face of Earth.

“Awful. No radio or television signals are coming out — or if they’re trying, they’re lost in the static. We tried for an estimate of released energy, just a few minutes ago. Thirty-five thousand megatons.” Hans sighed. “Five tons of TNT for every person on the planet. There’s night now, all over Earth — sunlight can’t penetrate the dust clouds.”

“How many casualties?”

“Two billion, three billion?” Hans shook his head. “It’s not over yet. Disease and climate changes will get the rest.”

“Everyone? Everyone on Earth?”

Hans did not reply. He sat hunched at the console, staring at the screen. The whole face of the planet was one dark smear. After a few seconds Wolfgang continued back to his own quarters. Hans and the others were right. Soon the ships would be docking, but before that there was the need for solitude and silent grief.

Charlene was waiting for him in a darkened room. He went and took her in his arms. For several minutes they sat in silence, holding each other close. The pace of events had been so fast for many hours that they had been numbed, and only now did their awful significance begin to sink home. For Charlene in particular, less than twenty-four hours away from Earth and the Neurological Institute, everything had a feeling of unreality. Soon, she felt, the spell would break and she would return to the familiar and comfortable world of experiments, progress reports, and weekly staff meetings.

Wolfgang stirred in her arms. She lifted his hand and rubbed it along her cheek. “What’s the news on JN?” he said at last. “I didn’t like the look of de Vries.” Charlene shivered in the darkness. “Bad as it could be. Jan met with her this morning, when she had the final lab test results. She has a rapidly growing and malignant brain tumor — even worse than we’d feared.”

“Inoperable?”

“Not completely — that’s what Jan de Vries was asking about. There is an operation and associated chemotherapy program, one that’s been successful one time out of five. But only a handful of places and people could perform it. There’s no way to do it on Salter Station — you heard Ferranti, it would take five years of development.”

“How long does she have?”

“Two or three months, no more.” Charlene had held back her feelings through the day, but now she was quietly weeping. “Maybe less — the acceleration at launch knocked her unconscious, and that’s a bad sign. It was only three gee. And every facility that could have done the operation, back on Earth, is dust. Wolfgang, she’s doomed. We can’t operate here, and she can’t go back there.” He was again silent for a while, rocking Charlene back and forward gently in his arms. “This morning we seemed at the beginning of everything,” he said. “Twelve hours later, and now it’s the end. Wherry said it: the end of everything. I didn’t tell you this, but he’s dying, too. I feel sure of it. He gave me a message for JN, to work on cold sleep for the arcologies. I promised to deliver it to her, and I will. But now it doesn’t matter.”

“They’re all gone,” said Charlene softly. “Earth, Judith Niles, Salter Wherry. What’s left?”

Wolfgang was silent for a long time. In the darkness, feeling his body warm against her, Charlene wondered if he had really heard her. They were both beginning to drowse off, as nervous exhaustion drained away all energy. She felt too weak to move.

Finally Wolfgang grunted and stirred. He took a long, steadying breath. “We’re left. We’re still here. And the animals, they’re here too. Somebody has to look after them. They can’t be left to starve.”

He pulled her head to lean against his shoulder. “Let’s stay here, try to rest a little. Then we can go and feed old Jinx. Some things have to get done — even after the end of the world.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

For almost four hours there had been no conversation. The three white-garbed figures were absorbed with their particular duties, and the gauze masks imposed an added isolation and anonymity. The air in the chamber was freezingly cold. The workers rubbed at their chilled hands, but they were reluctant to wear thermal gloves and risk decreased dexterity.

The woman on the table had been unconscious throughout. Her breathing was so shallow that the monitors’ reassurance was necessary to tell of her survival and stable condition. Electrodes and catheters ran into her abdomen, chest cavity, nose, eyes, spinal column, and skull. A thick tube had been connected to a major artery in the groin, ready to pump blood to the chemical exchange device that stood by the table.

All was ready. But now there was hesitation. The three checked the vital signs one more time, then by unspoken agreement went outside the chamber and removed their masks. For a few seconds they looked at each other in silence. “Should we really go through with it?” Charlene said abruptly. “I mean, with the uncertainties and the risks — we have no experience with a human. Zero. And I’m not sure how any of the drug amounts should be adjusted for different body mass and body chemistry.…”

“What action would you suggest, my dear?” Jan de Vries had been the one who opposed the idea most vehemently when it was first proposed, but now he seemed quite calm and resigned. “Bring her body temperature back to normal? Try to wake her? If that is your suggestion, propose it to us. But you must be the one, not I, to face her and explain why we did not accede to her explicit wishes.” “But what if it doesn’t work?” Charlene’s voice was shaking. “Look at our record. It’s so risky. We’ve had Jinx in that mode for only three weeks.” “And you argue that your experience with the bear is not applicable?” “Who knows? There could be a hundred significant differences — body mass, preexisting antigens, drug reactions. And some a lot more improbable than that. For all we know, it works for Jinx because of some previous drug used in our experiments with him. Remember, when we did the same sort of protocol with Dolly, it killed her. We need to try other tests, other animals — we need more time.”

“We all know that.” Wolfgang Gibbs didn’t share de Vries’ fatalist calm, or Charlene’s nervous vacillation. He seemed to have an objective interest in the new experiment. “Look at it this way, Charlene. If we can move JN into Mode Two in the next few hours, one of two things will happen. If she stays stable and regains consciousness, that’s fine. We’ll try to communicate with her and find out how she feels. If we get her into Mode Two and she’s not stable, we can try to bring her back to normal. If we succeed we’ll have the chance to try again. If we fail, she’ll die. That’s what you’re worried about. But if we don’t try to stabilize her in Mode Two, she’s dead anyway — remember the diagnosis? She’ll be gone in less than three months, and we can’t change that. Ask it this way: if it were you on that table, what would you want us to do?”