Gwendy’s Final Task

Kathy: “What in the hell—”

Adesh, shaking his fists in the air: “You got him! He said you would!”

Jafari: “Got who?”

Dr. Glen: “Oh my dear God in heaven.”

Doc has followed Gwendy’s frozen gaze to the big cage, where the late Gareth Winston’s clothes are floating in a pool of blood and decomposing organs. His throat has been blasted open. What remains of his face looks like a wrinkled and deflated rubber mask. It’s crawling with red and black ants.

Even at this moment, Adesh is the scientific observer rather than the horrified witness. “The ants, they swam down to him! Adaptive behavior! Remarkable!”

Reggie Black leans over and loses his breakfast. Which floats around him in wet chunks. Sam Drinkwater and Dave Graves do the same. Sam manages to catch most of his ejecta, but soon it’s oozing through his cupped hands.

“Get out of here!” Kathy snaps. “Everyone out! We’re sealing this room! If he’s got some kind of Andromeda Strain-type disease—”

“He doesn’t,” Gwendy says. “His only disease was greed. And he died of it.”

44

AN HOUR LATER THE nine remaining Eagle Heavy crew members are sitting in the conference room. At Gwendy’s strong suggestion, which has been seconded from the down-below by CIA Chief Charlotte Morgan, the Chinese have been locked off. They will still be able to access the outer rim, but they won’t be able to enter any spokes but their own. Neither Charlotte nor Gwendy think the Chinese will be a problem, but Gwendy is a believer in the late Gareth Winston’s mantra: always safe, never sorry. Of course, she thinks, he never expected Boris.

The button box sits in the middle of the table beside an open (but highly protected) downlink to Charlotte’s office in D.C.. Kathy reaches for the box, and Gwendy has to restrain herself from pushing the commander’s hand away.

After one touch, Kathy pulls her hand back on her own, and fast. Her eyes are wide. “What is that thing?” And without waiting for a reply: “I want a complete report, Gwendy. You may be a United States Senator, but up here I’m in charge and I’m ordering you to tell me everything.” She sweeps a hand around the table. “All of us.”

Gwendy has no problem with that, and not just because they deserve to know. She will also need their cooperation to complete her final task. Charlotte is silent, but Gwendy knows she’s listening.

“I will, but I need to know something first.” She turns to Adesh. “You set a trap for him, didn’t you?”

Adesh nods.

“How did you know to do that? Did you see a man? About your height, wears a black derby hat?” The idea that Farris—sick or well—can be here is ridiculous. At the same time it seems perfectly reasonable to Gwendy. In her experience, Farris can appear anywhere, and disappear just as quickly. It makes her think of an old song by Heart, the one about the magic man.

“I saw no one,” Adesh says, “but I heard a voice. In my head. You see … I’m sorry, this is embarrassing.”

“No need to be embarrassed,” Gwendy says, and takes his hand. “I believe you just played a very large part in saving the earth and everyone on it.”

Sam Drinkwater makes a scoffing sound. Kathy, who has touched the button box and felt its power, makes no sound at all. Her attention is riveted on Gwendy and Adesh “Bug Man” Patel.

“You said not to push the buttons, to not even touch them, and I kept that promise. You must believe me, Gwendy.”

Gwendy nods. Of course she does.

“But … you said nothing about the tiny levers on the sides.”

Now Gwendy gets it. She smiles.

Adesh unbuttons his pocket and brings out a Morgan silver dollar. He floats it across to her, heads and tails spinning lazily above the table. She doesn’t have to look at the date to know it’s 1891.

“The first lever I pulled produced that. I was always going to give it to you, Gwendy—I hope you believe that, too.”

“Yes,” she says, and floats it back with a flick of her finger. “But I want you to keep it. As a souvenir. Then you pulled the other one, yes? And got a chocolate.”

“It was a thing of beauty,” Adesh says, almost reverently. “A little chocolate scorpion, just like Boris.”

“Pandinus imperator.”

He smiles and nods. “Who could say anything is wrong with your memory? It was too perfect to eat, but …”

“You ate it anyway.”

“Yes. Something told me to. The desire was too strong to resist. And that is when I heard the voice. It sounded very old … very tired and rather far away … but completely sure of itself. It said you would see … and know what to do … when the time came.”

Gwendy’s eyes fill with tears. It was Farris, all right, her private deus ex machina. Old and tired, perhaps even dead, but still somewhere. And if anyone deserved a deus ex machina, it was she. And didn’t her personal god from the machine have to be the man who’d gotten her into this in the first place?