the way the ducts run?' he said.
'We're going to have to change the whole setup,' Chip said. 'In here too.'
They false-touched and went into the room where coveralls hung on hooks. No one was in it. Chip closed the door and pointed to the closet where the orange coveralls were kept.
They put orange coveralls on over their yellow ones, and toeguards on their sandals. They tore openings inside the pockets of the orange coveralls so that they could reach into the pockets of the inner ones.
A member in white came in. 'Hello,' he said. 'Merry Christmas.'
'Merry Christmas,' they said.
'I was sent up from '765 to help out,' he said. He was about thirty. 'Good, we can use it,' Chip said.
The member, opening his coveralls, looked at Dover, who was closing his. 'What have you got the other ones on underneath for?' he asked. 'It's warmer that way,' Chip said, going to him. He turned to Chip, puzzled. 'Warmer?' he said. 'What do you want to be warmer for?'
'I'm sorry, brother,' Chip said, and hit him in the stomach. He bent forward, grunting, and Chip swung his fist up under his jaw. The member straightened and fell backward; Dover caught him under the arms and lowered him to the floor.
He lay with his eyes closed, as if sleeping. Chip, looking down at him, said, 'Christ and Wei, it works.' They tore up a set of coveralls and tied the member's wrists and ankles and knotted a sleeve between his teeth; then lifted him and put him into the closet where the floor polisher was. The clock's 9:51 became 9:52.
They wrapped their kits in orange coveralls and went out of the room and past the members working at the cake and drink containers. In the depot area they found a half-empty carton of towels and put the wrapped kits into it. Carrying the carton between them, they went out through the portal onto the field.
A plane was opposite lane six, a large one, with members leaving it on two escalators. Members in orange waited at each escalator with a container cart.
They went away from the plane, toward the left; crossed the field diagonally with the carton between them, skirting a slow-moving maintenance truck and approaching the hangars that lay in a flat-roofed wing extending toward the runways.
They went into a hangar. A smaller plane was there, with members in orange underneath it, lowering a square black housing from it. Chip and Dover carried the carton to the back of the hangar where there was a door in the side wall.
Dover opened it, looked in, and nodded to Chip.
They went in and closed the door. They were in a supply room: racks of tools, rows of wood crates, black metal drums marked Lub Oil SG. 'Couldn't be better,' Chip said as they put the carton on the floor.
Dover went to the door and stood at its hinge side. He took out his gun and held it by its barrel.
Chip, crouching, unwrapped a kit, opened it, and took out a bomb, one with a yellow four-minute handle.
He separated two of the oil drums and put the bomb on the floor between them, with its taped-down handle facing up.
He took his watch out and looked at it. Dover said, 'How long?' and he said, 'Three minutes.'
He went back to the carton and, still holding the watch, closed the kit and rewrapped it and closed the carton's leaves.
'Is there anything we can use?' Dover asked, nodding at the tool racks.
Chip went to one and the door of the room opened and a member in orange came in. 'Hello,' Chip said, and took a tool from the rack and put the watch in his pocket. 'Hello,' the member said, coming to the other side of the rack. She glanced over it at Chip. 'Who're you?' she asked.
'Li RP,' he said. 'I was sent up from '765 to help.' He took another tool from the rack, a pair of calipers. 'It's not as bad as Wei's Birthday,' the member said.
Another member came to the door. 'We've got it, Peace,' he said. 'Li had it.'
'I asked him and he said he didn't,' the first member said. 'Well he did,' the second member said, and went away. The first member went after him. 'He was the first one I asked,' she said.
Chip stood and watched the door as it slowly closed. Dover, behind it, looked at him and closed it all the way, softly. Chip looked back at Dover, and then at his hand holding the tools. It was shaking. He put the tools down, let his breath out, and showed his hand to Dover, who smiled and said, 'Very un-memberlike.'
Chip drew a breath and got the watch from his pocket. 'Less than a minute,' he said, and went to the drums and crouched. He pulled the tape from the bomb's handle.
Dover put his gun into his pocket—poked it into the inner one—and stood with his hand on the doorknob. Chip, looking at the watch and holding the fuse handle, said, 'Ten seconds.' He waited, waited, waited—and then pulled the handle up and stood as Dover opened the door. They picked up the carton and carried it from the room and pulled the door closed.
They walked with the carton through the hangar—'Easy, easy,' Chip said—and across the field toward the plane opposite lane six. Members were filing onto the escalators, riding up-'What's that?' a member in orange with a clipboard asked, walking along with them. 'We were told to bring it over there,' Chip said.
'Karl?' another member said at the other side of the one with the clipboard. He stopped and turned, saying 'Yes?' and Chip and Dover kept walking.
They brought the carton to the plane's rear escalator and put it down. Chip stayed opposite the scanner and looked at the escalator controls; Dover slipped through the line and stood at the scanner's back. Members passed between them, touching their bracelets to the green-winking scanner and stepping onto the escalator. A member in orange came to Chip and said, 'I'm on this escalator.'
'Karl just told me to take it,' Chip said. 'I was sent up from '765 to help.'
'What's wrong?' the member with the clipboard asked, coming over. 'Why are there three of you here?'
'I thought I was on this escalator,' the other member said. The air shuddered and a loud roar clapped from the hangars. A black pillar, vast and growing, stood on the wing of hangars, and rolling orange fire was in the black. A black and orange rain fell on the roof and the field, and members in orange came running from the hangars, running and slowing and looking back up at the fiery pillar on the roof.
The member with the clipboard stared, and hurried forward. The other member hurried after him. The members on line stood motionless, looking upward toward the hangars. Chip and Dover caught at their arms and drew them forward. 'Don't stop,' they said. 'Keep moving, please. There's no danger. The plane is waiting. Touch and step on. Keep moving, please.' They herded the members past the scanner and onto the escalator and one was Jack—'Beautiful,' he said, gazing past Chip as he false-touched; and Ria, who looked as excited as she had the first time Chip had seen her; and Karl, looking awed and somber; and Buzz, smiling. Dover moved to the escalator after Buzz; Chip thrust a wrapped kit to him and turned to the other members on line, the last seven or eight, who stood looking toward the hangars. 'Keep moving, please,' he said. 'The plane is waiting for you. Sister!'
'There is no cause for alarm,' a woman's voice loudspeak-ered. 'There has been an accident in the hangars but everything is under control.'
Chip urged the members to the escalator, 'Touch and step on,' he said. 'The plane's waiting.'
'Departing members, please resume your places in line,' the voice said. 'Members who are boarding planes, continue to do so. There will be no interruption of service.'
Chip false-touched and stepped onto the escalator behind the last member. Riding upward with his wrapped kit under his arm, he glanced toward the hangars: the pillar was black and smudging; there was no more fire. He looked ahead again, at pale blue coveralls. 'All personnel except forty-sevens and forty-nines, resume your assigned duties,' the woman's voice said. 'All personnel except forty-sevens and forty-nines, resume your assigned duties. Everything is under control.' Chip stepped into the plane and the door slid down behind him. 'There will be no interruption of—' Members stood confusedly, looking at filled seats.
'There are extra passengers because of the holiday,' Chip said. 'Go forward and ask members with children to double up. It can't be helped.'
The members moved down the aisle, looking from one side of the plane to the other.
The five were sitting in the last row, next to the dispensers. Dover took his wrapped kit from the aisle seat and Chip sat down. Dover said, 'Not bad.'
'We're not up yet,' Chip said.
Voices filled the plane: members telling members about the explosion, spreading the news from row to row.
