Two soldiers stood silently next to the door, rifles in hand. Others were apparently outside, since he could hear voices and occasional laughs. They had offered food and water and even some Brazilian beer, though Zen had declined it all.

An odd sound from outside startled him, and he looked toward the doorway. Something big was being wheeled down the hallway.

It sounded like one of the equipment carts in the hospital where he’d spent so much time after his accident. His stomach pinched and his side ached with the memory of his helplessness and despair.

Two soldiers wheeled in a television set with a video player on top of it. Zen expected a message of some sort; remembering Jed’s reference to the Brazilian leadership scramble, he thought he might even be treated to some sort of diatribe about local politics. But the Brazilians had loaded in a tape with old Gunsmoke reruns.

One of the guards handed his M-16 to his companion and came over to watch.

If he had his legs, Jeff thought, he could overpower the bastards.

And then what? Single-handedly take over the base? Might just as well hope for Matt Dillon to walk out of the screen, six-guns blazing.

The set of boots scraping in the hall were nearly muffled by the volume of the television. Even so, Zen recognized the scrape long before Madrone entered the room. He prepared himself, gripping the chair rests tightly to check the anger welling up. But rage deserted him when he saw the blanched and hollow-eyed face of his friend.

“What’s going on, Kevin?” said Zen.

Madrone laughed. “You know what’s going on. You tried to destroy me. You’re still trying.”

Madrone’s body moved with jerks, his hands nearly flying off his arms. He seemed about ready to fly apart.

“Kevin, it’s Zen,” he said. “Do you realize that?”

“What do you think, I’m stupid?”

“Are you all right?”

Madrone laughed.

“Why are you working with the Brazilians?” Jeff said. “What’s going on? You look like you’re a ghost.”

“You know what’s going on. I’m not working with the Brazilians. They’re working for me.”

“ANTARES has messed you up. I took the drugs too. I know what they can do. You have to come home with me.” Madrone snorted with contempt.

“Going off the drugs messes you up,” Zen explained. “You become paranoid. Geraldo says—”

“I don’t care what she says. I’ll get her. I got Glavin. I’ll get them all. I know you’re going to get me. I understand that. But I’ll take as many of you down with me as I can. I will.”

“I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Bullshit! Bullshit! You were part of it. You are part of it.”

Madrone’s fingers slashed the air. His skin went from white to red in an instant. It stretched taut over the bones of his face, which seemed animated by a sirocco.

“You have to let us help you, Kevin,” said Jeff softly. Madrone blinked at him, then bent closer. For a moment, Jeff thought he had gotten through.

“I’ll kill you all,” said Madrone, his voice even softer than Jeff s. “All of you.”

There was a burst of gunfire on the TV, so loud that Jeff jerked back apprehensively, turning toward the TV. When he looked up again, Kevin was gone.

MADRONE’S HEAD POUNDED AS HE WALKED FROM THE building. His mind had shorn itself into splinters, each wedge manipulated by the spider in his skull. New voices yapped at him, emerging from the maelstrom between the segments of his brain.

Zen is your friend. What was he trying to say?

Jeff was a victim just as Kevin was. They’d made him a robot.

Breanna too. And the copilot.

Kill them!

Zen seemed to think he could escape. Had he said that? Or had Kevin wanted him to say that?

The shadows closed around Madrone as he walked out into the night. The jungle—he was back in the jungle.

He was in Theta, connected to ANTARES. But he wasn’t wearing the helmet, wasn’t in the airplane or his special suit. There was no computer in sight.

Where was Minerva? He needed her.

MINERVA ALLOWED HERSELF A LONG MOMENT OF indulgence, staring at the mountains from her balcony. The stars seemed to have a light purple glow tonight—destiny stars, an omen.

Good or bad?

Good. Only good.

The door opened in the room behind her. Minerva took one long breath, then slipped inside.

Kevin stood in the middle of the room. “Why did you bring them here?” he demanded.

“Kevin, I didn’t bring them here.”

“Zen and Breanna—you wanted them to come.”

Minerva suppressed a shudder. “They followed you. love.” She glided toward him, striving to keep calm. “You’ve forgotten? I know you’re tired.”

She wrapped her hands around his shoulders. His muscles were hard metal; his heart pounded crazily.

His madness had grown nearly uncontrollable in the past twenty-four hours; he was no longer simply dangerous, but crazy as well.

That ought to have made it easier for her to let him go. But it didn’t.

“I always knew they were against me,” Kevin said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“They’re all bastards.”

“You will carry out your attack in the morning using their plane. The repairs will be finished in time. I’m positive of it,” she added, more to convince herself than him. “They will help.” Minerva ran her hands across his shoulder, then slipped her fingers beneath the collar of his jumpsuit, sliding them to his flesh.

“They won’t help me,” he said fiercely.

Fear froze her hand. He might resist—he might even turn against her.

“The Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in San Francisco,” she said. “Isn’t that where they poisoned your daughter for the final time? Perhaps she was only sick until then—and that was where they killed her.”

He’d told her several times about the treatment, performed near but not actually in the lab. Always he had spoken with anger, clearly wanting to destroy the place. It should have been his deepest desire now, the simplest way to hold him in her fingers.

But not today.

“I’m not going,” he said calmly.

She slid her hand away, drifting back toward the chair in the corner of the room. The gun was beneath the cushion. If she killed him, what would she do?

Destroy the planes, get rid of the others. There would be no trace.

Better—take some of the remains and scatter them north near the border. Her people were already helping the American searchers and offering to do more. Of course, their every move had to be cleared with her.

It wouldn’t be as convincing as her plan to send him back with the plane after pretending he had attacked her base. But luck seemed finally to have turned against her.

Still, the benefits were worth another risk. Her hand easing toward the pistol, she gathered herself to try again to persuade him.

“Whether you go or not, it is your decision,” Minerva told him. “If you do, I will give you a weapon that will guarantee their destruction. I have two warheads,” she added. Even as she said it—even though she knew it was merely part of her own plan to get rid of him—she felt a certain undeniable excitement, a lust for destruction that he provoked.

“The warheads have nuclear bombs. They are small and were designed for artillery shells. But you could adapt them. Take one. I need the other here, in case they attack.”

Madrone drew back. She sensed she’d lost him, and fought the impulse to go to him. She felt a tinge of fear, shame at her own desire

And then she continued to speak.

“Do they still do those hideous experiments there?” she said. “They must have known what it would do to her. Perhaps they lied from the beginning.”

“No!”

Kevin’s whole body shook so violently that Lanzas reached for her gun. But Madrone only collapsed on the floor.

“They’re my friends,” he murmured as she folded herself over him.

He bawled like a baby on the floor. She loved him, she truly loved him.