Tin everything you say, and more." Dallen knelt and held the bomb dose to Beaumont's face. "What's the combination, Derek?"

"I… I don't have it."

"In that case, I'm sorry for you." The possibility that Beaumont was speaking the truth flickered in Dallen's mind, but he refused to consider it. "I'm going to get out of here now — in case this thing blows up sooner than we expect — but I want you to know I'll be thinking about you."

Beaumont's pallor intensified, making his face almost luminescent. "We're going to crucify you, Dallen. Not only you… your wife and kid, as well… just to let you see what it's like… I promise you it's all set up…"

"You've got a great talent for saying the wrong thing," Dallen said, keeping his voice steady in spite of the pounding tumult of his chest. "1 don't want that combination any more. You can keep it — for a while."

He gently inserted the bomb at the juncture of Beaumont's thighs, making it a silver phallus, then straightened up and walked out of the room on legs that suddenly felt rubbery. It's aU gone wrong, he accused himself, putting his back to the opposite side of the same partition that supported Beaumont and breathing deeply to overcome a developing sense of nausea. I should have dumped the bloody bomb and banted Beaumont outside and cleared the area. But now it's too late. It was too late as soon as be brought in Cona and Mikel…

Taking his pipe from a side pocket, he filled it with black and yellow strands, and had put it in his mouth before realising he had no desire to smoke. All at once it seemed incredible, monstrous, that he was squandering the precious minutes of his life in such a fashion. How had he come to be trapped in the rotting carcass of a television store with a would-be murderer and a live bomb? Why was he confined to the claustrophobia and pettiness of Earth when he and his family should be soaring free on Orbitsville?