Cassie and Capa had no way of knowing-- actually, given that their experiment in staying awake was becoming exponentially more pleasant, making them take notice might have been difficult-- that the evening had already ended for those on the bowling expedition. Around nine-thirty, Trey had poured the last of the beer from the cloudy plastic pitcher into his glass and looked behind them, beyond the lanes, toward the shoe rental and the neon signs for Schlitz and Leinenkugel.

"Think we scared off the waitress," he said.

"Was there a waitress?" Mace countered.

Searle got up to bowl. He hefted his ball-- and paused. "Hell-- I completely forgot. We could've asked Kaneda and Corazon if they wanted to come along."

"Think they're off 'om'-ing together somewhere," Trey said.

Pauses all 'round. Mace smirked. "Wait-- Did Trey just make a funny?"

Harvey nodded: "I think Trey just made a funny."

"Jesus, that's a first."

Trey snickered into his beer. "Yep."

"You're pathetic." Searle shook his head, prowled to the line, and launched his first ball.

No: now he was embarrassed. Trey focused his blush into his foamy glass and tried to sound casual. "No, uh, really-- A couple of her family members were coming into town. She told me yesterday. They asked if he'd like to join them for dinner."

"Right," Harvey drawled wickedly.

Searle spun out a hook that picked up his spare. He came down off the boards and grabbed the empty pitcher. "I'll get it." He headed for the alcove where the bar was as Harvey got up to bowl.

Mace said: "No overhand shots, Harv."

"Could only help."

Trey dropped his voice well into the cellar: "Use the Force, Luke."

But the Force was not with Mr. Harvey. He left a mittful of pins standing; the sweeper cleared them; Trey had his first shot and nearly decimated his new fresh pin set. He was waiting for his ball to return when from the bar they heard shouts and the sound of glass breaking.

"Shit--" Mace was on his feet. Harvey and Trey followed him at a run.

Searle was facing off against a man holding a knife. Two other guys looked ready to jump in. Maybe half a dozen others were hanging back. There was a fresh pitcher of beer standing in a pool of slosh on a table to Searle's left. The bartender was reaching for the phone. Before Mace could say or do anything, the man with the knife lunged. Searle leaned sharply to the side. He caught the wrist of the hand holding the knife, pulled and twisted. With his free hand, he hit the man, hard, in the jaw. The knife went flying. It thunked across the carpeted floor. Harvey stepped in quickly and picked it up. The two men who'd looked ready to get involved shrank back.

But Searle wasn't done. There were two pool tables in the room. He slammed the man who'd held the knife facedown onto the nearest one and twisted his right arm backwards and bore down on it until the man's wrist was pinned, his hand palm-up against the green felt.

"It'll grow back. Let me show you," he said.

Mace thought he'd misheard. "What's going on, Searle?"

"I said it'll grow back." There were two large glass beer mugs on a nearby table. Searle grabbed one and smashed it on the pool table's heavy dark edge. "Here: watch this." He crushed the man's wrist harder against the table top. The man writhed in pain, shouting curses. And with the largest piece of glass, Searle--

Mace grabbed Searle's shoulder. "What are you doing, man?"

Searle said nothing. He jabbed quickly, passing under his left arm his right hand and the shard of glass it held; Mace jumped back, feeling the glass slit the fabric of his shirt over his stomach. Then Searle refocused; Mace heard a scream from the man on the table--

-- and Trey hit Searle in the head with the pitcher of beer.


In a row of chairs outside the office of Dr. Jeff Lasky, in various stages of beer-scented disrepair, sat half the crew of the Icarus II. Trey, who'd managed to walk into the only punch to fly before the cops showed up, was sporting a splendid black eye. Mace bore a line of itching stitches across his midriff. Harvey, though blood- and beer-splattered, was unwounded outwardly. But he hadn't had the sense to drop the knife before the police arrived, and as a result he'd come the closest of any of them to being arrested. His embarrassment had set itself as a frown on his handsome broad face. In contrast, Searle, his right temple stitched and bandaged, seemed thoroughly untroubled. He'd asked "What happened?" at the hospital. That was all. Kaneda and Corazon had come for them and hauled them back in a campus van. She was wearing a magnificent red dress.

"You look very nice, Corazon," Harvey had said.

"Please shut up, Mr. Harvey," Kaneda said in return.

Now it was past twenty-three hundred hours, and the four bowlers were waiting outside Dr. Lasky's office for their turns before an impromptu hearing board. Lasky had already gone in, of course, and Dr. Monroe, and a representative from the local police department and the head of campus security as well. Kaneda, having driven Corazon home, stalked in still wearing the black suit and gray silk tie he'd worn to dinner.

He stopped in front of them, scowling. "Earth's last, best hope, indeed. Mr. Harvey, come with me."

Harvey rose and followed him into the office. The door shut behind them.


Mace was the last one called. Kaneda instructed Harvey to escort Searle and Trey back to the dorms. Then he caught Mace's eye and nodded toward the open door of Lasky's office. Mace got up.

He figured the inquest had already heard the story at least twice-- three times if they'd managed to get anything out of the evening's broken-glass surgical Zen master-- so when he entered, Mace simply looked directly at Lasky and asked: "What's wrong with Searle, sir?"

Lasky's blue eyes met his with a watery glitter. "Mr. Trey hit him in the head with a pitcher of beer."

"That's not what I meant--"

Kaneda spoke: "Witnesses in the bar said that the other man threw the first punch. Dr. Searle was legitimately restraining him when--"

Mace looked at him incredulously. "Trey hit him because he was trying to cut the guy's hand off. Searle said something about-- He said it would grow back. The guy's hand. Trey was right there: he must've heard him--"

"Mr. Trey mentioned Dr. Searle speaking," Lasky said. "He didn't catch the words."

Mace could feel his heart edging toward the base of his throat. "I heard the med techs at the hospital, sir. Searle severed three tendons in the man's--"

"That's enough, Mr. Mace," said Kaneda.

"If he'd've hit the artery, he might have--"

"Mr. Mace--!" Lasky snapped. Mace turned to him angrily. Lasky looked back at him, coldly. "You're stymied, aren't you? You've run up against something a good thorough screw won't fix."

Mace frowned. "Sir-- pardon me?"

"It's bad enough you've bedded your pilot, Mr. Mace. Even worse you'd pimp her out. What: did you think Dr. Capa would find Lieutenant Cassidy therapeutic?"

Mace felt his ears go hot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a frown descend on Kaneda's face. "Sir, I don't--"

"Yes or no, Mr. Mace."

"I-- Yes, sir."

The room went quiet. His captain's disappointment in him: Mace could sense it. He waited, feeling cold and slightly sick. Kaneda chose his next words and spoke quietly:

"Mr. Harvey is second in command, Mr. Mace. But everyone in the crew looks to you. You're a natural leader."

"Or ringleader," Lasky offered drily.

"Whatever the term--" Kaneda looked coolly at Lasky before returning his attention to Mace: "-- I would encourage you, Mr. Mace, not to abuse a position of trust. It could prove detrimental to the mission. Do you understand?"

Mace looked evenly at Kaneda and squared his shoulders against his confusion and frustration. Against his shame, too. "Yes, sir, I do."

"Thank you. You are dismissed, Mr. Mace."


The boy left. The police officer and the campus security representative followed shortly thereafter. Monroe waited through the followup with Kaneda. When the captain of the Icarus II was beyond the closed door of Lasky's office, he said, "I'll generate a list of potential replacements for Dr. Searle."

"Whatever for?"

Monroe stared at Lasky. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. "He's obviously unstable, Jeff."

"No, he's not." Lasky tipped back in his chair and steepled his long fingers under his chin. "Residual effects from the drugs. We can put him through another round of detox for that. I'm just trying to figure out where he might have heard of it."

"Heard of what?"

"Plan B. Though some people are calling it 'Plan H.' 'H' for 'Hades,' Dan." Lasky smiled like a sturgeon. His small sharp teeth were pearl-gray in the light from his desk lamp. "How would you feel about living underground?"


Mace walked back to the dorm. The cold seeped under his jacket to tug at his stitches; he had neither hat nor gloves, and even before he was halfway home he could clearly imagine ice crystals forming in his cheeks and his fingers and the tips of his ears. He caught himself nearly veering toward the building where Cassie was housed; he told himself not to look at the dark windows. Likely she wasn't there, and even if she were--

He stopped. He was alone, wasn't he? Not just on an icy sidewalk under a black sky and bluish-white pathlamps on a largely co-opted college campus somewhere in North America. Really alone. He thought, If I fell here, I'd die. It's that cold. Cold enough to kill.

"Get a grip, man." He said it aloud. His breath brushed past his lips and hung briefly in the air before him, a tiny icy cloud. "Got a job to do."

He went back to the dorm. All quiet. No sign of Harvey or Trey or Searle. Mace opened a tin of beef stew and ate it without tasting it. Then he went to his room and calmed himself to a sleep pitted with troubled, nonspecific dreams.


The next day was as cold and clear as the day before. Mace had his breakfast and his morning go-round with the guys from engineering, and then, just before lunch, he caught Cassie as she was coming out of the flight simulator. She was giving one of the techies hell about the programming, and the techie-- a standard-issue bad haircut and worse glasses in an insulated blue boiler suit-- was only too glad to take his touchpad and retreat when Mace approached.

"Hey." Cassie turned her scowl halfway into a wry smile when she saw him. "I heard you guys got in a fight."

"Yeah. We coulda used you."

"Everybody okay?"

"Searle kinda got knocked in the head, and Trey looks like half a raccoon, but yeah. Everything's fine."

The uncertainty he felt: maybe she heard it. Maybe she didn't. "That's good."

"How'd it go with Brainiac?"

She might have flinched. He couldn't be sure: he wasn't accustomed to watching her for clues.

"It went alright."

"What--?" Mace told himself to smile. "Did he get you drunk and talk you into playing strip chess?"

"Something like that."

"Must've been pretty rough."

"Yeah. Mace--" She looked away--

-- and it was as though he were outside himself, watching himself ask: "What, Cass?"

"I think I need to stick with him a while longer."

"You need--"

"He needs it."

He heard himself say: "You need it, too."

"Mace--"

"It's alright, Cass." A smile. He meant it. "Good of the mission, right?"

"Right."

Silent question, silent consent. He leaned in and kissed her, more tenderly, maybe, than he might have yesterday or the day before.

"See you on the flight deck, okay?"

She smiled back at him. "Okay."


Lasky was right, Monroe thought. It was amazing how accurately Dr. Searle described it.

Plan B.

Through the remainder of the previous night, after Mace and Kaneda left Lasky's office, Dr. Monroe sat in his own office reading the files Lasky had sent his way. A note preceded them: Truly surprised you didn't know about this, Dan. Keep it under your hat. When Monroe finished his first reading of the Deeplife Protocol, the sun had just eased clear of the trees east of the campus.

He encrypted the files and left his office, feeling tired and numb. He failed for two hours to sleep. He was nearly late for his first meeting regarding the Icarus II and her environmental systems; he sleep-walked through the remainder of his working day. Searle had seen it all in his dream. Somehow.

Late that afternoon, alone in his office, Monroe re-cued the recording of the doctor's debriefing following the hibernation test. He watched and listened and felt as though the heat at his core were draining away.

"...but there are no stars," Searle was saying. He was sitting on the black sofa in Lasky's office, moving his hands as he talked. The camera had been hidden; he was looking to the left of the frame. Lasky's head occasionally occluded him. "One of those ideas people have about space, isn't it? All those glittering stars. When all it is is dark. It's so black, you can feel it pressing on your eyes. Like it's solid. And it's cold. I should go underground."

"Why underground, Doctor?" Lasky asked.

"Because that's where we live."

"'We'?"

"The humans, sir. Humanity. But I don't have to go in right away if I don't want to. There's almost no atmosphere left, but I can breathe just fine."

"Why is that?"

On screen, Dr. Searle shuddered, but he smiled, too. Monroe found it frightening. "Because of the c[ockroaches, sir. Now I can-- I can breathe through my skin. If I lose a limb-- I can chop off my arm, and it'll grow back. Not right away-- it'll take time, but-- The geneticists-- they knew two things would survive for certain. Us and the roaches. Always be roaches, right? So they spliced us together. Our DNA."

"Have they?"

"Have--" Searle looked momentarily confused. His thick brows descended over his eyes. "Had. In my dream. They said we'd failed. They'd gone to the backup plan. We-- not us, sir. Not the Icarus. We're dead. Were dead."

He paused. His dark eyes looked through Lasky, through the camera lens. Monroe shrank back slightly.

"So mankind moved underground," Searle continued. His voice was distant and calm. "They made nuclear suns. Cooked up new isotopes. New elements, way off the end of the periodic table. But the radiation-- That's why we needed the roaches. So we can-- All that radiation, you understand. The roaches can take it. Now we can, too. While we--"

"While we what, Dr. Searle?" Lasky prompted quietly.

"While we search for another planet, sir. A new place to live. A new hive."


Dr. Monroe watched the sun edge below clouds to the west. Whatever you are, he thought, deity or life-bringer or star: we're ready to be on our own. We're ready to be gods. To prove it, we'll survive without you. We'll mold our genes to suit our circumstances, and then we'll find ourselves circumstances more suitable. Without you. Your heat and light: we thank you for it. Now, little star, feel free to die. We don't need you anymore.

"Please don't go," he whispered.

The sun slid below the horizon. Dusk drifted like a curtain of bluish dust from the snowy west. Monroe left the window.

THE END