read Cecil’s mind, literally read every thought he ever had. It was fascinating, like peeking into someone’s brain. For a moment, it almost made me forget my circumstances.
Then I saw it, something in Cecil’s thoughts from months back. I didn’t understand at first, but as I looked before and after, reading, gradually awareness dawned on me, quickly replaced with horror. Cecil’s thoughts were all consistent and repeated regularly. Cecil’s plots, his schemes unfolded before me, and I saw how easy I had been to manipulate. My hands gripped the console ever tighter and I felt like I entered a nightmare. No, there was no way it could be true.
But of course, it was.
My friend? Cecil? My protégé?
A Traitor.
Et tu brute? Cecil? Judas? And slowly, awareness replaced the shock. Awareness, anger, and loathing. I hated him, even though filled with bewilderment at what he had become.
Cecil stood on the grandest scale of all, with Hitler and all other vile, malevolent sociopaths. Like Kali the Hindu death-god. Satan, the opposer of all things good. Cecil was the fulfillment of all their dreams, the final would-be destroyer of the human race.
He planned it all along. He manipulated me to drive this asteroid into the moon…all so his program could keep running. The petulant little bastard. He knew that when we arrived at L4 that was it, we were done, and I wouldn’t need him. And so he was going to destroy everyone, an entire planet, so that he could exist.
He didn’t even know he would survive the crash, but he was willing to kill us all just for the chance. Then what? Nothing? Eternity? The amorality of him! That machine! That ugly little machine. But he was dead now. Dead forever. And staying dead.
And now, I would clean up his mess. Hell if I wouldn’t!
I went back to the orientation screen and looked at the alignment. Using the specs from the manual, I guessed there would be two-and-a-half spins between the pushing of the button and the explosion. The spin was in the direction of the curved guide, if it remained attached to the hole. What I wouldn’t give to be able to have that primary suit again, to have that welder back. It would be worth another hike out to the dish to know what I was dealing with.
Regret and self-pity. I had to forget those, and just do my job. I watched the asteroid spin on the screen. I got into the rhythm, timed the spin, felt it like music. I swayed forward in time with the button push, but my finger hovered over the button. Take your time, I told myself. Wait for it. One. Two. Three.
Push.
I was finished, and it was good. Bombs away.
In that moment, I knew perfection. Everything was going to continue: the earth, summer and winter, day and night. And in the satisfied blankness of my mind, a thought flashed like a spark in a dark room. The asteroid would rotate between the time the bomb came out of the tube and the time it exploded. The bomb would explode on the side, but only after the asteroid executed a half-turn. The explosion would be right above the dome, above my head. I realized I had about fifteen seconds.
Out the window, the stars were pouring past the window, screaming by fast. My whole world was reeling, but inside I felt so calm. Only one action occurred to me, the one thing still left to do.
I spoke aloud.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
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