Part 28 (1/2)

Then I lifted Tammuz over my head and threw him as hard and as far as I could in the low gravity.

He whirled through the air, arms and legs flailing, hit the side of the lunar rover and slid down it to the ground. He didn't move.

I helped Bernice up. She clutched me, then collapsed. I saw with horror that the skin of her hands and neck was reddening with far more than just bruises 'Jason,' she gasped. I winced at the pain in her voice. 'The computer! Hit s.p.a.ce bar! Arm the bombs!'

I hesitated. Bernice was dying. It was my fault. 'Jason!' Her voice was an agonized scream in my ears. Obeying her voice, I moved quickly to the computer. The program was set. Bernice was right. All I had to do was. .h.i.t a key and the program would upload to the missiles currently approaching us. The warheads would arm. And then ...

I reached out for the key. I blinked. For a moment I saw not a keyboard, but a television. Not the lunar wastes but a suburban living room.

I rested my finger on the s.p.a.ce bar.

I looked at Bernice, but I didn't see her. I saw a father hitting a son, hitting and then blaming the son for weakness. I looked at Chris, motionless in the settling dust, but I didn't see him. I saw a woman deliberately ignore her son's pleas for help. In quick succession, I saw a boy run from his own family, I saw innocence die, watched bitter violence and lies grow in its place. I saw pain and fear in the boy's face, saw him running, running from something he couldn't change and blaming himself for being unable to change it. And later, years later, I saw the guilt, the self-hatred, the wasted opportunities, the wasted life.

This wasn't new to me. I had seen it all before, on a vast canvas: the world of Cthalctose, the span of a thousand years. The ignorance, the violence, the emotional sterility, the self-denial, the wasted lives.

Except their lives hadn't been wasted. Because they had built their Ark.

The Ark that was their future. They had a future. That was something I hadn't seen much less understood, until now.

They had a future. So did I. There was hope.

Except that if I pushed the s.p.a.ce bar and armed the bombs there would be no hope for the Cthalctose. Their power supply would be used to save the Earth and they would never get a second chance at life.

By ensuring my own future, I would sacrifice theirs. I couldn't do it.

I had to do it.

I hesitated, touching the s.p.a.ce bar? Bernice was screaming at me. I had to decide? I couldn't decide. My world, their world, no world.

Bernice was dying. Earth was dying. Would it make one jot of difference what I did?

Make a decision. That's what Bernice had told me? Take responsibility for your actions.

I thought of Bernice, her smile, her tear-filled eyes as we made love, of the rollercoaster ride we had taken at Brighton, the view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, the way it swayed as the wind caught it, the laughter in her eyes, the wind in her hair, the bad jokes, the smell of her, the feel of her holding me, touching me; slowly becoming part of me.

'Jason.' Her voice was a painful whisper. 'Don't do it for me. Do it for us. All of us.'

Her words made me think of her condition. If the bombs were armed then the Earth had a chance. We had a chance. At best we would find a cure. At worst we would die together in a flash of heat and light so intense that we wouldn't even know it had happened.

I made my mind up.

I pushed the s.p.a.ce bar.

Nothing happened, of course. Not here. Not where I could see it or touch it.

What happened, happened a thousand miles and several minutes away, in the arming mechanisms of two three-hundred-megaton nuclear warheads. I stood quite still. In the upper right-hand comer of the laptop screen a number was flicking steadily downwards.

Fifteen minutes until detonation.

I had experienced one nuclear explosion; one was one too many. I didn't want to come anywhere near another. Time to get back to the TARDIS. I moved to Bernice. She was lying on the ground? She was shaking. Her quiet moans of pain were heart-wrenching. How long did she have?

Minutes? An hour? More? Less?

I knelt beside her. I didn't even dare touch her for fear of inflicting more pain.

She whispered something. 'Sorry, love?'

'Said ... I'm sorry . . .'

'Ssshh. It's not your fault.'

'Listen ... me ... going to ... die ... you know it ... I know it . . .' She lifted her arm. I tried to take her hand. She avoided my grasp, positioning her -arm so I could see her force-field emitter. 'Make it quick for me, Jason.'

'Bernice!'

'Don't make me beg you.'

'Benny, I can't do that. What about -?'

Bernice managed a terrible chuckle. 'Don't worry. You'll only be killing one of us.'

I blinked stupidly. 'I thought -'

'So did I ... found out while you were away I was . . . wrong ... tension ... I guess. Worry. It can happen. I'm so sorry. I love you.'

'I love you too. How did you -?'

Now she was coughing, her voice cracked. 'Coming on in a s.p.a.cesuit is no fun, I can tell you.' She made a strangled noise. 'Oh G.o.d, it hurts when I ...

laugh.' She coughed. 'Actually ... hurts all the d.a.m.n time.'

My cheeks began to burn. I realized I was crying. She reached up and held me. Dying as she was, she held me. '. . . you crying for us ... or...'

'No,' I said with more anger than I realized. 'For. . .you know.'

'I'm sorry ... had to get you to ... arm the ... bombs.' Now anger swelled inside. I tried to suppress it. I couldn't. I hadn't grown up that much: The anger was a balm. It allowed me not to think about what was going to happen to us. To her.

She settled against me, gasped with pain. 'How long?'

I looked at the computer. 'A few minutes. Long enough to get you back to the TARDIS.'

'No. If you can't help me ... you leave me. You go. Now, Jason. Please.

Just do as I say this once. For me. Please. Please, Jason. Go.'

'I can't leave you.' 'You must.'

'I can't!'