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than it had been when I’d entered. We had to choose a room.
    I took a step forward into the room on the right, the dark one. Sandra was right behind me, but not close enough.
    The floor vanished in the room where we had met, beneath Sandra’s feet. I reached back my hand and caught her as she began to fall. It wasn’t a good hold, just her fingers. She dropped her gun. It went twirling down into the night.
    We were over the ocean, I realized. It seemed colder, too. The smell of the sea hit me, very strong and sudden. Had we moved north? The sea was dark, but not too far down. Maybe a hundred yards below, it was hard to tell. But it was far enough to kill anyone who took the fall. Water felt like concrete if you fell from high enough.
    I saw her face, looking up at me. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even scream. She was working her other hand and both her feet to get a grip on the smooth metal of the ship.  
    Cold salt breezes washed up into our faces. I thought we could do it. I was on my knees, bracing myself. It wouldn’t do either of us any good if I let her pull me down too, and we both fell into the sea. The problem was there wasn’t any lip to hold onto, no rim or door panel, not even a carpet to provide some friction. Just smooth metal that could change shape at will, like liquid.
    “Hold on, Sandra,” I shouted. “We can do this.”
    I had a plan. Really, I did. I would lie flat and hold onto her arms, letting her pull herself up over me. I thought she looked strong enough to manage it, with my help. I adjusted myself according to the plan, and then—
    The door vanished. The metal flowed together, very rapidly, as it had done many times before. One second it was there, the next it wasn’t.
    That wasn’t the bad part. The bad part came when I looked into my hand, where I still held four of her fingers. There was a ring on one of them, with an emerald in it. They were oozing blood, where they had been very neatly severed by the closing metal door.
    I sat up and rubbed Sandra’s fingers for a second before putting them down gently, making a little stack on the floor. I could hardly see. My eyes stung. I made a weird, howling sound.
    “Leadership demonstrated,” said the cold voice, speaking up for the first time in a while.

-4-

    “Leadership?” I shouted at the walls. “So that’s what the test was about? You call that leadership? ”
    The walls said nothing.
    “What happened to the interrogation, huh? You never even asked me any questions.”
    I felt like a crazy guy in a movie, shouting at the walls, shouting at God or the Devil or the voices his own mind. I think I truly was mad, in that moment of despair.
    Sadly, my mind worked on the puzzle. I couldn’t help it. I’m a computer guy, and a farmer, and both my occupations require a passion for problem-solving. I had completed a test for leadership. Meaning what? I had led Sandra out of the room. I had made the choice concerning which direction to take. She had followed me.
    So, she was a follower and had failed the test. If she had gone the other way, would they have let her live? Would they have put her through some other test or would we have both been failures, tossed down into the dark sea because neither of us could lead the other?
    “What the hell do you want? ” I asked the quiet walls. I didn’t expect an answer. I was nearly broken now. Somehow, killing my kids had filled me with resolve, but getting me to make a decision which inadvertently had led to Sandra’s death, that was different. I supposed it was a matter of guilt. There wasn’t any logical reason to feel guilty about the fate of my kids. I’d done the best I could for them, given the circumstances.
    But I had failed Sandra. I hadn’t figured out the test. I should have known by all logic that we were facing death as we exited that last room. She had distracted me with her beauty and her nakedness. Just finding another human in this