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  “You should have tried years ago,” he answered. He reached back into the duffel and brought out a short black pistol in a shoulder holster.

  “You ever use one of these things before?” he asked rhetorically, dropping out the magazine and yanking back the slide to eject the round up the spout. He caught the 9mm round in the air like a trout after a fly.

  “No,” she answered, intimidated by his suddenly revealed expertise.

  “Okay.” He lifted up the magazine. “This is the gas, you fuel it like this.” He slid the magazine back into the well. “It’s fueled when you hear the click. You start it like this.” He jacked back the slide. “And,” he said, laying one finger lightly on the trigger as he pointed the weapon skyward and across the river, “this is the accelerator. You drive it by looking through the rear sights while focusing on the front sights. Place the white dot on the front sight across the V of the rear sights and pull on the accelerator real slow. There, the Tom Sunday School of Glock Driving.”

  She accepted the weapon gingerly as he ensured she had it pointed up and downrange.

  “So where is Park?” she asked dryly.

  He took the weapon back, put it into the shoulder holster and handed her the rig. “There is no Park,” he said as he easily hefted the weapon-stuffed duffel. “See ya.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He looked at her for a moment and cocked his head to one side. “That stuff,” he noted, gesturing with his chin at the body armor, “is really supposed to go under your clothes. I’m heading up to somewhere on Charles or Princess Anne Street that has a good view,” he said, throwing the strap of the duffel across one shoulder, “then I’m going to smoke a whole pack of Marlboros waiting for the Posleen to show their heads. Then I’m going to die.” He smiled warm and quietly, as if asking her to deny the reality of that statement.

  She smoothed the stomach of her armor unconsciously and went through a series of rapid mental readjustments. “Can I come with you? Maybe I can reload or something.”

  “I sincerely doubt that there will be time to reload,” he answered, “but you would be extremely welcome. Now, to find a good spot on Charles Street,” he said, turning up the hill.

  “How about Worth’s?” she suggested.

  * * *

  Bill Worth sat at ease in the rear of his store, a Franklin stove removing the last tinges of chill from the evening of this truly wearisome day. The large front room of the shop was redolent with the scent of old books and fine antiques. It was the scent of home.

  He was spending what he considered to be his last few moments perusing an early edition of Moll Flanders that included some tracts not usually found outside of the editions published during Defoe’s era and sipping a Cóte d’Azur ’57 he had traded the previous year for a prototype Colt Peacemaker. As in all good business deals, both parties felt they got the better of the bargain.

  He had just reached a condition of maximum comfort, his sockless loafers perched on an ottoman, his wine close at hand, when the door to the shop jingled as, most unexpectedly, a pair of customers entered.

  “Feel free to look around, gentlemen,” he told the pair of soldiers, officers if his “Uniforms and Insignia of the United States Armed Forces” was any judge. “However, I prefer not to sell anything today. I have decided to maintain my collection intact for old sake’s sake.” He chuckled at the reference neither of the soldiers would possibly recognize.

  “Hi, Mr. Worth, it’s me, Kenny Young,” said the younger officer, truly a babe-in-arms as it were.

  “Ah, yes, young Mr. Young,” he said with another breathy chuckle. “The uniform befits you. I thought you were studying engineering?”

  “I’m a military engineer.”

  “Ah! A Pioneer! Bravo. Where are you based?”

  “Here, Mr. Worth. That’s what the local Guard unit is, Engineers.” Lieutenant Young smiled faintly. It was a well-known fact that Bill Worth hadn’t set foot outside of the five or ten blocks of what he termed “historic Fredericksburg” in years.

  “Ah, yes, somewhere up Route 3 isn’t it?” asked the shopkeeper, quizzically.

  “Yeah, about a mile from here,” chuckled the lieutenant.

  “Ah. Terra Incognita, indeed. So, to what do I owe the honor of your presence on this most gloriously unpleasant evening?”

  “Well, we need to find out about the tunnels. We were told you might know something about them.”

  “Yes,” commented the local historian, with a nod of his head. “Well, it would really be Ralph Kodger, you need to talk to about them…”

  “But he’s…” noted the lieutenant.

  “Dead, yes, but a great historian in his time. Or perhaps Bob Bailey…” continued Worth.

  “… who…” said Young.

  “… moved to Kansas, yes, I see you’re ahead of me here.”

  “Do you know anything about them? Where the openings are?” asked the engineer.

  “What their structure is?” asked the other soldier.

  “And you are, sir?” Bill asked politely. The older soldier was obviously impatient, one of those people who feel it necessary to continuously rush about as if life wasn’t always exactly the same length.

  “Captain Brown, sir, Charlie Company commander,” said Captain Brown, shortly. “We hope to hide some of the women and children in the tunnels and blow up, well, the city basically, to cover our tracks. We wondered about a ’50s-style bomb shelter, but there aren’t any. So we’re back to the tunnels. Unless you know where a bomb shelter is.”

  “A valorous endeavor indeed,” commented Worth, setting down his Defoe and walking to the desk that was the center of his domain. “Might I ask a few questions?”

  “As long as you’re quick,” snapped the impatient commander.

  “How are they to survive?” asked the shopkeeper. “The women and children that is. Without air, food or water? There won’t be much room for that sort of thing, I would suppose.” He rummaged in the top drawer of the desk and extracted a pad of what appeared to be parchment.

  “It turns out that the paramedics have been using a Galactic medication called Hiberzine that can put a person in suspended animation for months,” said the lieutenant, excitedly. “Public Safety has plenty of it; we can pack in as many as can fit. Resources are not an issue.”

  “Ah, and how do you intend to blow up the city?” Mr. Worth asked, beginning to doodle on the pad.

  “We’re going to fill some of the buildings with natural gas, basically,” answered Captain Brown. “It’ll do the job; do those centaur bastards anyway. Now, I’m sorry, but if you don’t mind, we need to find somewhere to stash the women and children. If you’ll excuse us?”

  “Actually, I think you might consider my pump house,” Worth noted with a world-weary laugh, continuing to sketch.

  “We need something larger than a pump house,” said the captain, assuming he meant one covering the well for a house. “Thank you just the same. Come on, Lieutenant.”

  “Captain,” the storekeeper drawled, finished scribbling rapidly on his pad, “would something like this suffice?” He held up the sketch. “A two-story underground pump house for an industrial plant? Three-foot-thick concrete walls? Fifty feet long, thirty feet wide? Two levels? Underground?”

  “Jesus,” whispered Captain Brown, snatching the pad. “Where is this?”

  “By the river,” Worth answered with a dry smile.

  “You own this?” asked Lieutenant Young, peering at the well-drawn sketch.

  “Yes, I bought it several years ago and fixed it up,” answered the storekeeper.

  “Why?” asked Captain Brown, curious despite himself.

  “Well,” answered Bill Worth, with a sigh, “it’s got such a beautiful view of the river… Captain, if I offer this made-in-heaven facility for your little plan, can I pick which building you blow up?”

  * * *

  “Are you sure about this, Captain?” asked the first sergeant of Charlie C
ompany as Second and Third platoons assembled in the parking lot of the Fredericksburg Executive Building. A seven-story block of unimaginative ’70s architecture, it had all the aesthetic appeal of a brick, creating a modern eyesore among the pleasant stone seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings that predominated in the city center.

  “It was Mr. Worth’s only condition and it’s really the best building for our purpose,” answered the captain. “It’s got plenty of volume, it’s close to the pump house but the railroad embankment will create a blast shadow and I have to agree, not that it matters, that it is one of the ugliest buildings I have ever seen.” He turned back to the assembled troops and raised his voice to carry over the sound of approaching semitrailers.

  “Men, we are going to kill two birds with one stone. While some of you prepare a bunker to hide the women and children, others of you are going to prepare a reception for the Posleen they will never forget. We have found an industrial pump house that used to supply water for the old cellophane mill. It is partially buried and has three-foot-thick concrete walls.

  “Second platoon, along with these arriving construction guys, is going to finish covering it with as much overburden as we can find, while also preparing the inside. You need to fair over the opening to the pump house proper, you’ll see what I mean when you get in there. The radio station is calling for anyone with welding equipment to come here and construction equipment is being diverted from the Interstate lines to assist.

  “Get the pump house covered with overburden and get the opening faired over with sheet and structural steel, whatever you can find. When we get as many women and children in as we can, we’ll blow the tower and seal them in.

  “I’ve looked it over and there may be room for all the surviving women and children, praise be to God. Since there may not be time or room, the chief of police is starting a lottery for who goes in and the order. Only children under sixteen and their mothers are going in the bunker.

  “The problem is that if we just bury the noncombatants, the Posleen will dig them out like anteaters after termites. We need to create as much disruption as possible and try to make it appear that there is nothing left to find in Fredericksburg, and especially not on this side. To do that, we are going to turn this building,” he pointed with his thumb at the monstrosity over his shoulder, “into a giant fuel-air bomb.

  “Trucks are coming from Quarles Gas to pump it full of propane. But first it has to be prepped. I want Third platoon to get in there and blow holes through all the floors, to increase interior circulation. And before you leave make sure every interior door is open. While the building is being prepped, the first sergeant will rig it for demolition. Don’t set any of your charges in his way.

  “When you’re done, which should take less than forty-five minutes, you’ll either go to the bunker work, or up to prepare the town defenses.”

  He gestured to the arriving lowboys burdened with bulldozers and backhoes. “Second, we’re depending on you and those guys to make an impregnable bunker. Get to work. And Third,” he gestured to the cases of C-4 at the entrance to the building, “go blow some holes. Keep your helmets on, somebody might be blowing above you.”

  “Sir,” muttered the first sergeant as the platoon pounded into the building, grabbing demo and caps as they went by, “this is bound to cause casualties.”

  “Well, Top, there are times when you have to balance relative risk. I don’t have much idea how much time we have, but I doubt we have much longer.”

  * * *

  “We have to slow them down,” noted the S-3, desperately. “Charlie is just starting on the bunker and the FAE. It’ll take them at least an hour.”

  “More,” noted the fire chief, “it’ll take that long just to pump the building full of gas.”

  The Posleen had taken their time assembling — for which everyone was thankful. But having reduced the last resistance and most of the buildings around Central Square, the nearest B-Dec force was coming down Highway 3. And there was only a scattering of militia and police to stop the six-thousand-odd rampaging aliens. Other Posleen were moving in from the east and west, but by the time those Posleen reached the city center it would be nearly dawn and the bunker and FAE would be prepared.

  It was the Central Square force, rolling down the main highway into town, that would be the primary threat to the plan.

  “We need something to distract them, to scare them,” commented the battalion commander, “something like that dragon that the ACS used on Diess.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing every Earth animal is afraid of,” said the scarred chief, getting the glimmering of an idea, “and that’s fire.”

  “What are you thinking?” asked the commander.

  “If we had some flamethrowers…” said the S-3 and his eyes widened at the same time as the chief’s.

  “Jerry,” said the S-3, turning to his NCOIC, “call Quarles Gas, and tell them we need some more flammables. Some gas trucks, gasoline that is, or kerosene. Any liquid flammables.”

  “Kerosene is the preference. I’ll go get the fire trucks,” said the chief, shaking her head.

  * * *

  “Colonel?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major?” Colonel Robertson was mortally tired. The strains of the day were rapidly taking their toll and he wondered what new catastrophe the sergeant major had to report.

  “Well, sir, I was checking on the detail that was issuing from the ammo point, and all the parties are out on site, but there’s still over a ton of demo and ammunition of one sort or another left.”

  “Okay, I guess we could blow it in place when the Posleen get here.”

  “Yes, sir, we could, but I was thinking, the ammo dump isn’t far from the armory and I’ve got that detail still on site…”

  “And you think there might be better places to put the ammo than in the ammo dump.”

  “Yes, sir. Face it, the dump is designed to contain an explosion,” said the sergeant major with a feral smile.

  “Well, Sergeant Major, why don’t you just take charge of that little detail.” The colonel smiled back. Good subordinates were such a treasure.

  “Yes, sir!”

  * * *

  Shari stumbled into the crowd behind the Public Safety Building and carefully lowered Kelly and Susie to the ground. Billy let go of her skirt and sat down, his eyes wide and unseeing. She slumped beside him as the two girls huddled into her lap, Susie quietly whimpering from the broken blisters on her feet and the sights glimpsed over her mother’s shoulder. A woman coming through the crowd stopped and stared, then walked over.

  “Are you in the pool?” she asked abruptly.

  Shari looked at her with wide unemotional eyes. It took a long moment to register her question. “What?” she croaked.

  “Are you in the basket? Did you enter your name to be drawn?”

  “Drawn for what?” she gasped again, mouth and throat dry from dehydration and agonizingly extended fear.

  Finally the woman grasped that Shari was suffering from more than the general shock of the loathsome afternoon drawn into evening. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Shari started to laugh quietly and the laughs began to segue into sobs.

  Every step she took, from the parking lot to where the Army and police were digging in along the interstate, she knew would be their last. Time and again she heard the centaurs drawing closer, only to be delayed by some more interesting target. When she was forced to pick up Susie, drawing her already slow progress to a crawl, she was overcome with the utter certainty that her babies were going to die. And from what she had heard behind her it was going to be one of the worst of all possible deaths.

  The pain-racked march was a drawn-out nightmare, in which the monsters were always just behind you and you knew that at any moment they would touch you and then you would die. But this was no nightmare; this was a stark reality as the sun set behind her in a blaze of red and she dropped into the shadows of Salem Hill to the acc
ompaniment of dying screams.

  The passing matron waved for one of the tending fire fighters as Shari began to collapse into hysterics. The EMT came over, readying a dose of Hiberzine.

  “No,” said one of the other paramedics. She grabbed Shari by her shoulders and forced her to look up. “You have to keep together,” she snapped. “We need you; we need all the mothers. You’re Shari Reilly, right?”

  Shari nodded her head, still unable to stop the sobs. The girls started crying softly in response as Billy just sat and rocked, looking into the deepening twilight.

  “You came in from Central Park?”

  “Uh-huh,” Shari sobbed, unable to catch her breath.

  “All you have to do is hang on until they call your name, okay? It’s a lot easier than walking from Target to the interstate. We got a call on you. Let me see your daughter’s feet.”

  As the paramedic tended to Susie, Shari slowly got herself under a little better control.

  “You’re going through a normal reaction,” said the medic, soothingly. “You’ve had a shock, Jesus, we all have! But yours was worse. You go through a reaction period. You held out until you were here, which is better than most. You held it together getting out of the… the…”

  “Out of hell,” said Billy.

  Shari squeezed her son to her. “Are you gonna be okay, baby?”

  “I… I…”

  “It’s okay, baby, we’re safe.”

  “No, we’re not, Mom. Don’t lie.”

  “Son,” said the medic firmly, “the engineers are building the best damn shelter they can to protect you, and the rest of us are going to try to make sure there’s nothing to draw the Posleen in. We’re gonna do our level best to save you, I promise you that.”