Daydreams
~ 2 months after landing, the night of Breakaway’s first anniversary
Alan looked up in time to catch Peter Rockwell’s eye. He was rather impressed by the sheer neutrality of the gaze. The British pilot turned away from Sandra’s side and walked away, heading toward the cave housing the Alphan’s command center here on Terra Alpha. Alan wouldn’t say the man looked particularly pleased about the situation, but he was being, well, professional about the whole thing.
“’Scuse me, John.” Alan stood from the large table, initially rescued from the Commander’s private office on Alpha, and tonight brought out here to the open field for this impromptu celebration. John absently nodded his head as he stroked his blue and burgundy pet and continued to watch the moons cross the brilliant night sky. Alan smiled as the small creature sitting on his shoulder stretched out its pointed muzzle toward John’s and waggled its whiskers. The smaller creature in John’s lap shrugged its fur in apparent response. He had no idea what these small critters could do, but these two and about ten others had attached themselves to various Alphans and seemed inquisitive and kind.
He turned about and briefly scanned the dark field, tables and chairs scattered on grasses flattened from the departed crowd, the two moons casting everything and everyone in strange, doubled shadows. Sandra stood by herself off to one side watching Peter leave. Alan crossed the intervening distance and came up behind her, calling her name softly so not to startle her.
“Sandra? He’ll be alright.” He stopped behind her, near enough to touch her but waiting for her to acknowledge him.
“I know.”
Alan waited until Peter had entered the cavern, although the man never turned back, and then picked up Sandra’s hand. This was about as much as he could have hoped for from Peter. If he had been first on the scene, he doubted he would have been all that pleased to share his fiancé with an interloper. Times and circumstances change, though. Sometimes dramatically.
“Come on, Sahn. Let’s go explore.”
“Explore?” She turned around frankly surprised.
Alan grinned. “Yeah. I bet you haven’t been out of this camp all that much since we landed. Every time I’ve seen you you’ve been buried in the guts of a computer console or staring at a screen, completely oblivious.” He cast his free hand out toward the mountains around them. “There’s a whole planet out there waiting for us!”
Sandra looked doubtfully at the dark mountains reaching high above them. “I’d rather not slip and break a leg climbing through the woods this late at night, Alan. The planet will be waiting in the morning, I believe.” She looked at the tall pilot beside her, tired but with a smile. “Certainly you can think of other things to do?”
Alan smiled back and traced the side of Sandra’s face with his fingers. “Oh, I suppose. Come on.”
He towed a willing Sandra behind him as he led the way to her small shelter, a survival quonset hut set up not that far from the narrow river that ran through the middle of this valley. Inside, he stole a kiss and ducked into the partitioned sleeping area, quickly returning with a standard Alphan blanket draped over his left arm. He slipped his free arm around Sandra’s waist and leaned over to rub his cheek against hers. “I’ve always wanted to make love to you by moonlight,” he whispered.
Sandra laughed. “Always being measured in the terms of the two months we have been here?”
“What can I say? It’s been a long two months.” He gathered her close for a proper kiss, just aware that Blue had crossed from his shoulder to hers. He looked up to see the creature’s eyes slitted in what in a cat would have been sheer bliss. Sandra reached a hand up to touch the soft animal.
“I think he likes you better, Sahn.”
“Is he a he?”
“No idea. And I’m not about to let a medico find out with one of their knives. Let’s go.”
Not waiting for a reply, and not really expecting one from the quiet woman, he picked up a rechargeable torch and opened the door. Arm in arm, they walked into the shadows away from the camp.
~~~~~~~~
“Are you sure this is safe?” Sandra looked dubiously under the dense trees into the denser shadows, the lights from the settlement left behind. Alan had been right in one thing, she hadn’t been that far outside their initial landing site. She had been far too busy trying to coordinate the re-assembly of computers and scanners and then helping program the satellites that Alan and a team of pilots had just placed in orbit. And in truth, she never had been much of an outdoors person.
Alan’s face was hard to see, but his voice was cheerful as he kept the torch light on the ground ahead of them. “We haven’t come across any predators so far. A few of the lads in security used to hunt in Africa and they have yet to see any signs of large animals, and this valley has been looked over pretty carefully. Maybe the Eagles scared the large beasties away. Once we get firmly planted here and John gives the all clear, we’ll check out a wider area.”
Sandra wasn’t totally reassured and she moved in closer to Alan. He didn’t seem to mind. As they walked almost hip to hip she felt the sidearm holster hanging from his belt. She was pleased to know he wasn’t being as cavalier as he sounded.
The quiet of the night, the scents and sounds of trees and the wind were a tonic against all that they had been through on Alpha. Their conversation lapsed and they walked hand in hand, Sandra following Alan’s lead. The soft creature on her shoulder seemed feather light, its small paw hanging onto an ear almost ticklish. After half an hour, she could hear the sounds of tumbling water in the distance. Alan slowed and looked down in her direction.
“Sahn, close your eyes.”
She did so, trusting in Alan to guide her steps. They moved from walking on earth to stepping on stones and soon those became damp and slick. The echoing sounds and the feel of again being enclosed told Sandra they had entered a cave of some sort. The humidity in the air rose measurably as the sounds of water became louder. Alan slowed and then stopped.
“Almost there.”
Sandra could tell he was shifting the blanket onto his shoulder by the movements next to her and then his arm wrapped itself around her waist. He pulled her forward and around a corner and stopped again. They were no longer in a cave. The mist of falling water hit her face and the sounds around her caused her to open her eyes in surprise. What she saw took her breath away.
It was simply beautiful.
They were standing behind the falling water of a small stream as it tumbled down over the opening of the tunnel. The lights of the doubled moons caused the small waterfall to be almost iridescent with blues, purples, pinks and ivories. There were bright flickers deep in the falling waters that rather reminded her of fireflies. And somehow, those lights were gently reflected off the walls of the tunnel and she could see Alan watching her in the soft, wavering light. Mosses purple, blue and the occasional green grew thickly on the ground and up the lower walls. There were swirling, flowing patterns just above the moss line all around this small grotto. She turned about in a circle and then stopped and looked up to her companion.
“Alan, this is…” She couldn’t come up with the right world. There had been nothing like this on Earth.
Alan smiled at her delight but then his smile faded and he stepped closer to her. He bent over slightly and kissed her, his hands running up and down her back. He found the zipper and with a growing urgency undressed her and himself, barely registering Blue’s discrete move to place his small body between them and the outer entrance, for all the world like a small sentry. Alan paused only long enough to spread the blanket he had brought over the mossy ground as he pulled her down to his side. They made love with the joy of new possibilities all around them.
~~~~~~~~
“Alan, how did you find this place?” Sandra pulled her jacket over her body to ward off the growing chill as the sweat of their exertions dried. Alan kissed her gently and sat up enough to reach over against the wall and pull a second blanket over them. He took Sandra’s jacket and folded it over to double as a pillow for himself, and then held out his arm until Sandra curled up against his side and pillowed her head on his shoulder.
“I didn’t, Fraser did. On one of his reconnaissance flights. Said he saw the waterfall and something seemed funny to him. He hiked out here and found the tunnel and,” Alan snorted gently, “and he and Annie have made more than a few trips out here themselves.”
Sandra chuckled but then looked quickly back the way they arrived.
“Don’t worry, Sahn. No one else will come in here tonight.”
Sandra obviously rather doubted Alan’s calm assurance.
“We set up the old message system. I turned the signal rock outside the entrance to ‘busy’.”
Sandra partially sat up, looking mortified that all the pilots were soon to know about her visit here with him. He laughed out loud.
“Sandra, love, you made a rather definite statement back at that meeting when the three of us walked out together. This isn’t going to raise any eyebrows.” He ran his hands up and down her back and then reached under the blanket to lightly caress her inner thighs. “The only thing that would surprise them is that this is only the third time since Exodus and what…” Alan looked inward for a moment, “maybe the eighth or ninth time altogether?”
“Sixth.”
“Sixth?”
“Sixth.” She relaxed under his touch and laid back down. The falling water was very hypnotic and soothing and Sandra was almost asleep when Alan abruptly rolled over, halfway on top of her. He was obviously not in the least sleepy and intended to make the most of this brief respite away from the overwhelming necessities of setting up their new home. He trailed a line of kisses from brow to jaw line and continued down from there. His hands explored her leisurely but quite thoroughly and by the time he returned to kiss her again, she was more than ready. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her and into her as they kissed. He wanted to make exceedingly sure she did not regret her decision to strike out against convention and include him in a most unusual threesome. It was only afterwards, as he rested lightly on a sated Sandra, that Alan noticed the light reflected from the eyes of the small observer.
“Sahn, we do have an audience.”
“Hmmm?”
Alan laughed. Sandra no longer seemed concerned about being interrupted. He took his weight back onto his forearms as he idly watched Blue walk over to them. Sandra responded to his movement by wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him back closer. Blue walked up to them and looked at their joined bodies. Alan wondered what he saw, if their auras blended at times like this. With a surprisingly quick movement, Blue jumped up and landed on Alan’s back upsetting his balance and causing him to rather squash Sandra.
“Oomph. Alan…”
“Sorry love, I just gained a kilo or two.”
Sandra opened her eyes to see the bright eyes and purple snout of the moppet looking down over Alan’s shoulder and into her face.
“I see that. Will he always do this?” Sandra looked into the searching dark eyes of the small creature and with some difficulty broke away to look into Alan’s.
“Don’t know. But I’m looking forward to finding out.” He ducked his head to kiss Sandra again and then sat up quickly, twisting slightly to scoop up the small creature before it could fall on Sandra. Settling back, he wrapped one arm around Sandra as she rested against his side and chest and the other around Blue as he settled into the crook of his arm.
“We’ve been through hell, Sahn, but just maybe this planet was worth it. There’re all sorts of resources just waiting out there to be tapped. Trees, water, and Bill thinks he might have sighted an open coal vein.”
Sandra wasn’t sure she liked that thought.
“I would hate to see our new home polluted.”
Alan briefly pulled her tight against him.
“I know. But we’ll need a source of power. The portable generators won’t provide for all our needs and they’ll eventually break down. While we’ve been mapping and surveying, some of the guys have been brainstorming. There seems to be a steady wind over the valley, all over the planet, really, so maybe we can come up with some kind of wind turbine. Or harness some of the waterfalls. Sandra, you remember old Professor Bergman, don’t you?”
“Of course.” The space program’s senior scientist had been a close family friend for years, ever since Bergman had met her mother as she flew him about Europe and had then been introduced to her soon-to-be husband, Lawrence Benes.
“He was always tinkering in his lab, and not always on astrophysics mock-ups. He had wind turbines, geothermal pumps, solar collectors, all sorts of generators scattered about. He was brilliant. Damn, I wish he’d been with us at Breakaway.”
Sandra nodded, her head against Alan’s chest. Things might have turned out differently had her kindly foster-uncle been with them.
“I am sure Earth is benefiting from him being there. Alan, how long will the Eagles last?” She felt his shrug.
“They’re tough, but they weren’t intended for full-time planetary use. We brought every bit and piece we could shift off Alpha, but even so, we couldn’t bring all the repair facilities. I imagine we have fifteen, maybe twenty good years use. Maybe more if we can find some shelter for them from the weather. And if the folks in Manufacturing can set up something comparable to what they had on Alpha. We’ll need to be kept supplied with nuts and bolts.”
Sandra relaxed as Alan’s hands lightly caressed her as he contemplated what needed to be accomplished. She hadn’t known until recently that Alan’s undergraduate studies focus had been engineering. That was turning out to be a godsend.
“We’re lucky we had the time to strip Alpha. The moon buggies have done well enough so far helping pull the makeshift plows and getting the crops in the ground, but that’s only a stopgap measure. We need to design better planting and harvesting equipment and a means to power them. We need a renewable power source, or maybe a large draft animal, and we haven’t seen anything like that yet. We’ll have to scale back our technology, but I’ve heard Kano and some of the techs say they have hopes of keeping us more advanced than fur skins and clubs.”
Sandra shuddered at that, even though Alan had said it teasingly. Hers and David’s teams had managed to extensively ‘lobotomize’ Alpha’s Computer and bring most of it down planetside, but still. Parts did wear out and it seemed unlikely they could be replaced anytime soon.
“And Kevin Taylor has some good ideas. His family still lived pretty close to the land back on Earth, and it sounds like they took care of it. He’s been telling us how he spent summers with his grandfather and uncles learning how to live off the wilds, hunting and fishing, building shelters.”
Sandra had always liked the quiet Canadian Ojibwa pilot.
“He’s got good ideas about nature. I’d like to see our kids take care of this place so they don’t end up in the same predicament I bet Earth’s in now.”
A rush of unexpected tears filled Sandra’s eyes and her breath caught in her throat in a sob. Alan kissed the top of her head and ran a comforting hand up and down her back.
“I miss them, Alan.” She tried to stifle her tears. “Do you think they survived? Could Earth have survived?” She was unable to restrain emotions that had been too contained for too long. The tears flowed freely.
“I just don’t know, love.”
They lay quietly together, Blue settling on top of them, as the sparkling waterfall dimmed with the passage of the moons. Eventually, they slept.
~~~~~~~~
“Shh, Sandra, don’t move.”
Sandra woke completely as Alan’s urgent warning hissed in her ear. He carefully extricated himself from her arms and reached for the laser he had left within reach.
She pulled the blanket over herself and tried to see what had alarmed Alan. She watched as he moved into a crouch facing the entrance of the tunnel. He seemed to be watching the ground in front of him, and by squinting Sandra could just make out the small form of Blue pacing back and forth, his dark coat standing on end. The native animal was very agitated and kept casting glances back to Alan, although he was completely silent. Suddenly, Blue whirled to face the entrance and Sandra felt a painful, intense whine building behind her ears. Alan must have ‘heard’ it too as he shook his head, but kept the laser steady and facing down the tunnel over Blue’s small body.
“Sandra, against a wall. Move!”
She stumbled over the blankets and fell, landing hard on her knees, but still scrambled to comply. The tone in Alan’s voice left no room for discussion or hesitation. She wrapped both hands over her ears, but the whine was inside her head and reaching an intensity where she could barely focus her thoughts. Almost on the verge of losing consciousness, the noise abruptly stopped.
She dashed tears of pain from her eyes in time to see Alan stealthily creep along the wall’s edge to peer around the corner. Her heart was still pounding in reaction to the overwhelming sense of dread that was... gone? Blue’s movement caught her eye. He was still at Alan’s side. The small creature’s fur was no longer ruffled as he looked cautiously around the corner, and then sat down with a flump. Sandra watched as Blue looked up at Alan who looked down at him. The small creature sneezed.
Alan smiled briefly. “You don’t say?” He quickly walked back next to her and grabbed his pants and slid them on.
“Stay here, Sahn, I’m going to check the front.” He handed her her commlock. “Check in but tell them to stand by. If I’m not back in 5 minutes, or you hear me shout, call for a rescue team.” He kissed her hard, then left. Blue curled up next to her and put his head down on her legs. He seemed to be shivering. Patting their small defender, she noticed several long purple hairs clinging to her hand. He must have shed them in his fear, just like her cats used to. Sandra checked in, absurdly glad that Peter had signed over to Yasko. Even before she finished her report, Alan returned carrying some wood. He took her commlock. “Yasko, we’re fine. We’ll stay put until sun up, but will call if we need help. I’ll leave the locator beacon on just in case.” Sandra heard Yasko acknowledge before Alan handed the unit back to her. He took a few minutes to start a small fire between them and the entrance and then returned to Sandra.
“Whatever spooked Blue is gone. There’re some interesting tracks out there, though.” He smiled tightly at her. “The prints are small, but bigger than Blue’s I’d wager. I guess we just found one of the larger natives.” He clicked the safety on his laser but kept it to hand. He pulled on his shirt and sat down next to her and gathered her in his arms. “Get some rest, love. I’ll stay awake. Blue will let us know if that thing comes back. That whine of his is enough to wake the dead.”
Sandra didn’t think she could fall back to sleep, but in the safety of Alan’s arms, she did.
~~~~~~~~
Sandra woke up as the morning finally broke. She opened her eyes to see Alan watching the sparkling waterfall as he stroked Blue. The terror of the night seemed very remote in such a beautiful place.
“Is it mine, do you think?”
“Hmmm. Is what, Alan?” Sandra shook her muzzy thoughts awake. The cavern was now lit with muted daylight and her stomach growled with hunger.
“The child. Is it mine or Peter’s?”
Sandra sat upright, her hands involuntarily going to her middle. “I’m not…” she stopped. She very well could be, at that. She’d been due for her next contraception shot just at the time Operation Exodus had been called, and in the hustle and bustle to establish a viable camp here on the planet, well, that consideration had completely slipped her mind.
“How do you know?” She tilted her head and looked at Alan through slightly doubtful eyes.
Alan reached up and gently cupped one of her breasts as he ran a hand over her still flat belly. “My sister was on her fourth pregnancy at Breakaway. She’s a nurse and delighted in filling us in on every little change. In excruciating detail. Repeatedly.”
Sandra laughed at Alan’s pained expression of recalled patience. It took a moment to wrap her mind around the possibility of actually being pregnant.
“So, love, do you think it’s mine?”
She looked at Alan, weighing his question against their new reality.
“Will it matter?”
She could see that took Alan back a moment. But, for just a moment.
“Nah, not really. A kid is a kid. We’ll love them all. Come on, love, get dressed. It’s time we headed in. I need to report this to John, and I bet the hunting party will arrive soon enough to find out what visited us last night.”
~~~~~~~~
They paused just inside the tree line, out of sight of the settlement. There seemed far fewer than the usual number of people up and about, even though it was an hour or so past daybreak. Alan pulled her back to him for a final kiss.
“It’d be best if I bunked in an Eagle tonight. Peter will need you and I’ll rest better knowing you’re inside walls. I think he’s finally coming to the opinion the devil known is better than the one unknown, but I’d best not push my luck.”
Sandra sighed. Poor Peter was definitely having the hardest time with this. Alan ran a finger down the side of her face and then pulled a leaf from her hair. Before Alan could drop it to the ground, Blue snatched the thick leaf from Alan’s fingers and sat back up on her shoulder happily munching on the offering. Alan chuckled.
“Check in with Medical, Sandra. And if I’m right, tell Peter. But you don’t have to let him know I knew first.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll work this out, but don’t let him keep you up all night. You both need your rest.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek and briefly rest his hand on her belly.
She nodded, not as confident as Alan, and then held still while Blue climbed from her shoulder to Alan’s. A wide smile suddenly crossed Alan’s face.
“So, Sahn, who’s better?”
“Better?”
“Yeah. Better.”
Sandra looked up at Alan and then smiled a small, wicked smile. “Well, you might just want to have a talk with Peter.”
Alan smiled smugly as Sandra walked on ahead. She paused a few steps away and turned back. Her expression changed Alan’s smugness to a shade of doubt. “Why?”
She raised an eyebrow and just smiled.
“Hey!”
Alan followed a smiling Sandra back to Nova Alpha.
18 October 2006
MGK