"Please, Leon." His throat was thick. "You must be strong now. I need you to be strong..... There is a chance I will not die." His son left the room. Leopold Station. He sat with the button in front of him, on a console shelf amidst computers. He studied its scopes and readouts carefully: eight minutes. He was glad that it was far away. It did not seem real. Almost---he was thinking in Russian now---he was not afraid. Perhaps he could reach the tube and down into the shelter in time. If that would help. I MUST CONCENTRATE. He breathed deeply, and watched the counter tick away his life. Seven minutes. Six. He heard a sound behind him. At that moment the image on one of the screens shifted slightly. "Turn around Dobrynin." He whirled, startled, then returned quickly to the console, made the necessary adjustments. "What do you think you're doing?" "Putting an end to your brave little noise." Dobrynin said nothing. "This gun fires nerve pellets as well as the other, Nicholai. I can paralyze you without killing you." Pecci's voice was calm, but there was fear beneath it. "And I can press this button and kill us both. And if I die, how will you survive? Doctor Stein says the planet will not last another hour; do you not feel the quakes? You will perish along with it." As he spoke he watched and moved his hands across the console, all the while fighting the bitter urge to detonate now: too soon. "You lie." "No, Franz, in this I speak the truth. Your only chance is to get down to the shelter, now, and I will forget what has passed between us." Pecci said nothing. Dobrynin knew that he must buy more time. "It doesn't matter, does it?" "What?" He could feel the tension of the smaller man's mind. "It doesn't matter that since I am twenty-five I have made no serious mistake, that myself and many beside me have worked hard for thirty years to make this place our home. It does not matter that we have broken from the current. Still, we are dependent on others. We are like the stalagmite, which must be fed from above. If anything comes between us and the source, we are cut off. We cannot grow. And any puny, so-called man with a putrid hammer, can come and chisel away at our roots!" He could not contain his anger. "I could kill you now!" cried Pecci. He raised the gun and would have shot, but at that moment Dobrynin put a hand to his ear. A faint voice, mingled with crackling static, had come suddenly into his almost forgotten ear-piece. "Governor, can. . .hear me?" It was Stein. "Yes, Thomas. Try to speak louder. What is it?" ".....just received. . .information on the beam. We. . .incorrect by. . . minutes." "How many minutes?" "Four. Must be sooner. Thirty seconds. . .now." "Thirty seconds!" he cried. And regretted it as soon as the words had left his mouth. He quickly punched twenty-five into the counter, forgetting all other instruments. "Yes....." Then no more was heard.