Seven hours! The Defense Department official he'd spoken to had told him seven hours. And thank God it wasn't five hours or six, as he'd been urging them to make it. Anyway he had only twenty minutes now. Possibly a little more, but just as likely less. That realization should have spurred him to instantaneous and heroic action, but instead it paralyzed him for several minutes. He couldn't think what to do. He couldn't get his muscles and nerves functioning and coordinated. The absence of gravity didn't help. He thrashed about futilely. But at last, almost by accident, his feet touched a metal support beam, and he pushed himself toward Sheilah. He grabbed her around the waist with one arm and with his free hand pulled both of them through the door. It seemed a long, long time before he got Sheilah to the reconnaissance ship. By then the twenty minutes were up. His life was going into overtime. Sheilah was conscious but still disorganized and limp, struggling weakly and ineffectually. Wayne fumbled with the door, got it open and shoved her inside. Then he pulled himself in and closed the door. They might make it yet. They still had a chance. He studied the control board, deciding on the proper button to push. From behind him Sheilah screamed, "The bomb! You've got the bomb and you're going to--Well, you're not!" Her body slammed against his shoulders and her arms encircled his neck. Her fingers clawed at his eyes. Wayne struggled, not to free himself, but only to get one hand loose, to reach the control board. When he did get a hand free, they had floated too far from the controls. "Stop it, you stupid bitch!" Wayne snarled. "You're going to kill us both!" Wayne said, "Listen, there's a guided missile from earth heading straight for this ship, and it has a hydrogen bomb warhead. It'll get here any minute now and when it--" His words were broken off by the tremendous roar and concussion of the hydrogen bomb. Wayne's last thought before oblivion swallowed him was that they wouldn't have had time to escape, anyway. But that wasn't the end. Wayne woke up enough to refuse to believe he was alive, and O'Reilly was somewhere near, telling him: "Cirissins full of grate your forts. Radio eggulant blan. Thankel normous. Rid of earth now. Blasted away. Givish _good_ high dragon bump. Yukon gome now." Wayne groaned. The meaning of O'Reilly's words was trying to get through to his brain, and he was trying desperately to keep the meaning out. O'Reilly's voice receded into a thick gray fog. "Keep shib. Shores. Presirent felpings. Gluck." Metal slammed against metal. Wayne slammed against something hard. And darkness closed in once again. But this time it wasn't so smothering and didn't last nearly so long. When he opened his eyes his head was clear. He wasn't floating. He was lying on something hard--a floor surface of the Cirissin landing ship. He didn't ache anywhere. All in all he felt pretty good. For the first few seconds.