Kinsman could not sleep that night. He got into his bed and turned off all the lights and display screens and stayed wide awake.
Seven billion of them.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars . . . For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against king- dom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes . . . And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 347
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be.
"Apocalypse," he whispered to himself.
Sitting up in the sweaty, wrinkled bed he fumbled with the keyboard on the nightstand and then stared at the display screen image of Earth floating in the darkness of his room.
". . . famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes . . . nation shall rise against nation ..."
He squeezed his eyes shut and saw the dead cosmonaut again. Hanging in space. Oxygen lines ripped out.
"By my hand."
Kinsman held his hands out before him in the shadows of the darkened room. So you're going to survive while every- body else dies. You're guiltier than they are. You've killed. You didn't push any buttons; you did it the old-fashioned way. With your own hands.
"And if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off." The sound of his own voice in the darkness startled him. He knew it was not the correct quotation, but it fit. It fit.
Sunday meetings. The Sunday they found that a squirrel had gotten into the Meeting House and chewed up half the leather upholstery on the benches.
"Serves us right," his father had said. "Upholstered benches are an affectation."
This from the richest Quaker in Pennsylvania. A strange collection of contrasts he was. Wish I had known him better.
The school kids teasing him because he was a Quaker. Calling him William Penn. The tough ones, the big ones, ganging around him. "Let's see you quake, Quaker." How to get your nose broken. How to learn to talk your way out of a fight.
But there's no way to talk yourself out of this one.
Never to fly a plane again! If they wipe themselves out there will be no airplanes. No airfields.
"Who're you trying to kid?" he asked himself. "You couldn't handle one now. Not after years of living in low gee. You're soft as a sponge. Reflexes gone. Pushing forty."
Why do they have to have their war? In a half century of 348
