Success or failure of the Athena Plan had meant ultimate life or death for Earth. They had taken every precaution possible but the Gern spy system had somehow learned of Athena and the Constellation . Now, the cold war was no longer cold and the Plan was dust.⁠ ⁠…

Billy sighed and stirred in the little-boy sleep that had not been broken by the blasts that had altered the lives of eight thousand people and the fate of a world.

She shook his shoulder and said, “Billy.”

He raised up, so small and young to her eyes that the question in her mind was like an anguished prayer: Dear God⁠—what do Gerns do to five-year-old boys?

He saw her face, and the dim light, and the sleepiness was suddenly gone from him. “What’s wrong, Mama? And why are you scared?”

There was no reason to lie to him.

“The Gerns found us and stopped us.”

“Oh,” he said. In his manner was the grave thoughtfulness of a boy twice his age, as there always was. “Will they⁠—will they kill us?”

“Get dressed, honey,” she said. “Hurry, so we’ll be ready when they let Daddy come back to tell us what to do.”

They were both ready when the “attention” buzzer sounded again in the corridors. Lake spoke, his tone grim and bitter:

“There is no power for the air regenerators and within twenty hours we will start smothering to death. Under these circumstances I could not do other than accept the survival terms the Gern commander offered us.

“He will speak to you now and you will obey his orders without protest. Death is the only alternative.”

Then the voice of the Gern commander came, quick and harsh and brittle: