after another to keep from falling.
'Deckard!' He held on to the side of the hatch, reaching down. 'Give me her hand!' The dark-haired woman looked barely conscious, as though asphyxiated by the smoke churning upward. He could hear, through the roar of the flames, his own artificial lungs wheezing for oxygen. Deckard managed to lift the woman, his arm around her waist, high enough that he could grab her by the wrist and elbow, and draw her up and into the freight spinner. She wasn't unconscious; when Holden lowered her to the tilting floor of the cargo area, she was able to grasp the metal ribs and pull herself away from the bottom of the hatch.
He reached back down for Deckard's outstretched hand. Their fingertips had almost touched, when another explosion, the loudest and nearest of all, ripped open the last remaining panels of the roof. Holden saw the surge of glaring light a split second before its impact concussed the spinner; he was thrown backward, catching a flash of Deckard leaping desperately for the hatchway.
The spinner tumbled nose downward. Holden's spine hit the back of the pilot's seat; he twisted about, hands pressed against the controls, a fireball like the interior of the sun welling up to engulf the craft. Over his shoulder, he saw the hatchway door sliding shut; Deckard, teeth clenched in agony, fought to claw his way inside. The woman screamed his name, reached, and grabbed his hand and forearm; the door's edge scraped open Deckard's shirt and the skin beneath as she pulled him toward herself. Deckard got one foot on the doorway's rim and gave a final convulsive push. He and the dark-haired woman slid together against the opposite bulkhead.
In the same moment the fireball was cleft in two by the fall of the last tower. The updraft swung the freight spinner around in a dizzying loop as Holden struggled to keep from being torn away from the controls. Suddenly he found himself looking at the dark storm clouds above, the monsoon's torrents pounding the curved glass of the cockpit; with a single lunge he hit the throttle full-on. He clung to the pilot's chair against the mounting g-forces as the freight spinner shot skyward.
Then stars, a diamond sweep from one horizon rim to the other, and silence, the storm left below. Holden managed to claw his way up to the control panel and pull the spinner's ascent into a level flight.
'Here-let me take over.' Deckard came forward from the cargo area. Gasping in exhaustion, Holden watched as his ex-partner climbed into the pilot's seat. The bio-mechanical heart in his chest staggered and lurched, then settled into a slower and more stable rhythm.
The craft banked into a slow turn as Deckard's hands moved across the controls. The rain had plastered his hair black against his forehead, a cut along one cheekbone diluting pink down his throat. The sodden coat hung on him like a wet shroud. Watching the navigation screen, he brought the freight spinner slicing back down through the clouds.
Deckard cut the throttle to a slow crawl as they came directly above the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. Or what had been the corporation; a gigantic square section had been cut from the center of L.A. and transformed into what now looked like the mouth of a ground-level volcano. The wind gusts and saturating Pacific rains drove the flames far enough back to reveal the twisted skeletal girders, the distorted structural webs all that remained of the towers.
Black specks, what humans looked like from this altitude, and the larger shapes of emergency vehicles, clustered around the apocalypse perimeter, the ululating wail of their sirens piercing the night.
Holden gazed down through the snakelike rivulets coursing over the cockpit glass. 'What the hell brought all that on?'
Reaching again for the controls. Deckard lifted his hard-set gaze from the scene underneath them. 'Bad attitudes.' He punched the throttle.
A few minutes later-or hours; Holden had lost track of time, closing his eyes while the freight spinner bad shot above the city-he felt the craft slowing and descending again. To a landing; he looked out and saw a bleak desert landscape, silvered by the moon and stars. The monsoons' seasonal return hadn't extended this far inland yet. No buildings or fences nearby; the Reclamation Center that Batty had brought him to was obviously miles away.
Deckard cut the engines as the freight spinner settled into the loose gravel and sand. The quiet of the empty landscape penetrated the cockpit glass. He glanced over toward Holden. 'We gotta talk.' He pushed another control and the side panels swiveled open.
As they walked away from the spinner, leaving prints in the sand, Holden dug the gun out of his jacket. 'You know… I could take you in. To the police station. And turn you over.'
'Sure.' Deckard glanced at him. 'But you won't.'
'I guess not.' He put the gun away. 'That Batty guy… he screwed up my brain. Right now, I don't know whether I'm a replicant or not.' He shook his head, still trying to make the pieces come together. 'The way it works out for people like us-it comes with the territory, I suppose-a certain leap of faith is required. To assume that we're human at all.'
'It's not just for us.' A dark edge moved through Deckard's voice, as though it were the product of long, deep brooding. 'That's the way it is for everybody. Human or not.'
'Yeah, well… maybe.' Holden wasn't sure he understood what his ex-partner was talking about. 'Right now, though, what I think I'll do is, I'll turn myself over to the police. Maybe they'll be able to tell me what I am. Not that it really matters, of course.'
'Suit yourself.'
'What're you going to do?' He stopped and tilted his head back toward the freight spinner. 'The woman in there. Is that…'
'Rachael. She's Rachael.' Deckard closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded.
'The other one-Sarah-is dead. Back at the Tyrell Corporation. That's what she wanted.'
The black clouds had massed higher to the west, blotting out the stars close to the horizon. It wouldn't be long before the storms swept across the desert, all the way to the mountain ranges. And beyond.
'Are you going to try to get away? The two of you?' Holden felt a chill creeping in toward his artificial heart. 'If you go north again
… I won't tell them. They'll come looking for you, and they'll find you, but it won't happen because of anything I said.'
'No…' Deckard shook his head. 'We won't go north. That's not far enough…'
Holden watched him tilt his head back, eyes barely open. A blue needle of light touched the drop of water that inched along the corner of his brow.
'We'll have to go farther…' Deckard's voice a murmur, taken by the wind sifting the desert. 'As far as we can…'
After
The official behind the counter returned the blue leatherette folder, smiling as he handed it back. 'I hope you have a pleasant journey, Mr. and Mrs. Niemand.' He gazed upon them kindly, though that was merely part of his job. 'And that you find everything you're looking for.'
'Thanks.' Deckard tucked the folder-it had the seal of the U.N. emigration services on it, along with gold- embossed letters spelling out A NEW LIFE! — inside his jacket. 'I'm sure we will.'
He picked up the carry-on bag beside him. A knot in his stomach unclenched-getting the forged ID cards and other documents stamped had been the last barrier they'd needed to get past. He turned away from the counter. 'Come on, sweetheart. We don't want to miss the flight.'
Rachael held on to his arm all the way through the corridors of the San Pedro off-world terminal. Scenes of happy life in the colonies-Norman Rockwell mixed with early Soviet Realism, laughing children and fields of grain lined the gleaming chrome walls. Even when Deckard and Rachael were seated aboard the ship, she leaned her head against his shoulder, as though she were already fatigued from the rigors of flight.
Rachael kept her eyes closed all through a lecture from a pair of uniformed attendants, on the various safety procedures. She might have been asleep. He let her hand rest in his; he could just feel the flicker of pulse at her wrist.
Eventually, a low-pitched vibration shivered through the cabin. He looked across the tops of the seats; there
