The Globe

By Ellen Lindow

"How long before you finish your homework?" John Koenig knelt on the floor of his office beside his son and daughter. Both were sprawled in the corner behind the globe of Earth, concentrating on the math problems lined up on their slates.

Emma checked the tally in the upper corner of the slate. "I have five more to go," she said, glancing up at him. He patted her shoulder and looked at Alex.

"Four more." Alex's blue eyes met his father's.

John glanced at his youngest son who was curled up in his favorite chair with his slate. "My reading program will be up in five more minutes, Daddy," Richard peered over the back of the chair.

"I've got to go out to the Eagle bay. Once you're done, you can play until suppertime." He could tell that Emma was about to ask to go with him, but he shook his head and she turned back to her slate with a sigh.

Alex responded, "OK, Daddy."

"Don't be late, you know how much your mama hates that." Koenig warned his children. The children usually reported to his office after school to do their homework. There was a study time and daycare available until parents got off duty, but Helena felt the children needed more parental contact. She also felt they needed some time of undirected play, so once John was satisfied that their homework was done he usually turned the three of them out to roam the halls of Alpha until dinner. At ages six, eight and ten, they were allowed access to several of the rec areas and family level halls. They usually ran in and out of his office a dozen times and did the same with Helena in her office, lab or at home. Their slates had timers that let them know when to head home for dinner and they generally arrived sweaty, loud and hungry as locusts.

"Bet I can get done before you," Alex said to Emma.

"Bet not," Emma replied. She looked up at her father. "Say go," she commanded.

"On your mark, get set, go." He chanted obediently. Both children dove back into their slate. They never noticed when he left the room.

Emma finished first with a triumphant, "Done!" Alex growled and continued working. Emma rolled over onto her back and stared up at the globe of Earth. "I hate math," she said, idly spinning the globe.

"You do not," Alex corrected. "You hate homework."

Emma considered that. She continued to methodically spin the globe upwards above her, watching continents pass by. She knew the names of them all. She and Alex had both sat in Daddy's lap as he turned the globe and named the oceans and land masses that the children would never see. "True, I just don't like doing those problems over and over again."

Richard joined them. He reached out on the opposite side to spin the globe faster.

Alex finished his own math and watched as his sister and brother spun the globe faster and faster. Both were grinning as the oceans spun by at breathtaking speed. He reached out with the toe of his boot to give it a spin of his own. He was off center and not part of the rhythm the two had built up. The rubber sole of his boot caught on the plastic and the huge globe gave a bounce. The other two laughed. Alex kicked harder and the globe bounced higher.

"Do it again, Alex!" Richard cried.

Emma spun around and pushed her feet against it too while Richard continued to spin it. All three were laughing now as the globe bounced and spun. Alex and Emma kicked once more in unison and the globe bounced up high. Richard gave a yelp and pushed as the globe towered over top of him. Alex and Emma sat up in shock as the large object tumbled out of its holder and bounced ponderously down the steps into the main area of the office. It rolled against the round conference table, bounced off and hit the steps in front of their father's desk. It caromed off the step and into a chair then rolled across to the far wall.

Richard pulled his mini-slate off his belt and opened the door to the hallway. The giant ball rolled majestically out the door.

Alex scrambled to his feet. He was the oldest and the quickest to grasp the consequences of their action. "What did you do that for?" he shouted at Richard.

"It wanted out!" Richard answered, running across the room to follow the globe out into the hallway.

Alex grabbed his sister's arm and they tore out the door behind their brother and the runaway globe.

"Wow!" Josh Devers was coming down the hall. Alex had sent him a message on his slate to meet them. His parents worked for Alex's mother and they usually gave permission to let Josh play with Alex as long as homework was finished first. Josh flattened himself against the wall as the ball rolled past him. It bounced against the corner of the commpost then into the next hallway.

Richard was right behind it and slammed into the panel that opened the stairway. The globe bumped into the doorway and rolled to a stop on the very edge of the stairs. All four children peered through the door at the globe watching it in silence.

Emma was the first to hear footsteps coming down the hall. She punched Alex in the arm and they pushed the other two through the doorway. Emma closed the door behind them and sighed with relief. They certainly didn't want some grown-up to find them with Daddy's escaped globe.

"How did you get it out?" Josh wanted to know, still in awe of the large object sitting majestically beside them.

"It's Richie's fault." Emma said.

"Is not!" Richard protested. "You touched it first."

"I didn't let it out!" she cried.

"Alex kicked it." Richard tried deflecting the blame again.

"I didn't let it out either, pea-brain." Alex shouted at him.

Richard didn't have a response for that so he stepped up and pushed Alex.

Alex was tall for his age and Richard's push barely moved him, but it did make him mad and he shoved back. Richard sat down hard and his head bumped against the globe. That was all the momentum it needed. Before Richard's eyes could well with tears the globe fell off the top step.

Emma gasped and she and Josh hauled Richard up from the floor.

The globe was so big it barely hit two steps as it fell toward the next landing. At each bounce it gave a hollow-sounding bonk. It hit the landing and bounced against the wall then was on its way down the next flight of stairs, picking up speed. This time it only touched one step before bouncing against the wall.

Richard leaned over the railing and called, "Look out below!" His voice echoed down the stairwell, mixing with the bonk, bonk bonk as the globe gained speed on it's downward journey. The echoes and the look on Richard's face gave Emma a fit of giggles and she slid down the wall to sit by the top step, helpless with laughter.

Josh laughed too, but stopped when Alex began to drag him down the stairs. Alex glared up at his useless siblings. "Come on," he ordered.

Richard and Emma scrambled down the stairs after the older boys. The echoes from below rose up faster and faster until they heard it hit bottom, the bonking noises speeding up as the globe bounced in place, then they stopped abruptly. The children sped up, the older boys leaping down three and four steps at a time. Richard and Emma ran hard, not quite confident enough to jump. They arrived at the bottom breathless, the globe sitting still in the corner. There was a new lake in Antarctica. Alex wondered if his father would notice.

"Daddy is going to kill us!" Emma said practically, her arms folded in front of her.

Richard nodded his eyes wide.

"You know," Josh said slowly, backing up a step or two. "I don't think I got all my homework done."

"Oh no you don't" Alex pulled him back. "I'm going to need you."

"What are we going to do?" Richard asked his older brother.

Alex looked at the others who all turned hopeful eyes on him. He had a flash of their choices. They could tell Daddy, or put it back. If they told Daddy he suddenly saw that he would end up with all the blame. He could hear his father now, telling him that he was the oldest and should have stopped the others. For a brief moment Alex thought about pounding Richard to a pulp. If he were going to be in trouble it might as well be for several things at once.

Emma leaned against the wall, looking, but not touching the globe. "It should fit in the elevator," she said thoughtfully.

"Everybody will see when we get off the elevator," Josh scoffed.

Alex paced back and forth in front of the globe. "Not if we wait until after everyone goes to bed."

"We'll have to hide it," Emma pointed out.

Alex nodded thoughtfully.

"Hey!" Richard called. "I can stand up under here." He was behind the stairs and poked his face and hand between two steps to wave at them. Alex grinned. He walked behind the staircase and joined his brother. He put his hand on Richard's shoulder.

"This is a good place, Richie." Richard glowed with the praise. Alex looked around. The stairwell was empty. Anyone coming in to climb the steps might still see the globe. He grabbed Josh by the sleeve. "Go out in the hall and find an emergency medical kit. Get out the blanket they use for shock victims and bring it here.

"What if someone sees me?"

"Tell them your Dad asked you to get it." Before Josh could ask any more questions Alex opened the door and shoved him out into the hallway. He glanced back at Emma. "Help me get it under there before anyone comes in."

They rolled the giant ball under the stairwell and then they waited. It seemed forever before Josh returned. The blanket was small and thin and he had stuffed it under his shirt. He looked terrified.

They covered up the globe and stood back to inspect it.

"It still looks the same." Richard said, disappointed.

"We need a sign," Emma said. "Something that says 'do not touch', like Mama uses when she's doing an experiment."

"I'm not going out there to get something else," Josh stated emphatically.

Alex shook his head. "We're going to go to dinner. Then we'll come back tonight after midnight."

"How are we going to do that?" Josh asked.

"Set your slate to wake you up," Alex commanded.

"No way. I'm not getting caught sneaking out," Josh shook his head.

"Josh is right, He's not in trouble yet. Don't make it worse for him," Emma said.

"We can't lift this by ourselves," Alex protested.

Emma frowned. Then she snapped her fingers and headed up the stairs. "Leave it to me. I'll see you at home for dinner."

"What are you going to do?" Alex called up at her.

"Don't worry!" she replied, and left the stairwell several floors up.

The children were on time for dinner. In fact they were early. They washed up without being asked and were extremely quiet at the table. Their parents noticed the difference and exchanged worried glances. John asked, "Did you three finish your homework before you left to play?"

"Yes, Daddy." Emma looked virtuous and managed a smile. She slid her vegetable lasagna from one side of the plate to the other.

"What did you do the rest of the time?" Helena asked.

"Just played," Alex shrugged. "Josh was with us for a while."

Richard stopped eating altogether. His mother looked at him. "Richie, are you all right?"

Alex and Emma exchanged alarmed glances. Richard shook his head. Tears began to streak down his face. Helena glanced at the older two. "Did you eat anything this afternoon that might have made him sick?"

"No, Mama." "Oh, no!" The two denied strenuously and simultaneously.

"We haven't eaten anything since lunch," Alex added.

"Maybe it's those pickles Aunt Kate gave him at lunch time. He put them on his noodles." Emma proposed helpfully. She nudged Richard. "I bet your stomach hurts from that, doesn't it?"

Richard shook his head, then nodded it, then reached out for his mother. She pulled him onto her lap and held him close, rocking him gently. "Where do you hurt, Richie?"

He sobbed. "All -- all over."

"Can you eat something?" she asked gently.

He shook his head vigorously and clung tightly to her. She finally picked him up and took him to the rocker farther from the table. He sobbed until he began to hiccup, then hiccuped until he fell asleep, still clinging desperately to her. The older children forced down their dinner while John knelt in front of his wife and youngest son. "Should we take him to Medical Center?"

"I don't know, John." Helena said quietly with worry in her voice. "I can't detect any problem. I don't think he hurts anywhere." She shook her head. She looked at the other two who were watching from the table. She glanced back at her husband who moved to sit beside Emma. He took her hand.

"Sweetheart, did Richie fall down or hurt himself while you were playing this afternoon?"

"Oh, no Daddy. We were real careful." Emma assured him.

Alex nodded in agreement.

"What were you playing? Did he get scared by something?"
Alex and Emma exchanged a glance. "I scared him, Daddy," he said hesitantly. Emma watched carefully.

"How, Alex?" John asked, puzzled. Alex usually was pretty protective of his little brother.

"Well," Alex began slowly. "We were just playing, and he said something stupid. I told him I was going to push him out an airlock if he said it again." The details were sketchy, but Alex was still coming up with the idea. "Then he followed me around saying it over and over again. So I dragged him to a closet and told him it was an airlock and pushed him in."

"It was really dark," Emma helped once she could see where the story was going. "Richie was screaming."

"Oh, Alex," Helena said softly, her voice full of disappointment.

Alex hung his head, eyes tearing with relief. They were going to believe him!

"Alex," John said. "That's not something to joke about."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Alex said with believable regret.

"Alex, go to your room. I'll have a talk with you in a few minutes." John said sternly.

Alex slipped away from the table. Emma began to stack plates industriously, for once welcoming dishwashing duty if it would keep her parents attention focused elsewhere.

John carried Richie to bed, then sat and talked quietly with Alex on the top bunk. Or rather, he talked to Alex. Alex wasn't speaking, although he nodded in all the right places.

Helena helped Emma with the dishes and Emma also got a refresher course in not playing or pretending to play by an airlock. Emma listened intently, feeling fortunate to get off so easy. After bathtime, she requested that her mother read her a story and pretended to fall asleep almost immediately.

It took forever for midnight to come. She was already dressed, but back in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin in case one of her parents came in. When Alex scratched on her door she was out of bed with a bounce.

"Are they asleep?" she asked.

"Yes," Alex whispered back. "And I'm not waking Richard up."

Emma nodded in agreement.

They opened the door and stepped out into the hall. It was as brightly lit as always but deserted. Emma slipped her hand into Alex's and he squeezed her hand. They had to make their way down the hall to the elevator, then up three levels to the travel tube, then back to the center of Alpha, then downstairs to where they had hidden the globe.

Midnight in Main Mission was a quiet time. Maya Verdeschi was the only operative on duty. She had settled into a routine of working the graveyard shift to keep the doctors from fussing over her. Toto was a month old now, and she was ready to get back to her work. Loki's climatology was complex and intriguing and she could assemble and organize the data from the weather satellites from here as easily as she could from her home on Loki. Tony was perfectly happy handling the new baby and would never tell on her. In fact he was deliriously happy any time he was around little Toto. They would be returning to Loki next week. Despite having had the baby on Loki, Alpha's infuriating medical staff had all but shanghaied her once Toto was born and she was too exhausted to protest. Tony wanted the best medical facilities available anyway. She had barely forgiven him for cooperating.

A motion on one of the security cameras caught her eye as she walked back to her desk from the computer banks. She paused and recognized the two oldest Koenig children sitting in a travel tube. Neither parent was in evidence. She considered for a moment, then drew up a chair to watch. The readout showed they were headed toward Main Mission. She set a request to continue to monitor Alex's mini-slate.

She was still puzzled when they exited the travel tube and took an elevator to the lowest level. They moved down a corridor and entered a stairwell. When they went behind the stairway she sat forward.

They rolled out the globe and Maya recognized it immediately as one of John's prized possessions. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. As she watched them roll the globe out into the corridor and toward the elevator she had to laugh. They looked so serious. She supposed they were. If John Koenig caught them she didn't want to be on Alpha at the time.

They maneuvered the globe into the elevator and pushed the button for the top level. This was the worst part. If someone else called the elevator and the doors opened there was nowhere to hide. The globe was wider than both of them together. Maya could foresee this problem too. She checked the corridors on the security system. Flipping through the floors everything looked clear until she reached the top floor. David Kano was walking down the hallway and should be right at the elevator as the doors opened up. Without hesitation Maya gave a command to stop the elevator. She saw the children's startled faces before closing the monitor, but she didn't have time to warn them. She slid back to her own desk just as Kano walked through the door. He greeted her and settled in at his desk. Kano was a man of few words. If he was here in the middle of the night he was here to work. Maya watched him for a few minutes then started the elevator again.

"What if it's broke?" Emma asked, her voice on the edge of panic. "What if we're here all night and when they come to fix it in the morning we're still here with that?"

Alex didn't have any answers but he could play the 'what if' game too. What if Mama and Daddy woke up in the morning and found them gone? He glanced at the mini slate on his waist. He knew Mama and Daddy could find their location by using main computer. Then they could be waiting outside the door when it opened. He had no idea what they would do, but he was certain it would be worse than anything he could imagine. He glanced at his sister. "You're not going to cry or anything like that are you?"

Emma pulled herself together. "Of course not," she replied, insulted.

At that moment the elevator started again. When they reached the top floor. Emma leaned against the 'close door' button.

"What are you doing?" Alex said.

"Wait." She rummaged through the front pouch pocket of her tunic. It was her favorite top with the pink ruffle at the bottom and a large pink flower on the front above the pouch pocket. She pulled out a pink plastic jack of the kind she and Dinah frequently played with and knelt on the floor by the door. She pushed the 'door open' button and as soon as there was a crack in the door she rolled the jack through, then she pressed the 'door close' button again.

She pulled her minislate from her belt and tapped the screen. Alex peered over her shoulder as a multiple set of round pictures appeared. She selected one scene by tapping on it. The hall was clear. She backed up and tapped another picture. The other direction was clear too. Alex could just make out the smaller pictures being the ceiling and floor.

"Wow!" Alex was very impressed. "How did you do that?"

"It's fiber optics-- like Mama uses in medical center. I put them in the points of the jack. The only problem is the transmitting range is less than two meters."

"I want one." Alex said, feeling a jolt of jealousy.

"I'll make you one." Emma promised generously. She tapped the 'door open' button again and retrieved the jack as Alex started rolling the globe out.

It was a short trip down the hall to the door of the office. Alex tapped his slate and the door opened obediently. They glanced down the hall at the open doorway to Main Mission, but nothing stirred. They rolled the ball into the office.

Emma left Alex as the door closed. She crawled under the conference table and dragged out a heavy looking metal box.

"What's that?" Alex asked. With the door closed he felt safer here than he had all day.

"They use them to load and unload Eagles," Emma explained. As she unlatched pieces of the box it folded out into something three meters long with metal rollers on bars. Alex watched, then helped her latch the pieces in place. They carried it over to the globe's stand and sat one side on it. The other side was on the floor. Alex grinned. This was going to work! They rolled the globe up the steps and onto the rollers. It was slippery and hard to handle. It wanted to roll downhill, not up, but they pushed and shoved until the globe was at the top of the stand. With one last push the globe fell back in place with a thunk that made the stand bounce. The rollers fell away from the stand with a second crash. The two froze and looked at each other, but nothing happened. They grinned with relief and gave each other a high five.

Emma began packing up the rollers. "We can leave it on the travel tube when we get off. Somebody will find it and put it away."

In Main Mission David Kano felt -- something. He turned to Maya. "Did you feel that?"

Maya was engrossed in the information on her monitor and jumped at his question. "Feel what?"

"Maybe a little quake." David answered.

"I'll check for seismic activity," Maya offered helpfully. "It might be the precursor to something else."

David nodded. Seismic activity was Maya's role, not his. Maya remained busy as David returned to his own tasks.

Maya watched as the children packed up the rollers. She saw Alex check the globe one last time, feeling a specific spot. Then he turned the globe so that spot was pointed down. The two children dragged the rollers out the doorway and all was quiet. She watched the monitors as they made their way undetected back to their quarters.

David left about a half hour later and Maya took the chance to slip into the Commander's office and examine the globe; specifically the area Alex had taken great pains to hide. There was a scrape across the paint. It almost looked like a lake, but Maya had studied the geography of Earth in an effort to understand the other Alphans. There would be no lakes on a frozen continent.

It took her only a few minutes to make her way to maintenance closet and find some spare paint. She returned quickly and the lake vanished. By morning no one would ever be able to tell the difference.

Whatever Emma and Alex had done to the globe, it should go completely undetected by their father.

January 10, 1999