The Architect of Horror

Space:1999 The Classic Adventures

Season 2: Episode 25

"We are riding on the razor edge

"Bow Wave of Time,

"The past just fell behind us,

"The present is only a microsecond and

"It just ended,

"The future is at hand."

--F.E. Cummings

THE PROLOGUE

Commander John Koenig paused momentarily while sitting at his desk writing in his journal. The lighting was low, characteristic of night mode. As usual, Koenig was working late though the inactivity of the past four months should have resulted more into a 9 to 5 routine.

It did not.

As commander of a base of nearly 300 souls, likely all that remained of the people of earth, his work was never completed and the pressure of survival was unrelenting. He stared out viewport number 3, over the roof of the central complex of Technical Section.

"I often wonder about our purpose, both as individuals and as a collective of the human community." Koenig continued writing in his burgundy leather bound journal. "From the perspective of Moonbase Alpha, I believe the recent change in Technical Section has so far, proved to be beneficial to the base. It was clear that breaking the group into Computer Operations and Technical Operations was the right choice. As Chief of Computer Operations, David Kano was able to concentrate his abilities and talents on what he did best: maintaining and optimizing computer hardware and software functions. All other functions of technical, Technical Operations, were placed in the capable hands of long time colleague Angelina Verdeschi."

He paused thoughtfully for a moment then continued.

"Ironically, had the political pundits of earth considered Ang's graduate thesis on magnetic radiation from spent nuclear waste as more than 'mathematical fantasy', we may very well have avoided the disaster of September 13, 1999. Nevertheless, here we are, out in deep space, attempting to survive one day at a time and perhaps, just perhaps, searching for our purpose."

The commander sat back in his chair, gazing out the viewport again. Black on black on black: he closed his journal.

**********

The solar system was an empty place.

Before the blast--caused by incalculable penury, pyloric air headedness, and everlasting human stupidity--there were nine planets in the grand ecliptic, each inclined seven degrees from the star's equator. The ninth planet deviated the most with an inclination of 17 degrees, but they were together in the same sense. All except for the deluged, anguished third rock from the sun. It took five thousand years to create human history. Out of this pentacle, there were maybe five years where the unwitting were spared the leadership of such bright bulbs as Caesar Dormition, Marshall Stalin, Heinrich, and his befuddled buddy Adolph; the Shah of Iran, and Dr. Laura Slesinger--from their mouths cometh hogwash. It took five seconds to deracinate the whole thing. The death knell came early, with nuclear fission in maundering hands.

Nine planets. One hundred, and thirty satellites. The time, and place of Earth's long appealed execution came on the far side of the Moon, and it was purified with a fire powerful enough to vaporize the North Atlantic.

Now there were only 129 satellites, minus the one that was sent to the interplanetary backwater regions before the solar system was turned to salt. It plunged further, and further, exponentially faster, and faster into weird space; hopelessly engrossed in teeming, wholesale darkness. It was now beyond the range of telescope, and memory.

Beneath a pulsar, or two--migrating through cosmogenies that were not their own, there was Moonbase Alpha, the soul survivor of the Great Age Of Space Exploration. Gunmetal gray bulkheads circled the central core; fluorescent red launch platforms that pitted the core of engineers against the sublime unknown; the core of engineers would get more than they bargained for; travel tube tunnels terminated in the bleak, obsidian perimeter, the outer reaches of Plato Crater.

THE HOOK

Dr. Angelina Verdeschi, Chief of Technical Operations and Carissa Englebert, Senior Eagle Flight Engineer, were in the passenger module of Eagle 6. The mission to monitor the area of the former nuclear waste dumps on the far side of the moon was routine and generally uneventful. Angelina studied the monitors, expecting nothing, while Carissa played a game of Solitaire on the other PC. Suddenly, the readings on the electromagnetic sensor array bounced frantically into the red.

The inner and outer hatches to the passenger module parted like curtains on a Shakespearean tragedy. Larry Parks entered (he wasn't feeling tragic, but he did have unrelievable acid indigestion), carrying a clipboard steeped with the latest predictions. Little did he know, the forecast was death, and carnage. On the other hand, he was about to have his heartburn cured forever. Seeing the confounded expressions on everyone's face, he was about to ask what was wrong. He discerned this on his own, with faster-than-thought rapidity, when Eagle Six rocked hard to port, throwing him like a carnival cupie against the obdurate module behind Angelina. The mission had been so routine that he was considering taking a nap.

His slumbers were diverted by a barbershop quartet of cracked ribs.

"Eagle Six, Eagle One," came Alan Carter's startled voice over the static filled speakers. "I'm not getting any orbital feedback control on you. What the hell's going on?"

Kevin Bannion, the pilot of Eagle 6, yelled into the comm system, "We've lost main navigation control! Switching to back up." A thin line of perspiration appeared on Bannion's lip as his experience and intuition told him his situation was going from bad to worse. "Not sure how long it will last, chief!"

Angelina assisted the injured Larry while Carissa stumbled into the pilot's section. Carissa could not fly but since she was a Flight Engineer, she might be able to determine what was happening with Eagle 6. Angelina went back to the sensors to replay the recording to the time of the anomaly. She frowned, noting the blip was a huge surge in magnetic radiation, of such a degree they hadn't seen since breakaway.

"Eagle 6 to Main Mission, do you copy?" Angelina called, while holding onto the desk as the ship began to descend downward.

"Main Mission to Eagle 6. We copy." Sandra answered with alarm.

"What's wrong, Ang'?" Commander Koenig's face replaced the Data Analyst's on the monitor.

"Sir, just before the main navigational system on the ship failed, sensors picked up a huge reading, off the scale, of magnetic radiation. Then it was gone..."

"Backup navigational systems have failed," Kevin Bannion yelled from the command module. The doors between the command module and passenger module automatically slid shut. "We're going down...Distress and rescue beacon activated...10 seconds to impact!" he informed everyone over the speakers.

While the ship was wildly descending, Ang was thankful for Kevin Bannion's skill as a pilot for at least keeping the ship from rolling. She closed the visor on Larry Parks' helmet and sealed his suit. After she prepped her own helmet and suit, her last thought before the Eagle impacted the lunar surface, was Alan Carter.

In the cockpit of Eagle One, Alan Carter punched control switches big enough to handle with gloved hands. The Service Propulsion System fired atomic streamers of emergency propellant. Hydrazine, and Hydrogen Peroxide showered the surface of the Moon with faux stars. They were one nautical mile behind Eagle 6, and closing. Through the left-angle rendezvous window, he could see Bannion's Eagle vaulting up, and down, sporadically, in the vacuum-several times they were so low that the ship's landing gear almost clipped the synthegrade radiation covers that lined this area of the lunar surface like Morlock Holes in an H.G. Wells novel.

'Ang, he thought. Crash position, babe.

"!!!EAGLE SIX, BREAKING MANUEVERS!!! GET YOUR BOWSPRIT UP, AND ACTIVATE YOUR LUNAR LANDING SYSTEM!!!"

Carter saw a violent starburst quad of fuel vapor appear behind the other spacecraft's service module. It was Bannion, firing his retro-rockets to the green--like a good pilot would do, and it did, of course, do no good to speak of.

"Eagle One, Main Mission." Controller Paul Morrow's face suddenly appeared on the CDR/CMP consoles, grimly serious. "Stand by one, Alan. They're in a crash trajectory."

"Main Mission, Eagle One. You don't say? Thanks for the update. It would be helpful if I was some, bloody back of the bourke." The pilot replied, shaking his head sarcastically, and lowering his helmet visor. He thought he heard the Commander saying something, but he shut down communications with the base before the new orders could be heard, and interpreted.

Carter looked up for a visual confirmation. Eighty meters. Dead Person's Altitude. Eagle Six was only forty seconds away from a bad landing. That was also when he saw the reflection against the outside--not the inside-of the ship's command module. It hung before him, ghostly, and obfuscated by the reinforced transparency. The sterile lights of the CM danced across his banal, intruding cheeks like malign urchins. An older being-facial features taught, with a black, pointed beard. Villainous in a literary sort of way. His forehead was furrowed, and partly concealed in shadows, as were his eyes. He was clearly shaking his head to the negative. Carter felt a shock wave of abnormality run from the bottom of his spine to the top of his neck dam.

"What the Chri-" He started, and grew pale

The blip at the epicenter of his tracking equipment disappeared for good as Eagle Six went down.

Eagle Six did a Doolittle landing on its keel, skidding across the lunar surface as the landing gear and two of the landing pods were ripped away from the craft like price tags on the costliest adventure ever attempted. A new highland was created on the lunar surface as the ship plowed up the lunar dust, and came to a halt only when there was nothing left to smash.

CHAPTER ONE

"Main Mission calling Eagle Six. Come in Eagle Six"

There was no response.

"Rescue units to Launch Pad Three. Medical Teams stand by." Koenig barked, and glared--mostly at Victor Bergman. His effortful plastic smile, and wet blanket pragmatism were on the commander's nerve.

"John," The professor said, trying to balance individual decency with communal salvation. "If that is electro-magnetic radiation, we can't-"

Koenig whacked his tonsils out, predicting what would be said, before it was said. All that remained was the bleeding vessel of Bergman's rational opposition.

"What am I supposed to do, Victor? Leave them there to die?" He challenged, and Bergman stepped back, vanquished. Koenig stepped up to his desk, incensed. "Paul, tell Carter he's to remain in a holding pattern over the wreckage until the Rescue Eagle arrives. In case he has any doubts, tell him I said: 'It's an order.'"

The view from five nautical miles: It did not look good. Carter's stomach was a finally weaved pant filled with ants. The camera mounted to the centraline showed that Eagle Six was paraplegic now. The gnarled rungs of the connector lay in the No Man's Land between the fore, and aft compartments. A debris field consisting of sheared off landing pads, vycor, and shards of titanium alloy was strewn between the point of touch down, and the point of mush. Bannion's ship had left four, deeply carved trailers in the moon dust--four roads to death, and chaos.

"Eagle One to Eagle Six, come in Eagle Six." He repeated over, and over, and over again like a repetitive loon, but the ship-to-ship frequency band was a hopeless incoherent beehive. "!!!C'MON BANNION, BREAK TIME IS OVER MATE!!!"

Angelina stirred on the passenger cabin floor. She heard Alan's insistent calls over the speaker and closed her eyes. Her head hurt and she had pain, stabbing at her left side. She rolled onto her hands and knees, clutching her ribs. Ang crawled agonizingly toward the comm console, pulling herself up. It was then that she noticed the window out to the lunar surface; only the passenger module of the Eagles did not HAVE any windows.

The internal sensor confirmed the obvious. Zero atmosphere...lunar gravity.

Angelina looked over at Larry Parks, his visor smashed beyond repair, his face no longer a recognizable face; the eye balls and the blood vessels had exploded since there had been no pressure to counter his internal body pressure. Globules of frozen blood floated macabrely around the passenger module. She instantly felt ill, not only because of the gruesomeness of the scene but because of the irreplaceable loss. Larry Parks was dead.

Carter kept calling insistently, the stress and anxiety evident in his voice. Angelina plugged the wire from her suit's internal speaker into the com station. She hoped the transmitter was not damaged.

"Eagle 1, this is Eagle 6..Alan? Are you receiving?" Angelina spoke, almost in a whisper, praying that he heard her.

Nothingness begot nothingness. Angelina listened, but soon all modulation faded away. The interference caused by broken diodes and digital resistors was slowly replaced by another sound--a sound almost placid in its clarity.

A young female, performing an aria; Madame Butterfly--no, closer to Don Giovanni. The melody she produced was both, and neither. Measure, by measure, her soprano reached The Column Nebula, and beyond. It took no time for Angelina Verdeschi to discern that the sound was not coming from the damaged communications post. This was coming into her helmet speakers from the smoking, wisps of vacuum.

Then as quickly, the libretto was replaced with vengeful accusation: !!!Butchers!!! BASTARDS!!! The woman wept in mourning.

Ang gasped when she heard the savage and brutal voice, startling her as she lost her balance and reeled back to the floor, landing on her painful left side. She screamed from the dagger like pain. The terror she felt from the voice sent violent chills down her spine. She rolled onto her back and tried to calm herself.

The lightheadedness and the agony from her side prevented her from sitting up. She kept talking to herself; by talking to herself, hoping to discourage the terrible voice from intruding on her thoughts. Through the new "window" in the Eagle passenger section, she saw lunar dust billow and the red and white stripe rescue Eagle land.

CHAPTER 2

Forty-five minutes later, but the ghosts appeared to be in their graves again, and with one new addition to the fraternity.

"Paul, we're at the crash site." Carter reported--his voice bouncing off of the big doors, and back, causing all eyes to fall on Paul Morrow for the coming confirmation. The Controller dropped the red flimsy, and turned the volume up hesitantly.

"We copy, Alan." He paused with quiet exasperation, his right hand poised over his keyboard. "How is it?"

"Parks is dead." Carter replied, deflated. "Angelina is alive. The others we don't know about." Morrow listened, nodding. "We've tried tapping out a Morse code signal to Engelbert and Bannion in the CM, but there's been no response."

At this, Paul Morrow's fingers began to type pre-emptive, multi-coded command orders to Medical Center, and the hangar bay.

"The metallurgical team is here." Alan said. "They're going to have to cut the hull open to get them out. If the survivors inside don't answer soon....Tell Coop' to put a salvage team on standby. This is getting more, and more complex by the second."

"Understood." Morrow said, glumly, while Sandra Benes looked on from her chair at the Data Analyst's station.

**********

In Rescue Eagle 4, Dr. Mathias was examining Angelina, Carter next to her. She was immensely grateful to see him but she was still greatly distressed Carissa and Kevin's conditions were still not known. The pain she felt in her left side turned out to be 2 broken ribs plus the nauseating headache was the result of a moderate concussion.

"You're lucky," Mathias stated simply, the distress over the fact that his friend was injured coming through his professional exterior.

"With that kind of luck, I still wouldn't gamble the mortgage at Vegas," she stated as she was given an analgesic and sedative. Despite of or perhaps because of the mind altering drugs now coursing through her body, she remember the terror with unfortunate clarity. She looked directly at Alan, squeezing his hand tightly, her voice shaking with uncharacteristic fright. "There's something out here. I heard voices. A beautiful melodic voice followed by a terrible voice screaming " Butchers...bastards"...it scared the hell out of me...what was it? Please stay with me.." Angelina's voice trailed off, her mind melting into a fog from the sedative.

He squeezed her hand tighter.

"Hey, sleepy head--you're 'gonna be alright. It's all clear skies, and a rainbow, or two."

Actually, it was more like black space, and an asteroid, or two. Carter's voice croaked slightly, despite his best efforts to mask it.

It had been one whopper of a bad day--a decidedly bipolar day that left him alternately ebullient over finding the woman he loved alive, but aggrieved over the loss of Larry Parks. He filed away the dusky memory of the phantasmagoric image that had stared back at him from the bow of Eagle One, because it was crazy. Absurd. Nutty. Three cards short of a full deck, and 'Ang didn't need to hold hands with a head case during this long, dark epoch.

**********

That's a bunch of bull, and you know it." John Koenig decided, miles away, on the other side of the three-quarter Moon. "There's nothing left out there that could cause our navigational systems to go awry like that. Since the Moon broke away, we've monitored ground zero constantly. The nuclear fission, source material was exhausted in the blast."

Bergman sat on the steps of the darkened office with his back to the Commander in a contemplative posture. "Yeah." He agreed, smacking his lips together for emphasis. "That's what we always assumed. Of course, we also assumed that the magnetic radiation was a by-product of the nuclear waste dumped there."

Koenig stood, walking past the stylus globe of the Earth, and spun it impatiently as he passed. "Could be we 'assumed' too much."

Bergman said, somewhat bemused. "We may be looking at something endemic to the surface of the Moon in that region." He shrugged. "Then there's the matter of Carter's Eagle, and the rescue team--they obviously didn't experience any problems; at least not yet.

"Still, I'd like to see another close, sensor sweep of the area, and compare the results to the half-life, flow charts from last month." He concluded.

**********

In Eagle 6 the rescue team successfully cut away the doors to the service section of the broken Eagle. They entered the service section to hear pounding on the other side. Carissa Englebert panted and sweated in her suit with the failed cooling unit. Kevin Bannion was trapped but miraculously, he seemed OK. At least they were both in EVA suits since the CM had also lost atmosphere; no surprise there. As the rescue team cut through the pilot section door and began to free Kevin Bannion, Carissa Englebert blurted into her suit's internal microphone. "Thank God you're here! How's Ang and Larry?"

Phil Inoshiro was the metallurgist who amputated the five-ton section of quarter bulkhead from Eagle Six's ruined corpse, allowing entrance into the totaled out command module. As a result, the entire section of wall behind Bannion's pilot seat ceased to exist, falling slowly to the surface in the one-eighth lunar gravity. As he spelunked his way through the hole, Carissa Englebert could clearly see the red stripes of the Rescue Eagle-red flashers, and flood lights aimed towards her downed ship.

The decimated interior of the command module was a smoke-filled haze of overloaded transformers, and static filled screens that continued to suck power from the depleting, nickel cadmium batteries. It was, Phil Inoshiro decided, an absolute epiphany that any one had survived. The fact that Engelbert and Bannion were still breathing was a reprieve from Physics' All Time Greatest Hits.

"Dr. Verdeschi is fine." Phil Inoshiro said busily, aiming his mag-lite into the cockpit, directly beneath the hole. He cursed audible comparisons betwixt Eagle design engineers, and various species of sex-starved coyotes. The ventilation duct, and the lower bulkhead that it was adjacent to was going to have to come out before any one in an environment suit could make it through.

A onerous ending to a decidedly shitty day.

CHAPTER 3

They were in the farthest reaches of space; the Moon had promises to keep--and miles to go before they sleep. Through the ballet of lavender-to-purple strata clouds, three almost significant specks of dust were now sensor-visible. The specks moved solar centrally around a defeated Brown Dwarf Host. In another 2.5 Million years, or so, it's nuclear fuel       would evaporate, and the star would give up the ghost. A new solar system, that neither the mind, nor the hand of humanity dare reproach.

"There you are." Professor Victor Bergman 'cooed, staring beyond the formations of hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. He adjusted the magnification on the radio telescope so that the trio of heavenly bodies zoomed forward by a factor of ten. Other than the inflectionless proclamations of the Master Computer, he was alone in the observatory.

"STAR HR-8775...." Computer revealed, in a mechanized voice that sounded filtered through a tin can. "HD CLASSIFICATION 217905...CATALOGUED...." The information came rolling out, with every bit as much joy, as that of listening to a fresh coat of pain dry.

**********

Medical Center was in night mode with the lights dimmed and the bottles on the shelves casting long, creepy shadows. Angelina Verdeschi was luckier than even Bob Mathias had originally thought; her two broken ribs were vague hairline fractures and her concussion was classified as mild rather than moderate. The only other injuries she sustained were bumps and bruises from being thrown about the passenger module of the eagle during the crash. After a night of observation, she would be released in the morning, returning to her role of babysitter. Carissa and Kevin were checked over earlier and they were both given a clean bill of health and though they hung out with her awhile, Angelina was alone in Medical, with her thoughts, recounting the one, no, two weird "sights" of the day.

*********Four hours earlier**********

"Ouch," Angelina Verdeschi winced on the exam table as Dr. Mathias poked at her ribs. "OUCH!" she barked again, recoiling slightly.

"You big wussie," her long time friend retorted. "I hardly touched you."

"Hardly touched me!??! I'm not your cadaver from Med school, Bob."

"My cadaver was a 350 pound Puerto Rican aristocrat lady who left her body to science. Lots of adipose tissue to deal with..."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ang shook her head in disgust, her stomach in a whirl for the last few days.

"At least it gave me experience in treating Ed Malcom..." he chuckled.

"I REALLY am going to be sick.." She closed her eyes, swallowing the bile creeping up her throat "Ed Malcom. Who would have thought managing that one guy would be the toughest part of this job? Chief of Technical Operations. Right. I feel more like Chief Babysitter."

Mathias gave her his trademark Bob Mathias grin, shrugged and continued his exam, working across and down her abdomen. He stopped suddenly and frowned slightly. The x-ray image on the video screen interrupted him.

"You broke a couple of ribs, see?" He pointed to the image.

She squinted. "I don't see anything. Just a bunch of blurry images of what vaguely looks like ribs." She scowled impatiently. "How about some more party drugs, Bob? More Demerol, maybe? I think the stuff you gave me in the Eagle is wearing off. I don't care if I'm bitchy around you but I want to be in a cheery mood when Alan comes back."

"Not yet..." Mathias pull out the phlebotomy tray. "I vant your blood!!" The doctor grinned doing his best or rather worst vampire imitation, as he tied the tourniquet on her upper arm.

Angelina hardly noticed and she did not feel the stick of the hypodermic needle. Her gaze was fixed dreamily on the figure in the shadow between bed 1 and bed 2 in the darkened and empty intensive care unit: A 7 foot tall male in a long robe with a long beard, a terror filled and betrayed expression etched on his face.

**********

So here she was, alone, as she glared at Jerry Parker, MSRN, for kicking out her best friend Melita Kelly. Some stupid policy about visiting hours, though he told her he felt generous and would allow Alan Carter to visit her any time. She was in his kingdom now and at the mercy of the egotistical chief nurse. Her irritation though was merely a diversion. Something told her that the voice in her head and the weird apparition she saw in the exam room were not the result of concussion induced hallucination no matter how much she tried to rationalize it.

She sighed, depressed, the death of Larry Parks, and the image of his corpse, firmly planted in her mind. To die such an unspeakably horrific death made her shudder. As a teenager, Angelina liked to watch slasher type, horror movies when she was rather rebellious. No Hollywood movie could ever capture the reality of a true explosive decompression of a human being.

Angelina grew restless and did not want to be alone; despite the fact that Medical was located deep inside of Alpha, one of the safest places on the base, she did not feel safe at all.

Dr. Ben Vincent approached her with a laser hypo. "Looks like you need a nightcap, Ang," he said cheerily. "Have I got some good stuff for you."

"Yeah Ben, I'll have a double martini..shaken not stirred." she replied good-naturedly.

"You'll have to settle for this," Ben replied as he emptied the contents of the hypo into her wrist. "Get some sleep now and call if you need anything..good night."

Angelina smiled and nodded, pulling the covers up to her neck. Suddenly, she felt very cold.

The snow had fallen and the silence of the field seemed to echo over the landscape. The icy branches waved softly in the wind. The only sound was crunching as she walked along the snow-covered road with the dog. The animal, sensing movement in the woods, ran toward the sound. Angelina succumbed to the playful urge and fell backwards into the 2-foot deep bed of fluffy snow.

She became aware of an unusual silence. The wind had stopped blowing. She heard the dog yelp and instantly sat up. "Mason? Mason?!?" she called. She went toward the sound and found the animal...he was completely gutted and mutilated beyond recognition, the ghastly bloody carcass still oozing. She frantically looked around but no one was there.

When she turned around, corpses, disemboweled and bloody, stacked up in neat piles, blocked the road. A river of blood rushed toward her, changing the white snow covered road into a Sea of Red.

Angelina cried out in terror and turning to run, came face to face with "Jason" from the "Friday The 13th" Horror movies.

"BUTCHERS!! BASTARDS!!!!" he screamed as he wielded his machete at her.

Dr. Ben Vincent, who was nearly nodding off at his desk, banged his head on the damn Italian lamp, and awoke startled by Angelina Verdeschi's gut wrenching, hysterical screams.

'A little less Vermouth in that martini next time,' he thought, after hearing the tortured cries.

Jerry Parker immediately brought the lights up in the ward as Ben Vincent approached Angelina's bedside. He positioned himself beside her, careful not to disturb the midsection, bandaged beneath her blue karate pajamas.

"'Ang...hey, it's going to be all right." He said.

She was sitting totally up in bed; her blond hair, and her pallid face, slicked with sweat as thick as petroleum.

"Seconal." He declared, chasing Parker to the pharmacy. "Ten milligrams, now." He placed his hand gently on her shoulder."Everything is going to be fine. It was just a dream." He said rhythmically. "Just a dream."

Angelina, trembling, grasped Ben's arm and tried to avoid the injection.

"No..No..NO!..it was not a dream...it was NOT a dream. I heard those words again. The same ones I heard in the Eagle 'Butchers, Bastards'..the same words and the SAME VOICE. There's something out there, there's something terrible out there." She tried to get out of bed, fighting Ben's attempts to restrain her. "PLEASE listen to me! There's terrible, terrible danger. You've got to let me warn the Commander..."

Ben Vincent nodded sympathetically--attempting to understand as much of the inexplicable as was advised. He was fifty-four years old. Three months from now--ninety days to be mortally precise--he would be fifty-five, and a survivor of September 13, 1999. One did not attain these laurels by thinking too hard about butchers, bastards, and the paranormal.

It was padded room stuff; better living through electro-shock therapy.

"Of course you can talk to the commander." He promised. "But I want to give you something to help you relax first."

He took the hypo from Parker, and found the artery in her neck.

"Can you tell me what kind of danger we're in." He asked, placing the laser back on the tray. "Would it bother you to talk about it."

Carter would be there any moment now.

Angelina realized or perhaps the Seconal helped her realize that she would get nowhere acting erratically, except perhaps a psyche consult.

"After we crashed, I was knocked out and I woke up on the floor of the passenger module. I heard Alan call us. I tried to communicate with him by patching the internal communicator of the suit into the com system. The next thing I heard was a very melodic voice. Then, there was another voice, a terrible, angry voice yelling 'Butchers, Bastards!' Ben, I just heard the same voice AGAIN" she closed her eyes, shaking her head.

Alan Carter walked in at this point, and heard the rest of it.

"An original episode of 'Friday the 13th Part 55' staring hockey mask boy Jason. At the end of it, I heard the same voice, the same words again 'Butchers, Bastards!'"

It was obvious Vincent was being condescending toward Ang and not believing a word she said as anything other than a hallucination. She glanced at Carter imploringly. "Alan! I heard it again. It was the same voice, same words that I heard in the Eagle."

Carter closed the double doors behind him, and hooked his commlock back onto his belt. His expression was completely blank. Those strongly cast, heroic features that had always seemed so confident to Angelina in the past, now seemed debunked, defeated, and disillusioned.

"You two probably want to be alone." Ben Vincent awkwardly deduced, and motioned towards Parker to beat it. "If you need anything, I'll be in the other ward. 'Ang, if you would still like to talk later, I'll be around."

"They just called me away from a command conference." Carter said unbelievingly. His concern struggled to survive his skeptical mind's attempt to kill it. "What's going on?"

CHAPTER 4

Ben Vincent made good his escape, and walked into the Lovecraftian night world of Ward-A. There were only empty beds there. Six neatly made on the right side of the room; six on the left. Walls continued upright. Doors remained sensibly shut. The red, emergency bulbs bathed the vacant, single mattresses in rose-colored hues that disappeared at a vanishing point near the far wall. A goose stepped over his grave. Feedback from the system server droned on, like the oppressive tonalities of some insane organ player, turning his vertebrae to ice cubes.

Boo-boop, boop, boop....Boo-boop, boop, boop....

It chimed monotonously. On, and on, and on. The ambient work sounds that had become so domestic, and annoying as to ruin his hottest, most bodaciously daring wet dreams. Now they sounded like omens from an urn, a hob's heckling from the heart of a haunted tree.

"Who's there?" He said aloud, seeing the dark traveler emerge from between Bed #7, and Bed #6.

The figure was tall, and incredibly broad shouldered. Its gown swished regally, secretly across pieces of interlocking tile that now seemed more like the decaying stone work of some sorcerer's castle. His black bearded cheeks, and his cracked lips--visible only for a moment in the crimson light.

"Who are you?" Vincent demanded, groping for his commlock spasmodically, and keen to the fact that his gumption was no longer in Ward-A with him. The form turned its head so slowly--so casually--that it may as well have been mounted on a turntable. His thumb was on the pager button. When he looked up again, he saw only a dark room with two neatly made rows of beds.

The visitation--if that was the word--had apparently ended.

**********

Angelina studied Alan's blank expression as he sat on the edge of her bed. "I heard those words again, Alan, same words and the same voice..'butchers, bastards.' Really, I did. It was all so real."

"Sounds like you had a nightmare, " Carter rephrased through an ingratiating smile that was politely unimpressed. "Tell me about it."

Angelina conveyed the terrible events and the images of the nightmare to him as he held her.

"A machete, huh?" The pilot recounted, blanching her trauma with hubris, and stoicism. The impact was totally lost on him. "Isn't that a tart? I guess everyone has enemies." T'would have been better to have said the lavatories were not working. "Don't worry creampuff, I still like you. Sort of."

His attempt to lighten the mood was not appreciated by her.

"It's not funny, Alan," she replied getting a bit edgy, "I know it sounds crazy. Maybe the first time could have been a nightmare, a hallucination, whatever, but I heard the same words in the same voice again the second time. How can that be possible, even in a dream? That's impossible. Help me out here; I haven't lost it. I know what I heard."

Her confidence over what she knew as true was unnerving to him. She softened somewhat, remembering his blank expression she saw when he walked into the room.

"What's wrong, " she asked, more relaxed in his embrace and momentarily forgetting her encounters with cinematic horror. He was keeping something from her; something was most certainly bothering him. "There's something on your mind. What's going on?" She asked with genuine love and concern. "Why is there a Command Conference in the middle of the night?"

Carter looked away. He considered relaying the facts to her concerning the blood freezing apparition that countenanced him through the window aboard Eagle One. Since he no longer believed it happened though, the expressions in this particular equation had all changed. The final formula looked something like this:

SPACE + TERRIFYING, BLENCHED SPIRIT FROM THE NETHERWORLD ='NAH.

**********

The remains of Eagle 6 had been brought to Hangar 5 to be salvaged for parts. Hangar 5 was a creepy place because it was a junk yard or a ghost yard, depending on your point of view, of space craft and equipment parts. It was the junk drawer of Moonbase Alpha, where items were relegated for salvage or storage, in case there was ever a use for them 'someday.'

There was no way Eagle 6 would be rebuilt. Mike Ellis, Eagle Flight Engineer, surveyed the twisted wreckage. It really was a miracle that anyone had survived at all. In all of his years as an Eagle Flight Engineer, especially since leaving Earth, he had seen his share of wrecks, a couple killing all of the ship's occupants.

As he step into the remains of the passenger module, he became aware of a pungent odor. He turned and immediately saw the source of the odor.. one row of bodies, piled from the floor to the ceiling, but decayed to the extent that gravity affected the body parts of the higher layers of bodies. One of the heads drop off, thudding sickeningly to the ground. Mike Ellis, the smell of rotting flesh overpowering him, vomited as he staggered toward the opening of the passenger module.

"Butchers, Bastards!!" the terrible voice was ringing in his ears.

When he looked back, grappling for his commlock and gasping for breath, the bodies and the smell had disappeared. All that remained was the twisted wreckage of Eagle 6, the faint smell of burnt circuit cards and, of course, the regurgitated contents of his stomach.

**********

"They're wondering what wrecked your ship." Carter parlayed. Then, the timely--highly insulting--caesura, where he looked away to devise a new stratagem for what he was going to say next. He had been there for fifteen minutes now, and Angelina had yet to concede what a knee-slapper her dream had been. He supposed that he had expected her to embrace again, the ordinances of cause, and effect; her senses, as stark, raving sober as the arc-sodium depot lights in the Eagle Garage. But the rolling-on-the-floor, gut bursting laughter never came. He saw in her business-like face, no pointed hats; no kazoos; she wasn't humming "The Road To Tiporari"-her contention of danger remained, and perhaps the feeling that God was kicked back stoned somewhere while she slept.

During World War Terminus, young Alan Carter had dropped Fuel-Air Bombs on the Weather Underground while the rest of Sydney burned. Death, and fell misadventure were no way to die, he had concluded, long, long ago, but he could cope with the idea because it represented something tangible. What Angelina was describing was more in the realm of bad--but compelling-horror comic kukah. Even worse, it bordered on bad--but compelling--horror movie kukah where the laws of life, and death were as easy, and as wide as the muse of a hack screenwriter who deserved to starve.

Oh well. He kissed her on the forehead anyway.

"Maybe it's time you got some real sleep." He said compassionately, winding up to pitch his next foul ball. "Better dreams will come--eh?"

**********

While Alan Carter fondly patronized Angelina Verdeschi, John Koenig was realizing just how ignorant, ignorance could be. He was cantered at the round table with Paul Morrow, David Kano, Sandra Benes, and Helena Russell.

Victor Bergman paced the floor beneath a digital monitor that was spliced into separate, but identical, bar graphs. The similarity between the two surveys was so insignificant as to be supine. No. More than that. The indicators were downright blase--as in there was 'nothing' there--as in: "This is a superfluous exercise, and a waste of elbow grease, and

materials." The bars themselves, red, represented quarterly radioactive emissions, in killirads, from the blasted remains of Nuclear Disposal Area Two. Chart one was from six months ago; the information on chart two was plotted by Bergman fifteen minutes before the Command Conference had started.

"There's been no change at all." Paul Morrow said with tremendous angst.

"No, there hasn't been." Koenig acknowledged, calmer. "The sensor data from today's scan corroborates only what we knew six months ago."

"But the flight recorder on Bannion's Eagle did track an MR Sine Wave." Sandra Benes abided, her notes carefully organized on the table in front of her.

"That's true," Bergman gibed, "But...it's not necessarily the result of radioactive emissions from area two."

"Where did it come from then?"…Helena Russell.

"And how will it effect us here on Alpha?"…Paul Morrow, cheeks reddening.

"I can see that everyone is concerned." Koenig said with unctuous understatement, and acid indigestion while leaning forward on his elbows. "For that reason, I want to start cycling Alpha's screens to the highest possible calibration. That should give us some time to figure out the 'whys,' and the 'wherefores.'

"In the meantime, we have a new solar system." He said, swiveling towards Bergman. "Victor, how does it look?"

"If you're talking about a reconnaissance, it's not going to happen." The Voice Of Disparagement, David Kano intruded, answering the question for him. "We'll be in visual range of the system for about seven days, but the closest planet is at least 10,000 nautical downrange--too far out to attempt a landing. We should be in scanning range in about four hours though."

"Is it possible that there is something about the area of space we're in that caused Eagle Six's navigational failure?" Helena Russell wondered, speaking from the lay person's view.

"Any thing is possible." Bergman said, eyebrows up, and leaning against one of the empty chairs. "It's doubtful, though. Our tracking systems can detect radioactive particles travelling through space--in individual units, or as part of an overall spectrum."

"Then where does that leave us?"

To that, there was no answer.

CHAPTER 5

Angelina Verdeschi knew Alan Carter did not believe her "visions" were anything other than a nightmare. She tried to convey to him what she saw was completely real. But how do you explain irrationalism to a rational man? She looked downcast and said, "You're right. It's probably all just a bad hallucination. I'm sorry to be a bother to you; you should go back to the meeting."

"Ouch." Carter squinched. "You aren't a bother to me at all gorgeous. As a matter of fact, you're the most pleasant distraction I've had all day." Her focus, and affections did nothing to make him believe in, or fear, the butchers, and the bastards, but his devotion to her did survive the psychotic break intact. Even to Ray Charles, his caring was salient. In fact, he wanted to do senior citizenship with her, and live in hope--preferably, in a place where their existence on Moonbase Alpha was a memory of the cheerless, distant past. "Even if you are a couple of cans short of a six pack right now."

She gazed at him neutrally then smiled. Maybe he was right. It was all a bad dream. There had to be a physical explanation. Yes, the trauma of the crash could have caused the mind to hear things in the Eagle. Yes, maybe whatever intravenous martini Vincent had given her could have played havoc with her psyche. She was utterly exhausted and an exhausted mind could easily succumb to misperceptions.

"I guess that makes us a matched set," she teased and hugged him affectionately.

Everything would be all right in the morning. She was sure of it.

**********

Thirty minutes later, if you were an Alphan standing in the white room which crowned the boarding tube to Launch Pad Three, you would have seen a small, pinpoint of light appear beyond the vision ports in the endless, black sea. Seat Alphearas drifted above the walls of The Lorentz Crater like Tinkerbelle searching for Peter, and Wendy, and a corny Captain Hook. At a distance of twelve million astronomical units, it cast a dying light on its children; a triune of worlds that heard nothing; saw nothing, and addressed nothing. In a universe that increasingly made less, and less sense--'nothing' was perhaps the ultimate descriptor.

Or maybe an alligator with a clock in its gut would be more precise simile. In either case, the Moon kept rolling all night long.

**********

"Alright." Controller Paul Morrow said some interminable, feverish hours later at his workstation. "Let's do it." His hands were kneaded anxiously together beneath the yellow gooseneck lamp. The three empty coffee cups next to his harmonic keyboard seemed, from his driven, overtime perspective, to be the eyes of some mysterious triclops. "Conversion in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one...."

The plasma VU-Meters on the part of his console marked UTILITY came to life, violently expanding, and receding.

"Linkup to ACCEPT." Sandra Benes relayed back to him mechanically. "Deflection Screens to MAXIMUM." In the forever darkness outside the base, the circular march of radio towers broadcast the antithetical signal that would, in theory, neutralize most of Madame Curie's prime offenders.

"It's too little, too late, if you ask me." Kano balked, rotating his desk to face the big screen once more. "What if we're already contaminated?"

"Possibly. If so, I won't know what's worse Kano. Glowing in the dark, or listening to you bitch." Morrow honed-in, irritated, and most definitely not in the place to listen to someone belly ache. He could feel his lower back muscles crack like a gladiator's shield every time he moved.

Kano, along with ten tons of bruised ego, was about to fire a volley of assholish retorts when the reflection appeared on Sandra's micro-monitor.

"Paul!" She said with alarm.

Morrow bolted to her desk. In the center of her screen, the wave form--vaguely helical in structure, and electric blue in color--unraveled to extinction on the white grid iron. By the time Kano came around for a look, its bonded, DNA-like wrung had disappeared completely.

**********

Alan Carter returned to say 'gidday,' but she was so doped up, and dissociative, he wasn't sure whether she was cognizant of his presence. Responses like "good night, Victor" caused him to rather doubt it. He couldn't resist having a gander at her any way, even if her horse sense was currently enjoying a time-out. He met the other two yellow-sleeved Reconnaissance Pilots--one blonde, the other with cold black hair, as the Medical Center doors closed behind him.

"Visiting hours are over, men." He chided good-naturedly. On a nearby comm-post, the lunar clock marched onward; soon 02:29 adjusted, and graduated to an unredeemed 02:30.

On the ward, visions of fragmenting nuclear waste dumps danced through Angelina Verdeschi's head. Through the haze, she could see Parker, and Nunez trying to make their break from the Autopsy Room. She knew it would be done clandestinely, but she wasn't sure when. She fancied an evil Santa Claus, spiriting Larry Parks' black body bag away in his engulfed sled.

'She's asleep.' She heard Nunez whisper, and imagined his ostrich neck inclining almost comically from the doorway. Move it.... She heard the wheels on the gurney screech slightly as they moved towards the one area on Moonbase Alpha that could wipe the grin off of your face, posthaste-The Morgue.

She dozed. She opened her eyes. Wide? Au contraire; they almost literally bulged from their sockets. Angelina gagged on the stick of dynamite that was suddenly lodged in her throat. Guilty shadows hovered over her.

"'Ang, we're sorry we woke you." Kevin Bannion said kindly, arms folded, and apologizing profusely. Dumb idea--it was written all over his face. "Alan thought it would be okay if we looked in on you, and my conscience has been bloody beastly."

"It ought to be." Larry Parks joked, unsuccessfully, though the attempt seemed well meant, and Angelina realized just how deeply she had taken her own sanity for granted. Parks didn't seem to realize that he was stone cold dead, and had been for hours. "After all--you wreck the ship, but she ends up being stuck with Dr. Big Mouth; Alpha's only undefeated Chess Champion."

"If that won't send you to your grave, I don't know what will." Larry Parks chuckled.

Angelina almost recognized this was some weird dream in her semi-conscious state and was even somewhat amused by Larry's Parks chess comment when, as Larry was looking at her, his face exploded; pieces of flesh, blood, sinew and subcutaneous fat rained everywhere, mainly toward Ang.

One of Larry's eyeballs landed on her chest.

"Pardon me for groping but I really need that." Parks, grinning at her, with a face mostly skull devoid of flesh, gingerly retrieved his eye from atop her breastbone. Angelina was no longer amused and beginning to wonder if this was really a dream. She screamed and lashed out violently at her comedic tormentors. Ben Vincent was once again startled by the agonized cries coming from Angelina Verdeschi's ward.

Dr. Vincent made his icy journey back from Ward-A, and was greeted with the sight of Angelina Verdeschi, reduced to an angry, hysterical time bomb, thrashing, and kicking so violently, she almost ruptured old Pierre Danielle. It was he who had accompanied Bannion on this errand of mercy, and not the eviscerated vestiges of Larry Parks. He wished that he had not done it. The pilot, pale at the thought of how close he had really come, took it as a warning, and stayed a precautionary five steps back for the remainder of the conversation.

"It's going to be okay." Kevin Bannion said, his expression now pale, and bleached, and feeling like a cross between Al Capone, and Dr. Josef Mengele. He knew that if he got close enough, Moonbase Alpha's Chief Of Technical Operations would promptly ring his neck.

Ben Vincent grabbed the nearest available hypo, and checked its contents as he ran. He was flanked by Parker and Nunez, who met him halfway between the freezer and Angelina's bed.

"What happened?"

Inside his vinyl body bag, Larry Parks settled into profound rigor mortis

"Go away! Go away!!!! You're dead, Larry!!! !!You're DEAD!!!!!" Angelina screamed over and over, trying to fight off her imaginary assailant.

As Nunez and Parker tried to restrain her, they unexpectedly discovered that somehow her physical strength had multiplied at least 10 fold. She flung them both backwards, against Pierre Danielle and Kevin Bannion, the 4 of them crashing against carts and the opposite wall of the ward.

But in the process of throwing the two relatively strong men, Angelina felt a "pop" in her injured left side. She screamed in agony, falling off the bed, bringing her back to a now decidedly painful reality.

**********

Carissa Englebert was enjoying a blissful dream of a happier time....when she could fly. Damage to her optic nerve during the breakaway explosion had permanently grounded her. After tossing and turning in a fitful sleep for half the night, she finally drifted off and found herself flying a reconn mission to a potentially habitable planet.

As she skillfully piloted the ship through the clouds, she looked over at her co-pilot to chat with him, to share her excitement over their awesome though rare experience of flying through clouds. Carissa gasped.

Seated next to her was a large man, dressed in a robe with broad shoulders. He had a black beard and black eyes and shook his head solemnly. To Carissa's horror, he grasped the flight sticks and sent the Eagle into a precarious downward plunge. Carissa was unable to override and could not take control of the ship. With nearly unbearable G-forces preventing her movement, she watched in terror through the viewport as the ground, a burning pool of lava, came closer and closer towards her.

Carissa woke up in her bed with a muffled scream. Her body, her pajamas, her sheets were completely soaked with sweat.

CHAPTER 6

For the third time that night, Ben Vincent helped Angelina Verdeschi to sleep. He was a firm believer that in space, any thing was possible, and the fisticuffs he had enjoyed with Alan Carter later that night did nothing to deter this philosophy. He was about to contact Main Mission when everything just fell apart. He had no idea what he was going to tell them, but the proverbial 'something' seemed better than nothing.

"WHAT ABOUT THE BABY?" Carter had screamed. "DID YOU FOUL THAT ONE UP TOO?"

Vincent told him to calm down--he didn't ask, and perhaps that was where the mistake had been. In truth, he had not had a chance to test for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, although, at this point, baby Carter was certainly a candidate.

"Useless bastards." Carter evenly, slowly building up to a fission reaction of renunciation, and with venom dripping from his fangs. "!!!INCOMPENTENT STUPID, GARBO MOTHERFUCKERS!!! ALWAYS RIDING THE DOLE, AND NOW--WHEN YOU'RE MOST NEEDED--WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU??? YOU'RE LAYING IN A CORNER, AND POUNDING YOUR FUCKING WILLIES, THAT'S WHERE!!! I SWEAR TO YOU THAT IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HER, OR THE BABY, I'LL NICK YOU, AND MATHIAS BOTH, YOU LOUSY QUACKS!!!"

Vincent told him to leave, and that was when Carter threw him an upper-cut with his left fist. He saw birds; he saw stars; he felt something warm, and wet trickle down his chin. Recoiling fairly quickly, he rammed the Eagle Pilot squarely in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Both men tumbled to the floor, knocking the paper filled IN/OUT Basket on top of them. Carter was an apt pugilist; he instinctively went next for Ben Vincent's sternum. Vincent cried out, and planted his fist squarely on the Captain's hard head. This only caused his rage to escalate. He grabbed for the doctor's throat. Vincent rolled out of the way, and brought his elbow down hard on his opponent's back.

Light years away, on the other side of the office lay his commlock.

**********

Angelina Verdeschi lay sound asleep, electrodes from each side of her head to the machine that induced electro-stimulated sleep. Dr. Bob Mathias was attending her. The drugs given to her earlier had caused her hallucinations and nightmares. Strange, she never, according to her records, had such an adverse reaction to them before. In fact, no one on Alpha had such a terrible reaction to either of these drugs. Now, of course, since her labs came back, they were severely limited in what they could give her for medication anyway. Angelina Verdeschi was about 8 weeks pregnant. Carter already knew about it. Angelina Verdeschi did not; the result of a careless Med tech reporting the lab result to Ben Vincent when Carter was within earshot in the next room.

With her last night terror and falling squarely on the floor, Angelina had managed to turn the hairline fracture in one of her ribs into a clean break. He was checking the condition of the baby, if it had perhaps died in utero. After applying the ultrasound gel, he placed the transducer against her abdomen and moved it around. He found the steady rhythm of Angelina's pulse from the main artery sending blood to her lower extremities. Mathias moved the transducer around and then he saw it: the tiny heart, beating at over twice the rate as Ang's. He smiled with satisfaction. For the moment, all was well and young Carter junior was alive. If he got to this point after the accident, his chances were excellent that he would continue to live.

He removed the transducer and wiped off the gel when he heard a strange sound in the headphones.

boop..boop...boop..BOOP...BOOP...BOOP

Clasping his ears, as the sound grew louder, BOOP! BOOP!!!! !!! BOOOOOP!!!!!, he turned to see the figure of a tall man in a robe with broad shoulders, black eyes and a black pointed beard.

"Who are you?" the doctor asked, feeling a wave of nausea. He bent down, overcome, and gagged. The sound abruptly stopped; Mathias was alone in the room with a sleeping Angelina Verdeschi.

The Assistant Chief Medical Officer then heard Carter's and Vincent's yelling in the other ward, followed by crashing and thudding. Mathias ran into the room, to find the melee; Carter and Vincent beating up each other with the Chief of Reconn appearing to have a decisive advantage.

Mathias jumped between the two of them, pulled them apart and threw them to opposite sides of the room.

"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!?!??!"

Carter stepped back against the bulkhead, his anger--or at least half of it--spent. He looked from one side of the wrecked office to the other, more determined than ashamed. There was a small, one inch cut on his cheek from where the IN/OUT Tray had clocked him. Sweat poured down the front, and back of his tunic in a tree-shape. Bob Mathias would have done well to not hold his breath waiting for an answer. Carter's english was gone. It occurred to Ben Vincent that sometimes there was just no lexicon big enough for describing how you feel.

"Alan," He said, trying to manipulate his swollen jaw back into place. Thanks to Carter's left hook, he felt confident that he knew what it was like for Harry Houdini to hang from the Brooklyn Bridge with only a stirrup, and his teeth to support him. "I can see you're...upset." But then again, he would since the expended ire had been channeled towards beating the shit out of him. "I want to take a look at you; maybe give you something to take the edge off those nerves."

God knows, the pilot needed it.

Carter looked at the floor--his gratitude lodged some where in his throat.

"If it's about the baby, you're worrying for no reason." Mathias interjected. "It's perfect. I just checked."

"Yeah, Bob." Carter mumbled quietly, himself again. He left the office, and drifted out to the ward where Angelina was sleeping. He sat in the chair, and cupped his face in his palms.

He remained that way a long time.

**********

Dr. Helena Russell had to tell Commander John Koenig about Angelina Verdeschi's new condition. She sighed, heavily. There had not been a birth on Alpha since Jackie Crawford. After that time, Commander Koenig made it clear that, due to the strain on the resources, planning for and trying to conceive children on Alpha could not be an option at this time. Of course, contraceptive failures could happen. She told John that despite all of the measures it would happen sooner or later. The time was now.

"Hello, John," Helena had let herself in his office and leaned up against his desk.

"Hello, Helena," John looked up and spoke to her softly. He gazed at her; his eyes giving away his exhaustion and the frustration of the events of the last 24 hours. Helena imagined what his face would look like as a young John Koenig; without the ravages of time and the unending burdens as Commander of Moonbase Alpha sans Earth. "What can I do for you?" He asked gently. He always had time for Helena Russell.

"John," she set down the tray holding two freshly brewed cups of bad Moonbase Alpha imitation coffee and handed him one of the steaming mugs. "There's something that you need to know, something we found out about Angelina Verdeschi."

Koenig suddenly looked concerned, eyebrow raising as he nodded his appreciation for the java. "Was she hurt worse than you thought in the crash? What's wrong?"

Helena stated it simply. "She's pregnant."

Koenig groaned and raised his hand to his eyes, shaking his head. Another life that he would be responsible for...."I'm sorry, Helena. I shouldn't have reacted like that."

"I understand, " Helena lightly touched his shoulder. "John, it was 'accidental'. The Norplant failed." Helena continued. "We knew it was only a matter of time before something like this would happen."

Actually, she was surprised it had not happened earlier. Life had a way of adapting biology to fulfill its primary goal: to reproduce.

"Yes, Helena, I know. Not exactly the best timing..." Koenig sipped slowly, staring over his cup out the viewport at the lunar landscape.

"These things never are," she replied matter-of-factly.

Silently, they continued sipping their coffees in the subdued light of the office.

***********

Angelina woke up somewhat refreshed the next morning, though the pain in her ribs nagged her. She looked over and saw Alan lying in the bed next to her; his cheek was bandaged. He stirred, smiled at her and came over to her side.

"What happened to you?!" she blurted with great concern.

Carter yawned, and wiped the sleep from his eyes. He reckoned that he needed it, and apparently none of the Medical Center Staff had given a mind to his slumming around. As a matter of fact, he was almost certain that Mathias had stuck him with something while he was nodding off. His butt ached, but he was grateful for the stick.

"You're pregnant, cutie." He said bluntly, dropping her from ten feet atop the ladder. How many beatific ways were there to say it?

CHAPTER 7

Main Mission Operative Kate Bullen was walking down Corridor-D to the command tower. For breakfast, she normally stopped by the Reconnaissance Hub, and obtained a print out of proposed Eagle departure times for Paul Morrow. Now that the problems with Nuclear Disposal Area Two appeared to be back with a roar, she didn't have that, or much of any thing to do. The Commander, and Professor Bergman had grounded all Eagles until further notice. If the gods of bad luck had truly returned for an encore performance of September 13, 1999, there wasn't much that she could think of that they could do to remedy the situation--except for maybe finding festival seats where they could watch the Moon be blown to kingdom come this time.

With the diminished work load, Kate Bullen had actually been hoping to have an easy day. Instead, she felt the passing of wayward souls as they moved over her lilac covered tombstone. She felt a hand grip her shoulder, and turned startled.

Her anxiety-ridden expression, devolved into a scowl.

"Isn't this the bees knees? You can always tell who the biggest slackers are on this base." She determined lovelessly, and punched the interloper on his orange sleeve. "What happened to the leash that 'Coop had you on?."

The 'leash' in this context was a two month, alternating stint on ground patrol. Circling the lunar basin day, and night. There was nothing interesting to be keened, just rocks, and more rocks. It was duty ex nilo. Oh, was it ever boring.

"That's no way to treat a suitor." David Trask said romantically, unperturbed, and with his left cheek turning upward into an award winning, PR Smile. "Besides, you have absolutely no idea what I had to go through to find you again, beautiful. No idea at all."

In truth, it had been like moving from one world to another, and later that day, Kate Bullen would decide that she did not much care for the look he had given her. David Trask didn't much care. He knew his time would come.

**********

Alan Carter had a gift for deadpan humor. He knew Angelina was somewhat gullible and liked to tease her, muddling the facts of a story until it became so unbelievably ridiculous. Once he told her he drank too much of the products from Carissa's stil and took Eagle 1 for a joyride, doing a little "moon skimming" in the process. Her gut told her he was bullshitting her, but he was so convincing that she actually believed it for about 5 minutes. A series of logical questions, however, quickly tore apart the Eagle joyride story but the fact she even asked the questions was a further testament of her gullibility. He had "gotten" her and guffawed his way through the rest of dinner. Since then, he enjoyed occasionally muddling the line between truth and fiction when he told her stories about his exploits.

Angelina sat back, unimpressed, wincing from her ribs. "Very funny, Alan. Although I must say that is quite an original gag. That's something I'm suppose to announce to you, not the other way around. April Fool's day was 3 months ago." At this point, she was expecting him to crack a smile and start laughing loudly. He sat on the bed gazing at her with a loving smile. Seconds ticked by...maybe a minute...his smile still there...her's beginning to fade. "OK, joke's over, Alan," she said nervously "You are joking." Not said as a question but as a statement. Then attempting to dismiss the whole thing and thereby sanction it as a joke she asked with jest "So what happened to your face? Get in a fight?"

"Yeah, Ben Vincent, and I had a round, or two." Carter explained briefly, feeling his bandaged cheek. "He's actually not half bad. Maybe he should join up on the double with your brother." He laughed, thinking of Moonbase Alpha's other Verdeschi--a proveable dickhead; a laser packing horror of testosterone, and self-serving occupational goals that would ferment no better than his home brew; a 'nere do well--Italy's Last Action Hero who seemed strangely out of place in an enlightened age.

True, the core controls functioned as well as could be expected, but he didn't talk to Tony Verdeschi no more. Funny. The grape vine had it that the other Verdeschi, infamous, was also terminally on his boss' bad side. It wasn't a tres beau place to be, especially if your boss' last name was Morrow. He knew for a fact that 'Ang had to swing some formidable clout, on multivarious humanitarian occasions, to pry her brother out of the controller's claws.

"You think I'm joking, but I'm not." Carter said. "Mathias and Vincent both confirmed it. In about six months, we're going to have company, 'kiddo."

To say she was shocked would have been the understatement of the year...of the new millennia. Shock...anxiety.....outright fear.....dread.....joy ....Alan was not joking....he was not muddling any lines. In fact, he was making himself quite clear.

She felt sorry for Jackie Crawford although the little boy was the ultimate only child. Angelina swore that she would never have a child while they were adrift on their rock. Commander Koenig's "orders" notwithstanding, the reasons were obvious; any child, including young Crawford, could not look forward to a future filled with sunshine and promise. The future could end today for all of them.

On the one hand, she loved Alan Carter more than her own life and the thought of having a baby with him was a gift and a cause of great joy and happiness. It was a sign that love, the best aspect of humanity could grow and thrive, even out in the black wilderness. On the other hand, that gift could be taken away in an instant; a violent, gory instant. Even if their child never succumbed to the danger of space, if he grew old on Moonbase Alpha, what kind of life and future is that? To never breath real air, to never feel the warmth of a sun, to never go "outside" without protective EVA suit; that was the life they had to offer the future. In an instant, all these concerns and worries crossed her mind. Still....

She returned his gaze, as he moved closer to her. A slight smile crossed her face. "I love you," she stated simply and, glancing around to see that they were alone, she kissed him tenderly

***********

They were not alone...not really.

Across an incomprehensible dimension, the sentient Mantis watched the scene with interest. It nodded its triangular head approvingly and had already come to a decision. It was time to prepare to change. It reached out and touched the essence of their creation, growing inside of her. The light blue glow of his soul transformed to brilliant white.

**********

On Moonbase Alpha, light bulbs were worth their weight in gold.

Dr. Ismet Quahr, PhD, had spent a productive evening in the Reference Library, working on yet another in a series of brilliant, notable dissertations, on survival, and the ostracized community. She had started her new thesis six months ago, and had attacked it badly from seven different directions, but tonight was atypical. She left with a feeling of contribution that was every bit as substantial as that of a reconnaissance pilot's, though she was at far less risk of having her ass shot off. Let the M. Scott Peck's, and the Aaron T. Beck's of the cosmos probe their nostrils for intellectual winners; all of those awashed Book Of The Month Club last names that rhymed, and abominably boring tomes that did nothing to edify the human spirit. For you see, her theory was that the human animal survived because it wanted to. For the other three hundred, some odd men, and women on Moonbase Alpha who were not aware that this was the case, this would be a bombshell--one worthy of the likes of Jeremy Bentham, Jean Paul Sartre, and Rush Limbaugh.

Dr. Quahr was ambling down the darkened corridor with her prolific stack of notebooks when she heard the imp's rustle. All around her, she could hear the polyphony of voices; a crowd of men, and women--irreverent, poking at her, and prodding at her, and teasing her for her lack of reasonableness, like she was the star attraction at the local monkey house. Elongated shadows established themselves on the walls around her, like the bars of a cage. The disembodied females whispered evil judgments; the male voices would respond with belligerent laughter. They seemed to work in tandem, like the altos, and the sopranos in a baroque fugue.

Dr. Quahr dropped her notebooks, her blood now as warm as a cherry pop-sickle. The picky female revenants made note of her clumsiness. She looked around, nervously sucking her thumb.

"Uh-" She stammered.

Before she had a chance to prove her Nobel Prize worthy thesis by flight, tears, and incontinence, the darkness fell on her.

**********

Harness Bull Tom Carlson was patrolling the base near the Anthropology Laboratory when his right boot clipped something near the open, utility closet. He aimed his security issue mag-lite at the floor. His first thought was to marvel at the rudeness, and the inappropriateness of some one who would throw their lousy note book on the floor, and just leave it. He suspected that the perpetrator was also crude enough, and rude enough to spill a whole cup of coffee--and then just leave it. There wasn't just one, there were about five, spiral bound, and splayed open around the hatch like fallen seagulls. A few of them appeared to have been on the losing side in a battle with a nigrosine ink cartridge.

The second thing he noticed was that he was standing on some one's hand. He backed away immediately to reveal the small, blood scattered digits, clamped tightly in a death grip. The horror doll's wrist was connected to exposed joints, syrupy tendons, and a glistening weave of amniotic muscle tissue. The hamstring of the horror doll's jaw was distended in a laureate's bombastic lecture pose--as if it's dying act had been to validate something about personal safety in the human village.

CHAPTER 8

Dr. Helena Russell was doing a brief examine on the hideously mutilated body. She made sure that security had roped off the area because the scene was gruesome and did not relish the prospect of giving tranquilizers to passers-by.

"Any idea what could have caused this, Helena?" the Commander queried impatiently.

"No, John," Helena replied stoically, as she zipped the body bag. "I really need to do a full autopsy, though I admit I'm not sure there will be an answer. I don't see any evidence of mutilation with a weapon."

"What about a chemical? An acid?" Koenig suggested as he paced the same six feet behind her.

"No, the body does not suggest evidence of acid burns either." Helena shook her head. "It's as if the skin and most of the subcutaneous layers of fat have been...peeled off. But again, there is no evidence of a knife or other sharp object, no evidence of acid." She sighed. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Helena, we've come across a lot of things that would come under the category of 'never seen anything like it'. But there was always an answer, always a reason," Koenig retorted, scratching his head.

Koenig was getting angry. First the crash of Eagle 6 with still unknown causes and now this. Not to mention the fact that Koenig had also experienced a horrific nightmare the evening before that left him without sleep for the rest of the night. "We need answers, Dr. Russell, answers," he repeated in frustration.

Helena motioned and the stretcher was sent on its way, towed by the orderlies. She turned to the Commander and glared into his piercing blue eyes. "I'll do my best, John...but like I said, I don't know if I'll find any answers." She turned to leave.

"Helena," the Commander called after her, his voice growing gentle, "I know you'll do the best you can. Report to me as soon as you are ready with your findings."

Dr. Russell nodded and turned to follow the medical team. It was going to be a long night.

**********

As Doctor Russell had predicted, the cause of the death of Dr. Quahr was unknown, the autopsy revealing no clue. Commander John Koenig ordered the details of the file sealed and all those involved in the discovery and investigation of the death were given a strict gag order. The official explanation was that the death was "accidental." Commander Koenig did not want to create panic throughout the base, but he was greatly unsettled by the fact that this mystery was not solved.

The investigation of the crash of Eagle 6 did not lead to any true answers either. Professor Bergman did offer the theory that the crash was caused by a sudden burst in magnetic radiation due to random cosmic magnetic radiation.

In both cases, the answers given to Koenig could be best summarized in two words :shit happens. No, Koenig, thought, shit doesn't happen...not without a reason. But what?!?

To the relief of all of those who unfortunately experienced the night terrors and the hallucinations, the visions seemed to stop.

********

As the weeks turned into months, Moonbase Alpha drifted through a relatively quiet area of space: an encounter with an asteroid that was mined for some much needed minerals was the extent of the excitement. No planets...no space warps...nothing. In time, the night terrors were forgotten although to Koenig, the crash of Eagle 6 and the inexplicable murder of Dr. Quahr were never far from his mind.

Technical Section had completed routine preventive maintenance and even the project to build a Mark 9 Hawk to add to Alpha's defensive capacity, a joint project between Technical and Reconnaissance, was on schedule.

Angelina Verdeschi was on schedule too. At 39 weeks pregnant, well established in her 3rd trimester, she found herself longing for the completion of an obvious project: increasing the population of Alpha by one member. The worst of pregnancy manifested itself with the backaches, the bloating, the heartburn and the unrelenting fatigue. Angelina would gladly endure more if the physical miseries translated into excellent health for her precious baby boy.

The months of quiet, though appreciated, were nevertheless beginning to become unsettling...for some reason.

**********

In Number 123, Residence Building-A, there was a cacophony loud enough to arrest the dead from their estivate.

The time did come. A black sabbath had fallen over Moonbase Alpha like a shroud. It would not be the first time, but this might be the worst time.

On the flat screen, the drummer's foot pounded the bass pedal in 4/4 time; repeating, ultra-violet track lights strobed across his huge, punk rocker hands; then, an extreme close up of the twenty-something lead singer, eyes hidden beneath a pair of Raybans; his hair, a haphazardly, parted-in-the-center relic of the nineteen eighties. An optically created butterfly, flapped it's designer wings freely, and synchronously to the heavy metal rhythm. Comets fell from a weirdly convincing matte painting of the evening sky, as it had once been seen on Earth.

The red-hued hand reached carefully for the purloined scalpel on the moduform dresser.

In the background of the apartment, some one could be heard snapping their fingers....

"Once they killed this monster when it went into a trap...now he's making better ones on a higher step." The Osborne Clone on the screen enunciated, in perfect Halloween harmony with the morbid guitar licks coming from the Lead String. A long shot of the smoke-filled stadium where the concert was performed, showed the audience clapping, lighting cigarette lighters, and pot, and sundry other controlled substances--a perfect cross-sectional diagram of the lunatic fringe.

The Lead Player cut loose with a screeching, guitar solo, and the thing in Number 123, Residence Building-A placed the razor against his forearm, opening his life force with a single stroke.

"!!!!!!!!On a warm summer day, the doctor went away to a place where he could make it real...his assistants hips were nice....so he cloned her once or twice!!!!!!!!"

Then back to the drummer, who coordinated with the strings to produce the most hellish litany in all of heavy metal extreme.

A being, recently restored, placed his mutilated forearm against black lips, and drank deeply, leaving behind a row of grinning, blood-smeared teeth. Samples of blood fell to the carpet, and on his chest, and exposed groin area.

Long Shot: Of the vocalist, holding the omni directional microphone beneath his forearm, rallying the audience to clap louder, as the inebriated drum solo took to the stratosphere.

It had been a long journey, and the last 'bout had almost killed it, but the outcome had proved to be worthwhile, in more ways than one. His opponent was again left with empty pods, good for nothing, other than whacking its big green pecker. It was now stronger, and wiser than ever.

In the Multiverse, windbreaks were more prevalent than windmills, it decided, while helping itself to another drink.

CHAPTER 9

A wide awake Angelina Verdeschi quietly on the bed with Alan sleeping soundly at her side. The baby was particularly busy tonight. Though space was limited for him, he could still move around and pack quite the punch or kick. Usually she could soothe him by massaging her belly or better yet, get Alan to do it, and bring the activity level down several notches so she could get some sleep. But tonight, nothing seemed to work: not the sound of her voice, not the gentle massages, not even getting up and walking around. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought something was upsetting him, wincing as he kicked her squarely under the ribs.

Switching positions for what seemed like the hundredth time, she found he was least active when she was on her back. Despite the continued admonishments from Dr. Russell not to lie on her back so late in the pregnancy, she stayed in that medically undesirable position.'

Angelina blinked and found herself in an operating room. White sheets were draped about her body except for her pregnant belly that was exposed; she shivered from the cold and dank air. Then she noticed her arms and leg were restrained. She tried to fight against the restraints but to no avail. The lights dimmed suddenly in the room and a figure stepped out of the shadows, dress in surgical scrubs. It approached her, smiling, revealing a row of canine teeth said "It's time."

Angelina gasped. Horrified, she realized she was not anesthetized as it picked up.....a chainsaw. Her blood-curdling shriek echoed through the dank room as the thing brought the instrument of destruction down on her baby, blood splattering all over the white sheets.

Alan Carter, in a deep slumber, woke up startled to his hysterically screaming, shaking and sweat-drenched fiancée.

"Whuuhh?" Carter labored with bad hair falling in his eyes as he shook Angelina. "'Ang. Show's over hot stuff. Wake up, and face the music.

"You hear me? Up and adam."

He thought this had ended six months ago. Now he knew that it hadn't.

Angelina shook her head slowly as she continued to gasp and sob, repeating in a low moan "It's not a dream..It's real...". She had a grip on Carter so tight that nothing could peel her away from him and her whole body was shaking uncontrollably.

In Medical Center, the computer sounded the alarm and the console spit out a printout.

"Angelina Verdeschi...Life functions: Critical Zone....2237-2239 Lunar time." Bob Mathias went to the com post and called Alan Carter's quarters.

"Yeah?" Carter answered. He looked like Al Bundy in the morning--through the ringer, and slapped against the rocks. In the background, low and intermittent sobs could be heard.

"Carter, it's Mathias. Is Ang OK? The alarm just went off in Medical. Her vital signs were lousy."

"She's just spooked." Carter explained, looking back at her. "Gonzales outdid himself with that Soybean Surprise tonight. That's probably what caused it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep." The pilot lied. "I'm sure. Thanks anyway. I'll handle it."

"Right. Call me if you change your mind." Mathias cut the link warily.

The physician went back to his desk. It was quite an unusual night. It seemed that Angelina Verdeschi's case was the 6th time that night the Medical Center Computer alarms were activated for apparent nightmares. He shook his head and entered a note in her file.

Shaking uncontrollably....

Alan Carter had no problem with confrontation. As a matter of public record, he was Moonbase Alpha's heavyweight when it came to the art of calling a horse, a horse. He was a master of mendacity; a champion of choler, and rage. On more than one occasion, he had told Commander John Koenig-perhaps the most sprite of the marooned contingent--that his decisions were out to lunch. Over the years, he had gleaned in himself, a gradual acceptance-over time--of the few things in life that could not be confronted. To his knowledge, no one had ever successfully argued his way out of the bone yard; ergo, he accepted it. He was no longer liable for paying taxes, although his good fortune was situational. On September 13, 1998, if some weirded out psychic type-dudes had told him a year from now you shall be blown out of Earth's orbit along with the Moon--he would have asked them what kind of good crack they been smoking. Destroy the Moon? In sufficient quantity, any number of high tech 'nukes--from Extro warheads to the core cracking Jupiter Missiles could have accomplished that feat, but sever the goddess from terra firma's jealous gravity? Impossible, would have been his conclusion. You didn't have to be a Victor Bergman to figure that out.

But here they were; three years, and over a billion astronomical units later. So, he accepted it. He wondered how he would have reacted if this same, apocalyptic seer had told him that his raison deter--his reason for being; the one person whom he cared about more than himself, was going to go desperately off the deep end, while pregnant with his child. Man, he was having a damn hard road to hoe with that one. He couldn't just polka down the yellow brick road with this ghastly millstone around his 'friggin neck. He just couldn't.

"'Ang, what's really up with you?" He said, and though he regretted his defacto predisposition of her feelings, he did not regret asking the question itself.

Angelina had pieced together her composure and she knew there was no hideous and evil being ready to cut her open a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre. "I know you think I'm cracking up," she smiled slightly, "This is what I get for insisting on watching Jason, Michael Myers and the rest of the crew from hell episode after episode, as a rebellious 14 year old."

They embraced each other and he began gently massaging her belly, feeling the baby poke at him in response.

"I just don't know, Alan," she started pensively. "I've never been the sort to have nightmares, not any more than the normal person. Then, after the crash I heard the voices, but damn it, I was awake then! ...I think. Then Jason shows up and the same voices again. After that, Larry Parks shows up making comments about chess then his face explodes all over me. Then all seemed normal and then something out of another one of those wonderful horror movies shows up to...to..." she closed her eyes and lowered her voice. "Cut the baby out with a chainsaw."

She gazed at him, utterly convinced. "But despite the fact those nightmares were so different, I had the same feeling after each one.....there's a terrible, terrible presence here. Somewhere on Alpha..."

She continued watching him for a reaction but he said nothing; he looked down and stroked her belly in widening circles. "I'm not the only one who's had these terrible nightmares, Alan."

"Carissa told me about a strange nightmare she had about 6 months ago too. She said she was flying an Eagle on a reconn mission. She said the co-pilot was this really big guy dressed in a robe, an, uh alien, with black eyes and a pointed black beard."

He abruptly stopped massaging the baby.

"Then she said it grabbed the flight yokes and sent the Eagle straight down into a volcano. It really freaked her out." Angelina finished lightly. "So maybe I'm not the only one going crazy. I guess I'll have some company."

Carter blinked, but other than that, there was no response, relative to what she had said. He continued to massage the tenseness out of her in his disarming, Alan Carter way. Long before they ever became involved, she knew that the astronaut was not known for his rhetoric; his lack of diplomacy at times was actually god-awful, especially when he was convinced he was right. When he opened his mouth, no Chicken Soup For The Soul could be discerned, but she also knew that his feelings for her eclipsed all else.

"Every one has bad dreams." He said on a line of thought. "Any one on this old Moon who has any brain cells at all has a couple of really good ones each week. " He almost added that he sometimes envied the perpetual brainlessness that her brother seemed to enjoy, but he caught himself before the declaration could reach his tongue.

"You're not having second thoughts about things, are you?" He said through the watermelon that was lodged in his throat.

It was rare that Alan Carter showed vulnerability, even to her. She knew he really didn't doubt her love for him....but he needed assurance. She turned toward him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders and neck drew him into a tender, deep kiss. She pulled back slightly, while gazing into his eyes. "I love you, Alan. There's no one for me but you. Through all the personal sufferings we've both been through, I believe it was all because we were meant to be drawn together." She kissed him gently again. "We're having a baby. We made him. Our love created him; and I am happy beyond description to be blessed with giving you a son." She drew him toward her again, more passionately as she pressed her body against him, following up with several erotic kisses. "I'll always want you too," she whispered through heavy breathing.

**********

David Kano and Bob Mathias were finishing up a late night round of chess.

"Check," Kano said matter-of-factly and crossed his arms.

"Oh shit," Mathias answered. No way out. He knocked the king over to indicate surrender. "I'm having a bad run of luck, Kano," Mathias shakes his head. "First Ang is toasting me now you."

David Kano merely shrugged and bragged. "I still beat her 2 out of 3 times."

"2 out of 3, Kano?" Mathias chuckled. "You are slipping. She's gaining on you with those odds."

"Never," Kano stated. "With her job and taking care of the kid soon, she won't have a chance to get any better." He stated confidently as he got up. "Well, I need to get to bed. Good night," Kano left, leaving Mathias to study the fatal error of his last play.

Kano walked down the darken corridor. Suddenly he heard a noise..a whisper... "Butchers....bastards..." He turned slowly. Nothing. When he faced forward again, he was greeted with the sight of a headless king...his king from the chess board...The decapitated neck was a mass of tangled vessels, muscles and oozing blood, bubbles forming over the remains of the trachea as air continued to move in and out.

The king pulled the sword from its sheath. "Checkmate" it gurgled as it swung the sword horizontally. Kano screamed, as he was sliced in half. Then....it was gone. The Chief of Computer Operations slid against the wall, sweating and panting, alone with the shadows of Corridor 15.

CHAPTER 10

Carissa Englebert emerged from the drawer-lined supply depot, and rode the lift to the crow's nest. She stopped in the chart room to make sure the metric socket set had all of the units she was going to need. A diagnostic check of Eagle Two's drive assembly showed that fore, and aft quads were now performing in the tens, instead of in the upper ninety percentile range, which is where they should have been. She suspected that the problem had more to do with bad helium lines, and a leaking oxidizer tank, but she wouldn't know for sure until she crawled underneath the thing. Beyond the large viewport, deep within the belly of the whale, the hangar bay beneath Launch Pad Three was almost totally vacant now. There were ten ships in this particular hangar; parked side, by side in two even rows. To Carissa's overnight senses, they looked very much like Flying Dutchmen--omens to the wary seaman of some impending hardship. She walked past the overhead monitors, sparing a look at the black, and white sectors on each of them. She was now totally alone--Werner Von Braun's ghost not with standing.

She was heading towards the double doors that separated the hangar from the propulsion laboratory when she looked up, startled. Somewhere inside Carissa Englebert, a single red rose wilted, and died with the speed of time lapse video footage.

"I'm still here." Dave Trask said, Seri-flirtatiously. Arms folded, he was leaning casually against the open hatch. "My, my aren't we working late tonight?"

Carissa Englebert never saw him coming.

Carissa Englebert gasped and grabbed for her commlock, at first not recognizing the voice. She squinted in the darkness then relaxed.

"Dave, what in the hell are you doing, sneaking around the hangar in the middle of the night? Come to lend me a hand for once, you slacker?"

The pilot shrugged. Carissa wasn't sure whether it was the minimal lighting, or his health, but his face seemed much more anemic than usual. He was a tall, robust, 30-year old hunk of throttle jockey--similar in type to many of the others. His romantic delusions concerning the possibilities of deep space exploration directly juxtaposed his defiance of Isaac Newton, and sublime nature.

"Depends on what you need help with." He said, walking gracefully past her to admire the huge, 32" X 43" portrait on the wall of the Map Room--a high quality, digital of the space shuttle Atlantis, aft landing gear just touching the tarmac at the Kennedy Space Center. After a moment of quiet dissection, he rejoined the conversation. "Do you ever miss flying, Carissa?"

Carissa was flabbergasted; everyone knew she was one of the few surviving Breakaway pilots, grounded due to permanent damage to her optic nerve. Carissa suffered with the reality that she would never be able to fly again. At first, she felt the pain of her loss returning; then rage grew from the pit of her stomach.

"That's a stupid question to ask, Trask," she snapped," Of course I miss flying."

Heyyyyyyyyyy, Trask emoted, his charm machinery in full gear, and freshly oiled. No sweat, no strain. He ran his finger along the print of Atlantis' rear dorsal fin, before turning to face Carissa's ire.

"No harsh words, intended." He apologized. "Just making conversation." He looked around the Map Room, dazzled by the unseen wonders of the Moon. "But now that we're on the topic," he said. "Have you ever stopped to think about what you would do if that bad old optic nerve were somehow restored?

"How would you live your life? What might you be inclined to do in order to achieve that goal?"

To Dave Trask, they sounded like germane questions to ask.

Carissa blinked; her expression neutral. "I would do anything to be able to fly again; within moral and ethical reason, of course."

Trask toyed with his beard stubble, and considered his own reflection in the transparency--an image that was soon joined by Carissa's, over the shoulder, her curiosity peaked. Overhead, the crawler continued to circle the hangar bay in intervals of fifteen minutes. It would do so until some one killed the power at the breaker box.

"Morality, ethics." The pilot said, renouncing the coda--his sun rising."Spell 'evil' backwards and you have the word 'live.' These things are relative to the individual, I'm sure you'll agree?

"Nope. Rational self-interest is what I'm thinking about." He said. "I'm curious as to what Carissa would do to help Carissa? The cosmos be damned."

Carissa Englebert wondered who turned up the air conditioning. Suddenly, she was freezing. Trask gaped at her. The shadow from the crane arm, falling over him like a tack.

"What if I told you, I have the power to correct that nasty piece of Swiss cheese that you call an Optic Nerve?"

He hoped she wouldn't be too jealous of his abilities.

Carissa looked at him as if he had just been smoking illicit weed. She resented being teased about this sensitive subject. Deep down, she had always hoped for a miracle. So far, she was not that lucky. There was no way her injury could be healed. Carissa was getting angry again and just wanted him to drop the subject, stop tormenting her. Still...

"And what if I told you, you're full of shit?" Carissa replied, crossing her arms defiantly.

Trask leered like a shark. He seemed perfectly at home in the cold, and in the dark. In lower regions where the vain, red wailing of desperation was the only diversion from agony, and hopelessness. Talk was getting him no where, he realized.

"Have fun flying Carissa." He said, as he strolled past her towards the hangar. Carissa felt as though some one had suddenly adjusted some hidden vertical, and horizontal control switch in the back of her head. The top of her scalp was a large, black dial; a knob. The sensation caused her vision to blur, and her head reeled. "After you've settled back in, I'll ask you the same question again." He said, disappearing into the fog beyond the hangar bay.

Stricken, she collapsed, nauseated, to her knees.

Carissa Englebert was found in the hangar passed out. Dr. Bob Mathias performed a thorough exam on her in Medical Center after she revived and could find no apparent cause for the faint. Mathias was examining Carissa's eyes through the hulking computer controlled optical instrumentation.

"Hmm," Bob murmured.

"Dammit, doc, "Carissa replied irritated. "I hate it when you guys say 'hmm'. That's not good news in my book. What's wrong now?"

"Nothing is wrong, Carissa," Bob replied still looking examining her eyes with the scope. "That's the problem." He sat back. "Apparently, your optic nerve is in perfect condition. Carissa, if further tests confirm, you will be cleared for flying."

On this rare occasion, Carissa was stunned into silence.

CHAPTER 11

Mornings came quickly on Moonbase Alpha and Angelina glanced at the lunar clock, scowling. Once again she had slept through Carter's wake up call and he made no effort to rouse her. Alan was long gone to the reconnaissance hub in preparation for his short (so he promised) bivouac mission. Just another 5 minutes, she said to herself, as the clock moved to 0635. Her body and mind were exhausted but there was so much work to do, to prepare for her upcoming maternity leave. With the help and dedication of a few key people, she had transformed the Operations side of Technical into a rather well oiled machine.

The urgent chime of her commlock startled her out of the peaceful doze. It was Tony.

"Ang, I need to talk to you," Tony demanded with misdirected rage.

Despite her objections and her requests to talk to him later, he wanted to see her NOW. She sighed and quickly went to his quarters. Tony was disheveled and reeked of his own home brew.

"The prick fired me," Tony stated simply as she stepped into the open door of his quarters. "Morrow fired me."

Angelina's compassion had finally been spent on her wayward brother. "You were drinking again, weren't you?" She said critically. "Well, Tony, this time you really blew it and I guess you got what you deserved."

"Come on, Ang," Tony Verdeschi slurred but boiled over with anger. "Speak to Morrow. He can't DO this to me! I'm Chief of Security!!!"

"You WERE Chief of Security. Once again you were drinking on the job," Angelina Verdeschi turned toward him, arms crossed over her 9 month pregnant abdomen, resting on it like a shelf. "I'm sorry Tony, but I've bailed you out at least a half dozen times and according to Paul, the last time WAS your last chance."

Verdeschi turned toward his gigantic beer brewing stil, glaring at the less than stein amount at the bottom. Angelina came toward him somewhat sympathetically, taking him by the purple sleeve.

"Please, Tony, please come with me and see Bob Mathias. There are things that can be done to treat your problem with alcohol." she said gently.

"You fucking WHORE!!" Verdeschi whirled around violently, raising his hand then stopped, imagining in a split second the consequences afforded to him by his future brother in-law if he bitch slapped his sister.

Angelina's face dropped. He'd found her button.

"That's right, you goddamn slut," he stayed in her face, breath wreaking with bad brew. "Who are you to tell me I have a problem? Look at yourself!!!"

"Tony, please," her defenses began to crumble. "This isn't about me. It's about you."

"Knocked up with a bastard by that useless fucker, who doesn't even have the decency to marry you?!?!?"

"Tony, that's not true," she replied pointlessly, her hormonally volatile state pushing her to the verge of tears. "We're engaged. Please don't talk about Alan like that..."

"You'd be such a disappointment to Momma and to Poppa." He sneered, seeing the effect of his words on her disposition, as he downed his last gulp from the 30 oz cup. "Donna Diablo...Woman of the Devil."

"You cold hearted bastard. You know that's not true" Ang yelling in frustration. "Who in the hell do you think you are passing judgement against me?!?!?!"

"That's OK, Ang," Tony began to back away, the smile on his face unwavering. "When that sonafabitch gets killed out in space, you can move on to the next guy on the base, if he'll have you," he belched and grinned drunkenly. "My slut, whore sister, the disgrace to the Verdeschi name."

"HE'S NOT GOING TO GET KILLED!! I AM NOT A WHORE!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!!!! " She shouted after her brother as she stumbled out into the corridor, tears streaming down her face, and into the waiting empty travel tube. His cruel insults would never have bothered her before and she told herself to ignore them but she burst into a torrent of sobs as the travel tube sped down the track.

Tony Verdeschi collapsed, and was completely inebriated, passed out on his couch.

The unseen presence with the orange sleeve had watched the scene with amusement and was looking forward to taking his revenge as soon as the woman left the room. However, it was better for Verdeschi to be awake. It would wait.

CHAPTER 12

Bivouac on the Moon went something like this....

While still worried, and in the overdrive of his conversation with 'Ang, Alan Carter choked down a badly made cup of the hydroponics 48-hour blend, and reported to the Ready Room at 1200 Hours. Once there, Noel Palakow, and two other pad technicians helped him through the cumbersome process of suiting up. Seamans secured the orange environment suit from the rear while Carter told rapier jokes about someone's polish ancestry; jab, after jab, after jab. The routine had not changed in years.

My johnson, was Palakow's response.

The other technicians attached the O2/ Nitrogen Pack--pulling the belt straps tightly into place, and turning the plastic armature clock-wise until the PGA pressure gloves were locked into position. Carter put the suit controls on STANDBY mode from the biomedical bread box on his chest. The multi-colored barber pole lights stalled, indicating zero pressure; zero atmosphere. Palakow tossed him the yellow helmet with the CARTER designation stenciled above the visor.

"Have a good one." He said, giving the pilot an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Carter stopped at the procedures desk, and Marilys Sing handed him his clipboard. It was here that every astronaut on Moonbase Alpha was empowered to do a lot, with very little--the final result being almost something.

Carter then boarded Travel Tube-A to Launch Pads Three, and Four. The car came to a hydraulic halt, and he exited to the double doors where he paused on the yellow CAUTION line, and waited for the signal to come through Pete Irving's head-set. Irving nodded for him to ingress, and Carter aimed his commlock magnet at the doors to the telescopic boarding tube. When they closed behind him, the square COUNTDOWN light above the frame, commenced to flashing the ten minute warning.

He moved down the ramp to Eagle One's command module, swinging his helmet at his hip. The powering up of the main motors, indicated that the pre-flight check list was already well underway.

"STC, CDR is on." He told Andy Dempsey in Main Mission as backup pilot Pierre Danielle relinquished his seat, and egressed the ship. "You reckon we're ready to go?" He asked his co-pilot as he slid behind the control toggles at the pilot's seat.

"We had a CAUTION, and WARNING light go off on the FDO's panel." Dave Trask reported." He indicated, setting his clipboard down beside him. "Since we're still alive, and in one piece, I take it as a fluke."

"Right." Carter said, cinching his couch harness. "Let's do it."

Eagle One lifted off from Launch Pad Four, leaving behind a majestic cloud of propellant. Trask asked Carter how much longer before junior lifted off, and the captain chuckled.

**********

While Eagle One moved out of visual range, Antonio Dean Verdeschi angrily opened the door to his quarters, and staggered inside. Walking immediately to the small refrigerator in the kitchenette, he removed a tall, plastic moonbase-issue container with measurements on the side. He had approximately one pint of beer left, and he had not had the time to brew more. Across the room, dominating the entire space-age table, was the three chambered still, motionless on its counterbalance.

Antonio belched crudely, and gulped his shitty home brew straight from the jug, allowing a healthy amount to spill past his mouth, and onto his tunic. He set the jug down, and loosened his collar nervously.

Carter had battened on him, and battened on him good. He was supposed to be on maneuvers, but the launch had been delayed. Verdeschi took another gargantuan swig, hoping that drunkenness would claim him soon tonight. The fucker had cornered him, right on his own turf. He wasn't five feet away from his cubicle in Security Section, and there he was--like a mad dog.

Another swig.

He had thrown Verdeschi against the light panels with such ferocity, his laser unholstered, and fell to the floor.

"If you ever talk to her like that again, I'll break your neck." He said, forcing his elbow tighter, and tighter against the security guard's throat. Verdeschi turned purple; he gagged; his tongue protruded from between his teeth.

"Agghhhhhhhh...aggghhhhhhhh...ahhhhh...." He said, and Carter rabbit punched him.

"AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Verdeschi AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH'ed, and fell to the floor like a bull.

Antonio Dean Verdeschi drank to plaster his skull. To make matters worse, his own men had sat back, and watched the entire thing. When it was over, they simply walked away, and left him there to hold his bloody mouth in his palm. Now he was back in his quarters, and he fantasized about taking his revenge--true, it would no doubt remain in the realm of fantasy, but in his mind, Alan Carter was meat; he was on the floor. In his mind, that had to be good enough. He removed his torn jacket, and set it across the chair. Everyone laughed at him for wearing a jacket. The jackets were for planetary climates, these half-wits teased, and ridiculed. Why wear a jacket in the uniform biosphere of Moonbase Alpha, they hectored, but Verdeschi liked his jacket, and if he had his way, everyone would be wearing one some day.

This was not meant to be however, for as he drank his draught, and stripped down to only his briefs, and socks, inexorable fate met him half-way between his closet, and the bed. Verdeschi snapped the elastic of briefs that hid a dork, roughly the size of an acorn shell. He made a drunken muscle in the closet mirror, and polished off his beer.

Honey, I'm home, he thought, opening the closet to search for a much thumbed stack of hot books that he kept there. He closed the closet door, and admired his own handsome face, as he had done so many times in the past-the only difference this time, being that there were now two faces staring back at him.

"Antonio." The intruder with the orange sleeve said gleefully. "Ma rapido canay."

Verdeschi dropped his book--his blood turning to scarlet slush.

"It's pay-back time, loser." The figure said, as it drifted towards him. Verdeschi's mouth drained of all spit. He parted his lips to scream; to grovel; to beg for clemency. His assailant's black boot heels never even touched the laminated floor. He floated towards him in mid-air, and Antonio Dean Verdeschi was given over to an early oblivion.

CHAPTER 13

Angelina Verdeschi was having a typical day when she received a typical message from Tony.

"I want to speak to you ASAP!" he had barked into the recording, time stamped just before Alan left in Eagle One. Though his tone was somewhat atypical, even for Tony.

'He has no right to speak to me like that,' Angelina fumed, hoping he was ready to apologize to her. Ang was still a little angry after her previous shouting match with him; though shouting matches with her brother were typical.

She broke down, a rare occasion, into tears. Atypical for her.

Alan walked in as she was drying the last of the tears but the blood shot eyes, red face and nasal stuffiness were telltale signs that something was amiss. Alan listened calmly as she told him what happened, occasionally failing to leave out the more descriptive language and metaphors; Alan's attentiveness and tenderness were typical.

Angelina was impressed that Alan did not immediately fly into a rage and hunt down her hapless brother. This behavior was somewhat atypical.

Carter was going on a routine mission in Eagle One with his co-pilot, Dave Trask; typical.

But he had left early, "to take care of some last minute things" before going on the mission. Alan was always very well organized and never saved details for the "last minute". Very atypical.

Angelina thought nothing more of the typical/atypical events of her otherwise typical day when she met Carissa Englebert for dinner. Angelina typed a text message into her commlock and sent it to Tony. "I'll see you at 1900 hours". She immediately received a text message in return:"He'll be waiting for you."

After pleasant fellowship with Carissa, Angelina walked to Tony's quarters, arriving at exactly 1900 hours. She buzzed him. No answer. She buzzed him again. No answer.

"Tony?" she asked after keying in his code into the commlock. No response.

Angelina waited a few more minutes. Tony had given her the key code for his quarters. Tony had just broken up with Shermeen Williams, but that did not mean that he wasn't with someone. Tony enjoyed one night stands. Angelina sighed and opened the door. 'Serves him right if I walk in and he's doing someone...he told me 1900 hours was OK.' she thought The door slid silently open. His quarter were lit in night mode.

"Tony?" she stepped in, looking around. The still was running, with dark liquid gurgling through the tubes. She tried to activate the lights but they remained in night mode.

She turned and gasped at the writing on the dimly lighted wall panel in red paint. "BUTCHERS..BASTARDS!" The words were shocking enough; a memory suddenly returned to life. Then another realization hit her...it was not red paint.

"Tony?! Tony?!??" she cried out rushing into the bedroom.

She found her brother, Antonio....on his bed...on his stomach....his head turned 180 degrees around...eyes lifelessly staring back at her, tongue protruding. His medical wrist monitor showed all life functions were normal. He was white and he looked freshly embalmed. For some reason, Angelina glanced back at the still; again she was hit with another shocking realization. She could not scream. Shaking, staggering to the com-post, she finally found her voice.

"PAUL!!!"

This was certainly an atypical ending to a typical day.

**********

"Ismet Quahr was murdered, and the manner of her death was brutal, horrifying." John Koenig narrated, as he paced the floor in the late Antonio Dean Verdeshi's quarters, tossing the victim's torn LSRO sweater back across the chair. "We combed the base with every resource at our disposal, and the results were nil. The murderer was never found.

"Now--six months later--Tony Verdeschi. What's the connection?"

Behind them, Mathias signed the death certificate while Raul Nunez sealed the vinyl body bag. The crampt quarters were filled with over twenty security personnel, taking photographs, dusting for fingerprints, and interviewing Verdeschi's neighbors, above, below, and to either side. Currently Ed Malcom was on the hot seat, and hating it.

"Well, we know that he had it out with Carter." Victor Bergman said, unconvinced.

"That's true." Koenig responded, walking past the gruesome blood bank that had once served as a still. It's contents would not be removed until pathology had a chance to make a thorough toxicological analysis of it. "But 'Ang received the voice message from her brother at precisely the time that Carter was lifting off in Eagle One and the text message response to her query after he finalized his orbit."

"That third party response." Victor recalled pensively. "'He'll be waiting for you.' Gives it away right there, doesn't it? Whoever sent the reply didn't care if their deeds were disclosed, or not."

"That's assuming that the murderer was the one who sent the reply." Koenig said, scratching his brow.

"What do you mean?" The professor asked, rubbing his frigid palms together, and exhaling a plume of smoke.

"Some one on Alpha is not what they appear to be." The Commander said distantly--carefully examining each piece of the puzzle before inserting it. "That's what I mean."

"We do know one thing, John." Bergman discerned. "Verdeschi's quarters. Look at the place. Whoever the murderer was, they seemed to enjoy making a big production of it. Verdeschi's head was turned completely, 180 degrees; there was the added touch of leaving him splayed on the bed, almost ritualistically; then the sick irony of filling the still with the victim's blood." The professor shook his hands as if he had given himself the willies, and then flinched. "Our friend is obviously an attention seeker. Otherwise, he--or she--would have murdered Quahr, and Verdeschi in more mundane ways--with a laser for example. Verdeschi's is still sitting over there in it's holster. If murder had been the only thing on this person's mind, they could have used that; or a club; or a knife." Bergman sighed. "It seems pretty obvious that--whoever it was--they were looking for a reaction beyond death itself. This is ghastly." He conceded. "But it also could been done to fulfill some need...to satisfy some sick form of pride, for example."

"Or to elicit fear." Koenig countered, removing his commlock from his belt, and watching the forensic team as they awkwardly gathered evidence with only mag-lites to illuminate the room. Several of them were wearing thermal jackets to ward off the cold. Harness Bull Duncan turned his beam on a metallic Bic that had attached itself to the local commstation. He removed it with a jerk while the commander, and the professor watched.

"Very interesting." Koenig said, attaching his commlock adjacent to the digital lunar clock, and watching it hang there in uninterrupted equipoise.

"Yes it is." Bergman agreed. "Don't expect it to work either. This entire area has been charged with a high adductive energy--something similar to an electromagnetic pulse. The source is unknown, and the effect appears to terminate the second you walk back into the corridor."

"By the way, Verdeschi's bio-scan bracelet?" Bergman attached. "It was just like Quahr's. It failed to trigger the alarm on the Medical Computer."

"Everything has been completely depolarized." Bergman said, circumspect. "Just like Eagle Six."

"Yeah." Koenig said concordantly.

CHAPTER 14

The reality of her brother's death and its gruesome nature left Angelina Verdeschi tearless, numb and in shock. In her quarters, Dr. Helena Russell was with her, keeping her company and checking her over.

"He was a better person prior to his encounter with Balor," Angelina said almost robotically, curled up under a blanket on the couch. "It was just-just that he never really came to terms with it." She looked up at the physician. "He's been slowly dying since then." She put her head down into her hands. Still, the tears would not come.

Helena Russell sat next to her, arm around her shoulder, listening sympathetically. "Here," she instructed. "I want you to take this. Yes, it is OK for the baby and it will help you get some rest." Helena found no indication that the shock was sending her into labor. Not a bad thing physically since she was only 4 days away from her calculated due date. Still, mentally and emotionally this would have been a bad day for her to deliver.

"I'm fine," Angelina said shaking her head. "I need Alan," she sighed mournfully, clutching a pillow tightly.

"He'll be here soon," Helena replied reassuringly. "Look, tell you what. He is suppose to arrive very late. You take this, get a nap, then you'll be awake to greet him when he comes back. Sound like a plan?"

"OK," Angelina swallowed the liquid. "Thank you, Helena." She sat silently on the couch and began nodding off, not remember when Dr. Russell had left after dimming the lights.

**********

Eagle One vectored east. Carter manned his controls assuredly while Trask used his free hands to check off areas of the perimeter that had been covered thus far. It was a routine flight in most ways--there were no on-board experiments scheduled this time around, which allowed both pilots the freedom to sit back, and enjoy the ride over the hill. Translunar reconnaissance A.B. (After Breakaway) was not substantially different from the way it had been in the B.B. (Before Breakaway) days; neither drudgery, nor orgasm--it was still more for the purpose of helping the pilots to keep their skills honed.

Carter brought them in low over the granite flat irons of Schroter's Valley--the ship's altimeter needles dipping slightly to the left. Bringing the throttle a quarter of the way back, Carter reduced their velocity as the first glint of metal hit the scanning parabola. They were approximately one nautical mile into the scattered ejecta of the Oceanus Procellarum when visual contact was made.

"Davey, get a look at that would you." The captain whistled, surprised, and in awe of what he was seeing. A small network of sky scrapers, and road networks rose in silhouette from the ruins of a mammoth black, triangular base.

"Oh-my-golly-gee-whiz." Trask said hyperbolically, still more concerned with wiping off the lens on his Hasselblad camera.

"Paul, this is Carter in Eagle One." Alan said urgently into the communications link. "We've got a wrecked ship out here."

**********

Angelina fell into a deep yet fitful repose.

She found herself at one end of a great, long hall. At the other end, a woman was laboring to bring forth her child. Suddenly another creature appeared at the foot of the bed. A hideous insectoid creature, it opened its cavernous, gaping mouth, with its row of canines, ready to consume the child. Angelina gasped, terrified and heard the woman shrieking.

Ang tried to run to the woman in painful slow motion, closed her eyes in anticipation of the gruesome sight. When she opened them, she found herself on the table!!!! SHE was the woman giving birth. She cried out in terror and in pain. She tried to back away but could not....the thing advanced forward, awaiting to shallow its prize, her child.

Suddenly, the thing reared back and turned around. "NOOOOOOOOOO!" It screamed when it saw a figure approaching. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! "

The figure was of a woman dressed in dazzling white, with strawberry blond, long curly hair. Flashes of white lightning bolts came out of her beautiful eyes.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" the thing exclaimed again! The lightning found its target and the thing evaporated into a pile of ash.

The woman in white came to her. "Do not be afraid. Trust me. I will help you."

Angelina awoke with a start. Despite the horrific dream, she felt a sense of tranquility. Angelina look at the lunar clock...Alan should have been back two hours ago.

**********

The big doors to Main Mission slid open as Koenig swiveled and stood up from his chair. "Put it up on the big screen, Paul..."

Victor strolled in hurriedly and stared at the big screen. "Interesting," he mused, turning to Sandra."When was the last time that area was surveyed, Sandra?"

Sandra typed at her console. "Just under 7 months ago, Professor. Where did it come from?"

"I have no idea." The professor admitted, crossing his arms comfortably over his chest.

"Paul, have Carter perform a complete sensor scan of the area." Koenig said, anxiety on his face. "Including any signs of magnetic radiation. Then have him return to base. We need to assemble a complete reconnaissance team to investigate that ship."

Paul nodded. Koenig turned and walked up to his office, motioning Victor to follow. "Why didn't our sensors detect this ship before it crashed, when it entered within range?" Koenig queried with growing frustration.

"Main Mission to Eagle One," Paul calls, "Complete a sensor scan of the entire area including signs of magnetic radiation." Then in a lowered voice. "Alan, Tony Verdeschi was murdered. Angelina discovered his body in his quarters a few hours ago. The scene was, "he paused and cleared his throat "gruesome."

"We copy you, Alpha." Alan said stoically, biting the bullet at the news of Tony Verdeshi's passage from this vale of tears.

Eagle One hovered over the wreckage of the mammoth spacecraft. Carter squeezed propellant from the maneuvering jets, turning the command module towards a central structure; two vertical shafts that were honey combed with cresting view ports, upper, and lower, now dormant, lifeless--both were easily twenty stories tall, with a transparent connector unit that was compromised when the vessel went down. A large, silvery crack in the fuselage told the tale. Eagle One vented Tetroxide. Carter leaned forward in his seat, and examined the surface around the crash site. The bow of the ship was buried beneath the pulverized mantle of the Sea Of Storms. Carbonized moon rock, and rubble extended for a quarter of a mile around the point of impact in an asterisk shape. The dust around the decompressed hull was littered with a morass of debris which, at high altitude, appeared to be white curlicues--furniture, glass, and more than one alien body, Carter realized. The contents of the craft had been blown onto the lunar surface during the panic stricken exodus of the ship's atmosphere.

"Wherever could it have come from?" Trask demurred, powering up the sensor hardware with gloved hands. The mission plan flapped open against his forearm like a red-headed step child clamoring for recognition.

"'Dunno." Carter replied, returning the frequency band to VOX so that Main Mission could hear them. "Beginning sensor sweep now."

That was when Eagle One hit the interstellar rapids. The command module began to quake violently. The yellow light panels flickered, and dimmed as the automatic systems struggled to survive the sudden overload of static electricity. Trask's clip board hit the floor. His forehead, and nose hit the console even more efficiently, leaving behind a smeared cherry blossom of blood. The control toggles flew out of Carter's hands as the ship recoiled against the maelstrom of electrons in the process of annihilation, each carrying an opposing charge.

The question of whether, or not there was paramagnetic energy prevailing around the alien ship was now answered. On Carter's monitor, where there should have been wide-angled sensor data, there was only binary hokum:

01011100001111111000000101

00000011111100000001111011

10101010101000001010101000

11111111000000001111111000

"Eagle One to Main Mission." Carter shouted into the COM link before the modulation was cancelled forever, and ever . "!!! Something's got hold of us!!!"

CHAPTER 15

"Eagle 1 is in trouble, Commander," Kano reported nonchalantly as his desk turned away from the big screen.

At that moment, Carter's call came blasting through the speakers. Koenig turned quickly and stepped down toward Paul. "Damn!" he cursed.

"Main Mission to Eagle 1, Main Mission to Eagle 1," Paul repeated, anxiety creeping into his voice.

No response.

Koenig flipped a switch on Paul's console. "Koenig to Eagle 1. Koenig to Eagle 1. Carter!! Alan!! Dave!! Answer me!"

No response.

"Sandra, what was their last position?"

"97degrees, 1300 miles...near the Sea of Storms crater." Sandra reported methodically, typing then looking up at the big screen.

Without being told otherwise, Paul responded "Rescue Eagle 4 to Launch Pad 2. Rescue Eagle 4 to Launch Pad 2. Immediately."

**********

Tempus kept on fugiting.

One minute, Carter was in the cockpit of Eagle One, being jarred by random antiferro forces, and with all the care of brat shaking up a bottle of soda pop. The next minute, he was standing in Auditorium-B of Moonbase Alpha. He was not a regular visitor to the underground system, since it was mostly used for storage. Auditorium-B was beneath an area of the base called The Main Mission Plateau. In the past, it hadn't been much to boast about, per sey; there was mostly a lot of floor area, with a duplicate of the big screen that was used for briefings. Now it was littered with desks--three on each side of him, to be precise, and with what appeared to be a central controller's desk in the rear. Stacks of nonsensical, mostly stupid-looking paper work rose headache high from the IN Baskets.

It kind of reminded him of some of the front-line intelligence gathering units he had visited during the war, but mostly it was an office jockey's dream.

"I was sorry to hear you passed away, bloke." He told Tony Verdeschi who was sitting with his feet propped up on one of the desks. "True, I never much cared for you, but I didn't want to see you dead."

Then again, he wasn't complaining about it either.

"Yeah, right." The late security chief's ghost said ungratefully. "I'll admit I was misunderstood at times. Of course, having my head unscrewed like the cork on a wine bottle wasn't exactly how I envisioned going out.

"Not the most glamorous way to cash in." Verdeschi admitted. "For my part, allow me to offer my condolences on the loss of your boy--of course, knowing what I know now, I wish that the fucking moon buggy had exploded, instead of just turning over."

"What are you talking about?" Carter said, and on the heels of that: "Where's Trask?"

His newly deceased, almost brother-in-law nodded towards the side entrance, next to the rutted, orange computer modules. "He's busy right now. I wouldn't bother him, if I were you. He's not in the best of moods."

Carter sighed, relieved that he was not the soul survivor of the crash. In the corridor, he could he voices coming to him. Arguing.

"Imagine my surprise." The conceited male voice said wearily. It was Trask. "I knew that little bump in the road had your signature on it.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it? How's it going, princess? Still a follower, and not a leader, I presume."

"You are a fool." The female interlocutor replied, sincere, but fragile. "It's a shame the Alphans don't know you the way the Alpherans came to know you."

"They served their purpose." Trask blustered with inflated braggadocio. "I assume you have a reason for calling this little meeting? Or, did you want to impart to me the spiritual ecstasy of what it's like to do the horizontal mambo with a bug."

"He's a great man." The woman hissed, insulted.

"He sucks." Trask said politely. "Of course, the way I experience him is not the way you experience him, I'm sure. Then again, everyone has their strong points. Believe me, there's nothing like having him skewer you like a rotisserie turkey--oh princess, you have no idea what you missed."

"You almost condemned an entire universe by your rejection of the Élan Vitalla." The woman argued.

"Get to the goddamn point." Trask said bluntly.

"My point is this." The woman said, unperturbed. "Forget your plans concerning the woman, and her child. Observe the Élan Vitalla, or...."

"Or what?"

"Or face the strictest consequences to ever be leveled at a sentient being. That is my warning to you."

"What's that noise?" Trask wondered aloud, distracted, and Carter could imagine him turning towards the doorway.

"It's nothing." The woman lied.

"You had better go, now." Tony Verdeschi's ghost said, aiming his commlock at the double doors at the rear of the auditorium. "Just follow the corridor. You'll find your way.

"Oh, and tell 'Ang she wasn't much of a sister. I always wanted to tell her that, and I never did. I didn't want to hurt her feelings; now, I could care less."

"Fuck you." Carter sibilated.

When the doors closed, he found himself in a corridor, unlike any he had ever seen before on Alpha. The brightly lit panels, and communications posts seemed to extend straight into infinity. About ten kilometers, or so into his walk, there was a frightening moment when he thought he could hear a voice, echoing through the encroaching dream mist.

??????????'Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo??????????

Carter resumed walking, as fast as his feet would carry him. Twenty kilometers into his hike, he came to the familiar looking hatch. He used his commlock to open Eagle One's passenger module. He spared one last glance behind him, but all he could see was a wall of thick, gray mist.

When he awoke, he was in the smoke-filled cockpit, and buried under forty feet of lunar regolith. Trask was laid back in the CMP's couch, holding his battered forehead with blood stained gloves.

**********

The compost bee-booped in the Carter's quarters and the emotionless face of Paul Morrow replaced the monitor wallpaper.

"Ang," Paul began, "Eagle 1 crashed on the lunar surface in the Sea of Storms crater."

Angelina felt her heart rising to her throat. "Alan?" she asked calmly.

"He's OK."

Angelina heaved a sigh of relief.

"His copilot Dave Trask suffered minor facial injuries. They are already in Medical Center."

"Thanks, Paul," Angelina responded and cut the link.

The trip in the travel tube seemed tortuously long. When Angelina arrived in Medical, Alan was still being checked over for injuries. Pacing, she saw Dave Trask in the adjacent ward and she wandered in to offer well wishes. Angelina slowed somewhat as she approached him. She suddenly felt a strong desire to turn away and run out of the room. She dismissed the feeling as being alarmed by his appearance. Trask's face was pretty swollen, stitched and bruised; he evidently hit the console pretty hard.

"Hi, Dave, "Angelina began, "Nice to see you're safe."

Trask smiled at her, staring at her as he sat on the edge of the bed. When he did finally speak, his words were foreshadowed by an aromatic whiff at some fragrant bouquet.

"Awwwwwwww," He blushed. "Someone has a bun in the oven, or so I hear."

Angelina approached him a little closer. "I heard that the crash was caused by a huge influx of magnetic radiation and you discovered a ship. Very interesting."

Again, Dave did not reply though he did motion her toward him. When she was close enough, Trask unexpectedly patted Angelina's abdomen and mumbled "Soon...very soon."

Alarmed she recoiled away from him. She felt the child move around furiously, kicking her hard in the ribs, to the point where it was difficult to maintain her composure. Trask's only response was his disturbing, maniacal grin.

"I hope you feel better, Dave" she said backing away calmly. She could not get out of the ward fast enough. She turned the corner to see Alan walking out of the exam room. She embraced him, kissed him and said "Thank God you're safe!!! What happened out there?"

Carter placed one arm around her waist; the other around her