Comeback Tour

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The Dream was dying.

Commander Lawrence Jerome Fonvielle gritted his teeth and held back tears as the console lights went out, bank by bank. The technicians were calmly proceeding with the shutdown, going from desk to desk, flicking switches and pulling wires. They were as thorough and efficient as he would have demanded them to be, had he still been responsible for issuing their orders. His title was almost purely honorary, now. You couldn't be a Commander when the Suits took your command out from under you.

"We have a splash-down, sir," said Wardle, still monitoring the Big Screen. "Dead centre of the target area."

The Old Magic. American Know-How. It was still there.

"The USS Eisenhower is deploying the Sikorskis to pick up Santini's men."

Fonvielle nodded. He could not count the number of splashdowns he had anxiously lived through. This, he knew, would be the last.

Bobbing out there in the South Pacific in their Vulcan capsule were the last generation. Eleven men and three women in a tin can, waiting to be choppered out before the spacecraft sank.

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