A few ex-defense workers, reverting to the old banter, the old assessments and guesses, conducted a calm analysis of who was winning, who was still capable of fighting, which hardened weapons sites would open next. "Submarines under the ice caps?" "No—both sides will hold those in reserve for after." "What after? "Who cares?" "What about those trucks—you know, the reverse ground-effect vehicles, hug the ground when the shock wave passes over." "Fuck 'em all."

Spasm.

She closed her eyes as if to block an image of her home absorbing the sudden burst of light and radiation, becoming a carbonized mockery of walls and roof.

And within, slightly protected by the shadow of the house—roasted alive, but not quite carbonized—and then being blasted to fine ash by the shock wave—

Rita and Ramon.

Farley approached Patricia and tapped her on the shoulder, disrupting her reverie. "We can't go back," she said. "The engineers say none of the spaceports are left by now. Vandenberg, the cosmodromes—Kennedy Space Center, even Edwards—gone. We can't get to the Moon, either. Not enough ships or fuel. Nobody'll come up for ten, maybe twenty years. That's what the engineers are saying. We might have a few good fields left in China, but there aren't going to be any shuttles in orbit to rendezvous with the OTVs even if we could go back."

Wu joined them. "Nothing out of China now," he said. "Russia still throwing things. Every city I live in, gone by now. We used to get civil defense instruction in school. We knew where bombs would drop. Russian bombs and maybe even American bombs. Every city had its bombs."

"When's the funeral?" someone asked in the background. There was no laughter, only silence. It was an extraordinarily insensitive joke. Except that it couldn't be a joke. There had to be a funeral when somebody died.

But when billions of people were dead or dying?

Carrolson sat down beside Patricia. "Office ink is all there is," she said laconically. "Wayne is gone, and our son. They're dead by now, I'm sure. You know, in a little while this is going to hurt like hell. Adjusting is going to be. . .” Her cheeks twitched, spotted red as if she were breaking out in a rash. "Rimskaya drank all the booze, the bastard."

"I'm going to the library," Patricia said. "

"Can't," Carrolson said. "Off limits."

"I need something to do."

"Of course." But she offered no suggestions.

"Hey, we have more pictures from the external cameras!" someone yelled. The wide-screen video was wheeled out and connected to the central cafeteria hookup.

Patricia did not look at the video screen. She had seen satellite and lunar telescope pictures of the conflagration in the Thistledown City library. Somewhere on Earth—in Washington or in Pasadena in Hoffman's office—copies of those pictures were being embraced by the destruction they depicted, an ouroboros of doom.

Carrolson watched, however, eyes narrowed, lips drawn back.