Episode #30: Empire of Illusion

From beneath the clouds of sleep,

Another flash of light in the window....

You will hear.

Looking down upon the sky,

Am I the only one who will need you, over me.

I want you...

...to touch me....

I want you...

...to touch me....

Is this how you reach me? You burn your visions in my mind?

Are you, trying to teach me? Are you trying to make me blind?

The orange Moon, dislocative, and galaxy trotting in the slums of Aunshuung. The largest ocean on the Moon was the Mare Imbrium, the Sea Of Showers. Located in the Imbrium Basin, it's constituents were molded during the lower Imbrium Epoch. Copernicus, and Plato crowned it's Atlantean borders like minor earldoms. Due to the ratio of the Moon's size, to the surrounding stars, it disappeared into total eclipse, once every seven hours. Three times a day, the lights went out completely, except for the miniscule fiber optic points that were within the claustrophobic, on-the-brink, two mile compass known as Moonbase Alpha--humankind's great, perhaps way too late, achievement. A memento mori that was knuckleballed from another time, another place.

Ten stories above the ancient desecration, Andy Dempsey shut off his boom box on Controller Paul Morrow's signal. King Black Acid was replaced by caqueterie from central computer. Sandra Benes' face glowed flush as she looked up from her gooseneck lamp to see Captain Alan Carter entering to the left of the big screen. He paused, momentarily confused by the lapsed Mission Clock. Victor Bergman ignored him as he stood in the center of the auditorium, in deep, inconclusive thought, with his elbow propped beneath his left palm.

"Ang,'" The scientist said curtly. "Try a suborbital relay. Try to get a satellite picture of him."

Carter looked at Ang,' and Bergman--suddenly, and profoundly impaled.

"He's ten minutes late." Morrow griped sternly, leaning with his palms just below his upper keyboard.

"What the devil's going on?" Carter asked, feeling the effects of his late party crashing. "What's happened to the commander?"

Gordon Cooper shrugged uneasily from the capcomm desk, while Dempsey simply bowed his head. Ang,' and Tanya Alexander kept their noses to the ugly, unpetite grindstone.

"The commander went out to Area 3 to check on a recorded increase in neutron count," Angelina informed Alan, who had been pulling night turn in Reconnaissance that week. For him, it was the middle of the night and Gordon Cooper had awakened him from his slumber.

"He missed his regular communication check in 30 minutes ago."

Angelina continued to query the roving orbital satellites high above the base, sending commands to rotate the camera angles. In her mind, she had already decided the Eagle had crashed and the cameras were trained to scan the lunar surface. Suddenly, she spotted the Eagle streak by, very low to the ground.

"Moonbase Alpha calling Eagle 2," Sandra called repeatedly. "Come in Commander Koenig, we are not receiving you."

Ang typed in a few more commands and satellite rottweiler captured the entire ugly scene.

"There he is," she announced in horror as she put the image on the big screen.

No doubt Carter would agree with her amateur assessment that something was not quite right with the flight path of Eagle 2. The part that did grab her attention was the area the Commander was performing his aerial acrobatics: Nuclear Disposal Area 3.

Ang silently type in a text message to fellow Nuclear Physicist Joe Erhlich: 'Come to Main Mission....NOW!'

*****

John Koenig didn't know from neutron count.

He was in a honkey tonk called The Thirsty Bull. It may have been in Queens. It may have been in the Bronx. Who knows? He remembered being the only one in the group that night who wasn't bagged beyond recognition. Turk DeLarge couldn't handle the sauce, that was the predicament. Maverick was parked in the triple decker lock, and somehow, he had to pour Turk DeLarge into the passenger seat before the local precinct honed in. DeLarge talked about the women he'd duked, the wad of money he made as flight director in Houston, his hatred for pickeled pig's feet, and the future of extrasolar space travel. The minute Koenig touched his shoulder, he belched uncontrollably, and commenced to singing:

"Whodey,'

"Whodey,'

"Whooooooooooo-OOO-DEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.'"

Koenig tried to intervene, but both men toppled into one of the red, and black fire hydrants. Then the blue lights appeared, and they were a public spectacle. A Latino woman called to them from the porch of a two story brownstone. Gorgeous in hair pins, and Donald Duck Mules, she cut Turk DeLarge with lamina insults, and comparisons to her besotted ex.' The tanked flight controller was about to give her the dutch oven when bald Officer Borg approached with his special NYPD, very sarcastic smirk.

"I can explain this." Koenig said, his mouth containing not a drop of spit, while Turk DeLarge hosed down a nearby pot of Azalias. Then a second cruiser pulled up to the curb, followed by another, and another, and another. "Now, I know you think he's drunk, and I admit, it sort of looks that way, but-"

"Why, you ignorant fucking punk." Officer Borg enphoned, swinging his nightstick like a baton. He was about to air out Turk DeLarge's skull, and for the crime of whizzing in a vehicle that was owned, and operated by the city. His squad car. The flight controller sang, and did Number One right on the front seat. "What to you think that is? NUCLEAR DISPOSAL AREA THREE?"

John Koenig was the devil's sober advocate, and almost got cold cocked in the process.

*****

Joseph Erhlich, PhD strode into Main Mission under the right archway and made a B-line to Ang at the technical station, pulling up Andy Dempsey's white plastic chair.

He looked up at the Big Screen, then down at the monitor and the stream of data coming from the Eagle's onboard computers, which Ben Ouma had somehow successfully relinked to the Main Server.

"Still a high neutron count," Joe commented. Ang nodded in affirmation. She was also doing the headbobbing thing of monitor, big screen, monitor, big screen.

"He's gonna crash," Gordon Cooper stated blankly.

"Oh my God!" Klaus Rotstein blurted, having come down from the balcony from his coffee break. "If he hits one of those domes, he'll blow up all up!!!"

"No," Ang corrected, "that would take specific stimulation from an atomic trigger and fuel."

Ang thought she saw Joe Erhlich roll his eyes and smirk at the panic stricken Rotstein.

Dr. Helena Russell had silently entered the control center and stood by Victor. She removed her comlock from her belt."Medical," she spoke calmly and evenly, "stand by for a crash emergency."

"Rescue Eagle 4 to Launch pad 2," Paul Morrow instructed Flight Control, then looked at Carter.

"Take a couple of nuclear physicists with you," Bergman added, eyeing Erhlich and Angelina.

"Ang, Joe, let's go." Carter was already under the archway as Joe and Angelina gathered their clipboards to follow.

Commander Koenig's Eagle continued its perilous nosedive to the lunar surface: and the nuclear waste domes of Area 3.

*****

Suddenly in what seemed to be more of a hallucination than anything John Koenig regained his sanity as the Eagle loomed near the lunar surface. Eyes racing across the warning lights on the control panel in front of him, he tried to pull the doomed Eagle back up. Realizing his worst fears, not knowing what had happened to him, he braced for the crash.

Eagle one came in low to the lunar surface. The under belly of the ship seemed to skim the tip of the ground as John Koenig braced himself in the crash position. Impact with the moon was anything but smooth. Once on the surface he tried to guide the ship to avoid hitting the nuclear domes nearby.

Pulling back he gritted his teeth and his face and body plunged forward hitting the control dash. The Eagle, still spinning in a circle, reminded him of the time he did doughnuts in his high school parking lot after a snow storm back on Earth. As it started to slow down, slightly, he fell back in his chair. Just as the ship came to a stop, sparks and spurts of fire started throughout the ship.

He could hear the air leaking out of the command module of the Eagle. The hissing let him know he needed to find his helmet quickly before losing atmosphere. Still unsure of what had just occurred he clicked on the locator beacon for the Eagle when he had his helmet completely sealed.

The cool rush of oxygen made his head swim not to mention the cut on his face near his lip left the sickening taste of blood in his mouth. As his head swam from the impending unconsciousness, he wondered silently to himself. 'Am I going to die here in this Eagle?'

He slowly drifted into the black voids of his mind.

*****

Livy-Olivia deHavilland-concentrated on the delicate repair to the fragile electronic board-she was jammed upside down and halfway into the central platform that separated the pilot and co-pilot seats; twisted pretzel-wise with her arms crossed over her head and buried within the electronic guts of the Eagle-Rescue 4-Command Module. Uncomfortable at best, she could at least see what she was doing-a feat accomplishable only by the blessed curse of her small size.

Her commlock bleeped-distrubing her concentration. The tiny woman simply ignored it as she continued her labor. Rescue 4 shifted around her, the overhead lift taking hold of the vessel dragging it to the elevator. Oblivious to this activity, Livy, never once taking her eyes off her work, twisted her arm down and around, instinctively reaching for-and finding-the microlaser welder in the belt at her waist.

Her commlock pinged again-and again, the little brunette ignored it, using the tiny laser welder to seamlessly secure the repaired navigational board back into its proper place.

The Eagle shimmied on its shock-absorbing landing gear as both the shuttle rose up on its pad into the arclight-illuminated launchpad. It rotated on the servocontrolled elevator until the access hatch of the rescue pod was directly facing the already extending boarding tube. Livy pulled her small form out of the access hatch and closed and secured it; then-as she felt the boarding ramp seal against the side of the Eagle, stretched to her full four-foot eight inches and worked the kinks out of her back, listening as the tube equalized pressure with the Eagle.

The doors slid open to the travel tube for Launch Pad 2. Carter, Angelina and Erhlich immediately filed out and stepped into the ready room. Yul Ostrog and Marilys Singh distributed the silver radiation EVA suits and the stenciled orange helmets: CARTER, VERDESCHI CARTER and ERHLICH.

Livy tapped the access door to the Command Module open and stepped through into the hatchway, pressing herself up against the side of the hull, knowing what was coming-one of those she considered to be the bains of her existence.

Carter, already completely suited, motioned to Ang and Joe, who were about half-suited toward the boarding tube. The rectangular sign with the word "ACCESS" lit up and they proceeded onto the rescue Eagle. Carter immediately raced to the command module.

Livy cleared her throat as the Pilot charged past. "Morning, Alan," she called cheerfully, heading back to the rear where the rest of her tools were located.

Carter grumbled discordantly, and kept on walking. His helmut swinging at his hip.

Ang and Joe continued the process of suiting up but when computer announced the Five Second lift off warning, Ang jumped into a seat behind Joe, still struggling with her bread box.

"Ang, Joseph." Livy nodded her greetings to her boss as she began to struggle quickly into an extra-small radiation EVA suit she kept handy in her toolbox for just such an emergency.

"Hi, Livy," Angelina acknowledged with a smile, despite the situation.

"Who's in trouble now?" Before Livy zipped it up, she wrapped her long auburn braid around her neck twice like some perverse, triple-stranded snake.

"The Commander went out to check an increase in neutron count in Area 3," Ang replied, adjusting the strap to the air pack. "His flight path became erratic and he's going down in the area of NDA3."

Angelina did not go into the details of the looney acrobatics she witnessed on the Main Mission screen. The new Chief Electronics Instrumentation Engineer was aggressive and blunt, but that is exactly what Ang needed in Technical. Pete Garforth had recently made a lateral job move into the position of Chief Eagle Flight Engineer, now working for Alan in Reconnaissance, but leaving a vacancy in Ang's group. Although Ang knew Livy's preference would always be Eagles, she asked her anyway if she would consider the promotion. Livy accepted and Ang was confident she made the right choice.

"You and Alan will go after the Commander," Ang began calibrating the radon monitor. "Joe and I will check out the area."

Joe Erhlich wearily adjusted the Geiger counter.

Carter rolled forward in his zero-gee chair, and donned his headset like a Mousekateer. The double doors, emblazoned with the number "5," though it was a "4" mission code, slid closed like mingy butlers. The checklist was branded to his brain by rote: telmu, procedures, booster, retro, guidance, network, system. His gloved left hand moved clockwise around the cabin. The workhorse was up, and running in less time than it would take to say "Commander In A Straightjacket."

"Alan, above all else, make sure you keep your S-Band Omni aimed at the disposal area." Victor Bergman reminded him from the forward monitor. Carter felt the yokes fall forward as guidance control was uploaded to the command module.

"It looks like he went down south of Euripedes." Coop' reported from the co-pilot's monitor. "We're still getting cockpit telemetry, but from the looks of it, Eagle Two is running on emergency bats.' It's a total wash."

"Life readings. Is he doing." Carter asked with his right hand poised on the plasma release.

Bergman nodded.

"Right," Carter said, and the link was immediately replaced with a black, and white, aerial sensor swipe. There was an audible 'thud' within the cockpit as the boarding tube was retracted. He cleared the barber pole, and grabbed hold of the train as the engine bells on the keel fired in sequence. The depot lights on the surface were blinding suns. Then slowly, the elevator moved upwards. Before long, the Microsoft Corporation was at the helm. The ship turned 98 degrees, port yaw. Almost a kilometer below, the comparatively miniscule Command Tower slid diagonally from view. In less than two minutes, the outer frontier of Moonbase Alpha disappeared into the night.

Her low center of gravity compensating for the g-forces that escaped through Rescue-4's gravity generators, Livy moved forward towards the Command Module.

Beyond Perimeter Station Seven, there was nothing, but craters, and rock, and dust, and desolation, and death out of mind. World without end, hallellujah.

Olivia made her way forward, just in time to hear Carter comment.

"Let's hope the Pennzoil Princess did right by us." Carter bitched to the empty co-pilot's seat, which never failed to listen. Most of the time he preferred that.

"Pennzoil Princess my ass," Livy growled back at him, sliding her petite frame into the co-pilot's seat. "If it weren't for Pete, me and the rest of the engineers, you wouldn't have a slingshot to ride, let alone an Eagle."

"Oh, Christ." Carter groaned, feeling his forearm zipper for Tylenol, but finding only the insulating foam, and the wool of his tunic beneath. Obviously her desire was to co-pilot him. The avian head of the command module suddenly pulsed, and throbbed, and nagged from the force of a five hundred megaton headache.

Livy pulled the shoulder and lap harnesses over her shoulders and belted them as tight as they could go-there was still a lot of slack left, particularly over the shoulders. "In my book, Carter," she fired back, "you've only got two things going for you-Ang, of course, and the fact that every so often, you actually bring back an Eagle with minimal damage."

"Well," Carter said with salt, and expert innuendo. "I'll do my best to live up to your expectations."

"Cool it, Livy," Angelina's voice came from behind, echoing through the Command Module. Ang immediately regretted the tone of the quasi-reprimand as she crouched beside Carter. No doubt Alan probably said something to deserve the retort.

Livy opened her mouth-then shut it again, shifting in her seat enough to be able to see out the viewport.

Once again, Ang was unusually short tempered from sleep deprivation as 11 month old Nicky had been up crying, fitfully and inconsolably for the last few nights. He had always done this before something major was about to happen. He was a clockwork predictor of impending trouble.

"What did you say to her?" Ang whispered to Carter as she peered over his shoulder through the left viewport.

"Why not a thing." Alan Carter, the Holy Saint Of Reconnaisance said. There was quite the hint of triumphant rancor in his upturned lips. "Half pint, and me--we're best buds,' ain't that right, DeHavilland?"

Technical Section: it had the most lackwit staffing of all Alpha sectors, he mused to himself. Malcom, Murneau, and DeHavilland, but the worst of these was Ed Malcom, he had to concede. Gaseous nitrogen vented from divots in the avian head of the command module as the ship turned hard to port over the Mare Crisium. Almost 400 overflow pounds were expunged, but Carter was venting quite a bit more in his own shitheaded way.

"Uh, huh," Ang murmured, unconvinced, "Sure you didn't."

Livy looked over at the pilot who radiated innocence. "Ang," she said softly, "Pint-and-a-half is absolutely right-we are just the very best of friends, they could probably write a musical about us."

Angelina smirked slightly and nodded approvingly at Livy, as she activated the radiation sensor.

She needed a bit of levity. First she was up all night. Then when she walked into her office Livy and the equally ferocious Michelle Cranston, the Chief Manufacturing Engineer, were verbally lambasting each other over printed circuit boards.

Where are my fucking boards, Mike?!?!

They're still in the goddamn testers, Livy!!! I don't know why, though; they'll be all fucked up once you get your mitts on them

I wouldn't have to fuck with them if you'd build them right in the first place!

On and on and on...until Ang drew the verbal sword, swung it in the air and told them both to sit their little asses down and shut the hell up. The nonverbal battle between "Mike" and Livy still continued...covertly. Joe Erhlich watched the volleys fire with amusement. The amazing thing was that when they were off duty, Michelle and Livy were like two peas in a pod, the best of friends.

Finally with 15 minutes alone between meetings, Ang tried the relaxation technique thing. Her mind was at peace; her memories were curiously stimulated. For some reason she thought of her beloved brother Guido. She wanted to cry; she would never see him again but then his image became clearer and clearer and clearer...'Ang, Sono Qui'

The Jiminy Cricket voice soothed her... 'Imagine you are somewhere you want to be (earth), in a place you want to be (a beach on Cape Cod). There's no place like home...there's no place like home...the sun, the sand, the waves, the gentle bree-'

Her 30 seconds of bliss were interrupted as Chris Potter and Claude Murneau blasted into her office in a heated shouting match. She shook her head, disconcertedly. Then it was off to Main Mission to monitor Commander Koenig's sensor sweep of NDA 3. Ang was studying what she thought was a shiner on Tanya Alexander's face when the trouble began with Koenig's Eagle.

Watching out the viewport at the moonscape that scrolled past, the timbre of Livy's voice changed-its business now, not personal. "What sort of status did Main Mission give as to the condition of the Commander's Eagle?" Livy failed to mention the tight, hard turn of the Eagle that Alan had put through-either wisely, or out of the fact that it didn't violate operating parameters of the spacecraft.

The answer was immediately obvious. The centigrade covered domes of NDA3 came into view on the horizon. Angelina felt her stomach ball up into a knot as she saw smoke wafting between domes 12 and 13. It was obviously the Commander's Eagle. She squinted hard, leaning forward.

"It doesn't look like he completely opened up a dome," she stated cautiously as she scanned the radiation readings processed by the onboard computers.

From Carter's vantage point, it was almost impossible to see the crash site, but the halo of orbiting debris was substantive. In the irradiated glow of the burst fuel tanks, he watched as a mangled, triangular strip of titanium drifted by the nose of the Rescue Eagle. It was followed by aruptured condenser hose, and a free-floating acceleration chair from the obliterated passenger module. Through the green fog, he was able to make out the broken spine of John Koenig's ship, and the junkyard command module. It was leaning upright against one of the debilitated dome covers like an attentive pet.

"Aw, shit," Livy moaned quietly at seeing one of her babies in this much agony. "God help me, if we can get the Commander out alive, I'll kill him." She looked forward.

Ang stared in horror, finding it difficult to concentrate on the continuous data stream

Then Bill Gates arrived to guide them to shore. The inertial damping eased. Rescue Eagle Four paused, hovering fifty meters above, and just to the left, of Dome Thirteen. Carter heard the drive shut down, and gradually, the ship began to descend.

"Alpha/Eagle Four." He called into the headset. "Paul, we've located the Commander's Eagle. It's hard on the eyes. Touchdown procedure has been initiated."

"Remains of the Eagle," Livy said softly. "I don't think we can save this one-she's almost written off as parts."

Ang quickly returned to the passenger module. "Ready?" she asked Joe.

"All set," he nodded in response, gathering his sensor.

"You do the geiger counter reading and I'll get the neutron count." As Ang sealed her helmet, Carter and Livy were completely suited with fire extinguishers in tow and a backboard.

The passenger module hissed as the cabin decompressed and the door opened to the lunar surface.

Stepping out into the 1/6 Lunar gravity, Ang jumped from the 3rd step to theground. Joe Erhlich quickly came up behind her. The first sight to greet them was the damaged centigrade cover of dome 12,as well as the decimated monitoring antennae. Ang turned to study the final trajectory of the Eagle and noted a landing pod had been clipped but otherwise still attached. The Eagle, however, resembled a squashed centipede. Livy and Alan set off in haste toward the Eagle.

Ang came beside Joe, who had already began collecting readings on the Geiger counter. "How does it look?"

"It could have been worse," Joe reported. "Slight fluctuation but nothing to have a stroke over."

Ang began taking digital and infrared pictures of the site. Following the photo session, she began an area sweep of for neutron count irregularities.

"Alpha to Angelina Carter," Victor Bergman's voice boomed inside hersuit.

"Copy, Professor."

"How's it look out there?"

"Nothing bad so far. He did clip the cover on #12 but it looks like its not a complete breech. The sensor array for 12 is scrap though."

"Anything on Commander Koenig?"

Ang cringed as she heard the barely contained anxiety in the professor's voice.

"Not yet, professor. Alan and Livy are going after him now."

Livy, even though loaded down with her EVA suit, her share of the rescue equipment, and her own tools, managed gainfully to keep up with themuch taller pilot. "Alan," she asked calmly, "take a look through the main viewport-see if the Commander's got his helmet on-if so, I think..."

She popped a hidden panel in the aft of the Command Module, sheared away from its mounts on the main chassis of the Eagle.

"Yeah. I can override and blow the hatch-I read pressure, about half standard inside." Still staring at the panel, she called again, "Alan? Any luck?"

The pilot returned from his semi-doze. He was standing by the lacerated fuselage with one palm against the casing, and with his left boot against the dome's concrete foundation. Behind them, Eagle Two's remaining body parts smoldered across Area Three for a radius of one half kilometer. High above them, the acceleration chair was listing back, and forth; surrounded by shrapnel, and hanging like a beacon in the void. Eventually it would fall like the rest of the breccia cloud. Carter was about to quip. He was about to ask DeHavilland if she saw the same thing that he had seen.

There were three stars visible in the afterimage of the crash. The high star in the trinity was Antares. In the epicenter of the partnership, there was a peculiarity in either vision, or space. A discomposition. A ripple. The blue, and white, NYPD police cruiser took his attention away from that.

It was parked in the regolith adjacent to Dome Six. Its gumball machine was rolling. It's driver's side door was open, though no occupants were visible. The riot gun, mounted to the dash looked perfectly sanguine--like it had every business being on the opposite end of the sidereal universe with the orphaned Moon. He paused to clear his vision.

When he looked again, it was gone. There was only the dome, and Joe Ehrlich's sprite form, padding slowly between boulders in the almost negligible gravity.

"Alan?" Livy skirted her way back around to the front of the damaged command module and stareed at the motionless pilot, her anger at being ignored diffusing into worry. "Alan? Do you hear me?"

Carter shook off the daggy, and paused before answering. He'd been working too hard. Yeah, that's it. Too much midnight oil; he was overcommitted, and divested; alot of shit; alot of jobs that Harms should have been given for edification, and upbraidment. Ergo, the damp squid he had become, which only thought for a moment that it had seen a squad car in the near vacuum of space. Yeah, that had to be it.

Yeah.

"Crazy." He declared aloud, dropping to his knees, and using his heels to propel himself upward. He softlanded on the nose cone of the obliterated hulk. He used his right glove to wipe away the layer of stardust. Behind it was a garish orange glow. One of the aft modules cast an eerie lantern light. There was fumes, and violent, warm light, and--the outline of a helmeted figure shifting, and divigating in his sleep.

Total wash, indeed. The fact that he had survived was nothing short of Providence.

Behind them, the striped ER Module of Rescue Eagle Nine, pulled up alongside Cargo Eagle Twelve, which waited in a holding pattern. It's electromagnet dangled at the end of the winch like a giant, silver thimble. Eagle Nine hit its floodlights, and its powered descent next to Eagle Four.

"Let's get him out of there." The pilot said. In this fairy tale, there was no bottle that said DRINK ME.

Livy just nodded-this was just getting weird. "Right," she said softly, barely audible over the hum and pump of her own life support system.

Ang saw the billowing lunar dust and, looking up, saw the descent of rescue Eagle 9. She was in the process of completing the set up of the temporary monitoring sensor array for dome 12.

"Link up, Ben," Ang called the Computer Operations Chief in Main Mission.

"Receiving signal. Modulate 10." Ouma reported back methodically.

Ang adjusted the sensor console. "Check."

"Confirmed optimal reception. Ouma out."

Moving towards the rear of the Command Module, Livy punched in the emergency override code into the panel, and was rewarded by the soundless *pumf* of escaping atmosphere-a very small puff of crystalized oxygen, barely even enough to take note of. Then she clambered inside the ruined module, unbuckling and carefully maneuvering Koenig out of his seat.

"Swear to god," she grumped loudly at the motionless, unconscious form, her mood returning to normal-though she suppressed her own worry and took note of the fact she needed to talk to Ang about Alan-"if you weren't already out of it, I'd kick your ass for what you did to my Eagle."

Slowly, carefully, she eased the Commander out of the Eagle and into Alan's waiting arms.

Joe Erhlich nodded to Ang as she bounded toward the Eagle. "Dome 13 is intact. No significant increase in angstroms." He reported with a thumbs up, and traded the Geiger counter for the infrared camera.

"Good," Ang acknowledged. She was so, so relieved that the damage was minimal. It could have easily been much worse. Surely, there was a God. Now the only remaining task was to assess any possible radiation leakage from the doomed Eagle's nuclear fuel cells.

She scanned the area as, out of the corner of her eye, they retrieve the Commander from the Command Module.

Carter motioned to Ang. "It looks good so far, Joe. Finish up for me while I help get the Commander out of here."

Erhlich nodded, took the sensor and continued. Ang took Koenig's left arm over her shoulder while Alan had his right arm. She looked over at Livy.

"I'll hang here with the Rescue Eagle," she says, looking over the wreckage. "I'll pick up the pieces and see what's salvageable.

"Good," Ang replied. "Joe will be out here with you completing the radiation count on the nuke cells."

Carter and Ang returned to Eagle 4 with the unconscious Commander.

*****

John Koenig could feel his body being moved but was unable to talk or say anything. His mind became hazy and he found himself drifting back to a time he thought he had forgotten..

Koenig found himself at his grandmother's house running through the hallway. Laughing, he found his grandmother's wig and he was running with it in his hands as his grandmother followed him.

"John Robert Koenig, you come here right now!" his grandmother demanded.

The young boy rounded the corner again laughing out loud in delight knowing his grandmother was chasing him. Only this time he changed his path rounding around the next corner, and slid on the rug in the hallway falling down landing on his backside. Surprised by his fall his grandmother caught up with him at last.

"See young man you will always get caught when you do something wrong. What would your parents say about all of this if they were still alive??" she asked him then regretted bringing up John's parents. Helping him to his feet she looked into his blue eyes and patted his coal black hair. Taking the wig from him she led him into the living room, and sat him down on the couch beside her. "What are we going to do with you John?" she asked him.

Shrugging his shoulders he bowed his face looking down at the floor. Reaching over to him she gently lifted his face to look up to her. "John, you are a prankster, but eventually these pranks will catch up with you. What do you want to do with your life John?" she asked him watching his face light up with excitement. She knew John had been a mischievous child, but he was also full of energy and a top student in his school. She knew, someday, her grandson would hold a job with some authority.

"I am going to the moon and see all the planets grandma" he replied with a wide smile on his face.

Thankful for her grandson and the company he had been for her over the past four years, she was grateful that he did not know about her cancer. John had experienced death too early for any child, but especially the death of his parents was hardest on him of all.

"Grandma since your hair is grown back can we burn your wig?" John asked as she now held the wig in her hands.

Smiling down at him "Sure you can John, lets get the matches and go outside." With that they walked into the kitchen and she got the box of matches. John held the door for his grandmother as they walked together in the backyard to the garbage can where they burned leaves and trash. Looking up as the dark was slowly falling upon them John saw the bright white glow of the moon.

"See grandma that is where I am going someday" he said pointing up to the moon enthusiastically.

"Yes, I see John. Now put the wig in the trash can and come over here and stand on the step if you are going to burn it." she handed him the matches and watched as he struck it on the back of the box. Tossing the match in the can he watched as it caught fire

Watching him closely, she wondered what he was thinking as his facial expression changed. Watching the fire grow as the wig and the papers in the trash can started to burn John suddenly saw his father's car.

It was a red mustang, his dad's pride and joy. The day started out wonderful as his parents took him to the beach for the day. Then on the drive back that night, they were hit by a drunk driver just as John drifted off to sleep sending the car into the railing and telephone poll. Feeling his dad's big hands lift him from the back seat he watched as his dad went back to get his mother. Suddenly, as soon as his dad went back to the car it exploded into flames and John could hear his parents scream as they burned inside the car.

Brought back by the screaming from his grandmother as she grabbed him before he fell into the trash can, John stared at her in horror seeing the impending death in her face.

*****

The medical team waited in the Command module of Eagle 4 as Carter and Ang brought Koenig into the passenger section and repressurized the cabin. As soon as computer monotoned, "Earth Atmosphere/Earth Gravity", Raul Nunez and Jerry Parker charged out of the Command module.

Ang, removing her helmet, followed Carter into the Command module, jumping into the co-pilots chair. As Carter prepared for take off, she immediately linked the radiation sensor to the onboard computer, which relayed the readings to the server on Moonbase Alpha.

Carter had been extremely quiet while they were bringing the Commander to the ship; once again, her intuition was telling her something was wrong; the glass was definitely half empty, not half full.

"Are you OK?" Ang looked up from studying the data on the co-pilots screen. "You know, Nicky was up all night last night...again, third night in a row...you know when he turns into the child from hell, trouble is coming."

Oh yes--Carter understood that implicitly now. He had learned, friends, and neighbors. Gone was the Doubting Thomas, and the untractable revisionist. Gone was the insolent click of the tongue, and the brow beating braggadocio. He did like to be cautious, though.

"Chance nothing." He said, redundantly holding the yoke while computer executed a final approach course. They approached the base through the back door. Far below, he saw Eagle Four's silhouette eclipse the peaks of Frigoris, wending its way across the frozen ejecta towards home--such as it was. "I think I got the raptures out there." He confessed, squinting at the declination in altitude. The speed of the ship slowed to 200 KPH. "I want Gunther to check my cryo tank when I get back. It's probably nothing."

"Hmmm," She eyed him curiously. She wanted to believe the logical explanation but her instinct shouted 'No! No! No!'

"You've been working too hard, sweetheart. Come to think of it, I have too." She laughed softly. "We need a vacation. Unfortunately, I don't see that coming any time soon. You know, I'm starting to imagine stuff too. Just this morning, between referee calls in the battle of technicians, I could swear Guido was in my office with me. I thought I could hear his voice and even smell his cologne."

She looked away to the monitor at the data, her eyes filling with tears. Again the pain of separation, of never seeing her brother again. "God, I miss him." She sniffed imperceptibly and swallowed.

Carter looked at the yellow panels, disservingly. He honestly didn't know what to say. Comfort clung to the roof of his mouth like slag peanut butter. He wanted to cop a rainbow, and tell her brighter days were ahead; life is worth living; apples, she'll be. It didn't sound sanguine to him though, and 'Ang was anything, but a rum-dumb. Kind of reminded him of a cartoon he once saw in a rag called High Times. Picture a Marmaduke, mutt type dog; eating it's pile, and loving every minute of it. The tormenting speculations barged into his mind every day like unloved, meter men. 'Oh, hello Alan,' his fears razed him. 'Here I am. Just thought I'd drop by, and turn your lemonade to piss. Yeah, it blows that you didn't turn that Eagle 180 degrees, and head back for the good Earth while you had the chance--oh, and I did remind you, again, didn't I? For the upteenth, centrillion time that you did have a chance? One, not-to-be-repeated chance. And you blew it. And now you're locked up like a sardine in a tin can on the bogus Moon. And there's every possibility that you will outlive your wife, and child. More's the pity. Bad move, cobber.'

"How about that neutron count." He said, scratching his chin pensively. "What's the word."

The Plato Range was closing on them. Several kilometers beyond the vale, he could see the pivotal landing beacon atop the Command Tower. Coop' was at the remote pack. He'd bring them down without a bump.

Ang wrinkled her nose slightly, studying the data. "From close up, we get intermittent high neutron counts that appear to be random. But...I don't know. I mean, since yesterday.." She punched up a few buttons. "It probably is nothing but I should run if by Ben to see if it matches some weird or obscure statistical model."

Carter nodded. Over his left shoulder, Ang' could see the Medical Center Extension. On the way down, Jerry Parker passed them. He was peering forlornly at them from the wide, vision port in the pharmacology lab. He was about to chug non-committaly from his white plastic cup, when the area beneath the ship began to bake in the foreglow of the landing lights. The lean, sprawling eastern wall of Technical Section broadened to meet them.

"Eagle Four, touchdown in five seconds." Controller Paul Morrow informed them from the forward monitors as Launch Pad Two expanded beneath them. Then, after careful deliberation, he said: "How is Commander Koenig."

Jerry Parker, MSN, Chief Nurse leaned over Carter's shoulder and spoke into the pilot's monitor. "His condition is critical," Parker replied bluntly. "He has severe head injury. He needs an MRI and a Cat-scan as soon as we arrive."

"Understood," Morow replied grimly. "Dr. Russell and team will meet the travel tube at the embarkation point."

Ang, visibly upset, shook her head in disbelief, as Morrow cut the link. "Will he make it?" she asked the tall male nurse.

"We'll do our best," Parker nodded solemnly as he turned and headed back into the passenger module.

She was quiet for 10 seconds when Bergman appeared on the pilot's monitor.

"Alan, you and Ang need to report to Main Mission when you disembark. Scanners are picking up something...unusual."

*****

Dr. Helena Russell paced back and forth before the travel tube entrance. The chime sounded and the doors parted; Jerry Parker pulled the gurney while Raul Nunez released the air in the blood pressure cuff and noted the latest reading. Russell began running alongside the gurney carrying a flaccid, ashen Koenig. The oxygen tubes running from his nostril entangled the EKG and EEG leads like an overgrown Ivy hedge.

"Condition?" she inquired.

"Pulse 95...BP 90/40...Respiration 10....Left Pupil is blown.." Nunez reported with zero emotion in his voice.

Parker guided the gurney to the MRI chamber.

"Full head scan and CT," he ordered the medical technician initializing the machine.

The MRI unit began clanking and churning. Helena Russell stepped inside the scan room to begin a live reading of the MRI images. In a split second, she closed her eyes; she could hardly see through the tears which began welling the minute she turned away from the others. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat.

Dr. Bob Mathias, back to her, did not see her momentary lapse in cool professionalism as he brought up the multiple displays.

Removing his black bone glasses from the pocket of his white frock coat, Mathias donned them, and stared intently at the Polaroid Processed exposures of John Koenig's mind. Four rows, and every neuron seemed to be cooperating in the carefully pruned template. While exploring the bottom row, he vassalated (blinking twice at a hobgoblin of nature that waved back to him from the scan like a hauteur on a cruise ship) on the bridge between the left, and right hemisphere. Instinctively, Parker handed him a compass that had been married to a fiber tipped marker.

"Any idea what caused the crash." He asked Helena Russell as he drew a dime sized circle around the corpus collosum. The damaged lobe was obnoxiously easy to find. Ed Malcom could have diagnosed the injury. His cure would have been Twinkies. Forget Harvard, and John's Hopkins, and their lofty, cannibalistically priced "research units." Even a bottom feeding, pre-med student could have articulated this problem. Mathias shook his head discouragingly. The disintegration between the two components was heralded by a shadow in the lower right corner that looked too much like a skull. He added four arrows, opening outwards, north, south, east, and west to indicate the rapid swelling, and expansion of ablated tissues.

"It does not appear to be a mechanical failure, according to the preliminary analysis of the flight data from Ben Ouma," Russell responded.

"Oh God," she whispered, just the hint of emotion in her voice, as she studied the area of injury. She swallowed and cleared her throat. "Well, surgery is out of the question. If we start slicing and dicing into that region, even with the microlaser, chances are the Commander will become a vegetable." She stated with cool professionalism. She was finding it difficult to keep her emotions at bay. It took the bulk of her psychological training and experience to stay emotionally detached from this particular patient.

"So, our only option is to break in the Von Bonn Electrocephlographic Complex."

Break in...as in 'Number of customers served=one.'

From where Mathias was standing, there were no other options. Happy Hour, and Karyoake was over, my dear woman. If the injured area wasn't assuaged, and soon, neurodegeneration would result. Chronic amnesia was the least of the symptoms John Koenig would experience. Oh, he'd get along...for a while, at least. Being a fraction of your former self is, after all, better than biting the dust totally, one could argue. He could also look forward to a short life, riddled with epileptic seizures, and eventual amplification unto death from a Grand Mau Hemmorrhage--the day would come when the mushroom between his ears would superheat, and melt, evacuating onto his pillow while he screamed in his sleep of ill-fated dreams.

"Alright, you know invasive surgery is out of the question. He'd be better off if you set his brain on the desk, and took a hammer to it." The physician reminded his colleague. "If we put him on the system, the inflamation will ease. After that, there's the slight chance that neuroblasts will form, and take on the function of the damaged cells." This they knew only from laboratory rats, and the mostly laughable research conducted on human subjects. "I won't lie to you, though. I don't think his chances are wonderful, even with therapy.

"And like it, or not, I think you need to prepare for that eventuality." He said dispassionately, looking over his shoulder. Beyond the observation window, Delline, and Parker were already attaching the saline deposits to the commander's forehead.

"Yes," Russell stated with complete external calm. "Statistically he has about a 20% chance." 'On a lucky day,' Helena thought but did not add. "But it is still about 10 times greater than the chance he would have without the VBEC treatment."

Hope, there was always hope.

Dr. Russell left the imaging room and began uploading the neurological feedback program from the medical server as Anne Delline finished attaching the last of the electrodes. Mathias had followed her into the room.

"Well," Russell began tenaciously," here goes."

Koenig's body trembled slightly as the electric impulses the Von Bonn received were modulated, amplified and transmitted to his brain. The inverted sine wave appeared on the monitor.

"OK, now all we can do is wait."

*****

They had to wait. On the other end of the cosmic schtick, John Koenig had infinity to compose. This, following the curtain, and soapsuds swipe that washed his brain like a mug in a roadside diner.

He was crunched into a desk, at MIT, or Yale, or some other Mount Olympus for the mentally gifted. Sitting before him, Helena Russell was sitting astutely, taking notes, and listening without the slightest criticism, or ratiocination to Adjunct Professor Santa Claus, who was lecturing, not on medicine, but on nineteenth-century British Romanticism. The erudite stepped away from the lecturn, stroking his long, white beard for intellectual fluff. He pondered the imponderousness of it all as his reflection slid down the rows of interlocking, checkered tiles.

"This class sucks." Truman Starns said, taking up space in the unrecalcitrant back row.

"That's funny." Koenig commented, making his assumptions audible. "I wonder if we're having the same dream."

The detective shook his head, and then beamed Victor Bergman's zombie forehead with a .50 caliber spit wad.

"No, it's no dream. Although, in its present form, I admit the whole thing is a little Daliesque."

"But yester-night," The Burl Ives professor quoted, louder still. "I prayed aloud in anguish, and in agony, upstarting from the fiendish crowd of shapes, and thoughts that tortured me: a lurid light, a trampling throng, sense of intolerable wrong...."

Taking an ice cube from his cup of Bubba Cola, he was going to give Helena Russell the freeze out, because it was fat. Yes, he was going to ease back the collar of her turtleneck, and drop it right down her dreck-worshipping back. Such was the lot of a sane man in The Pains Of Sleep.

"And whom I scorned, those only strong!" White Beard, the Professor continued. He was looking directly at him this time.

Beyond the purple, semitransparency of light, he noticed that Russell's collar was inaccessible. This was because her neck was hyper extended onto his blank, spiralbound notebook now. Her dark, and fathomless eye orbits stared placidly towards the ceiling like a Quaalude Junkie on a fix; a Heroin addict on a really gonzo trip. Attached to her apathetic, who-gives-a-shit tempel, a membraneous hose was extracting toxic individuality from her mind like old tea. Koenig could hear macabre sucking, and dripping sounds as the creature's colon eliminated the rest onto the floor.

"That plug's for you." Starns said neutrally, looking crosseyed, and a bit annoyed as one of the suction cups smacked him right between the eyes. "And all that you do. That plug's for you."

John Koenig dove from the desk, a strangled cry barely escaping his lips. Globular shadows surrounded him. Escapees from "It Came From Outer Space," "Earth V. The Flying Saucers," "The Blob," and any number of other bloodsucking, B-Movie hybrid mutations. He groped for imaginary weapons. Surrounded now, he was about to concede to darkest brain drain, when suddenly, the converging horde appraised him to be out of taste; a greasy, unrepast box of White Castle's cheese sticks when what they truly craved was a filet mignon.

"'Waiting for the UFO's,'" Officer Borg sang, unable to carry a tune in a bucket with his vibrating, granny vocal cords, as his skull withered, and shrank like a rotting apple.

John Koenig waned into a Morphine cloud, his aggressors waving bye-bye with their batrachian tentacles as he went. 'Be seeing you,' the group pledged with monstrous, thirsty oath.

And that was no bull.

*****

Victor Bergman scratched his head while waiting for the register tape to unspool from Panel Number Three. His combed, mad scientist remainders were almost vertical to the ceiling when the blue bar code rolled into his palm. Behind him, Ben Ouma was watching patiently from the mainframe control desk. Paul Morrow stood transfixed, leaning against his chair with both hands, while Sandra Benes retired from the diffusing garlands of multicolored light on the big screen. The abstract of preliminary information, available to her from high orbital analysis, and imaging--about as useful as a pair of fuzzy, pink dice. Her brooding profile appeared red, then blue, bright yellow, and then returning to lavender again. The same high voltage hues whirled like Warholian Funk Art against the bulkheads, though nothing, but bleak, empty space was visible beyond the vision ports.

Bergman dismounted the computer deck--somehow, succeeding in walking, talking, and scratching his chin, and all at the same time. Andy Dempsey chanced a glimpse at the download as he strolled past, grasping his clipboard like a shield. Paul Morrow's skin crawled--literally. It was like having the Shingles, and on top of that, every member on his apple green body felt as though it weighed fifty pounds. Including that place.

"Absolutely astonishing." Bergman said, glancing from paper to big screen. "Whatever it is, it's being propelled over 1,130 times faster than normal values."

"???The normal values of light???" Morrow decried. "That's impossible. No natural phenomenon can move at that rate of speed."

"The stars." Ouma observed, swallowing hard. "They're moving towards it."

"It's an optical effect--a product of superluminal velocity, combined with the object's oblique angle of approach." Sandra explained. "We're also picking up definite trace particles of Cherenkov Radiation."

Olivia deHavilland sauntered into Main Mission, hands jammed into the grubby, grease-stained coveralls she wore; olive-drab coveralls with a "Meta Probe Engineering Team" patch on the upper left shoulder, coveralls drenched and soaked with sweat from hours in a space suit recovering a broken Eagle. She looks around and asks, "Who's got Cherenkov radiation? Somebody build an FTL ship when I wasn't looking?"

Rotstein decided to put in an honest day's work, which was the most incomprehensible piece of data. He entered to the left of the big screen, only five steps ahead of Alan, and Ang' Carter. The pilot followed Bergman's gaze, and uttered a meretricious whistle. Above him, the spiraling, black hole of psychosurreal photons devoured the universe in a cirrus of flame. The origin was occupied by a beige birthmark of matter that was increasing proportionately in size, as it drew closer.

"O'kay," Carter said. "I don't know about the rest of you, but whatever it is, it's got my attention."

Livy eased up next to Carter, her eyes holding steady-though skeptical-at the monitor. "You and me both, brother," she says softly.

Angelina shook her head in disbelief at the Technical Station.

'No way..no way..no way' she thought over and over again. Way.

The theory of Relativity was accepted because it made enough sense mathematically and no one had yet proven that it wasn't true. Ang listened to Sandra announce that the object was first 40 million miles, then 20 million miles, all the while considering her life's work a complete and utter waste of time. Her books, her notes, her papers: all to be tossed aside now like last week's K-Mart sales flyer.

"Range is now 10 million miles," Sandra's small voice echoed through the room. Everyone in Main Mission, save perhaps Rotstein, was astute enough to experience the historical ramifications of this event.

"Computer confirms object is artificial, powered and manned," Ouma unraveled the tape issued from the computer swivel desk station.

Angelina shook away the daze. She knew it, Carter knew it and Morrow knew it. At that speed, it would be difficult to guarantee an Eagle welcoming committee greeting the visitors in time as their sole source of self defense.. She looked to Morrow, who nodded at her.

"Petrov, arm all laser cannons, NOW!" She relayed to the former Lietenant Colonel.

"It is trying to hail us," Sandra stated calmly, as she adjusted knobs and hit switches.

"Moonbase Alpha to unknown ship," Morrow began after clearing his throat. "Identify yourselves, repeat..Identify yourselves"

"Moonbase Alpha, this is the Infinity Albatross. Do not be alarmed; we are from the planet Earth.

Livy's mouth narrowed. "No. The Albie was a sketch on a damn napkin when we were drinking too much." She shook her head. "No."

Audible gasps echoed throughout the auditorium. As Sandra adjusted the signal modulation, Ang jumped up and raced around to the controller's station, standing between Paul and Alan.

"I have a visual," Sandra reported, the anticipation and anxiety finally evident in her voice.

"Put it up on the Big Screen, Sandra," Morrow stated the obvious.

The image of the 40 something handsome man on the screen hit Angelina Carter like a ton of bricks.

The figure on the screen favored Clark Kent after a humongous, bad day. His classically chiseled face looked wizened with the beard stubble of desperate living. His eyes were red rimmed, and watery from exhaustion--the corrosive effect that was typical of deep space exploration, and the long, oh-so-long, boring, mundane, excruciatingly uneventful, hapless, sexless four hours on/ four hours off cockpit time. His demeanor was such of plight that Carter almost regretted giving Morrow the clandestined nod. In turn, the controller showed Coop' a thumbs down beneath the desk. Moments later, the preflight checklist was aborted, and the welcome wagon was on it's way regardless, which was good. Eagle One, and Eagle Three looked indistinguishable from the ships in the survey fleet. The only difference was the HEAT Packs that were concealed on the underside of the command modules.

When the visual link was made, the pilot who was approaching them from the gulf of space brightened dramatically. As if seeing something in Main Mission that made all the difference between life, and the bone farm.

"You'll never believe this." He said to his off-screen co-pilot with disbelief, while ignoring Morrow. "I had just about decided this was a fool's errand. Thirty-seven days in transit, and all we see is layer, upon layer of black. Ten minutes ago, I would have sworn this was just a tax payer's nightmare."

"That's an ace. Got er' on the first try, did you?" The co-pilot without a face said enthusiastically. The voice sounded vaguely familiar to Carter.

The man on the screen nodded weakly. He dithered. He drowned in the anticlimactic Scylla, and Charybdis.

"Absolutely on the first try. Like stepping on a beer can, and finding the Hope Diamond underneath." The pilot--Guido Verdeschi by name--caroled almost spasmodically. "Hello, little sister."

Livy held her tongue in check; this was more than enough for her. "I'm off for a shower-and then I want to look at that damn bird," she announced to all, spinning on her heels and marching out of Main Mission.

Angelina grabbed Carter's lower arm, for balance. She was never one for swooning with the vapors until this moment. Not breathing had that effect on a person. Then, a look of utter joy and drunken happiness crossed her face.

"Guido!! I-it's my brother Guido!!" She uncharacteristically squealed like a giddy cheerleader. The effect of her squeal led to a chain reaction of ear piercing squealing throughout the room by the other women. The men, for the most part, were stunned into silence.

"Petrov!" Ang gleefully shoved Morrow aside and stabbed at the control for Tactical. "Disarm and retract all laser cannons."

Her attention turned to the big screen. She could not believe her eyes. It was a dream come true, a dream which she only allowed herself to occasionally explore from the peripheral edges of reality, lest she be devastated with the impossibility of the desire. She cleared her throat and regained her composure.

"Buon Giorno, Guido," Angelina proudly beamed. She squeezed Carter's hand lovingly.

"???Strike force Eagles???" The Unknown Co-pilot said, bemused as Harms, and Danielle became scanner visible. "You've got to be bloody joking me." The Voice said, and emitted a giddy, iced chuckle. More embarrassed than offended. "???Is that the deal???"

To Carter it was the voice of doom, a maladorous breeze, yesterday's wind.

"Petrov, hold on that last order." Morrow said emotionlessly. "Maintain alert status."

"What in the hell are you doing?!?!?" Angelina hissed at Morrow. She straightened her back. "Have you lost your mind?!?! Why aren't you giving them permission to land?!!?!"

"Now, Ang," Bergman interjected paternally, "We don't know for certain if they really are from earth."

Bergman was rebuked with a sudden fury of protest from several Main Mission Operatives.

"Of course it is."

"It has too be..."

"It's OBVIOUS!!"

Angelina had a confounded expression on her face, pondering, wondering, looking quizzically at Carter for an answer. He had none for her.

"That ship IS from earth and that IS my brother. I will not let you shoot it down, Paul." Ang stated defiantly, arms crossing over her chest.

Truman Starns gave Harness Bull Duncan a sidewise glance.

"Colonel Petrov." The Ominous Co-pilot said with admiration; his own ego, sublimated for the moment. "He's still around, is he? It kind of figures--if cockroaches could survive The Big One, he'd be right there with them, and probably plotting a fierce, punitive, retaliatory campaign.

"I was in his brigade for the first three months, you know." He boasted to Guido Verdeschi, meandering over the good ol' days of World War Terminus. "We bombed the snot out of The Great Wall. Of course, that was nothing. You should have seen the Argonne Forrest after he finished nuking' it. It still glows in the dark, to this day. I mean, he invented a new kind of plastic out of that one. No trees though. All gone now. Pity."

"???WHO THE HELL IS THAT???" Carter piped up, suddenly. He was curious to the point of rage.

When it came to stoicism, and arctic reserve, Morrow was the Great Pyramid Of Cheops.

"Negative, Infinity Albatross." He demured expertly. "Come to course 37 degrees west, by 15 meters, northwest. Assume a holding pattern until further notice."

The controller was about to arbitarily cut the link when a third person entered the conversation.

"You blimey,' blockheaded, sexually anal, boring-to-the-point-of-suicide, arsehole of a person." The third interlocutor adjudged. "You thankless git. If our old dad could see you now. You heard the bloke.' We've been in space, back of the beyond for over a month--lousy food; no women, really; nothing to lubricate our throats except for Tang, and all for the unworthy benefit of Mr. Paul "Stuffshirt" Morrow.

"See if I try to pull your bum out of the fire again."

With that, Guido Verdeschi unplugged, and allowed Morrow's critic to have a look-see from the HAB Module. The face that appeared on the big screen looked very much like the controller's, only somewhat older, and with an Errol Flynn moustache, and a flat top hair cut.

"???Stu???" Morrow said at last to his older brother.

Angelina Carter looked up at the big screen, once again confounded.

Sister Mary Finnegan, her first grade teacher was suddenly in front of her.

"Angelina Verdeschi!!" The elder nun must have been 8 feet tall. "Stop daydreaming, young lady. Pay attention to the real world, child!"

"The real world...what the hell is the real world? Could reality be whatever one makes it to be?" adult Angelina asked in 1st grade Angelina's body.

Angelina Carter looked around the glazed faces in Main Mission, now including Paul.

"Ang," Guido Verdeschi's voice piped in through the dolby speakers. "I've come back to take you home. The sooner you let us land, the sooner you'll be home."

She closed her eyes 'There's no place like home; there's no place like home.....'

Victor Bergman turned away from the big screen, and leaned over the gooseneck lamp, facing Ben Ouma at his station. His brow was furrowed, and his shoulder muscles were as taught as cables. Ouma looked at Bergman. Bergman looked at Ouma, raising his eyebrows--a semiphoric response to a question that had yet to be asked. Every eye in Main Mission was upon him. Ang' waited tensely beside Carter whose head was inclined perpetually upwards, but who seemed to be putting the pieces together, for good, or ill. Paul Morrow crumpled the monthly, revised flight schedule without realizing it; his skepticism was now light years from the mono-blip traffic board that was mounted to his station. Sandra Benes stood nearby. In a way she agreed; in a way she didn't. You might say she was of two minds on the subject--of course, this was beyond compare to how Commander John Koenig would feel when he was, at last, liberated from his concussion. Au contraire mon amis. For the time being, he rested almost tolerably while Helena Russell's miracle machine massaged his brain, and vibrated his skull, but not necessarily in that order.

"Professor?" Morrow asked tentatively.

Bergman nodded.

*****

The embarkation area for Launch Pad 3 was filled with excited, chattering and nervous Alphans. It was Miller time...party time and they were going home.

Hair still sodden from the quick shower she'd taken, and with not enough time to actually towel it dry, Livy sauntered up, still brushing at the rough mass, the auburn mane that waved and bounced of its own accord. In honor of the celebration, she opted to put on her one sole remaining clean Alphan uniform-the otherwise wide belt custom fit for her.

The Carters were among the throng. Ang had picked up Nicky prior to going to the area, which would reunite her with her brother and introduce him to his nephew. Nicky's first birthday was exactly one week away and she could not have given him a better gift: going home to Earth. The child had started independent walking two weeks before and delighted in "practicing", running up and down the corridor. His crying fit had subsided and Ang mused, perhaps he was teething or something. At any rate, soon he would be running through fields of grass or sand on the beach instead of the cold, neutral halls of Moonbase Alpha.

Olivia brightened up immediately. "Nicky!" she called to the toddler, glad to see the one person in this god-forsaken place that was shorter than she. Dropping to one knee, she held her arms out wide, tempting him with a big, big, smile, and a long, long, lock, ready for the pulling. "Heya, Ang. Carter." she called.

Nicky Carter laughed heartily as he ran toward Livy, plowing into her arms as she swept him up into the air.

Angelina and Alan both waved enthusiastically at Livy.

Behind the bulkhead, the pump hissed. The light turned green. The double doors sighed open, and out stepped the first Terrans to visit Moonbase Alpha in over four years. The party exited the travel tube into the defunct reception area where Marilys Sing played host person, alongside a posthumous Sloven. Though they were offworlders, she wasn't particularly concerned about passports, or marching them single file through the metal detector, and the inspection cube. Harness Bull Pound clanked forward in his armor to greet folks. The first visitor to enter the base was Infinity Albatross' mission commander, Guido Verdeschi--still in his environment suit, and loaden with World Space Commission rank, and glissandi. Exhausted, but reinvigorated enough to scoop his sister off her feet before he hugged her.

Carter stood amicably by, his thumbs hitched inside his tan belt. Then he dropped the evil load, realizing at last who Infinity Albatross' grim, talky ambassador must have been. The ship's pilot was the next to enter the base, alongside a distinguished looking gentleman with a learned white beard. Truman Starns rubbed his palm against his chin, and stood vigil near the desk. Carter felt like the dink who digs, and digs to the bottom of the basket, only to realize that the pineapples were in front of him, all the while.

"Captain Carter." The fortysomething astronaut with the black widow's peak, and frothing complexion exclaimed, extending an uncharacteristically beneficent hand.

"Captain Kilpack." Carter replied, and gave him the power clutch. "I must admit, I was worried there for a minute--then I realized, there's only one jackeroo I know who has that much hellfire, and brimstone in his veins.

"You're lucky we didn't send your smartass packing."

Suddenly, amidst this commaraderie, and esprit de corps, years of loathing, and detestation were wiped clean like a formica counter. It suddenly seemed of no consequence to Carter that only last week, he hated Dirk Kilpack's guts; had endured a horrific nightmare concerning this self-same fellow--he of the gloomy pronouncements, and Goth haircut.

"Take the glare out of your stare." Rotstein warned his opponent. He had come along to hobnob, and assert his amoral self, and to suck up, then the moustachioed crewman Lambadaed out of the travel tube. He was openly--proudly--condescending, and emitted the air of a man who lived to cause trouble. He licked his chops at the assistant controller's viability as Used Condom; a Taj Ma Hal for practical jokes, and torture.

"That's a sprog." Stu Morrow said, and bequeathed him an unimpressed, disrespectful, reserved-for-the-retarded slap on his conniving shoulder, as he moved towards Paul.

Angelina sobbed tears of joy. She was completely overcome with happiness. She regained her composure and sniffed "Still wearing Old Navy just like I remember? Some things never change," she smiled.

After an eternity, which was still not enough in his mind, he broke the embrace.

"Hey," Guido queried. "Where's Tony?"

Angelina lowered her eyes and shook her head silently.

Truman Starns scanned the crowd, perhaps hoping for a familiar face. It was at this point he felt a small hand grab his flair. When he looked down, Nicky Carter's face was a mask of fear. Wide eyed, mouth agape and lower lip quivering slightly, he was staring at the visitors from earth. Suddenly, his expression went blank. He rubbed his eyes and stared into the crowd again, a puzzled expression crossing his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman staring at the child and approaching both of them. Nicky looked up at Starns and Starns, taking his cue, picked him up.

"My name is Diana Morris," the woman pleasantly introduced herself. She looked intently at Nicky, eyes fixed. "What a lovely child! Does he belong to you?"

Nicky Carter still confused, looked away, burying his face in Starn's shoulder.

The detective looked heedfully at the child, paused, as if in deep thought, and then extended a hand to Diana Morris. She didn't seem to appreciate his interrogatory approach. That was o'kay. It had been brought to his attention before. On Earth, he was briefly employed by Interpol. His partner was a fellow named Fritz Lyon. Every now, and again, as they wandered the fleshpots of Dark City, bringing to justice the illegal immigrants; the cyber sex fiends; the hookers, and the used car salesmen, Fritz would criticize him for his rude, and crude gander; "Just looking at you makes me feel guilty, Rodeo," the other detective would often opine.

"No, he's not mine." Starns said illiberally. "I'm Truman Starns, lieutenant, Chief Investigator for the International Lunar Commission. Your name sounds familiar to me. It seems like we've met before, either in Huntsville, Alabama, or in Houston, Texas, but I can't remember when."

"Perhaps in Houston," she replied in a demur, pleasant tone. "I am a flight controller and actually a friend of Commander Koenig."

"Well," Starns said dryly. "It's a small galaxy, isn't it." In lieu of becoming a criticule on the welcome mat, he jigged around the bad news of the crash. No one voyaged three astronomical units away from their home--light years unstatistical, and only to hear of a friend's inauspicious health. Also, he avoided the topic because he wasn't sure that he wanted these people to know that there was a pendant on life, and death, power vacuum waiting to be filled. They would find out eventually, he had no qualms, but for the time being, John Koenig was alive, and commander of the base. In the nonce, that was all they needed to know, and that was all he cared to let them know.

"Flight, it's a pleasure to meet you. So, how are things in Houston. It must have been a real load off. No more trips to the nuclear waste dumps, and on that note, here is my look of empathy, and dire remorse for the incumbent WSC Chairperson."

His expression was unhappy forever, sans punch line.

"Well, the aftermath of breakaway was pretty hairy," she replied vaguely "but we survived."

Diana Morris was rather conservatively dressed and rather "bookish" looking. In other words, Starns mused, a female geek. Behind the Coke bottle thick bone rimmed glasses, he could see the beauty of a woman with soft brown eyes and ivory skin: a diamond in the rough. His hypnotic trance was broken as Nicky Carter spotted his mother and squirmed out of Starns arms.

"Uh-oh, tired of our company already." The detective said suspiciously, placing Nicky on the ground and watched as he darted toward his mother. He tipped a wink to Diana Morris--had to throw that in, a flirt, even though she seemed guilty of something, though he knew not what. His glands thus abided, he moved on to other topics. "I used to love the metroplex area, though I actually spent very little time there." He explained, blanching, as though attacked by a burgeoning, bad memory. "Ten months out of the year, I was on duty. The International Space Station. I made landfall as often as I could.

"A fellow named Chris Craft, and I used to frequent a place called 'Zaks.' It was just north of Jones Road. The best Cajun-Hawaiian Restaurant I've ever eaten at. True, it was also the only Cajun-Hawaiian food I'd ever eaten.

"Ever been there?"

"Why, no," Diana Morris quipped pleasantly and deftly took his arm. She gazed at Truman Starns, intently, studiously. "Perhaps, if I may be so bold," she blushed, "We can go there some time. You know...when you get back."

"Oh." She stammered, her cheeks turning bright red as she removed her glasses. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I mean, I am not usually so forward..I just thought...Oh, never mind."

Out of the crowd, the handsome man of 5'6" stepped toward Livy and tapped her on the shoulder. Livy gasped, her cool demeanor completely shattered and her skepticism out the window.

"Hello, sweetheart," the man said tenderly, arms outstretched. "I'm so glad to see you. This time, you are coming home."

Livy looked up-and her mouth fell open agape. "Stevie?" she questioned him.

"Yes." He smiled a full, white smile at her.

With an incoherent sob, she threw herself at him, her arms wrapped tightly around him, so tightly that he gasped for air while laughing. "Hey, small bird," he gasped, "Not so tight, huh? I'm here, and you're going home now."

She held on for a moment to him, as he held her, and a muffled sob could be heard from somewhere deep within her-then she pulled back, her face streaked with-unusually-tears, tears of gratitude, tears of joy, tears of relief. This was not a face of Olivia deHavilland that Alpha has ever seen presented from her-and she smiled up at Steve Harris-who too wore a Meta Probe Engineering patch on the left shoulder of his jacket-with gratitude. "Let me show you around-then you can show me Albie," she said softly, her face unusually illuminated with joy. Its an odd expression to see upon the face of the tiny engineering technician, normally so aggressively bitchy.

"Talk about psychic emanations," Dirk Kilpack thwarted Ang's introduction jocularly. "You must be the cook."

"That's Mrs. Cook to you." Carter said territorially. "My dear, have a look at this here animal. Believe it, or not, it took 10,000,000 years to produce a slag like this."

Kilpack annointed her hand with a kiss while the pilot rolled his eyes.

"His jealousy, and deep seated inferiority no doubt prevented him from ever mentioning me. Your husband, and I served together during the war." He explained, throwing a consociate arm around Carter's shoulder. Friends to the end. We're just old, old pals, their vernacular unrealistically communicated. All they needed was a group photo of the Kilpacks, and the Carters standing beside an outdoor grill, while the men bid aloha to their hairlines with cans of Meisterbrow. "The 5-0-9 Bomb Group, under Colonel William Blythen; advanced, Austrailian Expeditionary Force. God Save The Queen--the rest of the Goons are Gainesburger, of course."

Angelina was stunned. Alan had, in fact, told her all about Captain Dirk Kilpack. The word "monster" would not have been descriptive enough of this character. Alan had conveyed to her some of his tales of war and conquering, particularly in his exploits with Kilpack with much regret and remorse. He did, in fact, dislike Kilpack with a passion. Now..she didn't know what to think.

"We were in the same cockpit; over 79 missions, and he was just real homely, and goofy." Kilpack noted. "It probably explains why I'm such a warped headcase to this day."

"Hey," her brother Guido was suddenly behind her, eyeing Carter with filial suspicion. "Did I hear the word 'husband'?"

Ang immediately and gladly withdrew her hand from Kilpack, who was perhaps holding it a bit too long, and stood beside Carter.

"Uh, yes, Guido, this is my husband Alan," she stated strongly. "Carter. Alan, this is my brother, Guido."

She regarded both men, who were locked in a staring contest with plastic smiles etched on their faces.

"I believe at this point you are suppose to shake hands."

Guido relinquished first. "Of course, nice to meet you, Alan," He broke into a genuine smile. "You will, of course, be meeting the rest of the Verdeschi clan....soon." He gave Carter a slight nod.

"I consider that an honor." Carter said authentically, leaning his shoulder against the bulkhead.

Angelina picked up Nicky who regarded Guido Verdeschi and Dirk Kilpack warily. Guido Verdeschi was stunned into silence.

"This is our son, Nicholas." She hugged him while he instantly grabbd her around the neck.

Nicky looked into her eyes; anguished, puzzled and imploring.

"What's the matter, baby?" She asked softly. "Is something wrong?" The feeling that something was amiss suddenly left Ang as quickly as it appeared.

"Nicholas!! Come to Uncle Guido!!" Verdeschi gleefully reached for the child.

Nicky Carter hollered a loud "NO!!" and recoiled, turning away, the look of confusion mixed with distress never leaving his face. Ang was embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Guido," Angelina stammered. "He has never been around unfamiliar faces before. I mean, there are only about 160 of us left and he knows just about everybody on this base."

"That's OK, Ang," Guido affirmed fraternally. "I won't be unfamiliar too long. Will I, big guy?" He patted Nicky affectionately on the back.

Nicky stared miserably at his father over Ang's shoulder, amidst the laughter and chatter of the Alphans in the corridor.

"Buck up." Kilpack said to the toddler, touching him lightly on the cheek for reassurance. From Nicky Carter's perspective, this was an unwarranted, unmitigated act of sadism. "One of these days, I'll tell you some embarrassing, R-Rated stories about your old man." He promised, touching his fist to his aorta. "They get me every time." Then on a wisp, he looked about the Debarkation Quad, disinvigorated. "I must admit, I'm surprised to see children here at all, buddyroo. The drive was shut down over the Sea Of Tranquility. That's when we turned our scanners on Plato. I almost choked to death on a squeeze tube of Rigatoni when I saw the streaming video footage of Alpha."

He laughed ironically.

"The base has changed a little since the last time I was here." He remarked kindly. "I don't know what surprised me more, the ruins, or the fact that the ruins could still support life, but our ship's surgeon, the good Dr. Shaw, there, assured us that the complex was still inhabited.

"So, brother...the life of a survivor; groined by your fellow castaways...skewered, and served up with fried bananas by the local cannibals. Space is stupendous...terrifying. Not exactly the best place to raise a child though, I'm sure you'll agree, Ang.'"

Ang decided she did not like Captain Dirk Kilpack. She eyed him cooly, gripping Nicky, who was dozing off on her shoulder, tighter and tighter.

Her anger was unctuous and she began to wonder the odds of the entire crew of the Infinity Albatross being people that everyone seemed to know when she seemed to forget the thought as her brother spoke up and put his arm around her. She was distracted by the sight of Livy and Steve Harris.

The two wandered off, hand in hand, Livy being first led by-then leading, Steve. As they left, she said, "I gotta apologize now for the condition of my quarters-if I'd have known you were coming, I'd have cleaned it up."

"Now, Kilpack," Guido Verdeschi said in dismay. "Don't be a jerk. Of course this is not the best place to raise a child but its not like they planned to blow the moon out of orbit. But we're here to fix that," Guido kissed Ang sweetly on the forehead. "Aren't we, sis?"

"Yeah," Ang murmured. She had lost her train of thought and she had the slightest headache. She looked at Verdeschi and Kilpack...and grabbed Carter by the elbow. "Could you excuse us for a minute please?"

Without waiting for an answer, she dragged Carter about 20 feet down the corridor.

"That guy is an ass," Angelina clearly distressed, whispered to Carter. "I thought you hated him and I can certainly understand why. So how come you're acting like he's your long lost best mate? Don't you think it is strange that everyone from earth seems to know everyone here?" She glanced at Nicky. "And why is our son acting so weird?"

Carter choked up an incohesive groan.

"This time last week, everyone was hating Alpha with a passion; appears now, I'm the lone wolf." He quipped. "Babe, look--this might be too much cakehole for me. I-"

"Alan, Ang,'" Victor Bergman said enthusiastically, pushing, and defoliating his way through the crowd with the bearded gentleman in tow. "I want to introduce you to someone." He said enthusiastically. "This is Doctor Raymond Shaw. Winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology. He wrote a dissertation on cognition, and acceleration that was nothing short of revolutionary. Amazing insights."

"Ahhhh." Shaw mantled. "Victor, you'll turn my head. In truth "The Glasgow Journal Of Neurology" thought it was as weak as salmon in a sand pit. I almost lost out to the candidate from New Zealand. I must admit, the research he did on peanut allergies was truly definitive."

"It's nice to meet you Dr. Shaw," Angelina shook the gentleman's hand amicably. Dr. Shaw exuded a paternal warmth and Ang took and instant liking to him. "Is it true Dr. Russell studied under you?"

"Why, of course," Dr. Shaw pulled out his pipe. "She was one of my best students.

"Dr. Shaw!" Helena Russell suddenly appeared and exclaimed with giddy joy.

"Helena!" Shaw immediately embraced her. "It is wonderful, absolutely wonderful to see you, my dear."

Guido Verdeschi had sauntered up next to Ang and draped his arm around her. Nicky was sound asleep. Angelina was awashed with a sense of warmth and security: everything will be fine, just fine.

*****

Livy-wearing just shorts and half-shirt, curled on the arm of the one chair in her quarters not otherwise occupied by the residue of life-Steve sat in the deep chair, playing with her unbound, wavy auburn hair as he told anecdotes of the events following Breakaway; both had glasses of a bubbling champagne that she had kept hidden for a special occasion but never had cause to open over the past years.

Laughter flowed-she was happy for the first time in quite a long time-impetuously, the woman reached out and kissed him, bringing the old lusts, the old love, the old feeling back. "Now," she whispered, "there's been only you since we left." Deep inside her, she realized that it really has been over three years since she last had sex-was she far too picky for her own good? Was there no one on Alpha that measured up to her expectations?

She leaned forward again, interrupting Steve's commentary on the construction of the Albatross with a full, open-mouth kiss, her hands diving into his shirt. Surprised, he returned the kiss, a kiss that grew in fervor.

And then there was a moment, a moment when two were one. And some moments can last forever.

*****

Midnight at Alpha is, as anywhere else, a quiet time, a lonely time, the bewitching hour. Livy slid out of bed naked, careful to not disturb the sleeping form of Steve Harris-her onetime and once again, lover. Quietly, ever so quietly, she picked up her sleeveless shortie robe and bunny slippers and eased herself, slowly pulling the garment on and belting it about her waist, out and into the corridor. Her curiosity up over the Infinity Albatross, she gave a small, defiant toss of her long, unbound mane of auburn hair and headed at a quick walk towards the nearest travel tube and off to Pad Three, where the interstellar ship quietly rested.

Olivia sauntered-as though she belonged there-through the boarding tube and up to the still-open hatch of the Albatross and-looking furtively around the first intersection of the ship, proceeded on board. "Amazing," she whispered to herself, running her hands across the walls, examining the ship's internal control surfaces, conduits, the few points of exposed wiring, and shook her head. Sure enough, she could see the hand of Stevie Harris in the construction of the vessel; there was a certain unfinished air about it.

Finishing her first circle of the interior of the vessel, she stopped. Something did not feel. . .right.

Making her way back up to the command center of the ship, she took a good, hard look at the central gangway that led all the way aft to the motors and engine room. With a deep breath of the reprocessed air, she closed her eyes and began to walk towards the rear of the vessel, carefully counting her footsteps.

She opened her eyes when she hit one-hundred twenty and her heart sank as she found herself only two-thirds of the way aft. Olivia knew this ship-and she'd walked it before, a hundred times in her dreams, and once for real just minutes prior. This Albatross was larger than it seemed-but she'd counted her footsteps aft-to-fore with her eyes open, and came up with the exact number of 120 steps.

Disheartened, Livy pushed her way aft and into the engine room, and began to cautiously examine the power conduits and wiring; finding an easily accessible baffle plate, she levered it up slowly and examined the interior-and her shoulders slumped as her eyes closed. "Too good," she whispered to herself, heart-broken even as she replaces the plate, tears blurring her vision. "Too good to be true."

She stood up, dusting her fingertips against her bare legs and straightened her robe-then jumped as Steve appeared at the accessway to the engine compartment. "What are you doing here," he demanded.

She turned, a smile on her face. "I couldn't wait," she said, walking slowly up to him, undoing the belt that held the sleeveless robe closed-then let it fall. "And you know what new machinery does to me." Standing on tiptoes and clad only in her long, unbound auburn tresses, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss-he picked her up; she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Livy made all the right noises at all the right times. She made all the right movements with her hips at the right time. She arched her back at the exact right time. She said, "Thank you," and "I love you," at the exact right time.

All the while, she held him close and looked at the bulkheads, the wiring, the conduit system-and reverse engineered the Albatross that was presented to her in her own mind-and came up with one inescapable conclusion.

They lay on the deck of the Albatross, Livy scarcely able to breathe from Steve's weight; he lay lightly dozing atop her, her eyes still moving and examining the entire structure anew; tears run slowly, painfully from her as her heart broke within her tiny form. Slowly, the one became two again as he fell asleep-she brushed-almost distastefully so-her lips across his cheek and whispered a lie: "I have to go-I have a meeting in an hour."

He mumbled something incoherent but rolled off of the petite brunette. Quietly, she got up and pulled on her robe and bunny slippers even as she made her way, not wanting to run, but still almost unable to hold herself back, out of the Albatross. An aptly named albatross, it was something that now hung about her neck, and the neck of Moonbase Alpha.

Livy, hands jammed in the waist pockets of her robe, shuffled her way across the breadth and width of Alpha, her head down, face hidden by her auburn tresses. As her mind worked she began to comprehend the ramifications of what she-and she alone-knew to be true: the Infinity Albatross was not from Earth, and while she didn't know who-or what-had come aboard that vessel, but within the pit of her stomach, she knew that it boded ill.

She passed the Carters; and utterly failed to see them.

She padded past the Sandra; and didn't hear her greeting.

Olivia found herself seated on a pile of crates, far back in the cold, almost forgotten regions of the Moonbase, her head in her hands, her face flushed and red from crying, her body shuddering from sobs.

And still it evaded her: Who could she tell?

*****

Kilometers above the dusty film, and the wandering sea of uncertainty, there was the decaying brown dwarf, HG485697. Descending on the Moon from an aurora, just to the left of the Clementine massif, interlocking strands of mauve illuminated the crater walls in violent curlicues. From a distance, the 600 meter scatter of ejecta that surrounded Launch Pad Three seemed like an uncivil--yet deceptively civil, and unpredictable--militia that was unorganized, but unflaggingly loyal to the ship it was guarding. Atop the turntable, the supralight carrier, Infinity Albatross rested, it's nose cone pointed towards Ed Malcom's unkempt, fucked up, disaster quarters. Light from the neighboring star created a rainbow of varying bronze, and orange about the ovaform HAB Module. Panel lights reflected against the windows of the unoccupied cockpit almost telegraphically.

Within the core area of the complex, and ten stories above the, now, most loved boarding tube on Moonbase Alpha, a magniloquent lights burned atop the Main Mission Tower. Data Analyst Sandra Benes made her rounds about the conference table, handing out red flimsies that were stamped with the legend

PROCEDURE: OPERATION EXODUS, PHASE THREE.

Only three people needed refreshing. The others knew the deal like the back of their hands; the back of their armpits; the back of their buttocks. Here was the most famous protocol on Moonbase Alpha, which was interesting, when one considers how much agony, and sudden death there was conjoined to it, like an evil Siamese twin. Yet Bob Mathias was already planning a bowl of his foul--but not too shabby--Robitussin Jesus. Paul Morrow had already organized all of the pre-flight manifests, and Technical Section was in the process of backing up files from the mainframe, to be returned to Earth for illumination on humankind's place in this mind-expanding, LSD trip of a universe.

"Dr. Shaw." Sandra said, handing the elderly physician a copy.

Shaw thanked her, still green, following a huge gulp of Vitaseed.

"Now, having said all of that," Guido Verdeschi continued in fell. "I strongly recommend expediting the evacuation. To be honest with you, we should have been out of here yesterday. Forget packing your dishes up. No hustle, no Earth. That's pretty much where the situation stands."

He nodded to June Akaiwa who passed and placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

"The problem," Dirk Kilpack explained. "Has to do with the relative position of Earth. The launch window for a return trip is critical. Space doesn't have a precise entry point, and exit point; "X" doesn't mark the spot. That's not how it works. The Albatross is an invership. She doesn't navigate under physical laws, but rather quantum theorems, derived by Dr. Cameron, and Dr. Borges.

"Think of the space-time continuum as being like a tide. You never know precisely when it's going to hit the shore, but you can have a general idea. Earth will be in line for inveritable passage early tomorrow morning. Phase one, if you like.

"Ten days later, another window will open, and that's the Grand Atropos. We'd best be on the way by then, or it will be another year before the Moon will enter alignment again. I realize that doesn't sound like much, however-"

"Alot can happen in one year." Dr. Shaw agreed, completing the pilot's sentence. "And none of it good."

*****

Dr. Helena Russell was not at the operation exodus committee meeting. She gazed tensely at the prone form of Commander John Koenig as the last of the VBEC transmission feedback was displayed on the monitor. The words "Cycle Complete" appeared on the blue and white monitor and the descending hum indicated the unit was powering down.

Koenig's eyes slowly fluttered open and he looked up at Doctor Russell.

"Commander," Helena started, her voice shaking slightly. "Can you tell me your name? Do you know who I am?"

This was it. If he failed the essential test of identity, the Von Bonn Electrocephalic Complex could serve a better purpose as scrap metal for the recycle center.

"???Helena???" The commander swallowed the bowling ball of lint. Then the flourescent lights began to penetrate the amnion of sleep. He recognized the voice, but the rest was a vague ebauch in the shadows of Medical Center. As the ward came into focus, his serene, thanks to dope, hypnogogic mind reminded him of every cowardly, and foreboding thing he had ever thought, or felt. An episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "Eye Of The Beholder." Condemned by the black, and white Pig Snouts, and you too Turk DeLarge.

"Let me get these." Mathias said, removing the depleted electrodes from Koenig's forehead, and depositing them onto the cart.

*****

Once again Ang was blindside with conflicting thoughts. *Quantum theorems? Then how does the Infinity Albatross fly at all?!?! And what about the Time Distortion Continuum?!!* She was wrinkling her brow looking toward Victor, who also gave her a quizzical glance then turned away. Her mind suddenly drew a blank as Guido put his arm around her shoulder.

"Now as you know, the team in the pre-pilot ship will be Alan, Ang and Joe Erhlich," Guido patted her affectionately. "Ang, you were always fortunate with games of chance. Congratulations on being one of the lucky three."

"Yeah, thanks...lucky," Ang rubbed her temple slightly. Maybe Bob could give her something for this headache. She had complained to him earlier but he told her it was the excitement and now the stress of readjusting to living on earth again. Sure, that's what it was.

"I don't think they are THAT lucky," Kilpack motioned dismissively. "Afterall, the press will descend on them like a pack of hyenas. But I'm sure Commissioner Dixon and his 'lovely' assistant Beulah Hawkins will have everything arranged to keep the dogs at bay." He took a sip of coffee and scowled.

"Commissioner Dixon?" Ang repeated with wet blanket enthusiasm. "Oh, that's nice."

Kilpack gauped at Ang' admiringly. Then the dignity was washed away by the hassled lines in his forehead, and it was back to the Jerk Off Mardis Gras. Beside him, Dr. Shaw shifted uneasily, cocking his left knee over his right leg, and quietly deliberated, tapping his ink pen against the table. Binary computer language was encrypted into his beard from the nearby monitor. For that instant, he appeared to be a sappy computer melvin's dream of artificial intelligence. At one with the ohm, and the kilowatt.

"Young lady, with all due respect--the balance of Earth's politics, or the lack thereof--is not your immediate problem." Shaw advised, gently. "Getting hell, and gone from here. That's your problem. Many things have changed on Earth. Some of the changes were good. Some will make you crave Pepto Bismol, and Bufferin, and a Highball, potently blended."

Ang nodded demurely, as if she had just received paternal grains of wisdom.

"Yeah," Carter smirked. "Right. You just show us where the door is. We'll fly now, and pay later. I can't speak for everyone, but if Earth was in total carnage; if it was nothing, but flames, and pitchforks; if I had to spend the rest of my days, standing on my head in fudge, it would still be way better than riding this old Moon to the end of the universe."

Ang stifled a grin as she intercepted Carter's hand, discreetly under the table, moving up the inside of her thigh. She had never seen him this way before; he was so, so very happy, the stress of living on the wandering moon miraculously vanished. Just 90 minutes earlier they had engaged in some sweaty, hard core, physically satisfying sex while Guido watched Nicky in the next room, who seemed to have awaken from his nap with a fresh, more friendly attitude toward his uncle. Alan had assured her by this time next year, Carter Jr. #2 would already be on the way, if not already on the scene. Everything was perfect; the future was bright and sunny. She was considering names for her second, as yet conceived, child when Guido broke her train of thought.

"Dr. Shaw is right, Ang," Guido remarked enthusiastically, "Don't you worry about the political pundits. All of you have huge bonuses and compensation packages that will put you in the lap of luxury for the rest of your lives. Believe it or not, but Dixon saw to that! Everything is going to be fine, just fine and all you have to do is get on the pilot ship and go home."

*****

Helena Russell could not contain her joy.

"JOHN!!" she exclaimed and hugged him tightly. 'To hell with professionalism,' she thought. "John," Helena continued with the restraint of a child in a candy store, "there is something I have to tell you."

She took a deep breath and began to blather non-stop. "A ship has come to us from earth. Don't ask me how because I am not a physicist. But it is commanded by Guido Verdeschi, Angelina Carter's brother. Stu Morrow, Paul's brother, is among the crew too. Dirk Kilpack, an old friend of Alan Carter, is the co-pilot. Steve Allen, Livy DeHavilliand's fiancee, is the flight engineer. Jessica Simpson, Carter Jackson's girlfriend, is a radiation specialist. Dr. Shaw, you remember how I told you about Dr. Shaw? He is here too. John...we are going home to Earth!"

"And, uh, Diana Morris is part of the crew too." Helena smirked. "But sorry, John, she seems to have taken a liking to Truman Starns. You snooze, you lose." Russell giggled uncharacteristically.

"Bob," Koenig started, attempting to sit up, and accidentally banging his head against the badly arranged Bio-Scan Modules. "O'kay, then. What's one more squashed brain cell. Whoever designed these goddamn panels hated humanity. Some of us like pillows. Pillows are more comfortable than metal plates with rivets." He felt like Rip Van Winkle, but instead of dozing on a log, he felt like he had snoozed away the years, mouth open, and on a flatiron in Death Valley. "Heyyyyyyyy, that water dispenser looks nice, and cold today. I bet it is."

Mathias returned with one of the white, plastic moonbase cups filled with water.

Koenig chugged, his adam's apple moving up, and down like a monkey on a stick.

"Careful, commander." Mathias cautioned. "Drink it slow."

Then the mercy of half-sleep was replaced by the crashing, unanticipated return to reality.

"!!!The Eagle!!!" He exclaimed, sitting bolt upright with avidity. "Disposal Area Three. What happened?"

Helena looked momentarily somber. "You crashed in Area 3. The Eagle is totaled but none of the domes were damaged. You..." She paused momentarily. How could she tell him that the cause of the crash did not appear to be mechanical error?

"Something affected you out there, John. We don't know what may have...influenced you."

"Influenced me?" Koenig questioned, his right eyebrow arching. "Helena, the flight recorders.... If there was no mechanical error, then it must have been pilot error." He pushed a groggy, dishelved bang back over his eyes. His face drained of color, becoming corpulent. "It was a routine flight." He added, pointing a finger at the multicolored vaccines on the nexalite medicine cart. "That makes absolutely no sense at all. The preliminary findings from the sensor sweep were unrevealing, and I've made that pass a 1,000 times, I-"

Jerry Parker blinked, but otherwise he was a pillar, frozen in time. A statue of Henry V, Marx--Theodore Roosevelt, trapped in the city square with punks flying their kites all around him, but that was just bully.

Mathias stood closely by, arms folded forebearantly over his tunic. Outwardly, he was expressionless, but inwardly, he desired other duties. Any duties, no matter how uphill, or burdensome they might be. Giving Claude Murneau hydrotherapy for the carpal tunnel that had beset his big toe, for example. That would have been preferable to watching the angst-filled, fee-faw-fum, deconstruction of a proud man.

Koenig's shoulders slumped, like a felon who is slow to realize that court is now in session.

"But John, did you just hear what I said?" She gently gripped his shoulders after setting down the empty water cup. "We are going home." The width of her smile nearly consumed her glowing flace.

The commander used his amature thumb to massage away the imaginary chisel that was protruding from his ineffectual brow. Apparently, he was much more steely-eyed, and proficient at cultivating head pain than he was in the cockpit of an Eagle.

"I don't know which is more depressing." He admitted to Parker, unnerved. "The fact that I steer like a ninety year old man, or that Victor Bergman has become such a con artist, his tasteless jokes are now considered good for any occasion.

"People from Earth, huh? Let me guess. They all flew in on a magic carpet. Of course, it took them a few minutes to make the trip from Earth to here." He laughed impossibly, snapping his fingers. Then, a more likely picayune occurred to him. "No, that's much too pedestrian. Imagine the torment if you had to use the bathroom.

"No, our benefactors either showed up in a flying saucer filled with little gray aliens, or aboard some psuedoscientific nonsense like the Infinity Albatross."

*****

"No sweat, no strain." Paul Morrow said ebulliently, while Victor Bergman recreated, index fingers poised, and smiling in agreement. "Talk about a dream come true."

Somewhere behind Kilpack, THE MOST ACCUSATORY MAN ON MOONBASE ALPHA (aka Truman Starns), stood by the number four vision port, stirring his coffee with a plastic spoon. His reserve, somehow mimicked by the bespangled lights surrounding the Infinity Albatross. A tableau that Chief Pierce Quenton despised, and hated, and hated, and hated, and hated, and eschewed--he wanted to grab the detective by his beatnick sideburns, and put the hurt on him. He wanted to bellow in his face: "!!!WE'RE GOING HOME. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THAT, YOU DAFT, OVERLY SUSPICIOUS BASTARD!!!"

It raised his blood pressure. So help him, at times like this, when yonder sleuth got on this trip (which was often) of being the heroic skeptic, he wanted to shake him until his objector's teeth tumbled down his goddamn pants leg.

"Lt. Starns," He said instead, waving a sardonic hand over the empty seat beside him. "Help us do the business. I'm sure the committee is eagerly awaiting any dobs of wisdom you might offer."

"No," The detective responded, unperturbed. "I'm fine right here."

Dirk Kilpack nodded.

Ang smirked at Quinton; he looked like he was about to blow his stack. Ang looked at Starns curiously, giving him the 'what's up?' expression then...turned away as her attention was once again captured by her brother. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joe Erhlich, sitting on the white low rider couch, relaxed and completely at ease. His expression could best be described as...hypnotic.

"It's alot to grapple with." Dr. Shaw understood completely. "I keep looking around me. For the past four years, Earth has had no Moon. There isn't a single night that passes that I haven't looked into the sky, and winced at the emptiness; I cringe; the vacuum which nature deplores.

"Like the Marabar Caves in India, it's like something...obscene...unmentionable." He decided. "And yet, here I sit. What was once a flight of fancy has been willed into a reality.

"At the risk of sounding like I'm prying, may I ask, where is Dr. Koenig. John Koenig. He was commander of the base when the nuclear waste dumps exploded. Has that situation changed."

Shaw watched. He waited.

*****

"How'd you guess?" Helena Russell beamed at Koenig's reference to the Infinity Albatross.

Neither Bob Mathias nor Jerry Parker burst into laughter. There was no group 'ha-ha, just kidding' jocularity. They were happily serious.

"In fact," she continued, "Operation Exodus committee is in phase 3 planning, meeting in your office right now. I think if you're up to it, you should join them."

"Oooooooooooooooo'kay, Helena." He mused, attempting to stand in his blue karate pajamas, but making a hash of it. "Incidentally, when you, and Professor Dyce Clay get together later to compare notes, you might want to ask him about this little problem that Einstein foresaw, relative to the Einstein-Rosen-Padolsky Bridge."

He nodded, satisfied that he had totally flummoxed her with his preparation, and lack of gullability. Faster than light propulsion. A very difficult weed to smoke in one's intellectual pipe. According to Newton in his "Principia" (Book One, Section XIV), the phenomena of Jupiter's satellites proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it took eight minutes for light to travel from Sol to Earth. The measurement was considered law. Thanks to Roemer (or maybe Huygen, who maybe used Roemer's data, or who maybe stole Roemer's data, or maybe Roemer stole his data), the three-quarters correct solution was determined to be 186,300 miles per second. Either Roemer, or Huygen was initially in error, it should be noted, believing the correct unit to be 125,000 miles per second. Kudos to the sheep, since either Roemer, or Huygen (Roemer professed that it was he) corrected this infelicity by taking the time that light needed to cross the Earth's orbit as sixteen minutes, as opposed to ungainly twenty-two minutes.

For all of that, Inveritable Theory was nothing, but a wet dream in the field of Celestial Mechanics. An olive dollop for a bored physicist's cocktail. If relativity was to be regarded as illuminata, then it must be accepted that the math was correct; no flubs'; there is no way to propel infinite mass, except in stories by Jack Vance, and the fictional chin-ups proposed by Larry Niven. Koenig thought it was bunk. That particular horse will never ride on a flea's back, he had often told his ambitious, but oh-so-naieve grad' school students. He didn't believe in comparative "Slow Zones." The universe itself was a slow zone. The only "Fast Zones" that he knew of, occured in nature, and they lay beyond the event horizon of a Black Sun, where matter is crushed, quarked, and removed to stasis.

"Helena...you can make with the punch line, if you like." He said with a dilatory scratch of the nose. "If you keep this up, I'm going to start believing you're serious."

Inside, his well massaged synapses were making graffiti connections. Like a gumball machine atop a police car; one minute nothing was there, then suddenly the world was in blue flames.

*****

Ang looked at Carter who looked at Paul, who then sought an answer from Victor. Victor turned to Dr. Shaw and cleared his throat.

"I am prying." The physician decided self-effacingly.

Bergman told him.

"I see." Shaw said, pondering his liver-spotted hands. Behind him, Truman Starns stepped away from the vision port, and seated himself on one of the sunken bookshelves. The air about them seemed shocked, and bloated with happy endings; with Gorski marginalia. "I'm not opposed to V-BEC Restimulation...on a theoretical level--if you're a laboratory rat--it's grand.

"On the other hand, I am a neurologist." He said quietly. "I offer my services to you. If you feel that something more is required, please feel free to ask."

*****

IN the deepest bowels of Alpha, Olivia slowly slid herself off of the storage case she'd sat on for hours. Hands shoved deeply into her pockets, she began to trudge back to the truly habitable areas of the base, mentally sweeping up the shards of her broken heart. *Stevie...* she thought to herself. He'd not been a fiancee, but then again, if he'd asked, she'd not have said no.

Technical details, her mind kept throwing in her face; her brain changed gears from the emotional that it was unable to handle to the technical, which was orderly, neat, and predictable.

But who to talk to? she wondered, scuffing along slowly, watching the toes of her bunny slippers put themselves forward, first one, then the other.

*****

Sandra Benes redirected the Operation Exodus committee plus guests to the pertinent business and within 30 minutes they adjourned the meeting.

They moved from the commander's office into Main Mission, which had become the gathering point of the reunion, moved from the embarkation area. Punch with suspected alcoholic beverage "enhancements" flowed freely from the orange plastic Moonbase Alpha issued pitcher into the orange Moonbase Alpha plastic cups.

Laughter and enthusiastic chatter drowned the sound of the mainframe computers along with the music playing from a boombox on Andy Dempsey's station. Alphans and guests mingled together, coming and going from Main Mission. Patrolman Nick Long's attentions were captivated by a vivacious blonde from the Infinity Albatross

"Celebrate good times...COME ON.....There's a party goin' on right here...."

Ed Malcom was trying to make inroads, unsuccessfully, with Diana Morris. Stu Morrow eyed Sandra Benes lasciviously as Paul glared at him, shaking his head.

"Love, I feel sorry for you." The lawyer told the data analyst over his punch. "You can tell you've been marooned, you know. Terrible, seeing a beautiful, young woman in her prime reduced to acts of loneliness, and desperation like this."

Carter had his arms around Ang,' and Dorothy Sullivan, who got caught. In his half-sober, he managed to intone a very loud, off-key, nails against the blackboard rendition of that old, Aussie' chart topper, "The Shearing Of The Rams."

"!!!Oh, the colonial experience fella' he is there of course!!!" He sang, accidentally pouring punch down his wife's tunic. Sullivan delivered an enmeshed, sisterly smile to Ang,' her tolerance was heroic. "!!!With his shiney leggins' on, just got off the horse, gazes all around him like a real connoisseur, scented soap, and brilliantine...!!!"

"Can I buy you a drink?" Truman Starns asked Diana Morris, lowering a glass into her assenting palm. He winked, and led her up the steps to the unoccupied balcony.

Beneath the left archway stood Captain Dirk Kilpack: An island unto himself. He watched the carousal with tragicomical eyes. Kate Bullen attempted to make light conversation, but the veteran declined, politely, and exited into the corridor. Guido Verdeschi watched him go, his countenance wrathful, his cup, more venom than Robitussin.

*****

Dr. Helena Russell completed the last of the diagnostic tests on Commander John Koenig.

"Well, John," she smiled, "It looks like you are the first success story of the Von Bonn Electroencephlographic Complex. It really is quite a distinction to become part of medical history."

She handed him his belt and comlock over the dressing screen. "Hurry up, slow poke," she chortled, "everyone's waiting for you to show up at the party."

"This isn't possible." Koenig said warily, zipping his tunic. His cheeks, and his brow line were contorted into a Draconian grimace.

*****

Nicky Carter rested his head on Uncle Guido's shoulder. He looked dazed; he looked stoned. Glassy eyed, he was not responding to the festivities in the Main Mission auditorium. He appeared to be just a tired toddler.

Dorothy Sullivan had successfully slipped away from Carter and his complete and utterly lustful attention was focused on Ang. Ang was feeling a bit light headed as well. 'I know better than to drink mystery punch under any circumstances,' she tried to think logically to herself as her labido was igniting. She also thought it was extremely unusual that Guido had taken to Alan so well; he was not behaving like the overprotective big brother she had known on earth.

"Oh for God's sakes, " Guido smirked and winked at them, "why don't you two get a room?"

The hot couple, along with a few other twosomes who thought privacy was a good idea, were about to dash out of Main Mission when Tanya Alexander, sitting on Sloven's lap with drink in hand at her station, announced "Attention everyone! The commander is in the Main Mission complex elevator!"

Spontaneous, drunken cheers went up in the room.

Bob Mathias, carrying another batch of his Robitusson Jesus, entered first under the left archway. Commander Koenig and Doctor Russell, hand in hand, entered 10 paces after him. Koenig froze.

Ang took Nicky and grabbed Guido's hand moving toward him.

"Commander, it is good to see you are recovered," she smiled then looked proudly up at Guido. "I'd like to introduce my brother, Guido Verdeschi."

The commander dropped Helena Russell's hand.

"What is the meaning of this?" His face concaved, and exploded angrily inward. His blue eyes were glaring ovates of betrayed fire. All over the floor of Main Mission, their bowels had eliminated; piles of manure, and scoria. Rectangular lumina panels glowed red from the reduced power. The monitors were awry with jammed data; linguacode; cobol; html; unix; all let go like a rabid skunk in his ketchup stained, funeral home tee-shirt would do. A madman who has, perhaps, given up on caring; who would, perhaps, just as soon drink embalming fluid as Barq's Root Beer. "You're goddamn crazy." Koenig informed Ang,' retreating towards the office, stumbling on the first step towards escape. It was a literal judgement. The Technical Chief's eyes were dilated, and as red, and glassy as one of Gorski's cheap, quartz trinket rocks. When she spoke, phlegm depended from her borderline lips.

Before hurtling down the bottomless, brick shaft into the smoke-filled abyss, John Koenig was reminded of a quote, spoken for posterity by Tex Watson of Manson Family fame: "I am the devil! I am here to do the devil's business."

Moonbase systems were a total fooforaw--all except for the digital image on the big screen. The alien spacecraft, docked to Launch Pad Three was at least twelve stories high. It was pyramid shaped, and composite with hieroglyphs, which glowed like transflex.

"!!!WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!"

Truman Starns stepped cautiously down the balcony steps. He denied nothing. He affirmed nothing. His tunic was covered with guano from the thing he had been embracing. The stalk that was coring its way into his forehead, given slack from a hideous, purple, and ebony colon beneath the sundry mutilations on the creature's backside.

Brother Guido moved in to assist, letting its grotesque fille de chamber take care of Ang.' It moved with frightening economic speed. An arachnid. A Tarantula, or perhaps it was the only image that Koenig could make fit, his only conception of that which was inconceivable. Sharp mandibles scuttled towards the commander, blood thirsty, and directed by nodules, filled with glassy, proteiform eyes. It's pronotum, and torso was covered with a thick, black bristles--hairs as sharp as razor blades.

"???Commander???" Alan Carter said blankly. His eyes were remote, narcotized. An eflux of dried, bronze hemoglobin covered his face in a mask, emanating from his ruptured brow line. He was made to speak. Carter, in verity, was too near death to have anything to say. The thing that had attached itself to him made a horrific mewwwww'ing sound. Here is the ventriloqist. Here is Alan Carter, sitting on his lap. Watch the ventriloquist drink his water, while Carter speaks. Beside him, Victor Bergman stood with his eyes closed, licking his lips compulsively. Occasionally a black talon would exit his lips, and study his nostrils.

Guido paused, looked askance at him momentarily before side stepping to its true target. Helena Russell.

"!!!STAY AWAY FROM HER!!!"

"What's the matter with him?!?!" Ang whispered to Dr. Shaw, visibly distressed.

Dr. Shaw shook his head somberly. "I was never a proponent of the VBEC and this is the reason why. Mental insanity. Complete breakdown of the synapses which control reason and emotion."

"Is it pe