Gary craned his neck upward and saw the silvery flash of ships far overhead.
"The Engineers can't hold out much longer," Kingsley rumbled. "If we are going to do anything we have to do it pretty soon.”
"There is the old space warp again," said Herb. He pointed upward and the others sighted out into space beyond his pointing finger.
There it was… the steady wheel of light, the faint spin of space in motion… they had seen back on Pluto.
The doorway to another world.
"I guess," said Caroline, "that means we have to go." Her voice caught on something that sounded like a sob.
She turned to Kingsley. "If we don't come back," she said, "try the hyperspheres anyhow. Try to absorb the energy in them. You won't have to control it long. Just long enough so the other universe explodes. Then we'll be safe.”
She stepped through the air lock and Gary followed her. He turned back and looked at the three of them… great, rumbling Kingsley with his huge head thrust forward, staring through his helmet, with his metal-shod fists opening and closing; dapper, debonair Tommy Evans, the boy who had dreamed of flying to Alpha Centauri and had come to the edge of the universe instead; Herb, the dumpy little photographer who was eating out his heart because he couldn't go. Through eyes suddenly bleared with emotion, Gary waved at them and they waved back. And then he hurried into the ship, slammed down the lever that swung tight the air-lock valves.
In the control room he took off his helmet and dropped into the pilot's seat. He looked at Caroline. "Good to get the helmet off," he said.
She nodded, lifting her own off her head.