It was off the ground. It poised uncertainly. It moved upward. Slowly at first, like a rocket: faster and faster, dwindling from Earth, becoming a vanishing pinpoint like a black, daylight star.
Calvin pulled it in with childish joy. It's big! he cried proudly.
It was aimed on target.
Calvin was no longer in Walt's mind.
With a last, exhausting burst of thought, he increased its already terrific speed. The laboratory still stood. The mutants had not realized his shielding was down. He restored it, weakened and quivering.
And they were upon him. He fought them off with his fists and elbows. He dared not displace, lest the shielding should crumble entirely. A few minutes more; if I can just gain a few minutes more, he thought.
He was down. He jerked his head out of the way of a foot. He caught a leg and twisted.
Fingers tore at his throat. He caught someone with a savage and satisfying kick.
Out in space, beyond the orbit of the moon, Fierut detected the Washington Monument on his warning device. It was coming too fast to deflect. He tried.
A heartbeat later, it ripped into the steel of the space station. It crumbled and shattered and sprayed marble, and huge fragments erupted from the opposite side. The space station became visible. There was a great, ragged, tunneling hole from rim to rim. Escaping air spewed wreckage into space. Parts of demolished machinery whirled away. In a yet-sealed compartment, a power system exploded with a great, blinding, soundless flash. Chunks of steel debris, vast shrapnel, blossomed in all directions.