"Wait," he called. But she was gone. "Pat," he called out, once, twice. That unemotional voice was a dead give away. Something worse had happened and she didn't dare tell him.

Curt Wing dragged his body out of the bed. It screamed in agonized protest. Somehow, his mind held together against the shock and hurt that poured into it as he pulled his body upright, focused his eyes, looking for something to wear instead of the brief hospital garment. Dead-Eye, from the next bed, asked weakly, "Where you going, Cap?" Wing didn't answer. He was delving into a wall locker, dragging out a burnt tunic, finding torn and broken sandals.

A white-gowned nurse barred his way in the hall.

"You can't leave, Commander. In your condition, you'll kill yourself," she said gently.

"Why not?" Wing grated. "I should be dead anyway. What's a few more minutes more or less? Life won't be any fun anyway if Earth is lost." He had to use his hand to guide himself along the wall as he pushed his weary, beaten body toward outside.

Behind him, he heard Dead-Eye calling, "Wait for me and Elizabeth, Cap. We're coming, too."

Outside, it was raining--unobtrusively but relentlessly. The early afternoon was drab, but in the little park across the hospital courtyard, there was color. The circular beds of pink roses, of multi-colored pansies, of bluebells seemed brighter for the rain which beat so gently at them. Wing heard the muted twittering of birds as he stood on the hospital steps. He looked up into the lowering sky and let the raindrops beat at his bandaged face. The door behind him opened and Dead-Eye came stumbling out.

Wing breathed deeply of the wet air, felt it clearing the heat and pain from his mind.

He looked at Dead-Eye, then toward the east where the blue radiance suffused the sky. "Let's go," he said simply.

They hadn't trudged far in the rain before they found out what Pat Packer's unemotional voice had meant. Terror was riding through the city, whipping the men and women of Earth into madness and death. As the two of them moved closer to the edge of the blue flower, wild-eyed humans fled past them, casting fearful glances behind. These panic-stricken humans ran silently, except for the gasps which burst from tortured throats. Abandoned children sobbed as they ran, not knowing nor caring where they went--driven by the fear of what was behind them.

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