The bombs were coming into sight again, past Kelly’s toes. He was going to collide with them; the retro rockets of the nearest were within two yards and growing as the –
The rockets fired.
There was a puff of exhaust that clouded the metal from the ablative coating of the reentry vehicle itself. Then the cold vapors became three glowing blossoms while the bomb broke away from the cluster, the equivalent of five million tons of TNT fused to detonate one second after release.
With a horrified scream in his throat, Tom Kelly drifted through an invisible portal that left him collapsed at the feet of Wun, who still looked like a swarthy businessman in his human suit and face.
When Kelly wanted to watch the destruction of Fortress a third time, the aliens looped the final twenty seconds of the event and played it over and over while they worked on the human’s finger.
“Does that hurt, Mr. Kelly?” Wun asked through the speakers of the helmet now resting beside Kelly.
“Just a little,” said the veteran, though his wince a moment before had been diagnostic. “Look, it’s okay.”
Three aliens with no concession to human design or accoutrement bent over Kelly’s outstretched left hand. Beyond them and seemingly as much a part of present reality as the five figures – theirs and Kelly’s and Wun’s – hung a vision of Fortress from about a kilometer away. The doughnut was viewed at a flat angle from the south pole, so that the four saucers at the docking module were partly visible over the curve of shielding material. Dora had joined her three dull-finished aluminum sisters and was linked to Fortress by an umbilicus.
The webbing holding the nuclear weapons was illuminated by a flash so intense that aluminum became translucent and only the warheads themselves remained momentarily black.
Most or all of the weapons which absorbed the sleet of radiation from the first 5 megaton warhead also detonated a microsecond later. Fortress – the space station, the saucers which had brought the Nazis to it, and the kilotons of shielding material – became vapor and a retinal memory in a blast that devoured the entire field of view . . . and faded back to the start of the explosion.
“Mr. Kelly,” said Wun peevishly, “the question is not whether you can stand the pain but rather if we can eliminate it. Which we can do unless you pretend stoical indifference.”
Another of the aliens poked toward (though not to) the stump of Kelly’s finger with an instrument that looked like a miniature orange flyswatter. “Does that hurt?”
“There’s a dull ache on the – the lower side,” said the veteran, pointing with his right index finger. He hated to look at the amputation, though the aliens had closed the wound neatly with something pink the texture of fresh skin. He’d get used to the loss, as he’d gotten used to other things.
The orange instrument twisted. The ache disappeared. Fortress vaporized again in the ambiance beyond.
“Where will you have us place you when your injury is repaired, Mr. Kelly?” asked Wun, his eyes on Kelly while his voice came disconcertingly from the helmet at an angle to the figure.
“You’re going to get in touch with governments now?” Kelly said. Lord knew what that blast would do to communications on the planet below, but there’d be auroras to tell the grandkids about. There’d be grandkids for those who wanted them, and that made it worthwhile. “Formal contact, I mean?”
Hell, it’d have been worthwhile if Tom Kelly had become part of the ball of glowing plasma he’d created with the help of Wun and a lot of luck.
And whatever.
“We can return you to the base from which you were launched into orbit, for instance,” said Wun. The other three aliens stepped back as if to admire the repair work they had completed on the human’s finger. It was as perfect as it could be without the portion the bullet had excised.
The loop of destruction flared again. Cheap at the price.
“I’ve been told in worse ways I oughta mind my own business,” said Kelly, grinning at Wun. “And no. I don’t want to go back to El Paso any time soon.”