"Nine minutes to go, if Place time and cosmic time are
synching."

Beau was steady as a rock and working adjustments so fine that I
couldn't even see his fingers move.

Then, at the other end of the Place, Bruce took a few steps toward us.
Sevensee and Maud followed a bit behind him. I remembered Bruce was
another of our nuts with a private program for blowing up the place.

"Sidney," he called, and then, when he'd got Sid's attention, "Remember,
Sidney, you and I both came down to London from Peterhouse."

I didn't get it. Then Bruce looked toward Erich with a devil-may-care
challenge and toward Lili as if he were asking her forgiveness for
something. I couldn't read her expression; the bruises were blue on her
throat and her cheek was puffy.

Then Bruce once more shot Erich that look of challenge and he spun and
grabbed Sevensee by a wrist and stuck out a foot--even half-horses
aren't too sharp about infighting, I guess, and the satyr had every
right to feel at least as confused as I felt--and sent him stumbling
into Maud, and the two of them tumbled to the floor in a jumble of hairy
legs and pearl-gray frock. Bruce raced to the bomb chest.

* * * * *

Most of us yelled, "Stop him, Sid, pin him down," or something like
that--I know I did because I was suddenly sure that he'd been asking
Lili's pardon for blowing the two of them up--and all the rest of us
too, the love-blinded stinker.

Sid had been watching him all the time and now he lifted his hand to the
Minor Maintainer, but then he didn't touch any of the dials, just
watched and waited, and I thought, "Shaitan shave us! Does Siddy want in
on death, too? Ain't he satisfied with all he knows about life?"

Bruce had knelt and was twisting some things on the front of the chest,
and it was all as bright as if he were under a bank of Klieg lights, and
I was telling myself I wouldn't know anything when the fireball fired,
and not believing it, and Sevensee and Maud had got unscrambled and were
starting for Bruce, and the rest of us were yelling at Sid, except that
Erich was just looking at Bruce very happily, and Sid was still not
doing anything, and it was unbearable except just then I felt the little
arteries start to burst in my brain like a string of fire-crackers and
the old aorta pop, and for good measure, a couple of valves come
unhinged in my ticker, and I was thinking, "Well, now I know what it's
like to die of heart fai