He didn't want Valhalla. He wanted Clare and William. He wanted to say good-bye in more words than he had put in the letter. In person.

"Please God, let me be calm," he said hoarsely. He flattened his cupped hands into a gesture of prayer, pinching the tip of his nose between his index fingers, closing his eyes. It might have been easier if he had brought a pistol along. "Jesus Jesus Jesus Christ."

Don't let me fuck this one up. Dear God keep my hand from that switch. Hit them back hit them back in the face. God I know you don't take sides but I'm a soldier God and this is what I have to do. Take care of them please Lord of all of us and help us save our home our world. Let this mean something please God.

Nine minutes. He crawled down the horizontal tunnel again and saw the plug was still in place. To make sure it was solid, and not just an illusion, he jumped the three yards and landed his feet squarely on the flat grayness, flexing his knees to break the shock, slamming his elbows and lower arms against the chimney wall. Solid. He stomped on it several times. Nothing. Grimacing from his bruised heels, he braced himself and climbed out of the well, returning to the antechamber.

He refused to allow himself to get closer than six feet from the monkey.

Another way out.

Not likely.

Tit for tat.

"What are you doing, learning more about us, setting up another experiment? Will I or won't I?" He stood on the edge of the antechamber, waving his torch beam across the semiglossy cathedral facets. "I can't make sense out of any of this. Why did you come here? Why can't you just go away, leave me with my wife and family?"

That was enough talking, and a fine sentiment to end all the words he had ever spoken. No more words, he vowed. He broke the vow immediately. Breaking small vows helped him keep to the big one.

"So why don't we talk? I'm not going to push that switch. I won't be around to tell anybody. Talk to me, show me what you're all about."

Five minutes.

"I hear you might have gone clear across this galaxy, gone from star to star. You're part of a planet-eating machine. That's what the newspapers are saying. Lots of people speculating. Aren't you curious what we'd think, what I'd think if I knew the truth? So talk to me." Give me something to hang on to. Some reason. "I'm not touching that switch! That bomb is going to go off."

What if it didn't?

What if he had to spend the next few weeks in here, dying of thirst, all for nothing, because the aliens had found some way to deactivate the weapon? What if they kept him there to starve just as punishment for trying?

Three minutes.