No Answer

"Alex!"

No answer.

"Alex!"

No answer.

"Where is he, I wonder? Alex!"

No answer.

Helena grabbed the eyeglasses dangling from a woven cord around her neck, and jammed them onto her face as she picked up a Slate---Kano's latest model---to punch up Alex's ID. She looked over the spectacles at the device she held up as it sent its signal out to Alex's mini-Slate. Helena's foot tapped a rhythm in time to the plaintive beeping that received no response until the computer answered.

"Comm Central Computer. The requested ID is not responding."

After pacing the 5-room module for a minute in frustration, Helena typed her override code into the Slate. The override would enable her to turn on Alex's Slate even if he intentionally had it turned off. She heard two beeps, followed by the computer again.

"Comm Central Computer. The requested device is currently in silent test mode, and cannot be overridden."

Helena raised her eyebrows. The androgynous voice sounded a bit haughty this time, or perhaps it was just her attitude. She tried Emma and Richard's mini-Slates with identical results. The three children had gone out to explore hours ago. The kids were required to carry at least their mini-Slate with them at all times, but with her eldest son---Loki's Renaissance Child---there was no amazement in not reaching him if he did not want to be reached. Alex was interested in computers, xenobotany, biology, and geology. He discovered four new plant species on his solitary forays into the mountains surrounding the cabin they share with the other Alphans.

Everyone says he is just like his strong-willed father. He played three musical instruments well, but turned down several requests from other Alphans to join any sort of music groups. He always preferred things he could do alone. He could draw and paint whatever he saw or could imagine, but refused to do any work for display anywhere but in the family's quarters on Loki or Alpha.

Helena looked out of the door of the cabin onto the partly cloudy, early afternoon Loki landscape. It was an hour past mid-day of Loki's 26-hour day, and the children's lunch was on the table. She had not seen them in over three hours, and was perturbed about not reaching them. There was little danger since there were no other life forms on Loki---no animals, insects, or dangerous plants had ever been found, so the children were safe.

Why then, did she have such an uneasy feeling?

Emma turned around and around, but Richie was nowhere in sight. Nothing but rocks, sand, boulders and scattered trees.

"No fair! Richie, I found you, so come on out!"

Emma got no response. There was no sound but the wind amongst the rocks and trees. As she turned a full 180 degrees she thought there was a faint scuffing like something brushing against the rocks. She snapped her head toward the sound, but there was nothing except the cactus-like plants and more rocks.

Emma backtracked along her path and caught sight of faint boot marks in the sand.

"Richie." Emma whispered. "Bet I can track him!" She inched her way back around the rock out-cropping, carefully watching for tell-tails.

Alex finally exhaled in his hiding spot as Emma went out of sight around the rocks.

"She almost found me that time!" He spoke quietly to himself. Emma was getting harder and harder to fool. Alex was finding it harder to find good hiding places since he'd reached six feet in height. The little crevices he'd hidden in last visit were not big enough for him this time. He had to start using his head to beat her. Richie was a good decoy. His nine-year-old sibling could be convinced to hide in easy to find places while Alex went into trail mode where he would follow Emma from hiding place to hiding place as he kept on the move.

He had suggested this area for their play today because the other two had never been here before-- and he still almost got caught. He had scouted for new plant forms in this area a few days ago, and thought it would be a great place for playing. They were nearly 30 klicks from the cabin, and with the slates jammed no one could give away his location by calling him.

Last week Emma had clumsily tried to use the Slate's auto-beacon to trace him, so he had disabled that subroutine as well. She was just as smart as he was, and sometimes unnervingly devious. He heard her voice, and flattened himself back into his shadowy spot.

"He's got to be this way, Richie. I just know it." She held her smaller brother tightly by the wrist and pulled him along.

So, she tracked him by his boot prints. Alex thought. There's a new skill to counter!

"Em, you're pulling my arm out of the socket!" Richie squealed in mock pain.

Everything is a tragedy with Richie. He says he wants to be a doctor like Mamma, but right now he's just a pain-in-the-butt little squirt. But maybe a useful one... Alex thought he had a plan. Not to escape, but at least to annoy Emma.

Emma with Richie in tow came up the inclined path toward Alex's position in the shadow. About six feet away Richie pulled back against Emma's grip again, and Emma turned toward him to say something, but never got the chance. Alex leapt from hiding with a cry from deep in his throat.

"Eieeyahh!" Alex screamed.

"Ahheeeee...!" Emma and Richie screamed in unison. Their screams were cut off as Alex barreled into them, knocking them into the dust, and landing on top of them both. The wrestling that ensued was strictly one-sided as both Richie and Emma together were no match for Alex's size, strength and hand-to-hand training that had begun with Tony Verdeshi a year before.

Soon he had Emma pinned and Richie under one arm like a sack of grain at harvest time.

"Get off! Get off! You're hurting me!" Emma yelled, not really in any physical distress, but with her usual pique. Richie struggled silently, not wanting to give his big brother the satisfaction of hearing him plead.

"Ok, Em." Alex said, releasing her and rolling her from her stomach to her back. As he did so he dropped Richie onto her with a thud that drove the air from both her lungs and he jumped up and ran for all he was worth up the path and around the rocks where he had been hiding.

"Alex! I'll get you!" Emma yelled moments later after regaining her breath, and struggling from under he little brother, who although two years her junior only weighted five kilos less than she. By the time they regained their feet, and ran up the path, Alex was nowhere to be seen or heard.

Helena cleaned up after the uneaten lunch, expecting the kids to come bounding in at any moment. She made preparations for supper, and finished the Medical Center personnel rotation she had planned to work on after lunch. An hour and a half later, she called Main Mission on Alpha.

"Main Mission." Alibe's face appeared on Helena's slate. Her brown eyes were bright and alive as ever with some grey strands showing the passing of years.

"Alibe. How are things on Alpha?" Helena's smile betrayed her concern.

"Just fine, Dr. Russell, but you look like you have a problem."

"I have children, does that say enough?"

"More than enough. My twins are working through their seventh year of the terrible twos," she smiled a knowing smile.

"Alex has done some mods on the slates and I can't get through. Is there anything you can do from there?"

"Just a second." Alibe leaned out of view for a moment and looked at another monitor somewhere to her left. "That's quite remarkable. He has the slates for all of your children looping through a test mode sub program. I can talk to the slates but they don't talk back except to broadcast the results of the test. Since they are completely tied up with the test, they also do not take in our GPS signal. That means the slates will not tell us were they are located on Loki."

"Is there anything we can do?" Helena hoped her voice didn't sound as pleading as she thought it did.

"Give me a few minutes, Dr. Russell. I'll see what we can do, and get right back with you." Alibe reached forward and the picture went blank.

"I hope I hear from you soon." Helena said to the blank screen. She did not want to call John Koenig from his meeting with the Ag Team, but she was getting one of those maternal instinct feelings, and she didn't like it one bit.

Alex ran up the path, leaping rocks, and scrambling for purchase on crumbling inclines as fast as he could go.

"You're going to get it Alex!" he heard Emma cry from somewhere behind and below.

"They'll never take me alive," Alex muttered in mock anger.

Ahead of him, Alex spotted a meter and a half tall and wide boulder completely blocking the path. To the right of the path, uphill, was 20 to 30 meters of unclimbable scrabble of rocks and dirt. To the left, the same leading down to the valley floor, 50 meters away.

Alex decided to continue on, and vaulted the boulder, thinking his brother and sister would be greatly delayed by slowly climbing over the rock. He would continue on the path he had scouted last week that lead back around the mountain, and sneak up behind Em and Richie. Alex was over the boulder and on the downward arc of his vault when he realized the path on the other side of the boulder was gone.

The mind is an amazing tool. In the split second of realization, Alex concluded that the constant heating and cooling of the centuries caused the rocks of Loki to become fractured, and the new boulder had come down the hill with enough force to make the path fall away. He looked downward and spotted the remains of the path about twenty feet below him. He landed, almost prone on the scrabble and fell the twenty feet to the rock shelf. Alex landed on his hip, feeling the impact, and hearing a lout cracking noise. He didn't feel any intense pain, but did not have time to analyze before he started moving again.

The incline of the scrabble was about 70 degrees and Alex's impact and weight loosened the shelf of rock that formerly was the path, and he and the rock started downhill again. He could not see below but he could see by looking uphill that he was picking up speed quickly. He quickly curled into a crash position that would protect his head, and suddenly he was free-falling.

The free fall was immediately followed by another sharp impact that drove the breath from him. He tumbled downhill again with dirt, rocks and gravel but something in his brain told him he was falling a different direction this time. He never uncovered his head, though. His training as an Alphan taught him the body could survive a lot of trauma, but he had to protect his head.

Alex and all his accompanying dirt and rocks finally came to rest. He was only half-covered in debris so he opened his eyes. There was nothing but darkness.

"So this is what dead feels like." Alex croaked. He closed his eyes again and smiled wanly. "Bet Emma and Richie don't find me now."

"Dr. Russell, we've had an unusual occurrence," Alibe said on the monitor.

"Is it the kids?" Helena replied evenly.

"Well, we were working on the slate override problem, when Alex Koenig's slate stopped broadcasting."

"You think he did something to the slate, Alibe?"

"No, in fact you should hear this. When we examined the broadcast signal from the test loop, we found a message." Alibe touched a key, and Alex's voice came over the audio channel of the Slate.

"Mom, don't worry about us. We're out in the backyard playing. Of course the backyard is 1000 square kilometers, so if you really need us, Alpha can triangulate our position."

Helena could hear his smile and see the mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes.

"Have you found their location?" Helena asked Alibe.

"We've launched Eagle 4 to do the triangulation. It should be on station in ten minutes. But Alex's signal is gone. Hopefully we'll find them all together.

"Have Eagle 4 contact me as soon as they locate any of them." Helena signed off and went out to start one of the 4X4 ATV's they kept at the cabin. Alex, Emma and Richard had the second one. She settled into the driver's seat to wait for Eagle 4's signal while looking around at the mountains surrounding their home. Which way would the kids have gone? She didn't dare start out in any direction before she knew for sure, but she did know that she needed to let John know what was happening.

Back on Alpha, Alibe tapped her fingers nervously. She was rushing things along as quickly as she could, but felt guilty for not giving Dr. Russell all the information she had received. Emma Koenig's broadcast also held a message from Alex.

"Mom, if you've had to decode Em's signal too, then mine must be lost. Something bad must have happened, but it's not Em or Richie's fault. Come find us fast. Em's smart and she'll take care of Richie, but don't leave her out here for long. I love you, Mom."

Alibe swiped an embryonic tear from her eyes, and stabbed the commlink button so hard her finger hurt.

"Eagle 4. Report."

"Eagle 4, here. Four minutes to station at full thrust," Raoul Martinez reported from his Eagle.

"As soon as you have the location, full burn to the site. Contact me here at Main Mission and I'll inform Dr. Russell. I'm launching a Rescue Eagle for Loki now. There are no ground craft on Loki that can be there before our Eagles." Alibe contacted the Eagle bay and scrambled Rescue Eagle 2. Now all she could do was wait. Her stomach churned with worry and wondered who was watching the twins.

"Alex!"

No answer.

"Alex, I'm not kidding. Where are you?" Emma's voice was filled with restrained fear and panic. They had reached the boulder in the path and looked beyond it to see that Alex could not have gone that way because there was no path. She and Richie, whose face now had the 'what now?' look, backtracked down the path, and she searched the ground for traces of Alex's passing. They went all the way back to the ATV, two klicks back, where she opened the control panel, and pulled the processor card out and stuck it in her pocket -- just in case Alex was playing a trick.

Richie pulled the slate from his hip, and tried to get it to respond without success as they made their way back to the path where Alex vanished.

"Em, are we going to get in trouble, 'cause Alex messed up the slates?" Richie asked.

"Richie, I think we're already in trouble. I don't think Alex is playing. It's been over half an hour-- even he never plays a trick that long. He has too short an attention span."

"Let's head toward where we saw him last. Maybe he fell down the hill off the path or something. He could be hurt," Richie suggested.

Emma examined her own slate as they quickly walked up the mountain path. She snapped open the case and pulled the power cell from its tiny cradle, counted to 10 and put it back into place, and closed the cover. A tremendous roar from above startled them both as first one, then two Eagle spacecraft flew over them at an altitude of perhaps 300 meters. Emma's slate came to life with her Mother's face on the screen.

"Momma!" The picture of their mother jiggled and moved around the screen and they could see she was in the other ATV.

"Emma! Are you all right?" Helena asked. "Is Alex there? His slate isn't on anymore!"

"Yes, Momma, Richie and I are fine, but we can't find Alex anywhere. Two Eagles are flying over us. What's going on?"

"I'll ex...," Helena's head went completely above the viewer range as she hit a particularly large bump, "... plain when I get there. I saw the Eagles and I'll be there in five minutes."

Five minutes will feel like an eternity, Helena thought. Where is Alex?

Alex coughed up dirt and phlegm as he struggled to free his lower body from the rubble. Blurry eyes tried to focus, but the only light was a tiny point above him not much more than a star.

"I can't be dead," Alex whispered in the darkness. "Dead couldn't possibly hurt this much."

As he freed his legs, he slid further down the dirt and gravel incline. He did not pick up as much momentum because the angle was shallower, Alex surmised, and he finally came to a complete stop. His ankle burned fiercely, and he was bruised all over, but he could move a little, so he felt about carefully. Determining his surroundings to be about a meter high and two and a half meters wide, he tried to look back up the slope to see the point of light he saw before the last slide. Nothing.

The temperature was noticeably colder down here. At least he hoped it was colder, and that he wasn't going into shock. He'd seen accidents on Alpha, the victim shivering from cold in a warm room. No, he thought. This is real cold.

As he peered down further into his rocky prison, Alex could not tell if he could see a soft glow or his eyes were playing tricks on him, displaying what they wanted to see. Although his head still throbbed, he tried to inch his way back up the scrabble to freedom without success. The loose material fell away beneath his hands and knees, and more fell from above to take its place.

While he moved, something bumped his hip repeatedly. His slate was there, but when he reached for it, something felt wrong. Alex's pain -fogged mind finally remembered his resources. He fumbled in his pocket for the gift Uncle Alan had given him, and never been without since -- a small pocketknife with a light on it. He thumbed the button and a tiny beam of light stabbed out to reveal his totally useless slate. The touch screen, and therefore the control system, was gone completely, and the main board below it was broken in half. Tiny sparkles from his light danced off of filaments of fiber optics ripped asunder. Angry, both with himself and his misfortunes, Alex threw the innocent device aside to ricochet off the rock walls.

The sturdy little machine, he suddenly realized, had probably saved him a broken bone by absorbing the impact of his initial fall. Feeling guilty about his anger, and realizing his predicament was more dire than he first thought, Alex began to sob softly.

You have to get control of yourself. The first rule of survival is -- don't lose control. Alex fought it, but tears freely streamed down his face. He sobbed twice more, then froze, listening intently. While down here, he'd heard dirt and rocks tumble down toward him, his own movements scrunching the scrabble beneath him, but this was different. The only thing he could relate it to was being an archeological dig with his parents last year. When looking for fossil evidence, you used a really soft brush on the rock to remove the dust. It was that brushing noise, nonstop, but only a whisper of it. Then another sound, only slightly louder, like the sound of air moving -- a puffing sound. Once, then again.

Alex tried to think what geological phenomena could cause those kinds of sounds, since there were no life forms on Loki. Perhaps plant activity, or persistent fracturing. The tiny light cast about up the incline, down into the far shadows, left and right. Nothing but rock.

Then, right next to him, a few decimeters away, he saw it. The size of a basketball covered in gray-brown fur, the creature sat there, noiseless. Alex's eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open, as he stared and held his breath. He finally exhaled and suddenly the creature opened a maw that split it from side to side revealing mucus covered internal parts and the opening lined with what must be teeth, but looked like cactus thorns.

It made a puff sound, and Alex leapt back and up, forgetting the pain in his ankle and the low cave ceiling. When his head contacted rock, a million stars shone at once. Alex's last conscious thought before the million stars winked out was there are no life forms on Loki.

"Raoul, thanks for the help." Helena hugged a surprised Martinez.

I've known Helena Russell for over twenty years. I guess motherhood mellows some people, Raoul thought. "I'm going back up and do air support for the rescue team, Helena."

"Incoming craft on radar, Raoul!" Ralph Buchanon called from the Rescue Eagle entryway.

They all looked up in time to see a small silver craft flash soundlessly overhead and do a steep climbing bank turn to consume momentum. The sonic boom shook them all when it arrived, and less than a minute later the small ship, dubbed the Swallow, by its creator, Alan Carter, landed.

"John?" Raoul asked with one raised eyebrow.

"John," Helena knew without a doubt. She recognized the style as well as expected his arrival.

Looking more like a fighter plane, the comparatively small spacecraft opened its canopy and John Koenig, foregoing the slowly extending ladder leaped to the ground.

"Any progress?" John called across the clearing as he strode toward Helena.

"None yet, John." She put her arms around his neck and they shared a brief embrace. They parted to arms length and looked into each other's eyes. During the look, more information about mutual concern, anxiety, and determination to find their missing son was exchanged than anyone could have guessed.

"What's the plan?" John asked Helena. He could easily have ordered everyone to begin a search pattern, but he trusted his people to know their jobs and have done the preliminaries.

"Raoul and the team have done a sensor sweep, and a search for lifesigns, and so far everything is negative." Helena reported concisely. John sensed the strain in her voice but doubted anyone else could. "They've swept everything for five kilometers from where Emma last saw him."

John turned to Raoul. "Any energy or infrared readings?"

"None. There were no air or ground vehicles here in the last two hours, and no signs of any activity." Raoul refrained from saying signs of a body.

Emerging from the Rescue Eagle, three team members in full packs, bristling with emergency, climbing, and electronic equipment headed out.

"Commander, my co-pilot, Jim Frederick is with the ground team. You want to ride shotgun with me?" Raoul asked.

"I'd like that Raoul." He turned to Helena. "What about you?"

"I'm staying with the ground team. Emma's coming with us, and Richard is staying with Dave Morcock on the Rescue Eagle to act as a command center. According to Emma we're about a kilometer and a half from where she last saw Alex, so we're going there to start."

"Let's get moving, then." John Koenig turned and trotted to Eagle 4 with Raoul Martinez at his side. Emma and Helena caught up with the ground team, and brought up the rear of the van.

"Is it soup, yet?" Alex said groggily as he sniffed the air of the cave. "Heck, am I soup yet?"

Alex struggled to open his eyes, and was surprised to be able to make out his surroundings by the dim glowing of the walls. Every part of the rock walls shone with the same pale green glimmer. He was no longer in the same part of the cavern as before. There was a higher ceiling and the cavern was at least twice as wide as where he'd been. Had he crawled here semi-conscious, or had that creature he saw dragged him? The little fellow didn't seem to have the mass to do the job, but then he knew nothing about them.

Them! Alex thought with a start. There can't be just one--can there? Loki turns so cold in winter that parts of the atmosphere freeze, and it almost boils off in summer. I guess the key is almost. Mom has always said "Life will find a way." I guess it has here. Down here.

Somehow, Alex knew he was not in danger. He did not know how he knew, but he was looking forward to meeting these native animals again. Alex moved stiff, bruised limbs to look at the walls and ceiling more closely. He reached out and touched the green material, and rubbed it between his fingers. It ha a vaguely gritty, yet slimy texture, and a little musty odor, but the light was too faint to really see, even when held close. So engrossed was Alex in examining the glowing substance that he did not notice the movement behind him until there was the faint puffing noise he'd heard before. He slowly turned his head to see three of the natives a meter away. Two more were silently moving toward him from three or four meters further away.

They appeared to have no limbs of any kind. They moved by using an undulating, rolling movement -- making only a soft brushing sound. When the pair reached their compatriots, they barely touched and stopped where they were and opened their body-width mouth and puffed the same puffing noise as before. Alex decided they must be exhaling or something similar. Maybe it had to do with their movement. When they came to rest their bristling fur smoothed and the quintuple sat motionless in an almost perfect semicircle with Alex at the focal point. Alex thought briefly and pulled out the tiny torch he'd used earlier. He didn't want to blind them, so he shone it on the ceiling and the walls at first. The small light brightened the surroundings enough that he could see he was in a portion of a larger cavern that extended beyond the limits of his feeble instrument in both directions. There could be many kilometers of caverns connected together.

Alex slowly moved the small patch of illumination closer to his companions who seemed to ignore it. Closer and closer he moved the light with no response until it hovered directly in front of the center individual. Then he shined it directly at them, one after the other, and they remained oblivious.

"They must be completely sightless!" Alex whispered. At the first sound, the five seemed to jiggle in place. "But not deaf." He whispered again and was rewarded with more jiggling.

Alex suddenly realized how hungry and thirsty he was. It must have been quite a while since his downhill rock slide and his mouth was dry and sticky. He reached for the canteen on his belt and the creature at the far left of the semi-circle moved closer, making a low gmbling sound. It opened its mouth and made a loud puff and a gooey wad of slime landed on Alex's leg. Then it backed back to the semi circle.

Alex looked down at the glob on his pants, trying to think of why that had happened. Something from his biology classes about earth animals kept niggling at him. He'd never seen any Earth animals, but he had seen video and data file on them. It had something to do with young animals...

As he thought, Alex scraped the goo off of his leg and flung it from his hand away from himself and his companions. He did not want to hit the first alien life forms the Alphans had found here! The gooey mess splatted on the cave floor near the glowing wall, and instantly a low buzzing began. Alex directed his light toward the sound and at first it appeared that the cave floor itself was engulfing the slime. Peering closer, he was amazed to see hundreds of tiny creatures swarming over the glop of stuff.

Alex's five new friends immediately rolled to the spot and bounced onto the writhing pile -- jiggling and puffing constantly. The tiny creatures looked similar to the basketball-sized ones, except for their silver color and sparse fur covering. They looked like ball bearings with thin but stiff hair.

"That looks like feeding behavior to me," Alex said softly. "It could take the rest of my life to understand them, but they obviously sensed my hunger and thirst. Telepathy? Empaths? Guess the answer will have to wait guys."

Alex took a swig of his canteen, and examined the floor of the cavern in both directions with his torch. He found what could be scrape marks on the floor in one direction, and decided to leave his furry basketball team behind, and try again to ascend the scrabble incline. His parents would be worried by now and he'd probably better try to get out soon.

As Alex turned, the puffing from behind him stopped, and the squad of fuzzy Puffballs rolled past him about three meters and stopped -- as if waiting impatiently for him to catch up to them. Every time Alex approached them on hands and knees they rolled a few more meters, pacing his progress. The glow of the walls faded as Alex crawled down the tunnel, and his small light could not penetrate the more distant gloom. He could only see the area immediately ahead of him, but there was a sound from the distance.

The rotating Puffballs suddenly pulled up short -- their fur bristling outwards for a moment -- then they bounded forward into the darkness ahead. Alex heard what they must have heard. It was the sound of rocks falling.

Was the cave collapsing where he entered? He could be sealed inside forever! Could it be the hoped-for rescue party? Alex could hear nothing except rocks crashing. He scampered forward as fast as hands and knees could move. I hope it's not Em. I'll never hear the end of it if she saves me.

"Hang in there, Commander." Raoul jibed as John Koenig was lowered from Eagle 4 by winch. "The wind is only about 10 kph, but you're a bob on the end of a 200 meter plumb line."

Koenig looked at Raoul Martinez smile in the upper corner of the head's up display of the survival helmet, as he swung gently back and forth. The Latino pilot was holding the Eagle rock steady as he lowered John to the sharply inclined valley. There was nowhere to land an Eagle in the area and the ground team had already sent a huge cascade of rocks down the slope toward where they thought Alex might have fallen. "Just keep your hands on the wheel, pal," John smiled weakly. "I'm only a couple of meters from the ground. Three, two, one. Touchdown!"

Koenig's momentum made him drag across the ground to a stop on his knees. He released the harness and flung it aside.

"I'm free! Go get the rest of the team. I'm going into the crevice."

"Got it, Boss!" Raoul throttled the spacecraft upward to bring in more help, as Koenig ran to the opening beneath the mountain.

Helena watched her husband from the top of the pass where Emma thought Alex had gone. The boulder blocking the path was gone now. Jim Frederick had almost tumbled down with it, and Helena felt guilty that her only thought was what the rock's fall might have done to Alex if he were lying at the bottom of the slope. She watched John run below her view at the bottom of the hill, and a moment later was harnessing herself onto Eagle 4's winchline.

Two of the ground team were making their way down to the valley on foot while Jim Frederick stayed with Emma as she watched her mother prepare to lift from the ground to join her father far below.

"Stay here, Emma" Helena called, "We'll find him!"

"Right, Momma, we'll hold the high ground. I just wish I was with Raoul up in the Eagle."

"You'll be a pilot one day, Darling." With that, Helena lowered her face plate, signaled Raoul and she shot into the air when the Eagle lifted.

The boulder from above lodged into the entry to the cavern and the scrabble piled up around it, half blocking the entrance. John Koenig could find no sign of Alex in the rubble at the bottom of the slope, except for some small pieces of broken plastic that looked quite recent.

"Alex!"

No answer.

"Alex!!"

No answer.

Koenig would have to go in to look. He unclipped his spotlight and pushed headfirst into the opening, just clearing it with his backpack. He saw only rocks and dirt. With his safety line tied around a large boulder a few meters from the entry, John pushed in and began to slide downhill. "Here I come, Alex," John shouted as he accelerated into the darkness.

"Ouch! Damn!" Koenig cursed as a jutting rock struck his arm, causing him to lose his grip on the tethered torch. Now it was a bumpy slide with occasional flashes. Except for the pain, it reminded him of Space Mountain at Disney World in Orlando before Breakaway.

Until he slammed face first into the large rock.

Helena's valley arrival was even less graceful than John's, but she managed to stop and release the harness.

"Thanks, Raoul! How long can you stay on station?"

"As long as needed, Dr. Russell." Raoul would make sure he was there for them. He had kids too.

Helena ran to where she saw John enter the cavern. She heard him through the radio yell for Alex, then swear, then silence. "God, I can't have lost them both. Please God!" Helena whispered a fervent prayer.  "John?" She spoke clearly into the helmet microphone. "John, can you hear me?

No answer.

"John?!"

No answer.

Helena pulled on the safety line, and it was taut. She pulled hard and it gave some slack. John had the spool on full release so he could get down quickly, perhaps too quick.

"Helena." She heard John's weak whisper, and then it was cut off and she heard rattling and scraping.

"Mom?" Alex said, breathlessly.

"Alex! Thank the stars. Are you all right? What's happening down there?"

"I think Dad hit his head. He's kind of out of it, but he's partly conscious. I can't lift him cause I think I sprained my ankle, and we can't climb up this dirt to get out." Alex was talking so fast Helena could hardly understand him. She had to get them out of there fast and the rest of the ground team was nowhere in sight.

"Momma! Look out!" Emma's voice yelled in her headset. She looked up the hillside to see Emma and Jim runing down the path as another cascade of rocks rained down the slope.

"Dr. Russell," Jim Frederick called over the radio. "This whole hillside has become unstable. Look out down there."

"Just get Emma off that path, Jim," Helena ordered as more rocks and dirt fell down. "Raoul, can you hear me? We've got to have a plan."

Alex winced as more rocks the sized of softballs buffeted his ribs while he covered his father's head with his smaller body. Suddenly, no more rocks hit him, but he could still hear them coming into the cavern. Chancing a look with John's larger light, he saw the Puffballs lying next to him, deflecting the rocks and debris.

"Alex, " Helena Russell's voice was firm. "This is our last voice contact because I'm dropping my survival helmet down to you. Put your father's on him and mine on you -- less adjusting. Don't let it hit you on the way down."

"Yes, ma'am." Alex hoped his voice sounded surer than it was.

"Strap onto your father and hang on. The ride up may be worse than the one down. I'm sending the helmet down now."

Helena took off the helmet and stepped into the shower of dirt and rocks at the opening and dropped it in. The hillside didn't have much longer.

"Please hurry, Alex," she said to the opening of the cave.

Alex spied the helmet with his light and watched it bound by him, further into the cavern. Removing the helmet, he put it on his father and began crawling toward the second helmet holding his tiny torch in his teeth. Suddenly the helmet started coming back toward him. Behind it was one of the Puffballs pushing it along.

"Ready to get rid of me already?" Alex smiled as he put on the helmet. "Thanks, Puff." As he thanked the little alien, he reflexively reached out and stroked it, and a feeling like electricity tingled through his entire body.

A moment of contact. Shared feelings. Alex couldn't describe it, but tears streamed down his face beneath his faceplate. Some tough space pioneer I am. Can't even say goodbye to a beachball.

Alex turned back to his father and clipped a safety line on his own belt to his father's, and hugged him tightly.

"Alex?" John Koenig groaned. "Are you ok?"

"I will be, Daddy."

Alex hugged tighter yet, trying not to sob. His father was ok, and he was saying goodbye to the greatest discovery of his time, and to a friend. "They're about to bring us up. And Mom said it was going to be a ---ugh" The safety line jerked them upward at startling speed preventing any further speech.

The slope looked ready to move. The shower of rocks had become a hard rain and Helena felt the edges of panic.

"Now Raoul" she shouted and waved her hands over the roar of the Eagle's engines just thirty meters above her.

One of the other two members of the ground team had given over one of their helmets to Helena so she could stay in contact with Raoul in the Eagle. Rauol moved the Eagle at a steady pace, and a carefully estimated angle with John Koenig's safety line attached to the winch line.

"Slowly now," Helena coached as she stood near the entry. She was knee deep in dirt and rock with the opening narrowing by the second.

John and Alex appeared in the opening and Raoul instantly cancelled his momentum, allowing the rest of the team to pull them out. The entire slope seemed to shift downward slightly, engulfing everyone in a cloud of dirt at the same moment.

Choking on the dust, Helena unstrapped John's pack and threw it aide to lay him on his back and examine him. He was conscious, but groggy, a sure sign of being mildly concussed. They smiled at each other.

"Alex ok?" John struggled with the words.

"He'll be fine. I'm going to look at his leg now, but he looks great to me." Helena kissed John's cheek and went to look at Alex.

"Hello there, Tiger." Helena smiled at her son calling him by her pet name for him.

"Hi Mom." Alex smiled back weakly. "I suppose I'm late for lunch, huh?"

"Just a little." Helena examined him all over and agreed with Alex's assessment that his ankle was sprained.

"I know you were worried, Mom." Alex looked sheepish beneath his bruises.

"Only the paranoid survive. I'm very paranoid, and I'm trying to teach paranoia to my children. Always look over your shoulder." She smiled at him and kissed his forehead. "Well, you've had quite a day."

"Wait 'til I tell you." Alex looked over at the cave mouth, or where it used to be and his excitement faded. His father was only semi-conscious down in the cave, so no one else ever saw the puffball creatures. If I tell this story without proof, Em will be on my case forever.

"Tell me later. You and your father are going straight to Alpha for Medical treatment."

"But Mom----" Helena cut him off with that look that said "no buts" "Can I come back? There's research I want to do before we have to go back to Alpha for the season."

"We'll see." Helena said as she went to direct the team getting John up to Eagle 4.

As the rescue team loaded John Koenig on a stretcher, Alex saw them clip Koenig's pack to the stretcher as well. Alex could see a tuft of grey-brown fur beneath the flap and he smiled and became lost in thought.

I guess I can tell them after all.

"Alex."

No answer.

"Alex!"

No answer -- but there would be soon.
 

January, 1999

 

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