he balcony floor. Then they were gone.

She cried out and rushed and knelt beside him, lifting his shoulders.
"Eric, no! Don't leave me here." She wept and put his head to her neck
and rocked him back and forth, but he only lay there unmoving.

From behind the mountains came a blinding flash, followed after several
hushed breaths by a deep rumbling in the distance. Then all was quiet
and the city, too, was gone. She knelt holding him still, trying to
remember what he said to do if this happened, but for a time could only
cry. She heard the sound of smaller ships approaching but it did not
register. Suddenly she knew she was in danger and must act.

She ran inside, quickly zipped into a coverall, grabbed a flask of
water as she passed out of the room. She ran down the stairs, was out
the door and flying toward the forest while a part of her was still on
the balcony.

She reached the first stubble-shoots, four to six feet high, their blue
branches like thick hair at an angle toward the sun. Brushing past
them, she was just entering the cover of the trees when a small
troop-deploying ship landed amidst the cluster of houses from which she
had fled. Screams broke out but they were cut short, one by one. Her
eyes welled with tears and she stumbled many times but kept going.

After what seemed an eternity she came upon the narrow path, branching
left and gradually rising toward an outlying spur of the hills. But by
now she could go no further. She had just strength and wits enough
left to move a short way off it and collapse into a long dry rill,
overhung with bushes. There for a time, dizziness and fatigue pinned
her. She was too physically spent to feel much sorrow, but at
intervals the knowledge of her husband's death came back to her like a
hollow blow in places she could not defend. At last grief wholly
overcame her.

"Oh, Eric. What am I going to do without you?" She lay there weeping.
Then slowly, like a memory, his words began to come back to her.

"If you get to the deep woods and I still haven't come, you've got to
hide." I'M HIDDEN ERIC. "But that won't do for long. They'll be out
with heat sensors, so you've got to get to the graves." She started to
rise, then fell back. ERIC, I CAN'T. "You must."

She staggered to her feet, found the path, went forward and began
looking for the cluster of gray stones which marked the turnoff. She
found it just as she was ready to quit.

Leaving t