The Grand Cannon was going to blow, and Admiral Hayes knew that when it did, it would take all of Alaska Base with it. There wouldn't be time for him to escape, even if he left now. Instead he stared at the screen, begging Lisa to listen to him, to leave while she still could.

He was still trying when one of the fail-safes blew.

The explosion threw him like a rag-doll; he slammed into the far wall and fell, burned and broken, to the floor. Pain ripped through him, but worse than that was the knowledge that he'd condemned his own daughter to death.

He didn't suffer long; the second explosion obliterated him completely.

But when the light faded, he found himself in a hallway. The walls and ceiling were neutral beige, the matching carpet looked like same industrial-grade stuff that had been in his own quarters in Alaska Base, and in fact, every military base he'd ever visited.

"Hello?" he called.

His voice didn't echo.

There were two doors on either side of the hallway; at the end it opened out into an open space. He should leave, he thought; he didn't want to have to explain why he was here when the inhabitants came home.

He walked down the doorway, and found himself in a family room. It was military-neat, and furnished in the same generic style. A boy in his mid-teens was sitting on the couch, reading a book. Hayes froze, trying to find some explanation for why he was here.

The boy sighed and raked his free hand through his unruly dark hair. Piercing green eyes swept through the space Hayes was standing in - and kept moving.

As if he hadn't been there.

Hayes reached out his hand to touch the wall. Instead of stopping, it went right through.

He stared at it for a long moment. Tried to feel his breath, his heartbeat. But he wasn't doing any of those things. He was dead. He'd died at Alaska Base.

Oddly enough, the thought didn't bother him. Instead, he felt curiosity. Whatever he'd expected the afterlife to be, it wasn't this.

Maybe the answer was behind one of the doors?

He could hear a shower coming from one of the side doors. Instead, he went to the door at the end of the hallway. He reached for the doorknob out of sheer habit, but of course, his hand went right through it. So he stepped emthrough/em the door.

It was an odd sensation, passing through solid matter. But it worked, and he found himself in a small bedroom. This one was less sterile; there were posters on the walls. But his eyes were drawn immediately to the girl on the bed. "Lisa?"

Of course, she didn't answer him. And when he took a second look, he saw that it wasn't his daughter. Her coloring was the same, as was her pose: lying on her stomach, reading, with her bare feet up in the air and her legs crossed at the ankles. But her face was rounder than Lisa's had been when she was nine or ten, and she kept her hair just long enough to tuck behind her ears.

He was so busy staring at her that he didn't notice the door opening until it swung through him. He stepped aside as boy in his early teens, with the same dark hair as the boy on the couch and bright blue eyes, came through the door.

The girl looked up just as the boy snatched her book, and took off down the hall. "Hey!" she shouted, and took off after him. He stopped in the living room and raised it over his head; she jumped for it, but he moved it out of her reach.

"Roy!" she called. "Make him give it to me!"

"Will you guys quit it? I'm trying to study, here!"

Now, Hayes looked at the title of the book. It was a study guide for the REF Academy entrance exams. But the yelling drew his attention back to the squabbling siblings. The boy dodged backward, behind one of the chairs that flanked the couch. The girl went over the chair; it tilted backward, but not before she launched herself toward her brother. She tackled him to the ground, grabbed the book, and rolled away.

"What is going on out here?"

He looked up. Time seemed to stop as Lisa walked out of one of the side rooms. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a yellow blouse; her hair was damp. He studied her for a long moment, taking in the changes: she'd gained weight, but not much, and there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

But she was still his little girl.

And now, she was seriously annoyed. "What," she repeated, "is going on out here?"

The girl pointed at her brother. "He started it! He took my book!"

"And how did that chair get tipped over?" Her voice was even; he knew that was a dangerous sign.

"She jumped on me!"

"Claudia ... "

"He wouldn't give me my book. He kept waving it over my head."

"You should have come to me, Claudia. You could have broken an arm - yours or his. And this isn't our furniture, it belongs to the REF."

"Yeah, Clo, you shouldn't go around jumping on chairs."

"Henry ... " Lisa's tone was warning. "You have no right to go barging into your sister's room and taking her things."

Henry? As in Gloval? It wasn't quite betrayal, but for a moment, it felt like it.

"Both of you, I want you to apologize." She watched them, eagle-eyed, as they did so. "Now, Claudia, I want you to scrub the kitchen."

"But Mom, he started it!"

"Claudia ... " Her daughter fell silent. "Roy, when your father gets out of the shower, you're going to clean the bathroom."

Hayes could see him considering arguing, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Until then, you can go to your room, and don't bother your sister!"

The younger children left, but Lisa turned her attention to the older boy. "Roy, I've seen your scores," she said, and for a moment pride softened her voice. But then it firmed again. "You did more than well enough on the pre-test to take thirty seconds to get your sister's book back for her."

"Yes, Mom." It came out as a groan. "What do you want me to clean?"

"Help your sister," she said. "I don't want her walking on the counters again."

"Why not?" Claudia called from the kitchen. "It's fun!"

"Coming, squirt!" he called. He vaulted over the couch, leaving Lisa to shake her head.

Hayes approached cautiously. If he was here, maybe he could talk to her? Tell her that he was glad she'd made it, and sorry that he'd been such a failure as a father? "Lisa? Can you hear me?"

But then a man came out of one of the side doors. Like the boys, he had dark hair, though it was still damp from the shower. He was dressed in civvies but carried himself like a soldier. He came up to Lisa from behind and slid his arms around her waist; she settled back against him, smiling.

She looked happier, he realized, than he'd ever seen her.

And then her husband began to nibble her ear, and she let out a laugh. And Hayes suddenly felt like an intruder.

He turned away to give them privacy - and saw a tunnel of white light. At the other end of it, he saw a familiar figure; his wife, looking like she had on her wedding day. She raised her hand to wave at him.

Hayes glanced over his shoulder for a final look at Lisa and her husband. She would be all right, he knew.

He walked forward, into the light.