Buck wasn't sure how long he stood there. Eventually, even the few people around him faded away from his awareness, and he was focused totally on the past, ignoring them. Finally, he spoke softly.

"Jim, if you can hear me...it wasn't me. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't me that started it. I was working undercover. They had hypnotized me to make my performance realistic, but the upper levels were monitoring me all the way, waiting to get everybody on the hook before they moved in. That's why that recording you found even existed. But I guess it doesn't make any difference anyway who started it. You're still dead. A lot of Earth is dead. Things are so different, and nobody but me really knows how it was." He sighed. "Sometimes, once in a while, I even wish I'd died myself so I'd never have learned how it was all destroyed. Including you. Especially all the people I knew. You're all gone, and you didn't even get to live out full lives."

The sun was starting to set now, the temperature outside the controlled city beginning to fall, but he wasn't aware of it. He just stood there, looking at the wreckage of Earth's past, feeling like a piece of it.

(BR)

Dr. Theopolis had been trying to calculate further during Hawk and Wilma's cross-country flight and had sent some suggestions. The problem was, there was no reliable map of old Houston anymore. Theo had come up with a few possible old locations for Buck to visit, Johnson Space Center leading those, but even his impressive computer banks could not say exactly where it had been. There was wreckage scattered around, but smashed and scavenged former buildings now reduced to rubble all tended to look a bit alike, especially when viewed hundreds of years after the fact with no reliable records still existing. The best guess Theo could give them is that he thought it was somewhere on the north side of the current city, shortly outside the environmental bubble.

Once they arrived at New Houston, Wilma decided not to park the starfighter in the space port, though she did verify that Buck's craft was still there. Buck had the advantage of being probably the only person in the galaxy who could call up mentally a map of old Houston and orient it to a new one. Tracking him through public transit for them would be like hunting a needle in a haystack, even given the general direction, not even guaranteed to be correct, of north. Instead, she decided to just fly the starfighter along on the outskirts of the bubble, searching for Buck from the air.

So now she was flying along at a much lower speed as Hawk used both his sharp eyes and the scanners on the ship to search. The few people around looked up at them curiously, and many ducked away warily back into the rubble.

Hawk shook his head. "Humans have destroyed their own planet nearly as well as they have other races."

"Not all humans do things like this, Hawk," she reminded him. "In fact, most of them don't. But yes, our history is pretty bleak from that period." Especially looking at this wrecked wasteland.

Hawk suddenly came alert. "Do you have something?" Wilma asked eagerly.

"Possibly." He fine tuned a few settings on the scanner, then looked out the viewscreen, eagerly waiting for his eyes to catch up to the computer scan of the ground ahead. "There is one person up ahead who is standing absolutely still. I should be able to see him soon." He leaned forward a little in the seat as if that would help.

"Just standing still?" Wilma asked. Nobody else was motionless, not out here. Everyone here was heading somewhere, especially as the sun began to set. The number of people out in the open was dropping rapidly every minute. The outside was dangerous at night, and everyone knew it.

"Totally still," Hawk confirmed. "There!" He leaned forward even more, pointing at the forward window. It took Wilma another several seconds of approach to spot him with her less-sharp eyes. Yes, it was Buck. He stood out by his very motionlessness, so unusual for him. Buck was almost never still, but now, he might have been a piece of the wreckage and rubble, resting here for centuries.

"Trouble!" Hawk said. "Just west of him, Wilma." She spotted it herself a moment later. A short distance from Buck, four other people approached. They were coming up slightly behind him, and their approach became more stealthy with each step. Two of them carried rough clubs of some sort. Buck was absolutely oblivious to the threat, still standing like a statue, looking away from the gang.

Wilma hit the throttle, and the starfighter jumped, closing the distance rapidly. She sent it scorching directly between Buck and his stalkers, then flipped it into a quick turn and came roaring back through the gap.

The gang members lost interest at once, turning around and bolting for cover. None of them cared to take on a directorate fighter. Buck himself jumped as the starfighter screeched by fifty feet behind him, and for the first time since Hawk had spotted him, he moved, looking around. Unlike the others, he didn't run, watching the craft, unafraid. Wilma turned the starfighter again, slowing down, bringing it to an easy landing near him. She and Hawk opened the door, and Buck slowly walked forward, meeting them halfway to the ship. "Wilma, Hawk. What are you doing here?" he said.

Hawk answered for both of them. "We came to be with you."