SO MUCH TO DO...
David Kano looked up from his cards and glanced at the restless shadow, moving out from under the Eagle and into the darkness of Loki's night. A small frown creased his brow. It was Doctor Russell- it had to be. Everyone had noticed her strained demeanor over the past few days. He hoped she'd told the Commander she was going for a walk; Loki seemed safe, it was wise to let someone know if you were going to wander off somewhere on your own.
"I'm folding," he said to his fellow card players, smiling by way of apology. "I've had enough."
"I guess playing with us is not as exciting as chess with your girlfriend," joked Dave Reilly, shuffling the pack.
"Kano's girlfriend" was what some of the crew of Alpha called main computer, behind his back. Only the tactless Reilly said it to his face.
Ignoring the Irishman's comment completely, Kano strolled across to the edge of the campsite, where Professor Victor Bergman was gazing at the starscape through a small telescope. He had noticed Helena's departure too.
"At the risk of sounding like a sexist old man, I do think our journey through space has been harder on the women; wouldn't you agree Kano?" asked Victor, his eye still glued to the telescope.
Kano suppressed a grin and looked up at the sky.
"I imagine so, Professor," he replied quietly. "Although I wouldn't dare mention it to any of them."
Victor sighed, as he adjusted his 'scope.
"You know, being here on Loki is rather nice, but it's the asteroid belt in this solar system that really fascinates me, from a scientific point of view. It's there that the wealth of rare minerals we need are in abundance. I'm convinced that it will prove to be the key to our survival. This planet is just the icing on the cake, so to speak."
"Are you looking forward to returning to Moonbase tomorrow?" asked Kano.
Victor finally looked up from his telescope.
"Oh yes," he replied, grinning at the other man. "There's so much work waiting to be done up there."
Kano nodded in understanding. He felt the same. The base was going to be expanded, and the computer systems would have to expand with it. Besides, after ten years of living on the moonbase, sleeping out in the open, under the stars, made him nervous. Loki was going to make a wonderful outpost, but Kano didn't mind if his visits to the planet were relatively infrequent. Alpha was his home, as far as he was concerned.
Twelve hours later an Eagle blasted off from Loki's surface, carrying a small crew back to Moonbase Alpha- David Kano and Victor Bergman among them.
As they flew, Victor spent the time sorting through a bag of unusual rock samples he had collected from Loki's surface.
There's enough down there to keep Geology busy for months, he thought to himself. Maya will enjoy studying the planet too.
The Psychon, who he'd come to admire immensely for her magnificent brain and bubbly personality, was on a second Eagle, traveling down to Loki as he flew away from it. He knew that an aerial survey in the form of a bird would be one of her top priorities. And she would have the skies to herself- the planet had been unable to develop sophisticated life forms of it's own, due to it's inclement seasons.
Victor paused for a moment in his sorting, his mind wandering. There'd been a minor emergency before they'd left this morning. Helena had not returned from her nocturnal walk until after dawn. Fortunately, she was safe, and had simply fallen asleep somewhere.
She'll be all right, he told himself. Helena's made of strong stuff, and she has John to take care of her.
Victor was one of the few people who knew of Helena's miscarriage and his heart ached for his two closest friends. He would have loved to play surrogate grandfather to their baby, and hoped that they would try for a child again soon. Since the Moon had become locked in orbit around Loki's sun, he'd experienced strange feelings of both joy and regret. Joy in the knowledge that those on Alpha had finally ended their travels and had the resources available to expand and create a new life for themselves. Regret at the growing certainty that he didn't have too many more years to see their society flourish. He was an old man now, and in the ten years since the Moon had deserted the Earth, his aging body had taken a battering. Yes, he hoped that John and Helena would be able to start a family soon. He wanted to see what the children of his two brilliantly matched friends would be like.
Giving himself a mental shake, Victor stopped his wool-gathering and went back to sorting his samples.
David Kano sat in the co-pilot seat of the Eagle and watched with satisfaction, as Alpha rolled into view over the horizon of their moon.
"Ah, it's good to be home," he said to Alan Carter, who was piloting the ship.
"You think so?" replied Alan, with a grimace. "I'm missing Loki already. It was fantastic to spend some time outside of Alpha, wandering around under the big skies of that planet!"
"All very romantic," said Kano, shaking his head. "But there's a heap of work to get through back home on the moonbase. I want to get started on expanding the computer systems, to cope with the larger base we're planning. And I've got a host of ideas about the proposed asteroid mining outposts, that I want to discuss with Pat Osgood. And I've had this idea about a kind of computer slate-"
"Okay, okay!" laughed Alan. "I got a similar story from the Professor, just before we left Loki. I'm telling you mate; you and he are a couple of workaholics! You ought to loosen up a bit; try to spend your off duty time thinking about something other than your job. Like I've told you before, there's more to life than-"
"Yeah, yeah- bloody computers," Kano laughed, finishing the sentence for him.
He knew Alan was right, but he didn't mind being a 'workaholic' at all. He was happy.
"Hello David, it's good to have you back," smiled Tanya Alexander, as Kano walked into Main Mission. He was glad that as Alpha expanded Commander Koenig had re-opened the surface areas of Alpha. Main Mission was a magnificent structure. It was a delight to work here again.
"How's my baby been behaving, while I've been away?" he asked, patting the top of his computer monitor.
Tanya pulled a face.
"Not so good. She's been sulking- running slow on some applications and refusing outright to perform others. I think she's suffering from information overload, with all the data about Loki we've been feeding into her."
Kano frowned. He considered Tanya to be one of the most proficient computer operators in Main Mission. If she said something wasn't working properly, it wasn't. He pulled up a second chair at his desk and waved her into it.
"Show me," he said.
For ninety minutes they sat side by side, working through the glitches. Then at last, Kano pushed his seat back and smiled mischievously.
"Problems solved. See how easy that was, once a true expert got involved?"
Tanya snorted derisively and stood up, going along with the joke.
"Ha! Expertise had nothing to do with it! You had privileged access to the
re-programming codes we needed, that's all."
"Seriously," said Kano. "You and Sahn did a great job to keep the system running as well as it did while I was away. Believe me, I know it's not an easy thing to do."
Tanya ducked her head. This was high praise coming from the 'great' Kano. With his single- minded attachment to all things cyber, she sometimes wondered if he was truly human. After all, he did have that implant in his head. But every now and then, he would come out with something that allowed her to see the man he really was. And she liked what she saw...
"Alan Carter is meeting some of us who have not had the chance to go down to Loki yet, in the rec room in an hour's time. He has some videos of the planet's surface and the campsite to show us. Are you going to be there too?" she asked.
Kano hesitated for a second, before replying.
"No, I don't think so. I've been up for nearly 24 hours and I'm really beat."
Tanya flashed him a small smile of disappointment, and then left Main Mission.
Kano watched her leave, annoyed with himself.
Why did I just say that? he wondered. There was my chance to ask her if she wanted to go to the rec room with me, and maybe even afterwards, get something to eat.
But he knew the reason. He was almost certain she would have turned him down. Popular, attractive Tanya Alexander would never be seriously interested in tubby, boring David Kano. No way.
Kano stood up from his desk and heaved a gusty sigh. Better to stick to thinking about his computer; and the future of Alpha. The rest was just too hard...
Victor headed for his own small laboratory as soon as he returned to Moonbase, and set to work on several experiments he wanted to run on the rock samples he'd brought back from Loki. They could tell him a lot about the planet's development over the past few hundred millennia, for a start. How it's climate had altered, how it's continents had drifted... This was really a job for the boys in Geology, but Victor had an interest in almost every field of work on Alpha, even if he was strictly a physicist himself. He loved his lab and was happy to return to the peace and quiet of it's orderly jumble. It was here he always did his best work; here where he had come up with some ideas that had saved the whole of Moonbase on several occasions.
Midway through his work, Victor felt a headache starting, and a lethargy that was becoming all too familiar. He seemed to be suffering more than his fair share of headaches lately, and with them, came a nagging tiredness and muscular weakness. At first he'd thought they were merely a result of the extra work he was putting in, since their moon had taken up residence in Loki's solar system. But the problem was getting worse. Victor knew he should go and see Helena, or Bob Mathias, but something stayed his hand. After all, he'd been perfectly fine when Helena had given him his last medical. There was surely nothing to worry about. He was simply working too hard.
Within a short space of time, Victor's headache became too painful for him to continue. Annoyed with himself, he impatiently swallowed two analgesic tablets and left the lab, intending to walk to his nearby quarters and take a nap.
A little rest will do me good, he groggily told himself. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately...
A moment later, his footsteps faltered and he blacked out, quietly slipping to the floor of the corridor.
Victor woke to the sound of a beeping machine in Medical Center, as it monitored the pulses of his mechanical heart. When he opened his eyes he saw the kind face of Bob Mathias, staring anxiously down at him.
"Two of the guys from technical found you out cold on the floor of the corridor near your lab," the doctor said, anticipating Victor's question. "How does your head feel now?"
To his relief, Victor discovered, that the pain of his headache had completely disappeared.
"Fine thank you Bob. Just fine," he said with a smile.
At first, it didn't occur to him to wonder how Mathias knew he'd had a headache. Then his mind cleared a little and he raised his eyebrows.
"I've been meaning to come and see you," was all he said.
"But you've been too busy, right?" replied Mathias, with an ironic smile.
Victor began to sit up, but Mathias put a restraining hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down on to the hospital bed.
"Not yet Professor," he said. "Doctor Russell will have me hung, drawn and quartered if I let you up before she gets back from Loki. We still have a few tests to run, and she shouldn't be more than a couple of hours."
Victor knew Helena hadn't been intending to return from the planet for another forty-eight hours. Either he had lain unconscious for nearly two days, or his condition was serious enough for her to return early. Not good, whichever option one took.
He sighed and looked up at Mathias.
"Bob, how long was I unconscious? And what's wrong with me? Don't beat about the bush, to try to spare me any worry. Just tell me the truth."
Mathias tried to smile.
"I wouldn't insult your intelligence by doing anything less than telling you the truth Professor. You were unconscious for an hour and a half. Not so long."
Not so long? thought Victor. An hour and a half is a long time, in my book!
"Carry on Bob," he said.
Mathias pulled up a chair and sat down next to his bed.
"The fact is Professor, you have a large growth on the pituitary gland at the base of your brain. Judging by the tests I've run so far, I think it's probably a prolactinoma. Prolactinoma itself is a relatively common, benign tumor. We've treated two cases here on Alpha since Breakaway, and with great success. The thing is, they usually make themselves obvious before people get to, er, your age. Also, they don't often reach the size that yours has, unnoticed. Incapacitation occurs much sooner. Frankly, I don't know how you've managed to go on..."
"Prolactinoma," sighed Victor. "I've heard of it. It can be treated with medication, as well as surgery. But complete removal is often out of the question, because it is so intimately connected with the pituitary gland. Am I correct?"
Bob Mathias hesitated, and then nodded his head. And in his hesitation, Victor saw the reason for Helena's early return from Loki. Bob thought the situation was a little more serious than he was letting on.
The news of Professor Bergman's collapse and subsequent admission to Medical Center circulated quickly around the moonbase. Rumors concerning what was wrong with him abounded- ranging from a stroke, to a failure of his mechanical heart.
Few on Alpha knew the Professor really well on a personal level, but all liked and respected him. And everyone understood how vital his role in helping to keep them alive had been, over the years.
When David Kano came back on shift and heard about the Professor, he was stunned.
"But I was just talking to him when we were down on Loki last night," he said to Sahn. "He was in good spirits, and seemed fine..."
The data analyst shook her head.
"Doctor Russell has flown back to Alpha to supervise his treatment herself. His problem must be serious."
Kano shook his head and sat down in front of his computer, but he found it hard to concentrate. The Professor had been so keen to get back to work on Alpha. How could he have been struck down so suddenly?"
"He's not dead yet, you know," said a soft voice from behind him.
A sympathetic hand was briefly laid upon his shoulder. It was Tanya Alexander.
"I happened to overhear Doctor Mathias and one of his nurses talking, as they left Medical Center. They think he's got a benign brain tumor."
"Oh," said Kano lamely. "Is the fact that it's benign good news?"
Tanya shrugged.
"I don't know," she replied. "But there must be something they can do."
Kano resolved to try and visit the Professor, when he went off duty. It was the least he could do.
Victor lay in his bed in Medical Center and waited. It was a relief, in a way, to know the cause of his headaches. He'd suspected something was seriously wrong all along, but refused to admit it to himself. Now... well, best to wait to speak to Helena. With luck, he would be back on his feet and back in his lab within a few days. He simply couldn't afford the luxury of wasting time in bed.
"Nurse," he called to one of the staff, who was passing the door of his room.
She came over to his bedside and gave him her best professional smile.
"What can I do for you Professor?"
"Since I'm cooped up here until I've seen Doctor Russell, I'd at least like someone to fetch me my laptop from my quarters," he replied.
The nurse frowned.
"I'm not sure Doctor Mathias would approve," she said. "But I'll see what I can do."
A short time later, David Kano appeared at the door of his room, carrying his laptop.
"Thought I'd bring it along myself, " he said, trying to sound jovial.
Victor propped himself up against his pillows and momentarily felt his head swim.
"Thank you Kano," he said. "I'm glad you brought it, because I might need your expertise. I want to plug my laptop into main computer's memory bank. Is there a port here behind my bed that will allow me to do it?"
Kano nodded.
"You just need the right connection. I'll go and get it for you."
He hurried away, only to return a few minutes later with a long black cable. He connected the laptop with the wall and ran his fingers over the keyboard, before handing it over to Victor.
"There you go; I've set it up so that it will give you anything you could get from the computer in your lab," said Kano.
"Thank you," murmured Victor, tapping away at the keyboard.
He found it hard to focus on the bright little screen and wondered if that was a side effect of the powerful pain killing drugs Bob Mathias must have given him, or whether the tumor was interfering with his vision.
"Damn," he sighed, blinking his eyes.
"If there's anything else I can help you with Professor, just let me know," said Kano.
Victor hadn't realized that the computer operative was still standing in the room. He looked up at the big man with a smile.
"Actually, there is," he said. "I'm not feeling the best, but I want to access some medical information. Could you spare a few more minutes to help me, Kano?"
"Of course," was the reply.
Kano sat down next to Victor's bed and relieved him of his laptop.
"Just tell me what you want to look up," he said.
Helena Russell was out of her seat and at the door of the Eagle that ferried her back to Moonbase, before the craft had completed it's touchdown. The healing hours spent with John, cradled amidst the beauty of their special valley had left her feeling energized and ready for anything. A world of possibilities opened up before her and the heart soreness that her miscarriage had created, had disappeared completely. But fate was cruel. A few hours after they had returned from the valley, Helena's peace was shattered when the call from Bob Mathias came in.
Victor was seriously ill.
Her first reaction had been one of unreasonable anger. How could this happen to her dear friend? She'd noticed him looking unwell on more than one occasion lately, so why hadn't she asked him what was wrong, instead of selfishly dwelling upon her own problems? How could a large prolactinoma have been missed, when everyone on Alpha had regular, thorough medical examinations? Understanding her feelings, John had seen to it that she was able to fly back to the moonbase immediately.
Bob Mathias was waiting for her in the docking bay.
"How could we have missed something like this?" were her first words to him, as they boarded a travel tube and headed towards Medical Center.
"Helena, I honestly don't think that we did," replied Mathias. "I've checked the records of the last two MRI's we performed, when Victor had his major medical checkups. The most recent MRI was only six months ago, and there was no evidence of a tumor at that time."
Helena looked over at her colleague.
"So it's atypical of prolactinoma in that it's fast growing."
Mathias nodded.
"But in my opinion, that's definitely what it is. The results of all my tests confirm it."
"Yes, I read the information you sent on the way back here, and I agree with you," sighed Helena. "I want to examine Victor and then we should have a talk in my office about how we're going to treat him."
"Fine," said Mathias. "He was awake and talking to David Kano, the last time I looked in on him."
Kano was just leaving Victor's room, as Helena arrived.
"Thank you for your help," Victor was saying.
"Any time," was the reply.
Then, with a courteous nod in Helena's direction, Kano was gone.
"You look tired, my dear," Victor said to Helena, as she took his hand.
"I'm fine," Helena replied. "Just worried about you. Has Bob explained the situation to you?"
Victor nodded.
"Oh yes," he said. "And with the help of Kano and my laptop, I've done a bit of research myself."
"Why didn't you say something?" Helena asked. "If we'd known about this sooner..."
Victor held up a hand.
"I had headaches and felt rather weak and tired," he said. "Symptoms that overwork could create, just as easily as a brain tumor. I've been putting in a heck of a lot of hours since the Moon located herself permanently in this solar system, and thought that was my problem. I was intending to come and see you or Bob when the headaches started getting worse, but there was always so much to do."
Helena swallowed her irritation at her friend's lack of care of himself, and gave him her best professional smile of encouragement.
"Well Victor whether you waited too long to see us or not, the good news is that with the correct treatment, you should be fine. Bob and I are going to get right on it, but in the meantime, you're going to have to take it easy."
Victor made an impatient sound, but Helena would not be overruled. Here in Medical Center, she was in charge.
"I didn't say you have to stop working altogether; just let Maya shoulder a little more of the load. We both know she's perfectly capable of it. And no more Eagle flights, until I give you the all- clear!"
"If you insist," sighed Victor. "But can I at least return to my own quarters? I feel perfectly fine at the moment."
Helena raised her eyebrows.
"We'll see; just let me have a look at your eyes before I make up my mind."
She withdrew a pen light from her jacket pocket, and shone it in Victor's eyes, noting how his pupils were slow to react, and how unhealthy the retinas looked. It was obvious to her that the tumor was beginning to press on his optic nerve, and interfere with his sight. She wondered if he realized it himself. No doubt he did. Victor was no fool, and he and David Kano were bound to have checked out everything in the main computer's medical records about prolactinoma. Sight impairment was a common symptom.
"Your a bad patient," she sighed with mock exasperation, taking her penlight away. "Even worse than me!"
Victor laughed loudly at this, and the sound was enough to convince Helena that he was indeed, well enough to leave Medical Center.
"Go on then; I'll stop by in an hour or so to see how you're doing."
Kano was sitting in his own quarters staring at computer terminal in his room. On it's screen was the information Professor Bergman had had him download for him, regarding his tumor. Kano was in the act of re-reading it when there was a beep at his door, alerting him to the fact that there was someone outside wanting to see him. A check of the screen on his wall showed that it was Tanya Alexander.
"Come in," he called, opening the door.
She hesitated in the doorway, fiddling nervously with the sleeve of her uniform, looking around Kano's room. In the ten years they'd been on Alpha, she'd never had occasion to come here before, and she was surprised to discover that it was not as sparsely furnished as she had expected. Three large framed satellite images of Earth hung from the walls, there were some shelves full of books and others with photos of what were obviously family members. An antique radio sat in one corner of the room and a brown and cream dhurrie was spread on the floor. In spite of Kano's love affair with computers, there was only one unit in the room, sitting on his desk.
Kano cleared his throat.
"What can I do for you?"
"David, I know you went to see Professor Bergman earlier, and I was wondering how he was?" Tanya asked. "I was worried. Everyone is...."
Kano smiled to cover his disappointment. For a second, he'd entertained the hope that she might have come to see him, purely because she wanted to spend time in his company.
I'm being stupid again, he mentally scolded himself.
"I don't think the Professor would mind you knowing, as long as you keep it to yourself," he replied, pointing at his computer screen. "I was just re-reading some data on his illness myself. Take a look; this is from the medical encyclopedia in the records library, so it's not too hard to understand."
Tanya walked across and took a seat in front of Kano's terminal. He came to stand behind her, resisting the urge to put his hands on her shoulders as she began to read out loud.
"Prolactinoma- a benign adenoma of the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is a small peanut shaped gland that sits in the middle of the head, in a bony depression at the base of the skull, called the sella turcica. It is often referred to as the body's 'master gland', as the hormones secreted from it control virtually all the other endocrine glands in the human body.
"Adenomas of the pituitary gland are relatively common and autopsies suggest that they may be present in as many as one in four people. However, most are small, and cause no adverse symptoms.
"Prolactinoma, however, can become quite large. It causes an excessive production of prolactin, a hormone responsible for milk secretion during lactation, amongst other things. Symptoms experienced by sufferers include lethargy, muscle weakness, sexual dysfunction and also, because the pituitary is situated close to the optic nerve in the brain, as the tumor grows, blindness often occurs.
"Prolactinoma is usually treated with dopamine agonist drugs, which suppress it's growth and restrict the amount of prolactin entering the bloodstream. Surgery is often also necessary, although a high percentage of adenomas return within a few years, as it is almost impossible to remove them completely, due to the risk of damaging the pituitary gland itself."
"Wow," breathed Tanya, twisting around to face Kano. "So that's what's wrong with him?"
Kano nodded.
"Yes- and Professor Bergman's tumor is a big one, from what he said. I had to help him read this stuff when he was in Medical Center. It was pretty obvious to me that his sight is affected. And I can see why Doctor Russell came back in a hurry; take a look at the last sentence on the screen.
"Although prolactinoma is not generally fatal, in cases where it is large, there is a significant risk of spontaneous hemorrhage."
Tanya was silent for a while, thinking about what she had read.
"I'd better get back to work," she finally said, standing up and slowly walking towards the door. "It's strange, isn't it? In spite of all the dangers we've faced in space over the years, I think that in a way, we have come to take each other for granted. Particularly those of us who work in Main Mission and see each other every day. The Professor has always been around, wandering in and out, asking us for data and checking out what's going on. Now there's a chance he may not be there any more and.... suddenly, everyone realizes how much he means to them."
Kano nodded.
"Now that we're here in this new solar system, and are starting to build new lives for ourselves, I hope that attitude will change," Tanya continued, as she opened Kano's door and stepped back out into the corridor. "We should take the time to get to know each other better on a personal level, away from our work. And also, learn to value each other more as people. I'll see you back in Main Mission, David."
Kano stared at his door, long after it had shut behind Tanya. What did she mean? What was she trying to say to him? He walked over to his bed and lay down on it, putting his hands behind his head.
"Maybe I should ask her to have dinner with me and explain in more detail," he said out loud.
His stomach clenched at the idea of her refusal, but he knew that he'd gather up the courage and ask. The worst she could do was say no....
Helena Russell and Bob Mathias sat in her office, going over the scans of Victor's brain.
"We could treat this a couple of different ways," said Mathias. "But considering the professor's age, I think we should just start him on the appropriate drugs and see how the tumor responds."
Helena shook her head.
"Bob, look at the size of it. It's too big to take the risk- he might hemorrhage!"
"What do you propose then?" asked Mathias, feeling that the possibility of hemorrhage was minimal compared to the risk of surgery .
"A combination of treatments. Drug therapy for the first couple of weeks to reduce the tumor, if at all possible. During this time, you and I will get the gamma knife up and running. It needs some work done on it, but I think it's Victor's best chance."
Bob raised his eyebrows. The gamma knife was actually not a knife at all, but a highly sophisticated piece of medical equipment that focused several hundred tiny bursts of gamma radiation to a point. It was used specifically for brain surgery and required great skill to operate it. A unit had been brought to Moonbase Alpha shortly before Breakaway, when a mysterious illness began to affect personnel, irreparably damaging their brains. Neither Helena or himself had used it much in the last ten years and the thought of damaging Victor's brain inadvertently sent him cold.
"Bob; the unit's mainly computer controlled, so it would be hard for us to make a mistake with it," Helena said, guessing his thoughts. "It will provide a non- invasive means of destroying Victor's tumor..."
Mathias knew she was right, and admired her for it. Helena often had the courage to make bold medical decisions, where he would sit back and conservatively wait.
"You're the boss," he said with a smile. "I'll go and work out a drug regime for him to start on, shall I?"
Helena nodded, and Mathias left her office. The small monitor on her desk beeped, and Sahn's face appeared on the screen.
"The Commander wishes to speak with you Helena; I'm patching him through now."
Helena's eyes moistened, as John's face filled the screen. He was sitting in the command module of an Eagle, and he looked thoroughly worn out.
"How are you doing?" were his first, softly spoken words.
"I'm fine John," she replied, mustering a smile for him. "And with a little luck, Victor's going to be fine, too."
She briefly explained to him what Victor's problem was, and how she was planning to treat it.
John's face looked grave over the monitor. Helena knew that he was as shocked as she was at their old friend's sudden illness.
"Will he recover?" he asked.
Helena nodded.
"I think so- I hope so. He's pretty low at the moment."
"I'll be back on Alpha in 24 hours," John said. "I'm leaving Tony and Maya in charge of setting up the base on Loki. They love it down here and can't wait to get started."
"I can understand that," said Helena, thinking of their secluded little valley with longing. "See you soon, then."
"Give my best wishes to Victor," John replied.
Then he was gone.
Helena touched the screen where his face had been seconds earlier, and then got up, deciding to go and check on her patient, and explain his treatment plan to him.
Victor insisted on returning to his quarters on his own, shrugging off Bob Mathias' offer to have one of the nursing staff accompany him. He'd been given a wrist monitor to wear, so that if he passed out again, or anything odd happened to his vital signs, computer would notify Medical Center of the problem immediately. It made him feel like a prisoner, and he wished irrationally that everyone would just leave him alone and forget about his condition for a little while.
"The damned tumor was in my head yesterday," he grumbled to himself, as he made his way slowly to his quarters. "The only difference today, is that everybody knows about it."
Nevertheless, he had to admit that he was glad when he reached his own door, and could lower himself down onto his bed. It was frightening, how much weaker he had become in the last few hours. He could only put it down to the pain killing injections he'd been given.
Perhaps I'll feel better when they've completely worn off, he thought.
Lying on his bed, Victor found his mind wandering over the past ten years of his life on Alpha. They'd been hard and dangerous ones at times, but they'd also been good ones. Having no ties on Earth, he'd been content to stay on the moonbase permanently, as long as he was permitted to. So in many ways, when Breakaway had occurred, he'd been the least affected. He had his friends and his work- there was always his work. There had been problems to solve and fascinating discoveries to make. Always plenty to keep him busy. And now, that applied more than ever. The moon had finally come to the end of it's long journey, and there were so many exciting projects to get started on.
"I'm not going to let a little tumor get in the way of my work," Victor whispered to himself, the last few words of his sentence slurring as his eyes closed.
A red light began to flash on the little monitor on his wrist, and over in Medical Center, an emergency buzzer sounded.
Helena was only meters away from Victor's quarters when she got the call on her commlock. She used a command code to open his door and rushed inside, her practiced physician's eye immediately registering that he was in grave trouble, when she saw him on his bed. He was sleeping the sleep of the comatose, not the exhausted.
"Stretcher crew to Professor Bergman's quarters immediately!" she shouted into her commlock.
He was barely breathing by the time the crew arrived, and she supervised the hooking up of emergency life support systems.
"What happened?" asked Bob Mathias, rushing into the room.
"My guess is a brain hemorrhage," whispered Helena. "Our worst nightmare."
Back in Medical Center, Helena's diagnosis was revealed to be correct. There was nothing they could do- the damage to Victor's brain was too great. The man with so much to do had run out of time. The hours ticked by as he quietly, peacefully slipped away from them. John was at her side to support her, as she finally accepted the inevitable and switched off his life support.
"I keep telling myself that there was nothing we could have done to prevent this," she sobbed, her professional demeanor completely disappearing as she laid her head on John's chest a short time later, in the relative privacy of her office. "The tumor was out of control and Bob and I hadn't had a chance to begin to treat it. If only he'd told us about his headaches sooner, or if his last medical exam had been scheduled for after the tumor began to grow. Dammit, I should have asked him if he was okay when I noticed he looked unwell..."
"Hush," whispered John, tears hovering in his own eyes. "You know that Victor wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It was just fate. He would have said so himself."
Helena nodded, feeling wretched but knowing John was right.
Kano sat as his desk in Main Mission, sipping at a cold cup of coffee somebody had brought him over an hour ago. A pall of sadness hung in the air, as the staff quietly went about their work, each silently mourning the loss of Professor Bergman.
So quick, were Kano's first thoughts, when Commander Koenig came in and notified everyone of the Professor's death. How fragile life is!
Out of habit, he had turned to his computer for solace, attempting to bury himself in a series of complicated calculations he was asking it to perform, and avoid his feelings of distress. But Kano's fingers stubbornly refused to flow over the keyboard with their usual ease, and his mind turned again and again to Tanya Alexander, and the words she had spoken in his room. She was off duty now, and would probably be in her quarters. Making an excuse to Paul Morrow about having to get something from technical, he left Main Mission and made his way to her.
When Tanya opened her door to him, the first thing Kano noticed were her red rimmed eyes. He realized that she had been crying.
"Come in David," she said quietly.
"You've heard the news then," he said.
"Yes; Moonbase Alpha will be a poorer place without the Professor," Tanya replied. "Was there something you wanted? Am I needed back in Main Mission?"
Kano shook his head.
"No. I've.. I've been thinking about what you said. About getting to know each other better on a personal level. Perhaps this is going to sound silly, but the Professor's illness and death has kind of forced me take a close look at myself. Alan Carter made a comment that both Victor Bergman and I were similar men - that we were both workaholics. It didn't bother me at the time that he might be right, but it does now."
Tanya gave him an encouraging smile, but said nothing. Kano went on.
"Look, I know that most people think that I'm nothing more than a boring computer nerd with no social skills at all, but that's not strictly true. And I was wondering... I was wondering if you'd be interested in spending a bit of time together."
Now that he had started talking to Tanya, Kano found that he couldn't stop. Words just kept on pouring nervously out of his mouth.
"You haven't been down to Loki yet. We could... we could go together. I'm sure I could organize a second field trip for myself and take you as an assistant. There were places down there I didn't have time to check out on my last visit, because I was too tied up with my work. I'd love to explore them with you..."
Tanya finally decided to put him out of his misery.
"David," she said, moving close to him. "In all the years we've known each other, I never once thought you were boring. Single minded about Alpha's computer perhaps, but never boring. I'd love to visit Loki with you."
Then she reached up and kissed his lips, leaving him totally speechless.
Professor Victor Bergman was buried at the top of a lunar mountain range, overlooking Moonbase Alpha. A large memorial stone was erected over his gravesite, loving words from his friends laser- cut into it's smooth surface. A few of his closest friends stood by in suits, as an Eagle lowered the stone into place.
"He would have wanted to be up here, watching over the base," said John, looking on. "I got the feeling that he wasn't too keen to spend much time on Loki. Alpha was his home."
"As it was on Earth," agreed Helena. "Let's hope that Victor and the work he did here will be well remembered by future generations."
John looked through helmet of his space suit at his wife and wished he was able to put his arms around her. At that moment, he was certain that despite their initial disappointment, they would have children of their own soon.
"It will be part of our job to make sure that future generations are taught about him," he said. "Don't worry; we won't let them forget."
A memorial service for Victor was held in Alpha's largest recreation room, and it was noticed by many that David Kano and Tanya Alexander stood hand in hand, as the service was read. Alan Carter watched the couple draw strength from each other during a time of sadness and saw the rightness of it. Victor's death had reminded Kano of his own mortality, and forced him to look outward, away from his work.
"There's more to life than bloody computers," Alan had tried to persuade his friend, on more than one occasion.
It had taken a tragedy to make Kano realize the truth of those words.
A few days later, Kano approached the Commander in his office.
"Sir, I'd like permission to return to Loki for a few days," he said. "And I'd like to take Tanya Alexander along to assist me. I want to personally plot the position of the permanent transmitters we are going to set up down there."
John knew that Kano's time could be better employed taking care of the computer systems on Alpha. There were others who could position the transmitters just as well. He sighed and sat back in his chair. If it had been anyone else asking, he would have refused, but he knew of the blossoming relationship between Kano and Tanya. And Kano had never asked him for anything before.
"Okay," he sighed. "But three days is all I can give you. Two of the more essential Main Mission staff away at once places a strain on the others; I'm sure you understand."
Kano tried not to look too pleased, biting his lower lip to stop himself from grinning with pleasure.
"Of course Commander," he said. "I'll complete the work as quickly as I can."
John watched him leave and slowly shook his head. Who would have thought it? Tanya and Kano...
The planet loomed towards Eagle Three, as Alan Carter piloted it in. On this mission he would drop off Tanya and David, and pick up Tony and Maya. Kano was in the co-pilot's seat with him once again.
"Seems to me that last time we were in an Eagle together, you were happy to be returning to Moonbase," remarked Alan, raising his eyebrows.
"Well," said Kano. "I have a job to do down here. I'll be back on Alpha soon enough."
"Ha- a job!" Alan laughed. "Fess up- you only took it so that you and Tanya could spend a little together, alone."
Kano joined in the laughter.
"Is it that obvious?"
Alan nodded.
"Sorry mate, but it is. When you're down there, just don't forget what you're supposed to be doing. If you come back to Alpha without the correct positions for those transmitters, the Commander will hit the roof!"
Kano shook his head in mock disgust.
"Tanya and I are professionals," he replied.
This sent Alan into further fits of laughter.
"I'm amazed at you," he choked. "You've changed so much... Where has the guy who was tied by an invisible umbilical cord to his computer gone?"
"I'm still the same person," said Kano, becoming serious. " But I suppose that Professor Bergman's death made me realize that you were right all along. I still love my computers, but my workaholic days are gone for good. And Tanya will keep me in line, if I show any signs of drifting back to my old ways!"
Alan grinned and shook his head, turning to concentrate on the job of landing his craft safely.
"It's so beautiful!" exclaimed Tanya, smelling the fresh air of Loki and looking around.
She walked a little way from the Eagle, which had set down on a small grassy plain, about a mile from the main campsite. It was here that they would begin to plot the sites for the new transmitters.
Kano followed her, seeing the planet with new eyes.
"You're right," he said. "I just didn't notice it before. I think the next three days are going to be very good ones for us."
"Come on you two," called Alan from the ship. "Give me a hand to get your stuff unloaded!"
Tanya and Kano looked at each other, before joining hands and walking back to help him.
They would have plenty of time to spend on their own, after he had gone. Time to learn about each other and enjoy the break, away from confines of Moonbase Alpha.
"Life's good, isn't it?" Kano whispered in Tanya's ear.
She nodded happily, understanding exactly what he meant. From now on, they weren't going to waste a second of it.
Copyright 1998: Heather Hammonds