Widmark was a fit, healthy man. He reached the underside of the cargo rover before Andrew, who was panting as he tried to keep up. Arness arrived soon after to find the first two men stooping to fit under the rover's rear end, staring up at the immaculate steel surface above their heads.

     "How do you open the hatch?" demanded Widmark, pulling at the recessed handle which stubbornly refused to move.

     "I told you, you can't while the inner airlock door's open," Andrew replied. "But there's a way to close it from out here." He began searching the underside of the rover.

     "How long will that take?"

     "Just a couple of minutes."

     "Too long. We'll use explosives. Blow the doors open."

     "You can't do that! You'll decompress the whole rover."

     "I don't have a problem with that," said Arness flatly.

     "Well I do," said Andrew, surprising himself with the firmness of his voice. "If Valentina's not wearing her helmet, it'll kill her. Ah, there it is." A short distance further along was another recessed handle, folded neatly into several short segments. He pulled it out and fitted its segments together to create a long crank handle that he began turning.

     "What are you doing?" asked Widmark.

     "This will close the inner airlock door," Andrew replied. "Unless she's wedged it open. It seems to be turning okay, though." He cranked the handle around and around, grunting with the effort, until a green light lit up beside it. "That's it," he said. "The hatch should open now."

     Widmark pulled at the handle again and this time the hatch opened, releasing a brief gust of air that froze instantly to fall to the ground as a shower of ice crystals. The soldier stared up through the circular hole, wondering how he was going to pull himself up through it, until Andrew reached up to pull down a steel ladder. The soldier gave him a glance of slight annoyance, then began to climb.

     The hatch opened into a cylinder, two metres long, that reached up through the rover's lower level to another hatch in the floor of the airlock. Reaching and opening it, Widmark cautiously raised his eyes high enough to look around. "I can't see her," he said, "but I can only see the airlock."

     "Joe said she wanted to plant explosives around the atomic generator," said Andrew, "so she's probably in the lower level. The access hatch down to it is in the floor of the cockpit. No, wait!" he said as the soldier braced himself to climb up into the airlock. "She shot your two men but she didn't shoot Joe. She let him go."

     "So?" said the soldier.

     "She was probably reluctant to hurt someone she knew. You're strangers. She may have found it easier to shoot strangers. If I go in, I may be able to talk her down without any shooting."

     "She may have killed two of my men," said Widmark coldly. "I'd have no problem shooting her if it proves necessary."

     "What if your bullet hits the atomic generator? You could release a lethal dose of radiation. Let me go in. I may be able to talk her down."

     "I can't risk the life of a civilian. We're trained for this kind of situation."

     "You don't know her. I do. I know what to say. Let me go in."

     "No, Andy!" came Susan's voice over the radio.

     "It's okay, Susy," said Andrew. "It's Val. I can't believe she'll hurt me. Not if I go in unarmed, just to talk. The soldiers had guns. She was defending herself. She can just point a gun at me and tell me to keep back." He turned back to Widmark. "Please," he begged. "Please let me try."

     The soldier looked torn for a moment, but then he nodded and climbed back down. He then stood aside to let Andrew take his place on the ladder. "Keep your channel open," he said. "If we hear anything we don't like, we're coming in shooting."

     Andrew nodded gratefully and began climbing. At the top, he paused as Widmark had done, with his eyes just above the floor, looking around, but there was still no sign of Valentina. Andrew climbed the rest of the way up to stand fully in the airlock, then closed the hatch in the floor. He filled the airlock with air using the control panel on the wall, then took off his helmet. Then he cautiously opened the inner door.

     "Val?" he called out. Ahead of him, the corridor hugged the side of the rover, bypassing the main cargo hold that filled most of the rover's internal volume. A row of small hatches in the right hand wall led to smaller cargo spaces. Andrew ignored them. Ahead of him he could see the door to the small, rudimentary cockpit, hardly ever used as the cargo rover almost always drove itself. What held his attention, though, was the machine gun lying in the middle of the corridor. One of the machine guns used by the New Philadelphia soldiers. There were also a number of spent shell casings lying beside it. Andrew knew almost nothing about guns, but the shell casings looked about the right size to have come from the machine gun.

     Andrew closed the inner airlock door behind him, so the soldiers could follow him up, then stepped carefully past the machine gun and continued forward. There were no bullet holes in the cockpit door, he saw as he got closer. That was strange. If one of the soldiers had been standing where the machine gun had fallen and had fired forwards, there should be bullet holes. How could there not be?

     I didn't look the other way, he suddenly thought. I didn't look to see if there were bullet holes in the outer airlock door. No, that's silly. Why would the soldier have been shooting in that direction? He put the question out of his mind and continued on.

     There was a noise coming from the other side of the door. A rhythmic bumping. Was that Valentina? he thought. What was she doing? "Val?" he called out. "It's me, Andrew. Are you okay? I'm unarmed, there are no soldiers with me. It's just me. Val? Can you hear me?"

     There was no reply, but the bumping increased in intensity. "Val?" Andrew repeated. "I'm going to open the door. Please don't shoot me."

     He opened the door a crack, holding his body well to the side in case any bullets came shooting out. Then he peered cautiously in. Valentina was lying on the floor behind the seats, tied up with electrical wire and gagged with a dirty rag. She stared up at him with eyes wild with anger and frustration and Andrew stared back, momentarily paralysed with surprise.

     "Damn!" he exclaimed. He slammed a hand against the wall mounted intercom, selecting the 'Broadcast on all channels' option. "Joe's the remainer! He shot the soldiers and tied up Valentina as a distraction. He wanted us all here so he could..." The truth hit him like a thunderbolt and he stared out the cockpit window trying to see him. "The furnace! He must be going after the furnace."

     Widmark appeared in the cockpit door. "Untie her," Andrew ordered, still staring out the window. There was no sign of him near the furnace. Could he be after something else? What?

     Then he saw him, emerging from one of the habitat's vacant airlocks carrying one of the soldier's rifles slung over one shoulder and carrying a large bag filled with bulky objects. Explosive charges, Andrew guessed. Taken from one of the hab rovers. Andrew turned to run, then stopped. There was no possible way he could get there in time to stop the boy blowing up the furnace. Not on foot.

     He fell into the rover's pilot's seat, noticing as he did so that Valentina was still bound and gagged behind him. The soldier was too busy staring at Joe and his carrybag of charges. "Untie her," Andrew repeated. "I've got my hands full here."

     Widmark glared at him, looking for a moment as if he was going to tell him to stop trying to give him orders, but then he nodded. He couldn't drive the rover. Andrew could. He fell to his knees beside Valentina, therefore, pulling at the gag while Andrew disconnected the rover from the habitat. He powered up the engines, cursing the precious seconds lost as heating coils warmed up the drive motors, then drove the rover a few metres forward. Then he turned the massive vehicle, aiming it towards the furnace, and drove it forward at maximum speed.

     "What's going on?" demanded Arness, also appearing in the doorway. "Good, you caught her."

     "Joe's the remainer," said Andrew, not taking his eyes off Joe. The boy had seen the rover speeding towards him and was now running for the furnace. "Get back to the airlock," Andrew added. "Get ready to jump out and get him when we get close enough. Watch out, he's got a gun."

     "You don't give the orders around..." began Arness.

     "Do as he says!" snapped Widmark. "He knows this environment. We don't."

     Arness glared at Andrew, but then he nodded and retreated back down the corridor. "And no shooting!" Andrew shouted after him. "He's just a confused kid."

     "That confused kid shot two of my men," Widmark said, pulling the gag out of Valentina's mouth. "He's earned himself life in jail at the very least. If either of my men dies, he hangs for murder."

     Valentina coughed and gasped as the soldier grabbed a shoulder to turn her over so he could get at her wrists. "He took them by surprise," she said. "Grabbed a gun from one of them and shot them before they could react. He did it without the slightest change of expression, like their lives were nothing."

     The wires binding her wrists were simply twisted together. Widmark untwisted them to free her hands, then left, chasing after Arness, leaving Valentina to finish untying herself. She rolled onto her back and leaned forward to reach the wires around her ankles.

     "He must have been working with Fox the whole time," she said. "He helped Fox steal the dysprosium from Sellafield, then let him tie him up so no-one would suspect him. And it worked. We trusted him. I trusted him. I feel like such a fool."

     "We all trusted him," said Andrew, still without taking his eyes off Joe. The boy had reached the furnace now and had carefully placed the bag of charges on the ground at his feet. Then, with one backward glance at the rover speeding toward him, he picked up one of the charges and placed it on the side of the furnace, setting the timer and activating it.

     The rover pulled up beside the furnace and Andrew spun it around so that the airlock at the rear was facing the boy. On one of the monitor screens, showing images taken by the rear facing camera, he saw the two soldiers jumping out, dropping and rolling at the bottom of the two metre drop. They scrambled back to their feet before frostbite could set in, but it had given Joe the time he needed to react.

     Andrew had expected the boy to go for his gun, but instead he grabbed another explosive charge from the bag, then ducked behind the furnace to shelter from the soldiers' fire. The soldiers ran forward, but Joe was doing something to the charge and then he threw it to land at Arness's feet. The boy must have set the timer to just a couple of seconds because it exploded immediately. There was no shock wave in the vacuum but both soldiers were showered with shrapnel, tearing through their surface suits and allowing blood to shower out in crimson shards of ice.

     Arness was clearly killed immediately. He fell to the ice and lay still, the lower half of his suit reduced to tatters. Widmark fared better, though. He was still on his feet, but his suit was holed in several places and he was losing air, blood and heat. He would be dead in moments unless he got back into a habitable environment quickly and he knew it. He gave Arness a quick glance, enough to tell him that there was nothing he could do for him, and then he ran back to the rover's airlock.

     Joe waited a moment to make sure the soldiers were no further threat to him before going back to the bag and taking out another charge. Andrew swore, then jumped from his seat. "Where are you going?" cried Valentina, rubbing her wrists. Andrew didn't answer. He left the cockpit and ran for the airlock, picking up his helmet as he went and putting it back on his head.

     Widmark had set the airlock to emergency recompression, filling it with air much faster than normal, and he was staggering out as Andrew arrived. He heard Valentina gasp at the sight of him, she must have followed him from the cockpit. Andrew left Valentina to look after the soldier, scooped up the abandoned machine gun he'd seen earlier and jumped into the airlock.

     "Joe!" he cried while the inner door was still closing behind him. "Don't do this! We can talk!"

     The boy didn't reply, and Andrew imagined the boy calmly attaching a second charge to the furnace, then a third. How long had he set the timers? he wondered. Long enough for him to set several charges and get to a safe distance. Sixty seconds? Less? How many of those seconds were left?

     Behind him, the inner door finished closing and he opened the outer door, letting the rush of escaping air carry him out with it. He fell to the ground, landing hard and scrambling back to his feet before the cold could set in. "Joe! It's me! It's Andrew! I just want to talk!"

     "There's nothing to talk about," the boy replied, sounding calm and sure of himself. The contrast with the shuddering, emotional wreck he'd been a few moments before was striking. The boy was one hell of an actor.

     "I have to do this to save a hundred thousand lives," Joe continued. "To save the human race. The Return can't take place. It's suicide for all mankind."

     Andrew raised the machine gun but Joe already had his own weapon raised and pointing at him. "Put it down," he ordered. "Please, Andy. I don't want to hurt you." Andrew carefully lowered the weapon to the ice with a sick feeling of helplessness, then raised his hands.

     "Joe!" came Philip's angry voice over the radio. "Stop what you're doing right now! Don't you dare!"

     "I'm sorry, dad." For the first time there was a trace of emotion in the boy's voice. "You have to understand. I'm doing this to save lives. So many lives. Everyone we know. All our friends."

     "Joe!" Philip said, his tone changing as he realised anger wouldn''t work. "It's not too late. You can just deactivate the charges and everything'll be all right. it'll be just like before. Just you, me and Stacey."

     Andrew doubted the New Philadelphians would see it that way. The boy had killed one of them now, and it sounded as if they had the death penalty for such things. If that was so, then the boy was already as good as dead no matter how this situation played out. He had nothing to lose by blowing himself up with the furnace. No, he thought desperately. It can't end like this. If Joe succeeded in blowing up the furnace, there would be no time to fetch another from New London, and he doubted New Philadelphia could supply such a thing. If the furnace was blown up, The Return was finished.

     He glanced down at the machine gun lying on the ice at his feet, wondering if he could reach down and snatch it up before Joe could react, but the boy was still aiming his own weapon at him. There was no need for him to attach more charges. Two would do the job very nicely. Joe didn't have to do anything else but keep an eye on Andrew to make sure he didn't try anything and he'd won. There was nothing Andrew could do about it.

     Then he felt a vibration in the ice. The bulldozer racing towards them at its maximum speed, Philip at the controls. "Joe!" he pleaded. "Don't make me do this."

     Andrew was stunned. Was Philip actually prepared to kill his own son if that was the only way to stop him? Andrew knew there was no way he'd be able to do such a thing. He would kill himself before he hurt one of his own children, no matter what the circumstances. Joe spun around to face the bulldozer, though, as if he believed his father might actually do it. He raised his machine gun and fired off a burst towards his father. Philip ducked down behind the instrument panel and bullets bounced off the yellow painted steel with showers of sparks.

     Andrew took the opportunity to snatch up the machine gun at his feet and point it towards Joe, but then he froze. He couldn't do it. He couldn't take a human life, no matter what the stakes. Certainly not to save a piece of equipment no matter how important a piece of equipment it was.

     But then he remembered Jasmine. Lying in a coma because Joe had tried to kill her. He had snuck into her room while she'd been lying unconscious and helpless and had poured poison into her body. A cold blooded attempt to commit murder, to save his secret from being revealed. Jasmine, he thought, fury rising inside him. My daughter. My sweet daughter, threatened and bullied into infecting her family with a deadly disease, then wracked with guilt when she realised what she'd done. Rage filled him and his finger tightened on the trigger.

     Philip was driving directly towards Joe in an attempt to run him down, but Joe was aiming the machine gun at him, the length of its clip telling him that he still had plenty of ammunition left. He fired again and some vital piece of machinery was hit, bringing the bulldozer to a halt. Joe ran forward to the side of the bulldozer, to where he had a clear view of his father. He aimed the machine gun directly at his chest while Philip could only stare with horrified disbelief.

     Andrew fired. The recoil was fiercer than he'd expected and it spun him around, sending most of his bullets flying off into empty space. One bullet hit Joe, though, who doubled over and staggered back, a gasp of shock coming over the radio. Andrew stared in shock, horrified by what he'd done, but then he remembered the furnace and ran over to it, dropping the machine gun onto the ice. The timer on the first explosive charge was down to its last few seconds. Threw, two.. Andrew slammed his hand against the 'disarm' button and the timer stopped at one.

     He disarmed the second charge, then looked across at Joe, suddenly worried that the boy might have recovered from a minor injury and be about to shoot him. The boy was still doubled over, though, as if gripped by some unbearable agony in his abdomen. Philip had jumped out of the bulldozer and was running over to him. He crouched down, a lifetime of ingrained training keeping his knees from touching the ice even in these tragic circumstances, and gathered the boy up in his arms. "My son," Andrew heard him sobbing over the radio. "My son."

     Andrew crept cautiously towards them, worried that the father might turn furiously on him for shooting his son, but Philip seemed hardly aware he was there. "We have to get him inside," said Andrew softly. "Quickly."

     Philip nodded and picked up the boy, whose head lolled unconsciously. He ran towards the cargo rover's airlock, jumping in through the outer door and slamming a hand against the 'emergency recompress' button. Andrew had to wait for the airlock to cycle before he could follow them in, but when he finally joined the others in the cramped corridor the boy was dead.