Alan admired the illuminated Dover launching pad as he deftly landed his Eagle at the top of the cliff. Tony had sent him a message asking him to come during the night time, on the grounds that the daytime was too hot these days. It was still the middle of the afternoon for Alan, who lived on Alphan time, and he found it strangely disorienting to be landing on Loki at night.

There was no one to welcome him as he powered down his engines, nor did he expect anyone. He had been warned that the Doverians would all come up the hill once they heard the Eagle had finished its landing; it would be too dangerous for them to stand on the cliff while the Eagle's boosters were in action. He paused to wonder whether "Doverians" was a correct term for the inhabitants of Dover, or if they should be called "Doverites" or something. Maybe he could avoid the issue by simply calling them Lokians. Or Lokites.

While he was waiting for his cargo to arrive, Alan decided to go out and stretch his legs. He hadn't been to Dover recently -- most of his trips had been vacations to the beaches on the West Coast -- and he knew it would be his last opportunity for a breath of fresh air for another two years or so. Not that he particularly missed Loki when he was away, but it was always pleasant to breathe in its natural atmosphere.

Or so he was thinking before he opened the Eagle's airlock. The blast of hot, humid air that hit him as he stepped out made Alan wonder whether he shouldn't have stayed in the Eagle. He coughed and removed his jacket; the smell of dry dust suspended in the misty atmosphere reminded him of some areas of his native Australia during the summer months. Dover should have been entirely evacuated five months earlier, when Spring officially ended, but some settlers had decided to stay on longer, even though conditions were deteriorating from day to day. Alan couldn't understand why the remaining Doverians had chosen to put up with these conditions when they could have returned to the comfort of Alpha at any time. But then he'd never been a pioneer type.

The only construction near the launchpad was a sort of tall shed by the edge of the cliff. It was brightly illuminated, serving as a supplemental warning to indicate the cliff's edge. It bore the inscription "Dover International", which made Alan smile. Stacks of standardised crates were neatly arranged around the edifice; no doubt the possessions of the Lokians.

Unused to the crushing heat, Alan was about to go back inside the Eagle when he heard the whirring of an elevator inside the shed. The elevator buzzed and clanged for several minutes before there was any sign of life, but eventually, the door to the shed slid open and Maya walked out.

Alan was surprised to see her. He knew Maya lived here of course, and they communicated periodically. Her monthly reports on Loki's meteorological data were required reading for himself and his fellow pilots when they needed to go to the planet. But he hadn't seen Maya since she had left Alpha, and her appearance startled him.

In his mind's eye, deprived of any new vision of her in over two years, Maya was still the lively young woman she had been at the time of her marriage to Tony. If Alan thought of her, he pictured her in her Alphan uniform, with long flowing red hair and an impish grin on her face. But Alan could see that the Maya he once knew no longer existed. She was recognisably Maya, but a Maya who had aged since their arrival on Loki. Haven't we all, thought Alan wryly, thinking about his own balding pate and the grey hairs he kept finding all over his body.

In the artificial light of the landing pad, Maya's hair looked dark brown; it was cut short, barely reaching her chin, and combed on either side of a central parting that split the widow's peak on her forehead. Contrasted with the tanned skins of the human Doverians, Maya's complexion was a deathly white which made her large eyes and the streaks on her cheeks stand out like cracks in an Alphan wall panel.

Tony was walking beside her; he too had changed beyond recognition in the years since they had first encountered Loki. His skin was tanned a dark brown which seemed to blend into the peppered grey of his shortly cropped hair and beard. Neither of the Verdeschis were wearing their uniform, sporting instead brightly coloured clothes that looked like some sort of Arab garb; perhaps a contribution from the Habibi family who also lived at Dover.

The Doverians greeted Alan warmly; he knew most of the adults personally, having worked with them on Alpha. The Collinses, the Vincents, the Osgoods... They all had children, ranging from little brown kids who clambered over the Eagle's dusty superstructure to adolescents who seemed almost on the verge of adulthood.

Tony slapped Alan on the back. "Hello, baldy," he exclaimed, his brown lips parted in a grin in the midst of his beard. Alan sighed; some things evidently never changed.

Maya was more guarded in her greeting. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Alan."

"Hello, Maya." Alan leaned forward to peer at the bright orange bundle in her arms. "And who have we here?"

The orange material rustled, and a small child about two years old looked out at him. In the dim lighting, all Alan could make out was that the child had curly blond hair and big black eyes. The boy, of course. The child Salvatore that everyone had talked about but few had actually seen.

"Say hello to Alan, Salvatore," said Maya.

The little boy just stared at him silently. "Hello, Sal," said Alan. "I used to have a mate back on Earth whose name was Sal, you know. He was a great boxer."

Maya laughed, and in an instant, Alan could see a flash of the Maya he had once known. "Tony was always worried we'd pick a name for one of our children that would make him sound like a boxer. And there we thought Salvatore was a safe name!"

Alan was disturbed by Maya's mention of "children" when he knew she and Tony only had one living child. Tony was looking at the Eagle and diverted the conversation onto the problem of loading it. The Doverian men took care of that task while Alan rested; it took several hours to get from Alpha to Loki and he needed to be in good shape for the return journey. Loading the Eagle was a lengthy, strenuous process, since there was no way of lowering the gravity here the way they could on Alpha.

Once everything was in place, the men joined their families inside the Eagle. As Alan prepared to take his place in the cockpit, he turned to Tony and asked him if he would like to co-pilot, "For old times' sake."

"Boy, I haven't flown one of these things in ages," declared Tony as he lowered himself into the co-pilot's seat.

"Oh, come on, it hasn't been that long! Two years or something, isn't it? It isn't as if you'll have forgotten how."

"I suppose not..." Tony looked around him and grinned. "Oh yes, it's all coming rushing back to me!"

They initiated the lift-off and Tony laid in a course to clear the atmosphere. "I'm surprised you didn't bring Pete with you," he remarked. "It's a long journey, and I always thought you liked having a co-pilot for company."

"Yeah, I usually do," admitted Alan. "But going up alone was the only way I could shake off Emma Koenig. She was adamant that if I was going to have a co-pilot, it was going to be her! I wasn't going to take her all the way over here, so I had to pretend I didn't need a co-pilot at all."

"She's inherited her father's iron will, has she?"

"Her father's... or her mother's," said Alan with a grin.

"Ah yes, you were always a bit partial to Helena, weren't you?"

Alan turned to look at Tony as the Eagle soared out of Loki's atmosphere. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tony shrugged his shoulders. "Just joking," he said jovially. "Anyway, how are you getting on with Eva?"

"How'd you know about that?"

"Just because we're all living in some kind of neo-hippy commune on Loki doesn't mean we're out of the loop gossip-wise," chuckled Tony. "We keep an eye on what's going on up there. In fact, it'll be quite fun to see you all in action. Like meeting the characters in a soap you've been watching for two years."

"Well, I hope we've been entertaining, at least," huffed Alan.

Tony just laughed and laid in the course to Alpha.

"Salvatore looks like a nice kid," said Alan after a pause.

"Yeah." Tony nodded with the sort of proud grin Alan had noticed parents usually got when someone praised their offspring. "He's a funny little fellow. I do wonder how he'll turn out. I guess it's his Psychon blood or something, but he's just not like other kids. He can talk, you know. He's only eighteen months old but he has a better vocabulary than some children of four. In other respects, he's just a baby, though; I can tell we're going to have the terrible twos with chatter to boot!"

Alan laughed. "Ah, the joys of parenting."

"Still not your thing, hey?"

"Nah. Maybe some day. But just not now, I have better things to do."

"Lucky you're not a woman," remarked Tony. He glanced at Alan. "You should think about it, you know. There's nothing more important. Once you have children, they become your whole world."

"That's exactly it. This is my whole world," said Alan, indicating the cockpit and the darkness beyond. "I see you all struggling to work and raise your kids at the same time. I just don't have time now..." He smiled. "Besides, there are more men than women anyway. You know that. Some of us just have to make that sacrifice."

Tony chuckled. "That's as good an excuse as any. I just hope you've contributed to that gene bank of Helena's."

"Oh yes. Some day, when I'm a hundred years old, I'll see some kid go by and think 'hmm, he looks familiar'."

"Unlikely to be the result of the gene bank with a randy old sod like you," laughed Tony.

Their mirth was interrupted as the cockpit door opened and Giovanna Habibi leaned in.

"I make some cakes," she explained in her thickly accented English. "You want?"

"Great idea, thanks!" exclaimed Tony. "She's the best cook at Dover," he told Alan as Giovanna went to get the cakes.

A young boy came to stand in the doorway, staring thoughtfully into the cockpit. He was a pretty child on the verge of adolescence, his cheeks still rounded but already bearing the soft dark down that would some day be a beard. Alan smiled at him, but the child only responded with a polite nod.

"And who are you?" Alan persevered.

"Karim Claudio Habibi, sir," said the boy.

"Giovanna's son, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come in and we'll show you the cockpit, Karim," suggested Tony, pointing to the space between the pilot's seats.

The boy smiled timidly and sat in the spot indicated. Alan pointed out some controls to him, explaining what they did. Karim followed the demonstration with intense concentration, as if he thought he was going to be quizzed on it later. When Alan paused to take the cakes Giovanna had brought him, Karim stood up and leaned over the control panel to look out of the window.

"Can we see Dover from here?" he asked, displaying the first sign of eagerness Alan had seen.

"No, we're heading away," explained Tony. "But we can show you the view from the rear cameras."

"Super!"

Karim sat down again and watched the screen on Tony's side. The display changed to show the rapidly retreating planet.

"It's going to be a while before we go back there," said Tony neutrally.

"I know. Underground for two years..." Karim sighed.

"Oi, I'll have you know there's nothing wrong with Alpha," said Alan. "Best place in the universe."

Karim turned to look at him, something akin to a glint in his small black eyes. "If you're an Alphan."

Giovanna leaned into the cockpit again. "Karim, viens, tu embêtes tout le monde."

"Ouais, ouais," said the child as he got up. "Thank you for showing me all the controls, Mr Carter."

"Serious little chap," remarked Alan after Karim had followed his mother back into the main section.

Tony laughed. "Oh, yes. Karim is twelve going on sixty!"

"I've noticed that on Alpha, too. Especially with the oldest children," said Alan. "It's like some of them have the weight of the world on their shoulders."

"They do," said Tony seriously. "The success of our whole civilisation rests on them."

"I suppose so. It's just rather... sad."

With Tony beside him, Alan found that the next few hours passed relatively quickly. He'd forgotten what fun Tony could be, and what amusing conversations they had when they were together. He was pleased to think that Tony would be spending the next two years on Alpha. It would be good to have his old mate back again.

They were having a desultory conversation about the compared qualities of Italian and Australian football when a loud noise of cheering interrupted them.

"Sounds as if your hippy friends are having a party in there," said Alan exchanging a surprised look with Tony.

"Yeah, I wonder what they're doing."

They were still two hours away from Alpha and the autopilot was engaged, so Alan unstrapped himself to go and have a look. The passenger section was full of squealing children, running around to escape something large and black... with a wavy tail.

"Maya?"

Tony had followed Alan into the passenger section. He was laughing. Some of the children were stroking the Labrador, but others were keeping their distance. Maya was wagging her tail and enthusiastically licking all the faces that came her way. Even serious little Karim Habibi was throwing his arms around her neck to get a wet greeting.

Alan leaned towards Tony. "I didn't know she could still do that," he said in a low voice.

"Oh yes, it was only while she was... when we were trying for a child that she couldn't," explained Tony. "The children must have been getting bored. A Labrador is usually the best choice. She tried turning into a cat once but ended up scratching Sue Ellen Collins."

"Who?"

"Shermeen's youngest child. You must have seen her before." Tony pointed at a stout little girl who was standing dangerously close to Maya's wagging tail.

"Oh, right. No, I just thought I was having Dallas flashbacks, there."

Tony laughed. "Inch'allah Eddie and Shermeen didn't hear that. I've had that thought myself a few times."

Alan nodded for a while and then plucked up the courage to ask, "What the hell does inch'allah mean?"

"Oh, that's something Rachid says all the time. It means 'God willing'. I just picked it up. You get like that when you live with people day in day out. Eh, cobber?"

"Si, si, signore," said Alan with a grin. He couldn't help feeling that the Doverians were a weird bunch. Two years away from Alpha and they had gone native!

Meanwhile, the children's game with the dog was going wrong. Maya's powerful black tail accidentally whacked Sue Ellen off her feet. The child immediately started to holler, interrupting her mother's no doubt fascinating conversation with Michelle Osgood. Shermeen came over to pick her daughter up.

Salvatore giggled and grabbed hold of Maya's tail. "Maya! Maya! Do it again. Hit Sue Ellen again!"

"Ah, my son. The milk of human kindness," said Tony tenderly.

Maya changed back into herself and a startled Salvatore fell over her knees as the tail he was holding disappeared. Maya caught him and turned him upside down to kiss his stomach.

Alan glanced at Tony. His friend was watching Maya and Salvatore, his whole expression exuding love and pride. Alan went back into the cockpit.

It was a few minutes before Tony came back to join him. "The situation is now under control," he said, sliding back into the co-pilot's seat. "Sue Ellen has sworn to hate Salvatore forever, but that's just par for the course. There's just a couple of years between them so they're often thrown together and they're always fighting. Toto is a little charmer anyway, as you can see."

"I haven't met many two-year-olds who were," chuckled Alan. He looked up at the cockpit windows. "Ah, now there's a sight for sore eyes."

"Very sore eyes. Alpha never was a thing of beauty."

Despite his disparaging words, Alan could tell Tony felt something at seeing the Moon again. The displaced satellite was too far from the Lokian sun to have the brightness it had had when it orbited Earth, but they were approaching the 'light' side, and Alan was sure no one raised on Earth could fail to be moved by the sight.

"The Moon," he heard Giovanna say behind him. "All we have from home so far away."

Alan looked around. Karim was looking through the cockpit door with his mother. His serious face showed no emotion and Alan wondered if Alpha meant anything at all to this son of an alien solar system. Perhaps the day would come when the Alphans' descendants would leave Alpha for good, to settle permanently on Loki. The thought had never occurred to Alan before, and it made him pause. Whatever happened, he hoped the future Alphans would never forget where they came from.