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.