We were closer to ... that.' He flagged an arm at the ship.
She smiled wanly up at him and put her cheek against his shoulder. With most of the makeup scrubbed away, her flesh had an unsettling translucence even her illness, whatever it had been, could not account for.
'Did I? Hurt you?'
'No. Yes. A little.' She smiled. It was that old Bobbi Anderson go-to-hell grin, but a final tear ran slowly down her cheek nonetheless. 'It was worth it. We saved the best for last, Gard.'
He kissed her gently, but now her lips were different. The lips of the New and Improved Roberta Anderson.
'First, last, or in the middle, I didn't have any business making love to you, and you don't have any business out here.'
'I look tired, I know,' Bobbi said, 'and I'm wearing a lot of goop, as you already found out. You were right - I let myself get overtired and I had something like a complete physical breakdown.'
Bullshit, Gardener thought, but he covered this thought with white noise so Bobbi couldn't read it - he did this with barely a conscious thought. Such hiding was becoming second nature to him now.
'The treatment was ... radical. It's resulted in some superficial skin problems and some hair loss. But it'll all grow back.'
'Oh,' Gardener said, thinking: You still can't lie for shit, Bobbi. 'Well, I'm glad you're all right. But you maybe ought to take a couple of days off, put your feet up -'
'No,' Bobbi said quietly. 'This is the time for the final push, Gard. We're almost there. We started this, you and me - '
'No,' Gardener said. 'You started it, Bobbi. You literally stumbled over it. Back when Peter was alive. Remember?'
Gard saw pain in Bobbi's eyes at the mention of Peter. Then it was gone. She shrugged Gardener's qualification off. 'You were here soon enough. You saved my life. I wouldn't be here without you. So let's do it together, Gard. I bet it's no more than another twenty-five feet down to that hatchway.'
Gardener had a strong hunch she was right, but he suddenly didn't feel like admitting it. There was a spike turning and turning in his heart, and the pain was worse than any hangover headache he'd ever had.
'If you think so, I'll take your word for it.'
'What do you say, Gard? One more mile. You and me.'
He sat thoughtfully, looking at Bobbi, noticing again how still, how almost malignant the woods seemed with no birdsong in them.
This is how it would be - this is how it will be - if one of their asshole power plants ever does melt down. The people will have smarts enough to get out - if they're warned in time, that is, and if the power plant in question and the NRC have balls enough to tell them - but you can't tell an owl or woodpecker to clear the area. You can't tell a scarlet tanager not to look at the fireball. So their eyes will melt and they'll just go flapping around, blind as bats, running into trees and the sides of buildings until they starve to death or break their necks. Is this a spaceship, Bobbi? Or is it a great big containment housing that's already leaking? It has, hasn't it? That's why these woods are so quiet, and that's why the Polyester-Clad Neurologist Bird fell out of the sky on Friday, isn't it?
'What do you say, Gard? One more mile?'
So where's the good solution? Where's peace with honor? Do you run? Do you turn it over to the American Dallas Police so they can use it on the Soviet Dallas Police? What? Any new ideas, Gard?
And suddenly he did have an idea ... or the glimmer of one.
But a glimmer was better than nothing.
He hugged Bobbi with a lying arm. 'Okay. One more mile.'
Bobbi's grin started to widen ... and then it became a look of curious surprise. 'How much did he leave you, Gard?'
'How much did who leave me?'
'The Tooth Fairy,' Bobbi said. 'You finally lost one. Right there in the front.'
Startled and a little afraid, Gard raised his hand to his mouth. Sure enough, there was a gap where one of his incisors had been yesterday.
It had started, then. After a month working in the shadow of this thing., he had foolishly assumed immunity, but it wasn't so. It had started; he was on his way to becoming New and Improved.