Jim Hilton had found something else in his locker, and he had laid it on his side table.

  Thirty-five ounces of blued steel. Six-inch barrel. Single-action revolver, the chamber holding six rounds of .44 full-metal-jacket ammunition. The hammer was low set, deeply checkered and wide spurred. Wide trigger. Full-length ejector shroud and a cushioned grip with engraved walnut inserts.

  The Ruger Blackhawk Hunter, Model GPF-555.

  It had cost Jim nine hundred and fifty dollars, and he’d bought it three months before taking off from Stevenson.

  There was a small box of ammunition. Forty-two rounds, he counted.

  Everyone had changed, after the hot baths, into their own clothes, opting for casual comfort rather than style. Jeans were universal, with shirts or sweatshirts. Jim had dug out his hiking boots, though most of the others picked trainers. He also had on a thick jacket in patched browns, greens and grays that he used on his survivalist hiking trips. The pockets easily swallowed all the ammo for the powerful revolver.

  He picked up the Ruger, feeling its familiar shape and balance, and leveled it at himself in the mirror on the far wall.

  “Bang,” he said.

  AS THE HOUR CAME to its ending, Carrie and the seven men drifted toward the main dining section of mission control.

  Jim perched on the edge of the table, the Ruger bolstered on his right hip. A sheath knife balanced it on the left side of the belt.

  “Right,” he said.

  “I have to get to see a doctor about my nose and this cut,” said Jeff. “How’s about some kind of transport off base?”

  “Have to get past the guys with the rifles and shotguns,” Mac said.

  “You got your gun, Captain,” said Jed Herne, wincing slightly as he lowered himself into one of the deep chairs around the walls.

  “Sure. Six-shot revolver. Better than nothing, I guess.”

  “We get out that back exit,” said Pete Turner, “and if they’re there, we go down fighting.”

  “Simple, Peter. But not that effective.” Carrie looked at Jim. “The radio?”

  “Not working,” replied Steve Romero. “Like on the ship. We just pick up plenty of nothing clear across all the wave bands.”

  “I want to try for home.” Mac’s voice broke into the silence, expressing what all of them were privately thinking.

  There was a ragged chorus of agreement, stopping as Jim Hilton held up both hands.

  “Yeah. Me, too. Need some thought and planning. There’s plenty of hi-con food in the stores, travel packs, maps. No weapons. I just wish we had a better idea what’s been happening here—or any damn idea at all.”

  Kyle half lifted a hand. “One thing’s been bothering me. And I just realized what it is.”

  “What?”

  The tall black navigator had been leaning against an empty coffeemaker. “Zelig’s message. Left for us. For you, Skipper.”

  “Look, it’s maybe better now to just call me ‘Jim,’ rather than ‘Captain’ or ‘Skipper.’ I’m not captain of anything now. But, yeah, you got a point there. Did Zelig leave it as they evacuated? Or…” He paused to think it through. “Did he come back here after… after whatever it was had happened? If he did, is there some other kind of message for us?”

  There was.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jim Hilton was furious with himself.

  Though he wasn’t the oldest of the crew—Mac had that dubious honor—he was certainly the most senior. Supposedly the most experienced and the best able to command.

  But he hadn’t figured it out as Kyle Lynch had. Zelig’s message outside the door had been deliberately coded and made obscure, so the general by then must have been fully aware of the dangerous threat to the base.

  And Jim knew in his heart that he’d slipped up badly in overlooking the possibility that there might be another message somewhere within the sealed section of the Air Force base. But then, he hadn’t been used to thinking along conspiratorial lines.

  His training had been running a starship and correlating the variety of experimentation on their missions.

  “Could be a note or a tape,” he said. “Might be in code.”

  “Zelig must have known that nobody had penetrated into our quarters,” said Carrie. “So it might just be out in the open.”

  Steve Romero was the one to find it.

  “Cassette player,” he called. “Bit of paper stuck under the lid that says ‘Play me.’ That’s all. Not signed, but it’s Zelig’s hand.”

  They gathered around.

  Beyond the lobby there’d been some muffled banging on the doors, as though the attackers were trying to force entrance. But Jim was confident that they would never manage to break in.

  As Steve reached to switch on the player, the overhead lights flickered, went out for a moment, then came on again.

  Mac looked at Jim. “Could be the bastards are trying to get at the power supply. If they find the link between here and the nuke generator, we’re in shit. Air and light and everything stops.”

  “Right. Turn on the tape. Better hear it before we lose it.”

  The red light came on, and the digital audiotape began to play. A faint hiss, then the familiar voice of General John Kennedy Zelig. It was an unlikely voice, high and thin, like a querulous old man’s, belying Zelig’s robust manner and appearance.

  “Greeting to Captain Hilton and the crew of the Aquila. Welcome back to Earth, or what’s left of it. You’ve got this far, so you’ll be cognizant that there’ve been some changes around the old place. This tape is the only way we could think to debrief you and give you some minimal information. But you must realize that you are in great danger in the base. I am recording this here, on the spot, in the middle of June. I have only a small armed guard with me and I shall stay the shortest time possible. So I won’t waste words.”

  Steve pressed the Pause button. “The old bugger sounds frightened.”

  “Never.” Pete Turner laughed. “Zelig wasn’t frightened of anything.”

  Jim shook his head. “No, Steve’s got something. There’s real strain in the voice. Said we were in danger, so he must have been when he made this tape for us. Carry on, Steve.”

  The story that Zelig rattled off for them, in his dry, flat voice, kept them totally silent.

  The population of Earth had been growing far too fast for far too long, and agrarian scientists had been concentrating their efforts on improving production of basic foodstuffs. Cereals were being developed to produce their own proteins. Pulses were grown in laboratory complexes that had extra nodules on their root clusters, effectively giving them their own tiny nitrate factories.

  Hand in hand with peaceful developments walked the military scientist, looking for newer ways of waging and winning wars.

  “A plant bacteriologist in Leeds, in England, discovered a mutant gene that produced toxins in plants similar to cancer in humans. The spores were wind- and water-borne, almost invisible and undetectable. Unstoppable.”

  The lights went off again, and the tape stopped. This time it was several seconds longer before power was restored.

  Jim made a decision. “Hold it, Steve. Listen, people. If they cut us off, then we have to get out fast. Out the rear exit… and they might be waiting for us. And we’re not ready. Take ten. Get clothes and packs. Sleeping bags. One-man tents each. Water and as much hi-concentrate food as you can reasonably carry. Anything else that might be useful such as matches, compasses, maps if you can find any. Use your common sense. Meet here in ten minutes, ready to back-country it.”

  JIM SENT KYLE to the stores again to find a waterproof tarpaulin. Jed had overloaded himself and had to drop some of the food packs. Jeff Thomas had gone to the opposite extreme and was carrying as little as possible.

  When they had all gathered around the cassette player again, Jim nodded. “Right. Switch on the tape again, Steve. And everyone keep ready for a fast move.”

  Zelig sounded more tense. “Seems we might be getting company in a few minutes. So hear this. The plant cancer works so fast that a green and healthy crop can be dead and rotting the next morning. It produces a strange color alteration as it kills. Green turns red, like spilled blood.”

  “Earthblood,” whispered Carrie.

  “Before you took off on the latest mission, you might have heard something about trouble between Kurdistan and the alleged border violations with southern Iraq. That is, if you weren’t too busy reading the comic strips.”

  “Was that a joke from Zelig?” breathed Kyle Lynch, disbelievingly.

  “The situation deteriorated with accusations of chemical and nerve warfare.”

  Jim suddenly recalled the last recorded news transmissions that they’d heard on board the Aquila. They’d mentioned this conflict.

  Zelig was continuing. “Someone, I believe we will never know who, stole the research data from England along with samples of the genetic cancer. There was a border skirmish some days later and during it, so our Intelligence reports, someone released this virulent toxin.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Pete Turner quietly.

  “The question of responsibility is now purely academic.”

  After a momentary darkening of the lights and a wavering of the tape, Zelig’s voice resumed again.

  “Bandits coming closer. Start winding this up. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, the poison spread like a wildfire. The Irish potato famine was an agricultural blink in the cosmic eye compared to what came to be called Agent Earthblood. Death came swiftly, from the humblest sphagnum and lichen to the tallest redwoods.”

  “Those red forests,” Mac said.

  “Overnight the world’s food supply was finished. Within a month the whole planet was infected.”

  There was a booming sound from the main entrance, making everyone start and look around. But it wasn’t repeated.

  “Seaweed died. Food chains were severed, and the ecosystem collapsed. Animals starved. Then people began to starve. New York, as an example, had less than a week’s reserves of food. The cities emptied into the country…” There was a pause and some noise in the background, then Zelig went on. “I have to go in a moment. There were deaths, deaths on a colossal scale. When you get away from Stevenson, you’ll find a grievously changed world. Not just thousands of dead but millions upon millions. By the time you hear this, it may be that the population of the entire United States can be measured in only tens of thousands, scattered far and wide. Keep away from cities, Captain Hilton. Society is gone, industry terminally finished.” They heard Zelig calling to someone else. “Right, Major. Get the men on double alert ready to move.”

  Jim looked at the others in the low-ceiling room with him, seeing his own sick horror reflected in everyone’s faces.

  “Not a dream,” said Mac, eyes like iced marble. “Fucking nightmare.”

  “That’s how it is,” continued General Zelig. “Finish. End. But if you are hearing this, then you have survived. Three months before you listen to this message, at the time of your scheduled return, you know that I, your commanding officer, am alive and reasonably well. And there are others. Contingency plans have always been laid to cover any sort of disaster eventuality. Even one as unlikely as Earthblood. There are…”

  Half the lights in the underground bunker went off, and the humming of the air-conditioning ceased. The tape faltered, then resumed.

  “… a number of men and women…” Half the remaining lights clicked off, casting the whole complex into an undersea gloom.

  “Must be the guys with the guns.” Steve looked at Jim. “Get out?”

  Jeff Thomas was already picking up his backpack, struggling to get the straps adjusted across his shoulders. “Come on.”

  Jim shook his head. “Wait. Zelig’s getting to the wire. Sounds like there might be some kind of a plan or something.”

  The tape had halted, but now it began again hesitantly. But there seemed to have been an important gap in it.

  “The place for this hasn’t yet been finalized. But contact can be made in a variety of ways. First priority is to reach Calico by the middle of November, when…”

  The explosion that blew in the outer security doors was devastating, sending a blast of heat and choking dust swirling through the astronauts’ quarters. The lights instantly blinked off.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jim was knocked sideways, falling into the cassette player. He was vaguely aware of a metallic crashing noise, but he was too busy getting onto hands and knees to pay any attention to it. Behind him there was shouting, and he glimpsed torches slicing through the wreathing dust.

  Someone trod on his fingers, making him yelp in pain.

  “They’re in, Jim!” shouted Mac from somewhere toward the sleeping quarters.

  “Get everyone out—“ he caught himself, not wanting to give too much away, “—out the way we agreed, Mac. Packs and all.”

  “How about you?”

  “Be right with you.”

  The Ruger Blackhawk Hunter was in Jim Hilton’s hand, his index finger snug on the broad trigger of the single-action revolver.

  It had never felt so right.

  There was scuffling movement all around him. Once he’d recovered his bearings, Jim knew his own heavy pack was lying close by the double doors that opened through toward the air lock and the rear exit.

  Now he waited, crouched by the overturned music system, left hand loosely holding his right wrist in the approved shooter’s stance.

  “This way, Harry!”

  The boom of a shotgun sounded near the lobby, followed by a yell of rage or pain. Jim guessed one of their attackers had been trigger-happy.

  His father had fought in Nam, wriggling in the stinking blackness of the tunnels around Cu Chi. The experience had messed up his mind, and he had woken with nightmares of the hand-to-hand butchery, right up until Jim was ten years old. Then his father had gone out into the garage at three o’clock in the morning, when the blood runs slow and the soul suffers through its dark night.

  He’d hung himself.

  But he’d talked about killing to his son. Talked in the long drunken evenings, as the level dropped lower in the bottle of Southern Comfort and the pain glared through his eyes.

  “It’s a skill like any other, son. But I pray to Jesus Christ Almighty that you never, never, never have to learn it.”

  The men with the flashlights were hesitating, just on the other side of the doorway into the dining quarters. They were crowded together in the cramped passage less than twenty feet from where Jim Hilton was waiting silently for them… waiting to begin learning his father’s skill.

  “Get in!”

  “Why don’t you get in yourself!”

  “Get the hell in, or I’ll put you down on your fucking back!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Get inside. We got the torches. Looks like they don’t.”

  Jim waited. Behind him he could hear the others, doing their best to keep quiet as they headed for the exit.

  “What if they got guns?”

  “They’d have used them when we nearly had ‘em trapped, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yeah,” came the answer grudgingly.

  “So, get in. We’re all right behind you.”

  Jim fought to slow his breathing, steadying the barrel of the revolver on the juddering beams of the flashlight.

  “Wait,” he whispered to himself. “Not too soon. Wait.”

  The first man was inside the doorway, shining his flashlight around, but the pall of smoke and dust bounced it back at him.

  Now they were crowding the door, made more confident by the silence and the lack of response from their trapped victims.

  Jim Hilton tightened his index finger on the Ruger’s trigger. The jolt ran through his wrist, past his elbow, to the shoulder. In the confined space the crack of the explosion was surprisingly loud.

  He didn’t hesitate but fired again and again, pumping four bullets into the jostling men. Aiming, as he’d been told by his father, a little above the belt buckles.

  “That way you should manage to hit something kind of important. Only person tries to aim for the head is the real amateur… or the real professional.”

  Above the thunder of the big handgun, there was screaming, yells of pain and shock.

  And, Jim noticed in passing, fear.

  It made him feel good.

  Someone shouted, above the panic. “Get the hell out of here!”

  There was a trampling of feet and the lights disappeared, leaving the room in total darkness.

  Jim stood up, the warm gun steady in his right hand. There was someone moaning close by the door. A bubbling, pitiful sound, like a kid blowing down a straw into a strawberry milk shake.

  Words were frothing through the cries, but he couldn’t understand any of them.

  He was tempted to reload the Ruger, but he had the uneasy feeling he might drop the ammunition. It still held two full-metal-jacket rounds, one nestling snugly under the hammer.

  Keeping the gun in his left hand, Jim stopped and fumbled for the straps of the heavy pack. He picked it up and moved cautiously across the room, heading for the passage leading toward the air lock and the hidden exit, and his seven companions.

  There was a burst of gunfire from behind him, but he didn’t hear any shots come even close to him. He guessed they were wild shots triggered by panic.

  The longer the hunters stayed outside and blasted pointlessly into the darkness, the better the chances of escape.

  Now, ahead of him, Jim could hear the others, voices snarling in suppressed anger. One was Mac, and the other sounded like Jeff Thomas.

  Taking a chance that the pursuers weren’t close, Jim called out. “What’s going on?”

  Carrie answered first. “Jeff’s on the ladder and he can’t open the locking wheel and he won’t move to let Mac try it.”

  “I can do it!”

  “He can’t.”

  Jim felt someone directly ahead of him. “Who’s this? Pete?”

  “No, Kyle.”

  “Let me through.”

  The tension of having just killed was getting to him, and he had an insane urge to start giggling. But he swallowed it down and pushed past into what he could feel was a confined space.