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Updated: June 1, 2025
Frank Nelsen's tongue tasted of brassy doubt. He didn't know where he'd be, or what luck, good or bad, he might run into, within the next hour. The Kuzaks were palavering with the occupants of two heavily-loaded trader rockets. "Sure we'll buy if the price is right," Art was saying. "Flasks of water and oxygen, medicines, rolls of stellene. Spare parts for Archies, ionics, air-restorers.
Bad signs came with her, but that fact got lost as she hugged Nelsen quickly there in the dwelling he had set up with the thought it would be their home. At once she went on a feminine exploring expedition of the prefab's interior, and its new, gleaming appointments. Kitchen, living room, sundeck. Nelsen's garden was already well along. "Like the place?" he asked.
But there'll be a plane west from Minneapolis tomorrow." She was getting into her blazer. Even Ramos saw that arguments would be futile. Frank Nelsen's throat ached suddenly, as if at sins of omission. But that was wrong. Eileen Sands was too old for him, anyhow. "So long, you characters," she said. "Good luck. Don't follow me outside. Maybe I'll see you, someplace."
Holy cow, had even she gotten that far, so fast? Suddenly the possibility became a symbol of what the others of the Bunch must be accomplishing, while here he was, trapped, stuck futilely, inside a few bleak square miles on the far side of Earth's own satellite! So here was another force of Frank Nelsen's desperation. He made up his mind which perhaps just then was a bit mad.
Rodan and Dutch were pretty well knocked out from Frank Nelsen's footwork. Now Dave Lester and Helen Rodan came running. Lester's face was all stunned surprise. Helen was yelling. "I saw you do it you murderer!" When she kneeled beside her father, Frank got her gun, too. He felt an awful regret for a plan whose results far surpassed his intentions, but there was no good in showing it, now.
They could only stand their ground, take their fearful chances, be part of it. One of the last things Mitch said, was, "Got any cigarettes, Frank? Selma likes one, once in a while." "Sure. Three packs here inside my Archer. Mighty small hospitality gift, Mitch..." After the 'copter drifted away, it seemed that a curtain drew over Nelsen's mind, blurring the whole memory.
There was another series of deflecting flashes from the defense batteries. Two more domes vanished... Then somehow nothing more. Evidently some of the attackers had been only half hearted, this time. Reprieve... Almost four hundred people were dead. It could have been the whole Town. Then spreading disaster. All Nelsen's friends were okay. The Posts called in okay, too. Nelsen waited three days.
David Lester's name was called just before Frank Nelsen's, and he managed to say, "In order!" almost firmly, creating a damnable illusion, Frank thought. But for a moment, mixed with his anger, Frank felt a strange, almost paternal gentleness, too. At the end of the roll call, the doors of the GO rockets closed.
Frank Nelsen's mouth twisted. "That's enough, pal," he said. "I better go do my sitting tight someplace else. Keep your Archer handy. Thanks, and see you..." Within forty minutes David Lester was showing him some pictures that a hopper had brought in from a vault in a surface-asteroid. On the screen, great, mottled shapes moved through a lush forest.
"You damned, independent bums you, too, Nelsen!" he began to growl. But when he saw Nelsen's jaw harden, he got the point, and grinned, instead. "Okay, Frank. Nobody's indispensible. I might do the same when you come back who knows...?" Frank Nelsen joined a KRNH bubb convoy Earthbound, but also passing fairly close to Mars within a few hours.
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