by Ben Bova
Without hesitating, she entered. She looked tense, worried, thinner, tauter, just as beautiful as ever.
"Where's Douglas? Why can't I see him?"
Alec had to struggle to control his voice. "He's perfectly all right. You'll see . . ."
"No, he's not all right. You don't understand."
She seemed genuinely frightened, her eyes wide with fear.
"It's all right," Alec insisted, crossing the tiny room to reach her. "No one's going to hurt him. Don't be afraid."
He took her in his arms, in front of the dead ashes of the dark fireplace. Angela was trembling.
"Alec, please, you've got to let me see him. I don't know how much he's told you . . ." Abruptly she pushed away from him. "Alec, I don't even know if I can believe what you're telling me! You want him dead, don't you?"
"No," he said. "That's over now."
"But it would help if he conveniently died, wouldn't it?"
"That's what he said last night."
"You still don't understand what he's doing, all the plans he's made."
"Yes I do . . ." But suddenly Alec realized that there was still more for him to learn.
"Alec, pleased take me to him," Angela urged.
"Please, right now, before it's too late."
He hesitated only a moment. "All right. Come on. He's still in his own bedroom. We didn't move him because of his leg."
"What about his leg?"
"He broke it in an accident a few days ago . . . fell off his horse."
"No!" she screamed. "He's been in that room for the past month! He's been sick, deathly sick!"
She dashed for the door.
Alec raced after her. They tore down the street, past a startled guard at his front door, heading for Douglas's house. With the perfect clarity of adrenalin-sharpened vision, Alec saw the two guards loafing sleepily in front of Douglas's front door.
Heard the shots. Saw the guards jerk to attention and burst into the house.
"No!" Angela was screaming. "No . . . don't . . . he can't . . ."
More shots. Then no sounds except Alec's own gasping breath and the pulse hammering in his ears. He outdistanced Angela and ran into the house, pushed through the open door and skidded to a halt.
His father lay sprawled at the foot of the steps, his legs resting on the bottom-most stairs. A machine pistol was in his hand, its wire stock grotesquely bent under his heavy forearm. Douglas' chest and gut were covered with bright red blood.
The room smelled of gunsmoke. The two outside guards were standing frozen, guns still hot in their hands. Upstairs, the third guard was kneeling against the railing, babbling:
"He came at me, he came at me. Shooting. He was shooting."
None of the guards were scratched. The cast was gone from Douglas's leg. His eyes were open; his chest heaving in rapid painful gasps.
Angela clattered into the house and broke into a racking sob. Pushing past Alec, she sank to her knees next to Douglas.
"Nooo," she moaned, "Noooo ..."
"It's all right," Douglas said, his voice a throaty groan. "Better this way .
"He was shooting," said one of the guards next to Alec. "You can see the bullet holes all over the walls. He was trying to bust out."
The bullet holes were all up near the ceiling, over the windows, well above head level. Ignoring the guard, Alec bent down on one knee beside Angela, next to his father.
"Why?" he asked. "I would have saved you. I wouldn't let them take you."
Douglas managed to grin at his son. "How do you ..." a gasp of pain, " . . . how do you think I found out about the cancer rate in the settlement?"
Alec's head drooped.
"Only had ... a few months left," Douglas panted. "Sorry to scare your boys . . . tried not to hurt them ..."
He closed his eyes.
Angela collapsed over the dead body. Tears won't help him, Alec said silently. Then he realized that the tears are always for the living, not the dead. All right then. Cry for both of us. Alec couldn't cry. Not now. Perhaps not ever. But surely not now. There was too much to be done.
Too much unfinished work hung in the balance.
He straightened up and turned to the guards.
None of them had moved a millimeter. They were staring at Alec, their own lives showing in their eyes.
"It's all right," he told them softly. "You saved us all a lot of trouble."
They did not relax, but that did not matter.
"You," he pointed to the one nearest the door.
"Get Jameson and Will Russo here. There's work to do."
Then he glanced down at Angela's sobbing form.
To the other two guards he said, "Get outside and don't let anyone in here until I tell you to."
They hurried out of the house. The guard who had been upstairs had to step, shakily, over Douglas' body. Then he ran to the door and left.
Alec knelt down beside Angela again and took her tear-streaked face in his hands. "It's time," he said, as gently as he knew how.
She gazed at him searchingly. "Time for what?"
"To begin."