Kneeling beside the monkey, he again reached out for the switch.

You know, this is the first time we've actually gotten a reaction.

He thought that over, biting his lower lip, fingers tensing and relaxing over the switch.

"Maybe you feel threatened," he said aloud. "Maybe for the first time we're getting through to you."

Somehow, that wasn't convincing.

He could not bring himself to flip the switch. He would not be able to reset the timer if he shut the weapon off; the lieutenant had not shown him how to do that.

Fourteen minutes.

The first blow for our side. I'm in charge.

He sat down beside the monkey, reaching out to bring up the radiation jacket and drape it over his knees. Quandary.

The silence within the chamber was absolute.

"If you're listening, damn you, then talk to me," he said. "Tell me about yourself." He chuckled and that sound scared him worst of all, for it told him how close he really was to flipping the switch. He might see his wife and kid again if he flipped the switch; they might not have to receive and read the letter he had posted on his bulletin board. He could see Clare's face, mourning, and his chest hurt.

William's face, sweet five-year-old deviltry pure.

What would he think of himself if he deactivated?

His career might as well be over. He would have fallen back in the face of enemy action and jeopardized their entire defense effort. Others had risked their careers, perhaps even their lives. Rogers did not, right now, want to contemplate how many people up the line had helped to procure this weapon, and how they felt at this moment: possible traitors, lawbreakers, risk-takers. Acting in defiance of the President. Mutineers, rebels.

"God damn, you know us so well," he said to the darkness. "You've twisted us every which way, so casual, and now you think you've got us again." No reply.

The silence of deep space. Eternities.

Twelve minutes.

How many times would his hand reach out, the body pleading, and how many times would something undefined pull it back?

"I won't touch it. Come on out and deactivate it yourself. Maybe I won't put up a fight. Maybe we have something in common now!"

He was hyperventilating. Clasping his hands before his mouth, he tried to rebreathe each gulp of air and slow his frantic lungs. Did judgment of one's courage, valor, require the appearance of nobility, or was an act alone sufficient? If by the end of the—he checked—eleven minutes, he was on the floor, a screaming, weeping madman capable only of keeping his finger away from the switch, would he still get to the Army Valhalla and toss off a few with all the dead heroes? Or would he be turned away, sent to the showers? Wash off that stink of fear, soldier.