Continued from two posts after the post before yesterday

"I would never leave you," Huxley purred.

"Me neither," I answered.

Huxley pulled away from me as Baltizar grabbed a briefcase and headed out the door.

"He's getting away!" she yelled.

I chased after him, but instead of trying to get downstairs, he headed for the emergency exit and upstairs to the roof of Hotel Casablanca.

"I'm afraid that I'll be taking my leave of you, right," he laughed.


A large landing craft appeared behind him. It started hovering towards him. I aimed my rifle at Baltizar.

"Don't move!" I yelled above the whine of the engines.

"Oh come on, eh," he yelled back. "You're a good guy! You're not going to shoot an unarmed man, are you?"

I put one round in his leg and he dropped to the rooftop howling in pain. I then fired at the landing craft and chased it away.

"Alright alright, you got me," Baltizar winced through the pain. "How about a deal, vis a vis, you and me, eh? I'm talking about this case, AKA, your case full of space gold."

"No deal, Baltizar," I announced. "You're going to jail. Space jail."

As the sun rose over a new Swestria day, Huxley, Levy and I took Baltizar to the ground floor so the Space Police could take custody of him. Klinger helped get the bodies of Maggot and Camisa-Roja onto an ambulance. As the police hauled Baltizar away, Huxley and I looked at each other.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," I said to her. "A lot of thinking for both of us. You need to get on that plane for San Angeles."

"But, Hudson, no, I... I..."

"Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up miserable together. Isn't that true, Levy?"

"I heard in a movie once that relationships based on extreme circumstances never work out," Levy answered.

"You're saying this only to make me go," Lenina said soberly.

"I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong in San Angeles. You're part of that city, the thing that keeps it going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not in it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

"But what about us?"

We'll always have Swestria. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Hotel Casablanca. We got it back last night."

"When I said I would never leave you."

"And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Lenina, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." I gently lifted her chin with my forefinger. "Now, now... Here's looking at you kid."

Lenina slowly turned and walked towards the space plane that would take her home.