ldren were to be picked
completely at random; brown, yellow, black, white, red; sick or well;
genius or moron; every child had an equal chance. This fact, this fact
alone gave every parent hope, and possibly prevented world-wide rioting.

But with the destruction of the planet an almost certainty, the
collective nervous system was just one micron away from explosion.
There was nothing else to think about or talk about, and no one tried to
pretend any different.

Rothwell's eyes moved involuntarily to the little spherical tri-photo on
his desk, just an informal shot he'd snapped a few months back of Martha
and her proudest possessions, their rambunctious, priceless off-spring:
Jim, Jr., in his space scouts uniform, and Mary Ellen with that crazy
hair-do she was so proud of then, but had already forgotten.

"Damn!" he said aloud. "Dammit to hell!" In one quick movement, he spun
his chair around and jabbed at the intercom. "Get the heli!" His voice
crackled.

Grabbing his hat, he yanked open the door and strode into the sudden
quiet of the small office. He turned right and went out through a side
entrance to a small landing ramp, arriving just as his personal heli
touched down. He climbed in. "To the ship."

As he settled back in the hard seat, Rothwell offered a silent thanks
that, instead of asking which ship, Sergeant Johnson promptly lifted and
headed for the gray space vessel that dominated the field.

A few hundred yards from the craft he said, "You'd better set her down
here, Sarge, and let me walk in. Our friends might get nervous about
something flying in at them."

He jumped out, squinting against the hot glare off the concrete, and
then, with a slight uneasiness, stepped into the dark shadow that
pointed a thousand feet along the runway, away from the setting sun. He
walked towards the ship.

A few seconds later, his eye caught a small, unexplained flash and he
threw himself flat just as a section of pavement exploded, a dozen feet
ahead.

Cursing, Rothwell picked himself off the ground, brushed the dust off
his uniform, and stood quietly. He didn't have long to wait.

A small cubicle jutted out from the ship and lowered itself along a
monorail running down to the ground. The side nearest him opened
revealing, as Rothwell expected, Commander Aku and his lieutenant who
both hurried over to where he was standing, as if to keep him from
coming forward to meet them--and in so doing coming nearer the ship