Chapter Thirty-One

Across a wide, lush meadow framed by tall evergreens, Ryan saw the glowing lights of the crude log cabin. Warm. Yellow. Inviting. They said "home."
Home at last.
When he saw his companions step out onto the porch, smiling, he broke into a trot. Krysty ran out to meet him, her beautiful hair flowing down around her shoulders. They kissed, and her lips were softer and warmer than he had ever thought possible.
Then the others rushed up. Dean, Jak, Mildred, Doc and J.B. They took turns embracing him and slapping him on the back.
"Come on inside, Ryan," the Armorer said. "We got quite a meal laid out in honor of your return."
They took him through the wooden door. Beside the hearth was a table set for seven. On it was a huge haunch of smoked roast boar, pots of yams, stewed greens, jugs of dark ale, crusty bread.
"Sit at the head of the table, dear boy," Doc said, as he sharpened a carver on a steel. The old man attacked the juicy haunch, slicing it into thick slabs.
Soon they were hard at it, laughing, eating, drinking.
After the apple pies had been vanquished, as the brimming ale jug went around a last time, a sudden pall fell over the table.
Ryan looked at his friends and saw the growing unease on their faces.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
J.B. waved him off, scraping back his chair. He started to get up, then slumped back down. He seemed perplexed.
"I feel decidedly queer," Doc admitted. He stuck out his tongue and wiped it on his white cloth napkin. He gawked at the result in horror. "Look! Look at this"
The napkin was green where he had touched it to his tongue.
Mildred fell into a kind of fit. She clutched both hands to her throat and made sounds as if she were slowly strangling. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets, then thin trickles of green started to leak out of her nostrils.
Dean was bashing his forehead against the end of the table, over and over, as if he were trying to beat in his own brains.
Jak was gagging, green fluid gushing from his eyes.
"What is it?" Ryan said, jumping to his feet.
J.B.'s swollen tongue protruded from between his teeth; it had become too big for his mouth to contain. Green slime drooled down his chin.
Then Krysty slumped forward onto her plate.
He pulled her up at once. When he saw her face, his heart nearly stopped. Beads of green dew dotted her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were wild and staring, and they wept green tears.
"Was it something we ate?" Ryan cried, sweeping the remains of the food off the table and onto the floor. "Why aren't I sick?"
Krysty's mouth moved; no sound came out. He put his ear close. Her breath smelled shockingly of ammonia.
"Krysty, why am I the only one who isn't sick?" he repeated.
She inhaled a deep, slow breath, summoning her strength. Then she said, "Because you brought it with you"
She died in his arms a moment later.
As Ryan threw back his head to scream his outrage, the room began to spin.

HIS EARS RINGING with thunder, Ryan crashed onto his hands and knees. He dropped his head and began to heave. A tiny, detached part of him was aware that Nara and Damm were close by, and in the same condition that he was. He also knew they were surrounded by armed men in battlesuits. He saw his friends standing huddled to one side. He wanted to jump up and go to their aid, but there was nothing he could do. He was helpless in the throes of nausea. Over and over, the spasms gripped him. Unstoppable.

When they finally calmed, he knelt there, forehead lowered to the ground, strands of vomit swaying from his chin.
"Well, I guess I was wrong about your never seeing this one again."
Ryan recognized the voice. It belonged to the colonel. He raised his head from the dirt, put his hand to his stomach and pretended to retch some more. As he did, his fingers dipped inside his pocket for the slap charge he had squirreled away.
Ryan waited, because he knew he was weakened, and that he would only have one chance.
When the colonel stepped a little closer, Ryan threw himself at the man. He grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him, then locked a forearm across the bottom of his helmet.
The other black-armored men started to close in immediately.
"What exactly do you think this is going to get you?" the colonel said with a laugh. "You can't hurt me."
"Mebbe I can't, but this can."
Ryan showed him the AP, charge, holding it right in front of his nose. Then he said to the others, "Lower your blasters or this guy's head is going to disappear."
"Cook him," the colonel said.
"Sir, I think he means it," Hylander said.
"And I think he's bluffing. Take him out!"
"No, don't!" Nara cried as she struggled to her feet. "I know him, Colonel. He will kill you."
The colonel shrugged. "I'm expendable, Jurascik. Just like any of the others. Just like you. The mission will go on without me. And that's all that matters."
"There isn't a mission anymore," Nara told him. "On the other side, it's all falling apart. Right now, FIVE is probably already at war with itself. There's not going to be an exodus from Earth. Not of a million, not even a thousand."
"She's right," Damm said. "The only people who are going to come across after us are a handful of CEOs and Totality Concept bigwigs. The rest of the hundred billion is as good as dead. My guess is, the bastards have arranged it so no one else can follow."
"Things could come together again," the colonel said. "Sometime in the future maybe."
"You've got to face facts. There's not going to be a next time. This is the final gasp."
"I know that's a possibility"
"Colonel, I wouldn't joke about something like this," Nara said. "Believe me, it's done. It's over. I saw it. For better or worse, as it now stands, we six are the sole survivors of planet Earth."
As the truth slowly settled in, Gabhart seemed to sag in Ryan's grasp. He loosened his hold on the man's chest and said, "I want you other three to put your weapons down on the ground, then take three big steps back from them."
After they'd obeyed his order, the companions moved in and picked up the strange blasters.
"Now, out of those armor suits," Ryan said. "All of you. Help them, Damm."
Under their high-tech gear, the soldier-scientists of the parallel earth were less than impressive. They looked undernourished, and they wore threadbare jumpsuits. The toes of all their white polyester socks had holes in them.
When they were out of their armor and seated on the ground, Ryan released the colonel. Krysty immediately rushed over and gave him a hug.
"You did it, Ryan!" she cried. "You came back!"
Standing beside Damm, Nara watched as they kissed tenderly. When their lips parted and Ryan glanced over at her, the blonde shook her head sadly. "Something told me you were taken," she said.
"I can't believe this is happening," Gabhart said, as Damm removed his chest plate and tossed it aside.
"They were so close to making it all work, and it would've worked."
"Don't know about that," the mercie said. "The same mentality that fucked up the planet in the first place was in charge. If you look at it that way, what happened isn't any big surprise."
"You really think they're coming over here?" Ockerman said from his seat on the curb. "The scum-sucking CEOs, I mean."
"I think they're probably going to try," Ryan answered.
"You can bet they're going to try," Nara said.
"What are we going to do with their missile?" Hylander asked. "There's sure no point in launching it. Without the technology to use it, the satellite's nothing but orbiting junk."
"Why don't you send it back?" Ryan said.
Hylander frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, launch it back through the passage, before the damn thing shuts for good."
They all looked at the tornado, still dimly visible, hovering in the middle of the street.
"As I understand it," Ryan went on, "even though the gate's closed on the other side, stuff from here can still get sucked back the other way. That's how Nara and I got pulled in."
Do you have any idea what would happen if we launched the missile into the passage?" the colonel said.
"Enlighten us, please," Doc said.
"For starters, it would take off the top thirty stories of TC complex."
"I don't have a problem with that," Ryan said. "Does anybody else?"
The companions all shook their heads.
"Sounds good to me," Hylander said.
"Hey, I'm up for it, too," Ockerman said. "Give the bastards back their techno-rubbish and hand them their heads at the same time."
"Why don't you sit down for a while, Colonel," Ryan said, "and let your boys see to the details?"
Gabhart sat heavily on the curb, his head in his hands.
With Krysty by his side, Ryan watched as the crew turned the mobile gantry, then carefully lowered the nose of the missile until it lined up with the shimmering bit of space in the middle of Moonboy.
"We left the countdown at T-minus four," Hylander said.
Gabhart raised his head. "Once you reinitiate the sequence," he said, "we'd better all move to safer ground. There's no telling what will happen."
They took cover behind the collapsed porch roof across the street.
When the numbers fell to zero, orange flame fifty yards long whooshed from the rocket's tail nozzles. That was all that happened for a few seconds. Then when sufficient thrust was built up, the clamps fell away, and the missile surged forward.
The hole in space gobbled it.
And when the tail fins vanished, the canyon resounded with a solemn thunderclap that announced the end of a world.