INSIGHT

Episode #33

THE HOOK

Those who live long enough will eventually see themselves.... ...those who die, won't.

Every star has a nucleus, and every god has a firebolt.

VINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINT

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VINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINT

VINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINTVINT

VINT... ...PING...

"Sounds like a heartbeat to me." The Britisher said from the co-pilot's seat, feeling the currents of unconvexed air stir around him. They were still ten minutes away from the 55:13 warning light, and the service propulsion system was a lit Mauna Loa.

"You're daft." His Merseyside colleague irreverently, counting down the seconds before the burn would have to be trimmed.

"Tee minus five minutes, and counting." Umberto Garzon said over the loop, his Czech attenuated speech sounding casehardened from a plentitude of being fucked with.

"Mike Church, I'll sing you a song." The limey co-pilot said with dreadful Samaratanism. "'Ba-ba black sheep. Have you any wool?'" He recited then switched to an alternate, falsetto voice of a young boy. "'Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full....'"

Originally the tune was a complaint against the confinements caused by sheep herding in the days of King Edward VI. Today (at this minute), it was vexatious, and even annoying. To pilot Mike Church, it was the equivalent of a person chewing their food with their mouth open. He looked away from his upward tilting, gimbal angles to offer his co-pilot, Terrence Layton, an unapproving scowl.

"Any other time, I can't keep you from slipping out the viewport." He complained. "Now you wouldn't have a look-see if your blarney arse depended on it."

Layton, a saltier dog the Morton Company could not find, chuckled ebulliently, closing the cover on the flight plan attached to the left glove of his suit. He sobered, punching the OVERRIDE square that was situated on the sloping Neptune Panel. According to computer, they had fired the Concentric Rendezvous Sequence, but they had not. If they had, they would be lost, forever lost; they would be heading into the lousy weeds of BFE space, rather than enjoying a true approach course. The CRS was fine. Computer was a pillow biting fellow (Layton said "Duh!!!"). Following the shut down of the service module's Howitzer engines, they would proceed to coast. They never were on automatic, and had performed the last three maneuvers, successfully, on manual.

In the distance, the white constellate with red highlights grew more distinguished. Framed together with a bundle of green, fiber-optic clouds that crosshatched against it in the northeast quadrant.

"Alright you loud mouthed blokes, listen up." Captain Alan Carter said from fifteen nautical miles in front of them. "Get ready to make a fair go of it. Burnout, and deboost will occur in two minutes. You got that, Layton? It means it's time to go to work. You know--by the sweat of the brow you'll earn your bloomin' bread. You don't have to navigate optically, but I expect you to pull those cameras out, and get some good colors of this thing."

"Eagle One, Eagle Four." Pilot Farendahl said from across the waves. "Abort guidance system is armed.

"Flight One, Eagle Two." Church agreed, reaching just below his humming panel to flip pair of toggles into the ON position. "Understand, we are GO for initiate, and AGS."

The three spacecraft accelerated into the curtained, shadowy annul. Eventually, space needed a night light as the only portions of the ships that were visible were the angular, eagle eyes of the command modules, and the movements of the maudlin, singing pilot(s) therein. The satellite ahead, grew larger, coming to resemble nothing, so grandiose as a planet that looked like a perfect ping pong ball. It had been a ping-pong sort of day. Their rigid, made worse by Layton's observation which hailed the other two ships over the Interstellar-S communications complex.

"Terminal phase completed." The astronaut who would be sheepherder noted for the record. "Well, that's the bee's knees." He said for the mutual edification of all, including the personnel manning the trenches on Moonbase Alpha. "For a minute there, I thought I saw that thing move."

On Moonbase Alpha in the Plato Crater of the disinherited moon from Earth, Main Mission buzzed with activity. Commander John Koenig stood at the top of the stairs behind the controller's station. Behind him, standing at the side of the commander's desk, Victor Bergman poured through the mountain of calculations on the strange object. Dr. Helena Russell stood under the big screen with her clipboard, monitoring the life functions of the pilots in the three Eagles in space. Three split screen monitors bore the names Church/Layton, Farendahl/Baumer and Carter/Thompson.

"Downloading Eagle onboard computer data to technical servers now," Ben Ouma announced from this swivel computer desk.

"Visual in five minutes," Sandra Benes glanced at Paul, then Ang. Paul glanced back, his eyes as expressionless as his face-and for that moment, Sandra was relaxed and reassured-all was normal-as normal as could be in the uncharted void that the rogue moon traversed. All was well. For now.

Angelina Carter shook her head and frowned. "Composition, indeterminate. Power source, indeterminate. Life signs, indeterminate." She glanced at Koenig then at Paul. "Offensive and defensive capabilities, are indeterminate."

"That doesn't tell us much," the Technical Chief summarized the obvious.

Pierre Danielle frowned at the capcomm station. "Ang, can you check this out?" He requested as he sent the data from the main power levels of Eagle 2.

Ang studied the data and graphed it, imposing upper and lower control limits on the chart.

"Geez.." she mumbled. Then looked toward Danielle and Morrow. "Eagle 2's energy utilization is erratic. Too much out of control. Have them switch to auxiliary power and power down the main unit."

"Alpha to Eagle 2," Danielle dictated, "switch to auxiliary power. We are showing a problem with your mains."

"Eagle 2 to Alpha," Layton responded. "I just did a system check. Everything is a-okay. What's the problem?"

"The current flow from the main power unit is fluctuating out of control, Lt. Layton," Angelina tried to keep neutral. Angelina Carter's patience was always tested with the stubborn and arrogant pilot Layton. "You are advised to switch to auxiliary power."

"Did you verify it with a flight engineer? Osgood or Fujita, maybe?" Layton responded coolly. "I don't see a problem here."

The cackle that poured from the march of Dolby speakers sounded morose indeed; like multi-frequency madness.

"Flight leader to Eagle Two." Carter barged in. "Do as your told, or I'll be doing some brain surgery on you the minute we egress. You got that, skippy?"

"Terry, this is John Koenig." The commander added, stepping angrily, and without valentines towards the controller's desk. "WE'RE NOT RUNNING A SIMULATION. SWITCH OVER, OR CARTER, AND I ARE GOING TO TAG-TEAM ON THAT ONE. YOUR BUTT WON'T STAND A CHANCE."

Paul stepped into the conversation with a flat and quiet, "Lieutenant Layton, report to my office for debrief upon return to Alpha." Carter wouldn't care to have his own toes stepped on like this, but the Deputy Commander of Alpha was paid to be the bad guy. Or was paid, back when there was a monthly check to collect, and places on Earth to spend that money.

Bergman looked up from his data, bemused, but sympathetic.

"Bunch of blimey, old women." Layton, sexist pig that he was, answered serenely after a while.

Layton, Paul knew, was already running through both sides of the asschewing he would receive upon return.

Andy Dempsey grew taught as the Fuel Cell glyphs on Eagle Two's tab changed colors. Main-A went into red, TEST MODE while Main-B turned green, and juggled the concrete apples, supplying power to Church's ship. Umberto Garzon moved behind Dempsey's chair, and leaned forward. Reflections of electric blue mathematical waltzed across his concerned brow. He had a beard now, which Sloven never had, but it was a beard filled with anguish. His arms crossed, his elbows pointing unremittingly towards his left hip, and his commlock.

"No." Dempsey's alternate STC said with rising grief. "That's not right." He looked at Koenig, and Ang.' Now it's showing a problem with the stabilization, and control systems."

Layton belched laughter.

Ben Ouma turned in his chair, weirded out, and politely grimacing.

"Does it really?" His voice echoed across the auditorium. "Well, my good bloke, I'm here to tell you--our translation, and thrust vector is stable.

"Incidentally--and I say this only in passing--WE HAVEN'T EVEN LIT THE BLOODY ENGINES YET."

"I don't care for this a bit." Pierre Danielle said, throwing his headset down, and stood to address Koenig, and Morrow.

"Nor do I." Garzon said quietly. "I advise ABORT." He told Paul Morrow sincerely. "Carter, and Farendahl are GO, but I don't care much for what we're seeing from Eagle Two."

"Concur," Paul nodded. "Let's get that bird back-have them debrief Technical on flight performance while deHavilland and her team go over that Eagle."

Angelina watched the power levels climb into the upper levels of red.

"EAGLE 2. SHUT DOWN YOUR MAIN POWER UNITS," Ang reiterated with edgy emphasis. The nuclear fuel cells were getting into the act as another warning light lit up the capcomm station. Ang glanced at the data. "CRITICAL MASS?!?!? That's impossible." She blurted in disbelief.

"Commander," the Technical chief got up and sprinted to where Koenig was standing behind Morrow. "If these energy readings continue," she said loud enough for the Eagles to hear," that ship is going to blow up!"

"Eagle Two," Paul ordered, "Abort." HE beat the Commander to the punch by bare instants. Nodding at Flight, he continued, "Get Rescue-One in the sky now-they may have to pick up a command module if things get worse out there."

"...spacecraft 5-9-8, ninety degree plane change...." One of the perimeter station scouts said wearily.

"!!!CHURCH, YOU'VE GOT A FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!" Alan Carter cried out over the loop. "!!!SWITCH TO PYRO-ARM!!! BLAST YOURSELF OUT OF THERE!!!"

"Circularization completed." Pilot Farendahl reported, not realizing that for what it was. An old mission objective. This was a new mission. It was the one that no astronaut in hell would ever want. The alarm bells that began to shriek through Main Mission stole his thunder though, as every monitor in the complex uploaded the urgent warning:

EAGLE TWO

CODE 55:13

CONDITION/MALFUNCTION

CM NO GO

SM NO GO

John Koenig was grasping the edge of the controller's desk hard enough to break something. Victor Bergman merely stood back in awe, biting his upper lip as the vehicle on the big screen began its pitching, upward spiraling dead man's ascent--horrific, amber units of radioactive plutonium, and streamers vented from the hypercritical service module, sending out a gaseous, backwash of bad death in all directions.

The pale, ashen face in the co-pilot's seat had drooled black, and green bile onto the inner, liquid cooling garment of his space suit. The sheep ba'd, and baaaaaaaaaa'd as his knuckled, gloved hand struck the floor of the command module. The useless flight plan fell open like a disappointing, Betty Crocker cookbook. Arms of acrid, green exhaust filled Eagle Two's command module from the cracks, and creases, and the wide open vents between the 02 purge system, and the lithium hydroxide triangles. He gurgled on this venom, as the white tunnel of life irises closed around him.

"Alpha...." Church swallowed, strangling on fumes, and his centrifugal terror now complete with the sensation of riding on his back, which he was. "Eagle Two...."

He fumbled, one hand still holding the useless yoke as a matter of form. The other fumbled across the panel, attempting to Braille read the controls based on geometric shape. The ABORT implementation dial, he would never be able to reach. But he could eject. Yes. He could detonate the pyrotechnic bolts that held his couch to the floor. The roof of the command module would slide away, and he would be clear of the coming holocaust.

"...Commander...." He continued piteously, sliding his finger along the panel. The pogroms of dumb science danced all around him, and the World Without End was about to come to an end. He eventually ended up no where near the pilot EJECT actuation controls. Frustrated, he contorted against the fifteen G's that held him like engineering cement, his left knee brushing against the medical kit, and the box of consumables that contained the peach squares he was about to have for a snack. "...I can't see...."

The sounds of wretching, and gagging issued from the stereo speakers.

Helena Russell looked back and forth between the big screen and the life functions monitors. Layton's side was nearly flatline while Church was trying to fight the Grim Reaper to the last.

Kate Bullen braced herself at a workstation that could no more save lives than it could make ice cream. Ben Ouma's pallor was execution white. John Koenig became a sculpture of poisoned, hapless ice.

"I seem to be blind." Church said with remarkable calm, still mishandling the controls. His hand ended up on one of the helium release valves-the most useless tool in the cockpit.

"I-"

The four bottles of compressed hydrogen--the life force of Eagle Two's propulsion system exploded in huge, metallic chunks. The tanks filled with hydrazine, dimethyl hydrazine, and nitrogen tetroxide soon followed, vaporizing the service module. There was a retina burning flash of light, and extinguished atmosphere, and out of the gutted, 7,000 degree Fahrenheit wreckage, a five rung, garbage section of the annihilated ship's connector unit could be seen as it fled the inferno, and vanished into the night. It was trailed by a snow of titanium confetti, and vycor shrapnel.

Then there was the command module--now a morgue. It was never jettisoned. At least not according to Hoyle. It was a powerless, cold spiracle that tumbled bow, over keel towards the Magellanic Clouds. The bodies in its crew compartment, eternal history.

"ASTRONAUT TERRENCE LAYTON, LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED. ASTRONAUT MICHAEL CHURCH, LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED." The computer broke the silence in Main Mission.

Kate Bullen wailed in anguish in reaction to her boyfriend Mike Church becoming her deceased boyfriend. June Akiawa moved to comfort.

"All contact with Eagle 2....lost," Sandra Benes mournfully stated the official bad news as she lowered her head.

Angelina though completely expressionless felt ill. There were too many questions. Two astronauts were dead and one ship was lost. There would be an extensive review of the data. All arrows seem to be pointing to a technical error. In this case, it would be a guilty until proven innocent routine.

"Eagle 1, Eagle 5," Commander Koenig reached over Paul's shoulder and punched the white communication stud, "report your status." Helena Russell had already been evaluating their life functions. They were alive but obviously under stress.

Koenig looked mournfully at the two, glaring white lines that now oscillated on two of the six medical scanners that Helena Russell was monitoring. He waited for the reacquisition of signal with enormous declaim.

"...board gyros hit.... ...repeat...." Carter broke in across the hail of white noise when the signal was finally regained. "Alpha, I'm not sure you can.... We've sustained collateral damage.... (static, incommunicative, frustrating ether)

"...o'kay, but outboard number two, and outboard number four have been disabled. (gravel, sifted fine around a freshly dug grave, recent petals cut, and wilting)

"...Church, and Layton..." The pilot managed to say before the transmission was lost again.

Ang strained to listen with attentiveness to such a degree that she momentarily stopped breathing. She glanced at Koenig who gave her a slightly reassuring though tentative nod.

"Alpha, Eagle Five." Pilot Farendahl interceded clearly, if numbly, over the open channel. It was the voice of a man who has just been run over by a train, who has stood in the buff, and faced the blades of an approaching combine. "Our situation is...nominal. Helm control sufficient to allow for a combined corrective maneuver that will enable us to dock with Eagle One."

"Sixty seconds to visual of the object," Sandra announced calmly. The seconds ticked slowly by on the lunar clock. Main Mission was still shocked, though everyone was silently and robotically going about his or her business. Angelina resumed normal breathing again as her attention became riveted to the big screen.

Everyone looked up at the big screen as Sandra brought up the image. Once again, everyone was speechless.

When the Satcom orbiters self-adjusted, the horizontal lines on the big screen cleared. There was a final static hiss, and the electronic curtain of surveillance was pulled back. The audience in Main Mission looked very small, and slightly crimson, down there in the trench, as the glaring pixels gave back to them an image from 300,000 nautical miles out. Victor Bergman, awash in the bars of pale light that glowed without contrast, flinched slightly, moving his forefinger as if to point something out, then the pyramid slid sideways in his throat.

He knew nothing.

Space was normal, to the north, and the northwest; to the south, and southwest. They appeared to be on a hybrid trajectory between two pulsars, red, and white--fellow travelers that the Moon would pass fifty centuries from now. There were rivers of nuclear exhaust from a collapsed star in the Crab Nebula. Beads of stardust, and neutrinos expended themselves gracefully on the dark side of the sphere. Charged amino acids provided temporary floodlights. Gamma rays corrupted the light with an eerie, quasi-erotic hue--enhanced the yawning canyons, and veins that established themselves on the quantum, white oceans--terminating near a deep blue cornea. The constellate was at least ten times the size of the long, lost Earth. It was ten, and one quarter (3,476 kilometers) larger than the pansy Moon. This was apparent, even in a blanketing fog of about 10^53 ergs. The gases rolled by a glossy, black pupil, reflective of the light of a billion stars. The constellate was red-rimmed, a tired observer, but cool, and instinctive. Flesh colored shields, large enough, and wide enough to crush the rings of Saturn closed on this giant, interstellar camera, and then opened again for perspective.

CHAPTER ONE

Over the plated rooftops of Moonbase Alpha, it grew larger. The silver-lined, flat-irons of Frigois gradually disappeared in the umbra of the coming eclipse--too infinitesimal, too willing to submit, and be subjugated to the heavenly body that now approached them. A conglomeration of cosmic material that looked, and acted like a human eye.

The eye in the sky loomed in the starboard viewport as Angelina Carter left Main Mission through the right archway and headed for the lift. She had paused momentarily to stare at it. It winked at her. She shuddered.

Livy DeHavilliand, Michelle Cranston and a horde of Technical staff were already on the "case" pouring through the maintenance, service and manufacturing records of Eagle 2. No doubt they were biased, utterly convinced it was not a technical error that caused the demise and loss of the crew and ship but the known arrogance of one pilot, the late Terrence Layton.

The Reconnaissance team was also on the "case", reviewing their own flight readiness records and status with their team of flight engineers. No one wanted to admit that the trenches were being dug and the battle lines were being drawn between technical and reconnaissance, but so be it. Angelina stepped off the elevator and briskly made the short jaunt down the corridor to Medical Center. The four pilots of the two surviving ships were being routinely examined and evaluated, though no one expected them to be injured.

"How are they, Bob?" Angelina intercepted Dr. Mathias. Rob Thompson griped in the background over Dr. Sullivan's desire to x-ray his aching neck to evaluate the extent of his whiplash.

"Peachy keen." Mathias smiled, and slapped Thompson on the back, hoping to aggravate his whiplash. He succeeded as Mr. West Point, Class of 92' went !!!HEYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!," and sucked in his pain.

"Goddamn Mathias, you trying to kill me." The pilot carped, rubbing the back of his neck.

The physician shrugged.

The can of AM Gold ran from the overhead speakers like syrup on a plate of pancakes. Sooth your nerves it did not. They started out the morning with Barry Manilow ("!!!Her name was Lolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'!!!"), and before the disaster that claimed the lives of two Eagle pilots, they were living high indeed (!!!Hey-ho!!! Five in a row by the Stylistics!!! "Betcha' by golly wowwwwwwwwwww!!!"). The latest, ironic torture was brought to them, courtesy of the Alan Parson's Project:

"Don't say words your gonna' regret.

"Don't let the fire rush to your head.

("Right." Alan Carter criticized across the way.)

"I've heard the accusation before.

"And I ain't gonna' take it no more.

("Kiss off." Alan Carter criticized across the way, pushing Dot' Sullivans pen light away from his fucking eyes.)

"Believe me,

"The sun in your Eyes

"Made some of the lies worth believing."

("I'm captain of my own probe, thank you." Carter criticized as Sullivan headed towards him with the tongue depressor.)

"I am the eye in the sky,

"Looking at you,

"I can read your mind."

Angelina nodded and stepped into the room where Carter was impatiently waiting for release. Usually, at times like this when his missions were less than routine and medical evaluations were necessary, in immense relief she would crack a joke. Today, it was far from appropriate. Instead, since they were alone in the room, she simply embraced him.

"Hey," she brushed a kiss on the cheek as she pulled back slightly, still holding him. "Are you alright?" She already knew the answer and gazed at him sincerely. "I'm sorry, Alan."

"I am the maker of rules...

"DEALING WITH FOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOO-OOLLLLLLLLS!!!"

Frappin' dentist office music, is what it was.

"!!!NUNEZ,' FOR CHRISSAKES WILL YOU TURN THAT CRAP OFF!!!" He roared, setting fire to his broken jaw.

Anne Delline jumped and changed the musak to "easy listening", elevator music. Helena Russell also jumped and stepped through the doorway with a loaded laser hypo containing a tranquilizer with the chief of reconnaissance's name written all over it. Angelina did not move out of her way.

"He doesn't need that...really," Ang stated firmly, gazing at him steadily with a clear non-verbal message: 'Keep your mouth shut, darling.'

Helena Russell walked around the couch to the other side, eyeing the recent and still elevated though slowly declining spike in Carter's blood pressure.

"What's the matter with him?" she continued studying the left side of his swollen and slightly bruised jaw.

"Hairline mandible fracture," Russell replied. "No setting necessary and as long as he doesn't aggravate it with excessive use..."

"Like shouting," Ang interrupted, her gaze never leaving the Captain and her expression remaining neutral..

"Like shouting," the doctor affirmed, "then it should heal on its own and ibuprofen should be sufficient to manage the discomfort." She paused then continued. "I was about to release him when he decided to become agitated."

"I'll make sure he behaves himself," Ang stated, still expressionless but this time glancing at Russell.

"Fine," Helena Russell stated, handing her Carter's commlock. "Alan, if you have any more problems, please let us know." Without waiting for him to answer, she smiled at Ang and left the ward to descend on the still complaining Thompson.

Ang looked back at Alan. "That's the last time I bail your ass out of Medical." She handed him his commlock. "Command Conference in 30 minutes, if you're up to it."

CHAPTER 2

"You goddamn better believe I'm ready." Carter thrust, staring at the cheap pile of imitation Gorski moon rocks that adorned one of John Koenig's transparent shelves. "Someone is going to bail up for this one.

"!!!COUNT ON IT!!!

He looked away from the crummy tray of phony aluminum, and badly blown Fe cakes, and a stupidly realized glob of Halite (what kind of asshole would bring fake Moon rocks from Poland when, as far as the eye could see, they were enamored, fucking drowning practically in the real thing)--only long enough to incriminate everyone at the round table with the finger of dudgeon aspersion. Two pilots were dead, when they should have been off-duty where they could enjoy all of the non-existent luxuries, the long-term misery that Moonbase Alpha had to offer. At least they would still be breathing. As it was, there weren't even bodies to cremate. Technological, and industrial incompetence made hay in the morning.

Along with fried epidermis, and baked ganglia, and Creole au toasted arteries.

Ben Ouma's gaze was frankly unaverting. Sandra Benes merely shook her head while Victor Bergman stared at the cold tile from his position on the couch.

Angelina Carter sat at the conference table with laptop closed, her hands on either side of her rapidly cooling coffee. Her back was toward the viewport. She was tired of looking at the 'eye'. It had lost its intriguing appeal and was just annoying.

John Koenig stopped his pacing, and turned his head sidewise to hand the pilot a look of unremitting disbelief. Sonofabitch. He had expected it, and behold--here it was. Where seismic activity was concerned, and scorched earth diplomacy, Carter could always be counted on.

"No kidding, Alan?" Gordon Cooper fired back, bolting angrily to his feet, hard enough to turn his chair over. "You going to set the record straight, mate? I take it by that pissed-off, onya' look you're giving me that you think the problem started in the high bay?"

"!!!NO, NO, NO!!!" The commander interjected fiercely. "!!!NO ONE SAID THAT."

"???You think I'm too much a big-note oneself to figure out when the bottom of the freaking' ship has a hole in it???" He smiled, ignoring Koenig, and giving his canines time to salivate.

"Kiss my ass, buddyroo.'"

"!!!COOP,' PICK UP YOUR CHAIR, AND SIT DOWN!!!" The commander shouted only ten decibels softer than the frequency needed to melt skin tissue.

"You need to do as he asks." Bergman said, hands on hips, and with a whiff of terroristic threatening in his put upon voice. "Now."

Bram Cedrix pushed his spectacles back up onto his nose, and restrained, applying breakneck pressure to an innocent ink pen, rather than to Alan Carter. Angelina Carter merely looked back and forth between Alan Carter and Gordon Cooper. Beyond them, standing next to the privacy door to Main Mission, Tony Allen tensed as Pierce Quinton acknowledged the harness bull's readiness stance and communicated restraint with a glance. Inwardly she groaned; one good or even not so good blow to the left side of the Chief Pilot's mandible and he'd be sipping his dinner through a straw for awhile. No doubt some of the staff in the room probably thought that Alan Carter with his jaw wired shut wasn't a bad idea.

Sandra glanced at Paul then at Michelle Cranston and Livy DeHavilliand, two engineers who could pack a mean verbal punch despite their petite sizes, especially dangerous when paired together on the same side.

"As instructed by Ang, Livy and I have poured over every piece of record for Eagle 2, Captain," Michele Cranston spoke up, ready to join the battle. "As far as we are concerned every thing checks out in the manufacturing and testing of the components," she glance united with Livy, "as well as the integration and assembly of the ship."

"In summary, folks," Angelina stepped in before the reconn army had a chance to launch their counter volley," so far we have not found any sort of fault attributed to the initial assembly and periodic mechanical maintenance of the ship. The next step, of course, is to look at the systems level and possible software controls."

"Oh no," Ben Ouma shook his head emphatically, "don't start with that shit. Those routines are tried and true and the programmers are NOT responsible. Otherwise, every Eagle that has ever flown would have exploded!"

"I'm not talking about the programs themselves," Angelina hissed angrily at the unusually smug computer operations chief. He was beginning to remind her of the late David Kano and really getting on her nerves. "I'm talking about the modifications made by the applications people. Have you even BOTHERED to check that out?!?!"

"!!!Bravo, missy!!!" Carter said with hubris, marching towards the table with a greenbar sheet that he was shaking like a club. "While we're checking that out, would you mind telling me what the deal was in Firing Room Two???"

"What deal is that, Alan?" Coop' said tiredly. Over his shoulder, Koenig stood with his arms folded looking for all the world like Patton, brooding over the idiotic, unnecessary carnage at the Kasserine Pass.

"Before commit, there was a measurable, twenty gig' pulse."

"Now, wait a minute." Cedrix argued.

"!!!A twenty gig pulse--HERE IT IS, RIGHT ON PAPER, AND OUT OF A TRANSLATION CORE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE STABLE!!!" The pilot raged on.

The foreman wanted to bust Alan Carter a good one, but instead he rubbed his eyes...comported his thoughts.

"I was in the firing room when that data came through." Cedrix admitted. "We measured the same increase on Eagle One, and Eagle Five." He shrugged, reasonably. "We have always--even in Earth orbit--had a delta like that appear during departure.

"It is," He said, very politely. "Ratty data."

"!!!WELL THIS FUCKING TIME, MAYBE IT WASN'T SO RATTY!!!" The pilot disgorged, throwing the greenbar onto the table. "!!!MAYBE THIS TIME IT WAS A BLOODY, BALLISTIC PROBLEM THAT WENT UNNOTICED!!!"

"!!!OR MAYBE WE HAVE FOR CHRISSAKES MIXING BOWLS IN THE DINING COMPLEX THAT GIVE OFF A TWENTY GIG' PULSE--ARE THEY GOING TO EXPLOAD TOO!!!" Coop' retorted absurdly, and with hoarse furor.

Helena Russell placed a comforting hand on the older astronaut's shoulder, partly to calm his fugue, partly to keep him from standing up again, for to do so would, at this point, result in brutal fisticuffs, and black eyes de jour.

"Arguing is not going to help determine the cause of the tragedy," Angelina stated firmly, as Koenig nodded from his standing position. "So far we have ruled out several possible technical causes but we are not yet finished the investigation." She sighed. "We won't stop until we rule out every single possible mechanical, electrical," Ang turned both barrels at Ouma, "AND computer factor that could have led to the destruction of Eagle 2."

"However," Angelina continued, shifting her firm though sympathetic gaze on Carter, "although there may have been a problem with the ship itself, it could also come out that the tragedy could have been avoided HAD Lt. Layton obeyed orders from Main Mission to shut down his main engines when he was told to do so."

She paused again. She was playing an unpopular role now, pointing out that the pilot screwing up may have led to his and Church's demise. "The computer records show he NEVER carried out those instructions."

"YOU'RE JOKING." Carter said, jocularity in his voice, resentment in his eyes.

John Koenig exhaled deeply, and rubbed his temple with a prediction of pain.

"YOU ARE, AREN'T YOU?" The pilot asked his wife, and waited for the punch line. He started walking backwards towards the commstation. Suddenly, each person in the room was someone he didn't know. Hypocritical Cotton Mathers; pogroms; an Einsatzgruppen genocide squad. When it came down to the wire, they covered their own butts. Space had taught them nothing, nothing at all. The death, the emasculation. "Layton was one of the finest astronauts to ever ride the rocket. I served with the guy during the war. He was air wing commander on the toughest bird farm in the south pacific. He risked his neck to help build space stations--all in the name of chunder, fucking science, and since Breakaway, he always tried to do right by this base.

"Alan, please," Angelina implored, her expression taking on more softness. "I'm only reporting what computer recorded and all arrows point to him NOT shutting down the mains."

But he did not acknowledge and continued.

"The guy was mouthy, I'll give you that. He'd been that way since he lost his wife, and daughter in the Manchester Fire Ball, but when push came to shove...." He scratched his chin nebulously. "You're saying he was a dero? An incompetent lout?"

Carter didn't know Ang' either; it occurred to him that this was Miss Hyde, fulfilling her etiquette, and protocol training as an operative of the WSC. If someone dies a million light years from home, what do you do? Smile, yes. Bury it all, deny all knowledge, bring on the patsies. Ang did not answer him but merely gazed at him, expressionless though her eyes conveying compassion but not compromise. All the apparent facts were in front of her.

"He did switch over." Umberto Garzon said neutrally from where he was sitting on the steps, not taking a side, but reporting what he had, in fact seen. "The erouting to the auxiliary fuel cell appeared on the EEC report. "I saw it with my own eyes." He said, looking to Andy Dempsey for verification, which was the STC's worst nightmare. He preferred to say little, or nothing--especially nothing.

Ang looked like a truck had hit her; the confusion on her face was apparent as she glanced toward Alan. The piece of evidence that removed the verdict from "Pilot Error: Proven beyond a reasonable doubt" may have just been introduced in the chamber. Everyone else in the room stared at Ben Ouma.

"You're a fucking liar, Garzon," Ouma spat with pent up prejudice and hatred as he stood up. "I just completed a system check 30 minutes ago and there are no errors, no crossed or lost signals. Computer is NOT in the habit of covering up for a pilot who screws up."

Ouma looked directly at Carter. "What the hell. What is it about Reconnaissance, about Eagle pilots, that make them infallible? Why should we assume you're gods because you're some fucking war heroes?"

"OUMA!" Koenig bellowed in disbelief, striding toward the computer chief.

"Computer says the arrogant bastard never switched off the mains!!! As far as I'm concerned, the cause of the explosion was PILOT ERROR." Ouma ignored Koenig and narrowed his eyes.

"Computer is wrong then." Garzon said, still neutral, and attempting to remain amicable, and professional. "The onboard systems are relayed directly to the system test unit via the flight recorder. In this way, the data remains decentralized. Theoretically, the mainframe should have picked this information up, but obviously it didn't.

"I know what I saw." The systems specialist said evenly. "Before she blew up, Eagle Two was operating on the number two fuel cell."

At last, Cooper, and Carter--both brimming. Chums again, though alas, the sentiment was destined to be short lived. This latest gem transformed the large group broke into impromptu smaller groups with a flurry of overlapping discussions. Angelina crouched between Livy and Michelle in a three-way huddle, as Koenig, Morrow and Bergman interrogated Umberto Garzon and Andy Dempsey, who finally summed up the courage to verify Garzon. Carter and Cooper, along with Bram Cedrix, relaxed as the blade of the guillotine seemed to be lifted from the flight crew staff.

Gordon Cooper's relief waned as he saw Michelle Cranston and Livy DeHavilliand gesturing toward him with increasing frequency. Michelle pulled a ream of sheets off the table and waved them in Ang's face as Livy pointed emphatically between the papers and Gordon Cooper.

Coop wandered over to the group without attracting attention, or so he thought, and asked Ang and the two technical department heads if he could be of any assistance. Ang stood up and pulled him aside.

"Coop," Ang began in a low voice, both completely unaware that their small group of two was becoming a group of three. "As we said at the beginning, we can find no component failure with the alternate power system. Livy just made a quick call to verify the flight recorder and yes, it was true Eagle Two was operating on the Number Two Fuel Cell. Why computer didn't catch it is another mystery, but, Coop, the integration tests that Livy's group performed were successful in the first pass."

The color drained from the dark Perth, Australian native as they were still unaware that they had another person in the group; one whose complexion was beginning to turn red with rage as a realization dawned on him.

Angelina sighed. Breaking the news to the group was going to be painful. "I'm sorry, Gordon, but although it was not recorded in the computer, we just verified that the final STC the high bay guys perform before clearing the Eagle for the crane failed."

The audible exhalation from the unknown person caused them both to turn around and face the party crasher. Once again, Alan Carter's anger was obvious as he focused on Cooper. No longer did Angelina have to worry about the task of breaking this news to the rest of the group.

"G'day?" Carter said after a while, putting his worst, most arrogant foot forward, and calculating the problem to its inevitable square root. "Looks like this little bingle did have a culprit. HOW BOUT' THAT COOP'? STILL FEELING INNOCENT? C'MON. THRILL EVERYONE WITH THE FUCKING TECHNICAL PROWESS THAT YOU, AND THAT HALF-PINT BLUDGER SITTING NEXT TO YOU SHOWED WHEN YOU HOOKED THAT DAG TO THE CRANE."

John Koenig relaxed. It was clear to him where this was all going. Try "no where."

"Well, it seems obvious that this meeting was a little too preemptive." He said stepping towards his desk. At panel two of the mainframe deck, Phil Geist waved "hello" to Umberto Garzon, but it slid right past the specialist, so lost was he in his unhappy ratiocination's.

Carter, of course, was close enough to breathe brimstone, and kerosene on the back of Gordon Cooper's neck, and the snick-snick of his needles, and jabs was becoming more profound.

Koenig turned, not realizing that he had selected the best elevation in the room in order to view the fireworks. "I recommend we adjourn this meeting until tempers have had a chance to-"

"I RIGHT EXPECTED DEMPSEY THERE TO CLAM UP, AND BURROW UNDER LIKE SOME OLD GROUND HOG." The pilot went on, his saber poised at running distance. "YOU ON THE OTHER HAND, MR. YARD MANAGER--I RATHER THOUGHT YOU WOULD PROFER BULLSHIT TO THE BITTER, FUCKING END...HOW YOU, AND THE MIDGET MECHANIC, AND THE REST OF THOSE LAGGERS PREVAILED--OH NO, YOU WEREN'T UP YOUR BUTTS WITH A COCONUT WERE YOU COOP'?

"CHURCH, AND LAYTON AREN'T SPREAD OUT ALL OVER SPACE BECAUSE YOU TWO DON'T KNOW JACK SHIT ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER.

"WELLADAY." Carter winked at DeHavilliand. "TEACH US DOLTS HOW TO PUT A SPACECRAFT TOGETHER." He hectored, his voice growing louder, and profoundly sadistic. "LET'S GO LAUNCH ANOTHER FUCKING EAGLE."

Angelina positioned herself between Carter and Livy, who sprinted up the stairs completely enraged. Sandra Benes exchanged concerned eye contact with Helena Russell before she shifted her gaze to Paul Morrow. Pierce Quinton also bounded up the stairs as Tony Allan intercepted, ready for whatever change in tone of the 'discussion'.

"Alan," Professor Bergman called paternally from his position near the couch, "the meeting is being adjourned 'til later, until we all can look at the problem more objectively."

Andy Dempsey sat quietly, staring at the eye through the viewport. It looked like it was ...squinting at them, squinting at him. It could see right through him. It was scrutinizing him. It microscopically dissected his secrets. Dempsey turned away and focused neutrally on the Cooper/Carter show on the stage.

"Alan...Alan, let's go," Angelina tugged desperately at the orange sleeved elbow of the immovable Captain. "Sweetheart, please, let's get some coffee, take a breather. We'll discuss this later."

John Koenig, and Pierce Quenton rapidly advanced. Truman Starns entered through the side door, grasping his commlock, and hyperventilating from a hurried jaunt up the stairs. Harness Bull Pound said he might want to drop by the office, that they might be on the brink of someone getting their head stomped. He was skeptical, but not for long.

"Heck no." Carter said, almost congenially. "Coop,' and I got man-sized crasts to talk about. Ain't that right, Edison? We're going to invent flame retardant skin. It'll be tough considering the Mighty Shrimp there is stupid enough to throw away all the W's in a fucking M & M's factory."

That was all it took.

Umberto Garzon was perfectly situated to witness the heated physicality, and fattened lips that followed. Tan, booted feet, and flares retreated with alarum as both men thundered to the floor, roaring, and grappling like rabid, Bengal Tigers; each attempting to usurp the other with pain, and plastic chairs, turned bludgeon, and scalps, slammed against the gray linoleum. The facts concerning the deaths of Eagle Two's prime crew, fluttered to the floor--the empty red flimsie covers flapping down on the assailants like roses in a pit bull fight.

"!!!CARTER, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!!!" Koenig shouted, grabbing the pilot in a precarious, right-angled Tango step that sent them both reeling. "!!!HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!!!"

"!!!YA' ROTTEN BUSH-SLIMED SONOFABITCH!!!" Coop' cried, his left eye formidably blackened. "!!!I'LL KILL YA'!!!"

Paul Morrow attempted a badly executed headlock, and got thumped for his troubles. Later, Mathias would apply Corn Husker's solution--his secret remedy. Angelina, disgusted, could only stand back, staying out of the criss-cross paths of the flying bodies while keeping a firm grip on Livy's arm to discourage her from entering the fray.

Coop' wasn't nearly as out of control as Carter 'thought' he was--so, when it came finishing time, the older pilot gave him a surprise chop to his bad jaw. The yard manager peaked with enormous happiness. The flight leader howled like a coyote, releasing fist, upon fist of punitive pummels to Coops' baldhead. Round two saw the inclusion of Harness Bull Duncan, and Truman Starns, moving to invade the land south of Koenig's desk as Coop' tumbled against three shelves full of Gorski rocks. He needed to rest, so Carter offered him the floor. Then they fought for who would control the steps, the globe overturning, and bounding against Carter's whipped noggin.' Coop' sealed the deal by punching him in the nose. Carter rebounded with a hand full of forged maintenance reports that bore Ed Malcom's signature.

He moved as if to shove them down Coops' throat.

"ALAN!!! STOP!!!" Helena Russell pleaded in vain from the sidelines. Ang knew there was no point in it. She continued to view the spectacle with a mixture of concern and anger, mentally drafting the ass chewing speech she would deliver to her husband when this was all over.

The command conference was now a convention for underworked Harness Bulls, with John Koenig attempting to coordinate operations with a broken tooth, and while continuing his tenuous hold on Carter's left hook. Then it was flaying time--the Omaha Beach; the final contretemps in this fierce, unequal combat that would determine a victor.

Or, a loser, and a loser, but the RED ALERT suddenly began to pulse, and all that was left to the opponents was to look up, and mutter 'huh?'

"COMMANDER!" Caroline Kennedy's harangued face appeared on the commstation monitor. "Explosive decompression in Tech Lab 3!!!"

"Oh my God," Angelina muttered as she bolted out the side door into the access corridor. Her distress was justified as the medical center computer boomed:

TECHNICIAN MICHAEL ALATHEUS, LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED

TECHNICIAN LIJU MATHEW, LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED

CHAPTER 3

Private eyes! They're watching you!

They see your everrry moooove..

Private eyes! They're watching you!

Private eyeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss...they're watching you, watching you, watching youuuuu

Angelina Carter scowled at the Hall and Oates Medical Center reception music filtering from the Dolby speakers. At one time, it was one of her favorite songs: not anymore. She was not in a good mood. In fact, she was in a horrible mood. Tech Lab 3 now had an open window to the lunar surface. Mike Alatheus and Liju Mathews remains were splattered all over the inside of Tech Lab 3, though the bulk of their unrecognizable bodies still remained on the lunar surface. The Chief of Technical section just returned from comforting girl friends and best friends of the deceased.

Ang passed by Gordon Cooper, in a treatment room, griping as Bob Mathias pumped more lidocaine into the open wound on the top of Coop's head which he was about to stitch. She stepped into Alan Carter's ward. Her expression was completely neutral. She was far, far beyond yelling and had long forgotten her prepared speech.

No. Instead, he would get much worse: the silent treatment. She dropped into the moduform plastic chair, utterly weary. After a hideously long 5 minutes, she finally regained a sense of inner control.

"How do you feel?" she asked, as she looked away toward Gordon Cooper's cursing. Evidently, the good Doctor Bob didn't give ole Coop enough lidocaine before he started sewing. Ang felt no sympathy for him; for either of them, actually.

Carter's response wasn't to throw invectives, call her 'Edison,' and then come over the table at her like one of Kitchener's commandos. His ire slowly receded back into the vile plasma--the creature's revenge, thus consummated, it turned out to be a cold dish after all. He still felt like shit, and he was getting shittier.

Through the middle viewport, the constellate, radical eyeball, thingamajig' was casting a pale light onto a winding trail that ran deep into the Alpine Valley--a forest with no trees; bankrupt, and divorced from nature, except for the name. He decided it would be politically incorrect, and unappropos, and hard on the Rite Of Marriage to call her Missy Hyde. Cleopatra, possibly, but then again, his evidence was so circumstantial, as to make a complete, and utter asshole out of himself.

In the end, the problem was much easier to define than the constituents of water. It was more visceral, and agonizing than Nunez's horrible can of crummy dentist office music. All around him, the facts settled to a crust, like the hardening remains of decompressed technicians. It was only ten feet away, an image staring back at him from the vision port, below, and just to the left of the considerately dilated eye world.

In a court of law, it would unfold like this:

So you see, your honor, and in closing, counsel for the defense would like to remind the jury that there was one--ONLY ONE--reason for the deaths of those two Eagle pilots. That reason has a name--Captain Alan Carter.

"What do you want from me, Ang?'" He exclaimed, clenching his fist. The eye in the sky returned an empathic gaze. "You want me to massage Coops' head, and apologize to that penguin with a wrench for something that never should have happened? Eh?

"Tell you what--tonight, after I finish my jailhouse meal in the security cube, I'll do some Hare Kiri. Maybe I'll eat Eagle Two's flight plan a page at a time until I gag to death on the safety procedures.

"Would that brighten your day, cupcake?"

He knew the truth though.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," her soft gaze hardened slightly as she sat forward. "You should know by now the pity party doesn't work with me."

She could feel the anger chipping away at the composure she worked so hard in 5 minutes to build. "Oh, and by the way, I really am not in the mood to listen to you vent your frustrations on me like some verbal punching bag. I just got the mental crap beaten out of me by distressed loved ones and frankly, I've had enough for one day. I still have to coordinate crews to fix the hole in Tech Lab 3 as well as scrape what remains of Mike Alatheus and Liju Mathew off the goddam walls, ceilings, floors and whatever else is nailed down." She spoke evenly and did not raise her voice.

"Incidentally, congratulations. You are not bound for the brig but you will be staying here in Medical overnight for observation." She sat back and glanced toward the noise of the whining Gordon Cooper in the other room. "Evidently, in your little school yard brawl, you managed to get your nose broken as well as secure a moderate concussion."

She sighed, looking at the lunar time on her commlock. "In case Helena hasn't told you, you're scheduled for a CATScan in 30 minutes."

"Ahhh." The pilot chortled gratuitously, and standing in defiance. "Fine. Really. Pumpkin,' you know me. Always did enjoy a good CAT Scan."

The Constellate was dead center of higher elevations now as the Moon drifted by it on a West, to East trajectory. It rode past one of the odd numbered anti-gravity towers, and the tiered craters; the sprays of ejecta, looking like a shotgun site on the largest Remington in the universe. Every ten minutes, it contracted, and then opened anew. Half the world, experiencing a nightfall that was only six hundred seconds long. He vied the satellite's reflection in the glossy black. A vague crescent, which equated to an irrational nothingness in the scheme of things. One half kilometer away, Launch Pad Four awaited at the end of the battleship gray travel tube. The depot lights, went from bright yellow to orange in the meandering eclipse. Helena Russell's six-inch tall, anatomical model--adorning the windowsill in a buff testament to medical aptitude--made the illusion complete.

They had entered the Twilight Zone...submitted for your approval. EVA vehicles, and the larger flat bed transports continued their crawl across the surface like fools trying to prove some paltry courage.

Carter looked on laconically. His mop-top relaxing. The collagen in his face, loosening to a stupor. Across his own retina, red balls of firelight danced intermittently, along with descending blues, and greens. Ang,' and the turgid absence of talent that characterized Hall & Oates fell into a blurred depth of field. There was a millisecond where he no longer found himself wanting to hang the guilty. His Nuremberg was emptied, and his mind's eye beheld starsong.

Mighty worlds devoured by ice...

...rents of lightning...the Others seethed through...

...children dying in their holes, buried alive by their screaming mothers...

...space turning white, and then black again...erasing all life...

...then silence again....

The color began to drain from his face and Ang immediately jumped up, wrapping an arm around Carter's waist to steady him as he appeared to sway.

"Yeah, I do know your stubborn ass too well," she commented while half guiding and half forcing him down to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. She sat with him, in an embrace with her arm around his waist, her forehead against his temple and her other hand gently cupping his bad jaw. "I know the odds are a million to one against you having actually suffered any real damage with that notoriously hard head of yours, but you will submit to the CATScan and you will remain a guest here tonight; if not for your sake then for my peace of mind."

She saw the fog in his eyes beginning to lift. "Don't worry. Caesar will be glad to take your side of the bed and keep me company tonight," She teased. She had gotten her message across that she was unhappy with his hand to hand combat shenanigans.

"Ang.'" Carter heard the voice say brusquely through the lowering parables, and the hypnotic fog. "Alan."

"Great." The pilot exclaimed, clearly meaning 'not great,' the minute he saw John Koenig.

Angelina released the battered pilot and stood to face Koenig. "Commander," Ang nodded. "He just had a bit of a dizzy spell while trying to prove to me that he thinks he's ready to go back to work." She glanced at Carter. "Eagle pilot does not equal medical doctor."

A shiver went down her spine. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the 'eye' focus on her, or so she thought. She was trying to ignore it. She really felt like activating the shutters but what good would that do? 'It' would still be 'looking' at them. In a split second, she imagined herself playing a game with the thing. Close shutter...open a crack and its looking at her....close again....open..

'Peek a boo..I see you.' She imagined it taunting her. The flash of paranoia left as Commander Koenig approached, Dr. Russell not far behind.

"Yeah, I see that." Koenig remarked. "Eagle pilot doesn't seem to equal 'smart' either."

"Hold on there." Carter said provocatively, and standing (Nope, the gelatinous bones in his lower jaw were generally inflamed, the pain propelling him back onto his keister in mean, short order.). Upon landing, he noticed that the red launch platform on pad four had eased into the shaft. This occurred whilst he dreamed, and argued. "What's going on?" He said unapprovingly as Eagle Five was hoisted to gantry level. "???You're sending another ship out???"

"You bet." Koenig said with cold satisfaction as he turned to leave. "Oh, by the way, Ang,' Garforth needs to see you in the mainframe center, ASAP."

He headed for the double doors, replaced with an unhappy, out-to-get-revenge Bob Mathias.

"???Well where are you going???" The pilot probed futilely.

"Out." Koenig said, and closed the doors on him.

"Duty calls," Angelina announced, as she covered the ornery pilot with the blanket. "Get some rest and don't be a pain in the ass around here, ok?"

She knew, naturally, he would be a difficult patient. She stood up and smiled warmly. "I'll be back a little later. Stay out of trouble while I'm gone." She nodded to Bob as she passed and the double doors closed behind her. The eye blinked.

Chapter 4

It was a high traffic day in the Hypothalamus of the central computer. The network was located a hundred meters below the synthecrete foundation of the Main Mission tower. Technicians working for Ouma, the Boss, rode hectically between the rows of default, library circuits, in futuristic, unprodigious golf carts, so chincy' as to make the older LEV's look like Tucker's dream car. There was an occasional honk when someone had a need for speed that intersected the hermetically sealed double doors. The entire complex was bathed in a blue, fluorescent light from high ceiling projectors. This enabled them to detect grime, and contaminants within the large peripheral panels which opened, and closed all day, every day, giving specialists access to the crystalline brain matter. When Ang' entered, the walls literally vibrated from the vacuum force of uploaded, and downloaded intelligentsia from the core.

Through a wide, observation window, she could see PhD's bobbing, and floating in the zero gravity lobe that contained the isolinear neuroreceptors. Dr. Roberta Specter gave her a giddy wave, accidentally elbowing Dr. Streicher, who gritted his teeth, and looked ticked as he pulled his way along the rows of chips with a volt meter.

"Good, the cavalry is here." Garforth greeted with hesitant compose.

He was standing by a row of interbase FAX copiers holding two sheets of paper. Angelina Carter smiled thinly as she approached Garforth. The most positive aspect of being down here was to be away from the gaze of the eyeball in space.

"Well, your enthusiasm may be premature, Pete," she leaned against a workbench. "I'm not much of a computer expert especially concerning software." Though she did, however, have a good knowledge of hardware, not from formal schooling but more from on the job experience since September 13, 1999.

She shrugged. "What can I do for you?"

On the other side of the room, Chris Potter entered through double doors followed by a hotly angry Ed Malcom.

"Rubbish." Garforth said, closing the coffin-like lid to the FAX machine. "You can never be premature with a friend. Besides, I'd rather have you take a look at this instead of Ouma. Like a lot of people around here these days, he's not exactly thinking straight."

Actually, Ouma was behaving in a way that was patently stupid, but that was neither here, nor there. It was a bit of a tragedy, the technician mused. For a while there, old hard drive was beginning to act almost lifelike.

"First of all, I went in, and took a closer look at the records we had on that ship." He said, still relaxed, even jocose. "There was quite a history there. They dated back six years, so I had to look it up on CD. That baby was a fixer. Don't get me wrong, she was part of the original fleet that was manufactured on Earth; spacecraft 5-9-8, cleared for service as Eagle 2-9. Initially, the thing couldn't handle a Roll Cal Angle worth a shit, so we replaced the guidance platform with new software. After that, she performed magnificently--better than anyone in the AC&O would have ever dreamed--that is, until after Breakaway when she got creamed on the far side with the rest of the old fleet.

"The fuselage was later towed back to Alpha. We warehoused the remains until about a year ago when we reconditioned her with parts from Eagle Eight, and Eagle One." Garforth squinted, leaning against the desk, and allowing the lit panel to strobe across his knuckles. "According to the EST we obtained before the command conference, there was a voltage drop in one of the fuel cells before transposition, and elevation.

"Ang,' what time would you say that occurred." He prodded. "The mission clock wasn't even running. Say about 19:34 lunar time? Earlier?

"Well," He went on, handing her the first of two paradynamic sketches. "It could not have been five minutes later, 14:13 elapsed mission time, when the black box recorded 100% margins on all three fuel cells.

"Do you see what I'm getting at here?"

A hundred meters away, Roberta Specter exited the airlock, and swooned at the sight of Pete Garforth.

"She's in love." The technician confided while Ang' studied the sheet. "I'd like to do something special for her--like finding a way to keep her the hell out of my hair, but so far I haven't been very successful."

Angelina appeared too engrossed in the report to lend a sympathetic ear for Pete Garforth and his tactful attempts at communicating romantic disinterest toward the starry eyed Roberta Specter. One unfortunate night of excess using badly fermented wine with a very willing Specter combined with a lack of sex in the last 5 years blurred Pete's perspective on his opinion of attractiveness. When he took her to bed, horrendously smashed, she was attractive. When he woke up the next morning, horrendously hung over, she was not attractive.

"Better hope her Norplant is still working," Ang commented blandly while still perusing the report. "I understand she is due for a refresh implant."

She heard Garforth stop breathing and she cocked an eye in the direction of his stricken face. "I'm kidding." She replied. Garforth was not amused.

"So there was nothing wrong with the ship," Angelina lowered the paper. "That only means one thing: there's a problem with computer, some software glitch, somewhere."

"DAMMIT!" She slapped the now rolled up sheet into the palm of her hand. "Did you talk to Ben yet or do you think he's going to get all pissy and defensive and you want me to take the brunt of his tantrum?"

Chris Potter had spied Ang and made a beeline toward her with a cursing Malcom.

"!!!YOU took my Allen wrenches, asshole!! I know it was you!!" Ed Malcom screamed at Chris Potter with venom and abundant bile when they were about 50 feet from Ang and Pete.

"I did not, you fatass worthless piece of shit!" Potter turned, exploding in the rotund technician's face.

"Alright Potter," Malcom began forcing his too tight sleeves toward his elbows in an attempt to roll up his tunic sleeves, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face."

Harness Bull Pound motioned to Harness Bull LaBreque at the unfolding scene and both leaned casually against the wall with bemused smirks on their faces.

Potter was immediately overpowered with Ed Malcom's impassioned, bad breath; mollified by Ed Malcom's ability to make himself look like a bowling pin with ire. He turned his back to the tray of digital tapes. Fifty, blank rectangles sprayed his eyes, and the back of his neck. Dr. Streicher pressed his palms, and his nose against the transparency as the abdominous technician kicked Potter in the head, and moved in for a stomp-job. The smaller gladiator rolled right, with blood rushing from his left ear. His chin struck a stainless steel utility cart, which Ed Malcom tipped over onto his chest.

"!!!GET UP, AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!!!" The mons technician railed, looking for things to throw, and using Potter's nuts for a soccer ball before he had a chance to stand. He was invertebrate. He cheated at every turn. When Pete Garforth attempted to intervene, he slid across a pool of loosed CD. From behind the iron curtain of sore feelings, Potter uttered congratulations about the other technician having a girlfriend.

Too bad that everyone thinks she's ugly. HA-HA!!! He brayed like a man who forgot his anti-psychotic meds', and twisted Ed Malcom's left Hush Puppy with such ferocity that the tip of his toe touched the front of his teeth. The superfatted one retaliated by shooting him with a receptacle of clear H20. Potter leered, his tunic soaked with blood, and water. Now that he was on his feet again, Deadhead Ed danced to a different tune--the Herky Jerky, backing away, and scanning frantically for exits.

All the things that combat had left him--his fear, and a good ass whipping. It was with great trepidation, and an amount of cowardice that was beneath contempt, Ed Malcom grabbed Emma Black, and attempted to use her for a human shield.

She bludgeoned his nose.

Malcom howled as he stumbled backwards, torrents of blood raging from his nostrils. Chris Potter took the opportunity to pounce again on the hapless Malcom.

"Chris!!! CHRIS!!!!!" Angelina approached the melee of flying fists and splattering blood but did not enter the fray. It was obvious they were out of control. She turned and glared at the harness bulls.

Pete Garforth, incensed about the 'girlfriend' comment, dogpiled on Potter and started to pound him. Potter ducked and rolled and Malcom received a jaw-dislocating swipe from Garforth. Not accepting insults either and misinterpreting Pete's ire as a heroic championing of her honor, Spectre jumped on Potter's back and began pulling, shaking his head by the handfuls of hair.

"GET OFF ME YOU FAT COW!!!" Potter shrieked at Specter, which wasn't the smartest thing to say since Roberta started slamming Chris' head against the tile.

"BOBBI!!! PETE!!! STOP!!!!" Angelina yelled ineffectively. By now, of course, Lars Manroot and Mohammed Singh had tried to break up the disarray but both were rewarded with black eyes for their efforts.

Angelina eyed the harness bulls, who were chucking and pointing with delight. She couldn't believe it. They appeared to be gambling, using their meal cards as collateral, on the wrestling/boxing match. Ang stormed up to them in disgust.

"WELL?!?!?!? What are you waiting for?!?! Stop them!!" She yelled in harness bull Pound's face. He gave her an innocent, smart ass 'who me?' grin.

Harness Bull LeBreque shrugged and unholstered his laser. Taking his time, he adjusted it to a wide-angle beam. Malcom, Potter, Garforth and Spectre dropped unconscious in a tangle heap. Ed Malcom, on the other hand, soon propped his wide load up with a pair of plunger elbows. It was something like Astarte, Queen of Heaven, pedaling to the surface of paradise, comforting the dumbos, and the ignoramouses. It was as though he was too overweight, too padded with exorbitant cellulite to acknowledge that he had been stunned.

"What are youse' doin' here?" He blared at Ang' disapprovingly-completely coherent, and comfortable in his social passim. He knew that she had been watching him. For months, perhaps even years. Looking for covert intelligence to ruin his already lousy reputation. Now, it appeared, his suspicions were at last bearing pineapples.

Malcom's sinuses ached from where Garforth had buffaloed' him. The others lay behind him like a pyre of Israelis following an Arab attack.

Lars Manroot sat with his back to the gooseneck lamp, methodically rubbing the orange, and black plasma burn that was caused from being too close to LeBreque's stun gun.

"You know." He said quietly, adding spittle to the stain. "I think-"

Then the RED ALERT claxon pulsed again, and he was tabula rasa, and without thought. A ghost of reduced G's passed across his chest, and the torque that he was placing on his forearms. When the atmospheric pressure was released, he, like the others, was left to founder like a baby in bathwater. Carts, cups, red flimsies, loose spanners--anything that wasn't anchored down, began to drift towards the ceiling panels. Manroot pinwheeled upwards like Charlie in the chocolate factory. Pound, and LeBreque formed a floating Circe Du Soliel, with Roberta Specter drifting serenely past them until her snoze was touching the ceiling. Away went Chris Potter, floating like a yacht, palms up, into the Noun antechamber.

Ed Malcom was raised only an inch off the floor, but even then, the laws of physics were pushing it. Ang' watched weightlessly as Garforth's analysis wafted away from her-a square flower on a round Moon.

"SYSTEM INTERRUPTION." Computer announced from all around them. "LINEAR MOMENTUM NEUTRALIZED. ZERO GRAVITY...."

"AWWWW...CHRIST!!! What's happened to the gravity control?!?!" Angelina blurted the question about two beats too late as she attempted a mid air roll to propel herself toward the commpost. "Grab onto something solid in case it comes back on!" She yelled ominously at the harness bulls and everyone else who was weightlessly adrift.

The floating and frantically flailing bodies reminded her of the 'last day' participants on carousel from the movie Logan's Run. With only holding onto a handle for the service panel under the analog clock of the compost, she pulled her commlock from her belt and keyed Main Mission.

"What the hell is going on down there?!!?" Mark Winter's face appeared on the monitor, as someone passed him computer register tape offscreen and Bergman's voice can be heard in the background.

"DUH! You tell me!!!" Angelina, holding on the handle while her feet drifted above her head, responded impolitely. "We don't even have LUNAR gravity down here. Would you kindly go through the steps of restoring it?"

Ang could hear 'Five seconds' coming from Andy Dempsey at his station.

"FIVE SECONDS?!?!" Ang blurted. "WAIT!! You just can't turn it on!! There are people at least 20 feet in the air against the ceiling in here."

"!!!YOU DAFT MORON!!!" Smitty flamed, joining in from one of the mid-tower broadcast huts. "!!!WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? WE DON'T HAVE THE ORIENTATION CONFIGURED YET!!!"

"No, we don't." Bergman agreed over Angs' commlock. "It has to be done in phases. First-"

"CORIOLIS ACCELLERATION...CROSS COUPLED ROTATIONAL BEAM...INDISTINCT." Computer announced with dreadful purpose.

"!!!I'M NOT CONTROLLING IT!!!" Dempsey crashed miserably.

"-a safewave." Bergman choked. "That's the procedure...get them...get them...."

Bobbi Specter screamed.

"...NO, NOT THE OFF-AXIS MOTION!!!" Smitty railed, with helpless rancor.

"...on one-eighth gravity...." The professor harmonized with the others--his advice meaning little more than the man in the Moon, you should pardon the pun. "Did you get that...I said-"

Harness Bull LeBreque saw what was coming, and scrambled like a drowning man for a position over one of the modules in order to break his fall. Pete Garforth attempted to swim to the safety of a nice, wide ceiling rafter with Specter in unassisting, frantic tow. Chris Potter was no where to be seen. He was away--floating on Cloud Nine. Harness Bull Pound, and Lars Manroot spat in the faces of Oberth, and Noordung--having achieved some success, using hand, over fist brute force to pull their way closer to the floor using a nearby 02 cylinder. Ed Malcom's weeping face turned to fearful, avaricious mush.

"CARTESIAN DEFAULT COORDINATES RETRIEVED." Computer pronounced sentence, sealing their fate. "GRAVITY RESTORED."

"!!!NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Benjamin Ouma shouted over the open link.

His ululations were lost in the falling sky of the computer room, the cracking of broken bones, and ligaments. The sickly 'thuds,' and the malignant can openers that ripped skin, and shredded muscle, and disgorged ham.

So they fell from the sky, and were creamed in the land of metal, and glass, with their garbled wails, the only bagatelle left to them in the face of grim, body crushing defeat. LeBreque dove in like an Olympian--using his collarbone as a defense against the unflexing forces of linoleum. Garforth's forehead itched. The cure? Being bashed into unconsciousness, and with his tongue sticking out from the force of a head-on collision with a rack of armored voltage transducers. Roberta Specter landed atop one of the units, and escaped the Hindenberg disaster unscathed.

Just kidding. She slid like seal off the edge into the petty arms of the Moon, which took a meat hammer to her rib cage.

Beyond the vision port, the Constellate closed its lid--abhorred by a glimpse into human brilliance that it really didn't deserve, and too disconsolate to view more.

CHAPTER 5

Medical Center was bustling with activity. For the third time in 24 hours, Angelina Carter walked through the double doors, though in a sense she was lucky because it was not in the capacity of a patient. The white board behind the nurse's station listed the current guests of the ward:

A. Carter

G. Cooper

E. Malcom (discharged)

R. Specter

P. Garforth

D. Lebreque

C. Potter

M. Singh

L. Manroot

Dr. Bob Mathias plunked down at the computer terminal, taking a sip of his cold and sediment like coffee. Angelina leaned on the counter as he ignored her. At last, he acknowledged her with a single raised eyebrow and a scowl then returned his attention to the screen.

"What...it's not MY fault," Ang started with annoyance. "Don't get pissy with me, Bob. I'm not in the mood." She continued although he said nothing. She sighed. "How is Pete doing? I understand he is still in surgery....and what about the others? I haven't heard anything bad so can I assume they are OK?"

"Oh, and how is Alan?" She helped herself to her own crappy cup of MBA, if nothing else to shut up and give Mathias a chance to speak.

The eye in the sky appeared to be gazing compassionately at her. She ignored it otherwise she would lose it.

"Your assumptions are lousy." Mathias said curtly, wiping his bifocals against his tunic, and storing them in the pocket of his frock coat. "If we can find a way to evacuate the fluid on his temporal lobe, Garforth will live. He probably won't be the same person you knew before. The only algorithym he'll be inverting is a pictorial history of a Schmoo.'

"LeBreque hasn't regained consciousness, but when he does, he'll spend the next forty-eight hours screaming in pain. All the cocaine in Peru won't alleviate that one. In a way, he'd be better off if he didn't wake up a'toll.

"Manroot has a collapsed, right lung, and I kicked Ed Malcom out." He said, furiously capping his ink pen. "There's no cure for being a worthless asshole, and I told him so.

"Carter is in there." He allowed, nodding towards the ward.

Ang peered into the ward where the Chief Eagle pilot was sleeping soundly, then turned toward Mathias again. Professor Bergman came through the double doors as Helena Russell, still donned in surgical gown, approached the group. The Technical Chief was mentally numb and distressed. 'Why Pete Garforth? Why does one of my best engineers have to be reduced to a mental vegetable?

Why...why...WHY?!?!' she thought, becoming angry as well as remorseful.

"How's Bobbi and Chris?" she asked apprehensively, expecting more bad news.

"Potter has a knot the size Nebraska on his forehead." The physician said with enormous glum. "Fortunately, that's all. Specter will be discharged within the hour.

"Other than that, we've run out of sacrificial lambs." He said accusatorily, swiveling back towards his computer monitor. "I hope."

"Professor!" Angelina finally noticed Bergman. He casually leaned against the counter with cup of Vitaseed in hand as Russell poured herself a cup of reheated coffee.

"Did you wipe that smug grin off Mr. Ben 'I'm innocent' Ouma's face? Is he still even MAINTAINING that computer is okey-dokey with gravity control despite the evidence of mangled and banged up technicians?" She seethed then winced as Muhammad Singh let out an unsettling yell as Dr. Sullivan set his shoulder and collar bone in the other room. "Smitty says there's nothing wrong with the grav units." She downed the last of her coffee and contemplated a refill with the reheated pot next to Mathias.

"Well." The professor said, smiling gently. "At first glance it seemed that nothing was wrong."

He shook his head sadly, rubbing the ancient tension from his eyes with a single swipe.

"Now...." He said, watching Nunez close the shutters near Specter's bed. The bath of blue starlight was vanquished like a shade. "Now we aren't so sure." He paused, scratching his chin. Helena Russell set aside her blood pressure cuff, and listened neutrally. "Apparently there was a defective repulsor in Tall-D, one of the main broadcast towers. The experimental lab complex was also effected, though there were no injuries there."

"Thank God for low ceilings?" Helena Russell offered. She could see no good in the situation as long as one person got their bones crushed.

"Yes." Bergman said absently. "I'm having a hard time seeing how the problem made it past the Caution, And Warning system. There's more cable riding in those transmitters than AT&T in Manhattan. I'm no expert, but it seems obvious to me that having subsystems, within subsystems would create something of a stable environment."

He clapped his hands together with ungrudging finality.

"But, it didn't." He went on. "Incidentally, you're going to have your hands full with Smith." He told Ang. "He's convinced that it's another STC failure...like Alan."

"Maybe, maybe not," Angelina shrugged. "If there was a defective repulsor, whose to say there isn't something else mechanically or electrically wrong with ANY of our systems." She pounded her fist to the counter in morbid frustration. "Great. That's just great." She blurted as Gordon Cooper, clad in Alpha issued pajamas, shuffled his way to the lavatory in a tranquilized haze. His only interest in his state of mind was to get his 'business' done and get back to bed.

"Its bad enough failures like that escape routine maintenance surveys but now the systems we have in place to check and recheck can't even be trusted."

"Has Commander Koenig been reached yet." He asked Russell tentatively, beginning his segue into a new topic.

"No." The physician shook her head. "They crashed near La Condamine. It's difficult to transmit out there, though I'm sure the rescue team has informed him."

"The commander's Eagle crashed?!?" The Technical Chief's face became stricken with angst.

"That's another thing." Bergman told Ang,' without implication. Nevertheless, she had to know. "It happened about an hour ago. He, and Danielle were about 150 nautical miles out when the inertial guidance system began to malfunction. It couldn't identify any of the local constellations. Likewise our landing beacon. With no way to steer the ship, Danielle had no other recourse except to power down the command module, and allow it to soft land on the lunar surface.

"I'm sorry Angelina."

"Nothing for you to be sorry about, professor," she replied, deciding against the reheated coffee. "Things are falling apart and to make matters worse, our warning systems are not catching the faults."

Faults. They were not merely faults. Lives had been lost and people had been injured. The potential for more lives lost and more injuries loomed forebodingly but she did not voice it.

"We will start running manual diagnostics on all systems and computer analysis on the system test routines for all critical systems. I'm not trying to pass the blame, professor, but I still think computer is playing a major role in these problems. Afterall, why would system tests that have always worked, why would verification checks that have given us early warnings of failures just suddenly stop working? The only other possible cause would be that the STCs themselves, the operators conducting the tests, are not doing their jobs."

"As much as I hate to admit it, everyone makes a mistake and I can see it happening once as in the explosion of Eagle 5. However, then we have the problem with the gravity and now the Commander's Eagle crashing." She paused and thought but did not say, 'and whatever else may stop working.'

"Perhaps I'm biased but I just can't see three different STCs screwing up at the same time." Her statement was biased beyond a doubt. Koenig was not going to accept it as gospel either. The commander and Morrow were certainly going to hose her down when he returned. Angelina was in for a long night; she reconsidered the coffee and was instead offered a cup of Vitaseed from Bergman.

"You'll feel better." The professor assured her with infinite wisdom. "Even if it does taste like the base of a sod barrel."

"Maybe it wasn't." Helena Russell speculated, referencing the Hammer House, colossal creeping eye that was wending its way east on a sleepy, solarcentric orbit. As the Moon drifted into dark, beleaguered paracynthion, the more violent the waves of it's white deluge. She felt funky. Everyone had begun to feel funky, and to the tune of "Crystal Glass, And Voices"--the tension mounting, and draining them like tics. At some point--no doubt after breakfast--the universe had become insidious, and unreal. Not that it was particularly likeable to begin with. The question of 'Dragons: Myth, Or Reality' now seemed as apropos as yellow copy to a shit-head, avante guard like Orville Hendershot at Alpha News Service. Out there she could see more than an almighty big eye. She saw coelacanth, wrapping its tentacles around destabilized masts; she favored Megamouth sharks, and their regard for the dumb, intrepidity of men--dinner is served. Space was a fossil, and rotting bones littered the eaves.

"I doubt it." Bergman said flatly, sucking in priceless breath. "Possibly that phenomenon has something to do with our troubles- "-though frankly it seems to be more demoralizing than threatening. Then again, there's something to be said about the power of intimidation.

"Anxiety paralysis." He decided, giving Ang' an eccentric pat on the shoulder while tracing the Constellate's trajectory beyond Frigoris.

"How can we be sure?" Helena Russell said, unmoved. "We've sent four Eagles out there." She pointed out, turning her hypothesis towards Ang.' "According to a medical scans, it's identical to a human eye, but is that all that it is?"

"Beyond that, the data doesn't tell us anything, doctor," Ang replied, defeated. "Power source..indeterminate. It is completely unknown to us."

As if that statement was a news flash. Most of what they had encountered since leaving earth was "unknown" to them.

"Of course, maybe it's made of something we do understand but our sensor data could be faulty. I mean, if we can't trust computer monitoring of systems, how can we trust any computer analyzed data," she concluded, convinced of computer's contribution to their problems.

"On the other hand, why should we even be concerned about it? It hasn't actually DONE anything." She leaned against the window staring at the eye. "It just sits there and stares at us, blinking occasionally. It's one of the freakiest things I've seen out here, to be sure, but it doesn't seem to be harming us."

"I don't know about that," Helena Russell unsnapped her surgical gown and handed it to Maureen Tan, who gave the 'eye' an irritated look as she passed by the viewport. "As you have seen in your own area, there are increasing reports of fighting and general intolerance and impatience."

"And it seems to be escalating?" Bergman added.

Dr. Russell nodded.

"My mother always said that the most dangerous evils and threats come from within ourselves." Angelina swallowed a mouthful of the Vitaseed and scowled with disgust. "Of course, Mom was never in outerspace either."

"Yes, and was better off for it." The professor remarked.

Fighting?

Intolerance?

Impatience?

These were the attitudes that puffed up Kitcheners, and MacArthurs carried with them on the fords of war; the innocent slain with the blood of good intentions covering their bared teeth. To ere was human, but to forgive, was too little, too late. What is unreasonable, though? Surgeons are reasonable when they are able to separate Siamese twins without having any spare parts left over. They are unreasonable when they remove the appendix, but leave the carcinogens. If they have enough acumen, such that they can cure ham, then they may be reasonable again. Human beings as paper dolls, waiting to be bleached out by thunderstorms, and trolloped upon by boot heels, and emulsified in splatters of coffee--oppressed by the rude, and the homicidally greedy, and the insoluble. Bergman had faith that the most intelligent human beings were noble idiots, drowning in their own self-made, philosophical slop.

For everyone, and everything, there is a breaking point. May those who consider otherwise be considered arrogant, and incontinent.

"Discipline is what holds us together here on Alpha." Bergman elocuted. "Discipline over ourselves. We can't possibly control what's out there...half the time, we don't even know where 'there' is. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone is becoming a bit unglued.

"Surely not to the point where we're on the brink of running around nude...and babbling...Ang,' you know what I mean...with poka-dots on our spines...that sort of thing...but we are--after all--human.

"By the way, we need not make matters worse by jumping to conclusions." This advisement was sent directly to Helena Russell.

"Not conclusions yet, Victor," Russell snapped uncharacteristically at Bergman. "But one must consider that the beginning of the psychological breakdown of our people occurring around the same time as the appearance of that thing," she pointed emphatically at the view port, "may very well be more than coincidence."

"We've already seen a couple dozen people who are near mental collapse, almost to the point of tears and frustration. We have been issuing tranquilizers but obviously we can't continue to sedate the ever growing number of people suffering from paranoia and depression."

She sighed, taking a sip of her black reheated coffee. "I'm sorry, Victor," she apologized for her unwarranted bitchiness," but from my perspective, responsible for the health of the people on Alpha, I am seeing rapid mental health deterioration."

"When are John, Pierre and the rescue team due back to base?"

Any time now, Bergman was about to say, but as they saw in the doorway, Carter was preparing to re-enter the Bantam rooster pit.

"That right, doc'?" The pilot smiled sarcastically, leaning against the yellow fluorescence with polite disrespect. "I try to find out the truth, so automatically I'm a few kangaroos short of the paddock."

He wasn't about to let the facts get in the way of his opinions.

Psychiatry, and medicine, Carter thought with vulgar epithets. In the county of opposable thumbs--next to 'A over T' politicking--they were the crappiest, the most overrated pieces of propaganda ever invented. He felt like shit, and had for quite some time. So much for mental hygiene. Completely forgetting that just yesterday, he and Helena Russell were friends, he balked, and sneered at her plain Jane attempt to compensate for her stupidity by pretending to be sublime. Immediately, she was a quack, trapped on the Moon because she was too dizzy to leave when the leaving was good. As for himself, he was left to a hollow, pitiful, and clumsy out house for hero wannabes.'

Eleanor Roosevelt. Now there was a Yankee of some consequence--her mirth, and her largesse, forever etched in the history books. Then you have Helena Russell, M.D.--stuck there on Moonbase Alpha like a chicken with its neck in a shakepole fence--spouting off bullshit like Madame Demento-fortune teller, and carnival rip-off artist, unpariel.

She unnerved him. Carter sought ways to depress her.

The five of them were nonchalantly missing out on the light show that was beginning to bluster against the vision ports like Saint Elmo's Fire. Grump Mathias was preparing to abrogate Parker for taking x-rays with the door open. Then he saw the conducive lightning that was embellishing the mounds of pumice two stories down, and moved past Garforth's bed to view the bright phasm.

"Now, you know better than that." Bergman reproved stridently. "Next time you really ought to join the conversation from the very beginning, Alan. Who knows, you might actually understand what's going on."

Maybe not. Probably not, but hope springs eternal.

"Alan," Ang interjected, "We've had a few more, uh, problems since you've been out of the game. One was an issue with the gravity control. The other was a problem with the Commander's eagle. We are still trying to find the cause of all these incidences."

She found that the steadying arm she put around him was not necessary and released him. Immensely relieved that he was up and about, she concluded the battered pilot did not have any serious head injury. At the same time, his irritation and vexation concerning the loss of Eagle 5 was more apparent than ever and the crash of Koenig's Eagle merely added fuel to the fire.

"The Commander and Big P only suffered minor injuries, though. They should be back in a matter of minutes." Of course, she purposely did not tell him that the ship was probably destined for scrap but he didn't need to know that now.

"Doctor Russell." Mathias said dumbly from the darkened ward. Hot photons warmed his forehead, cheeks, and the chest of his tunic. "Professor. You may want to see this."

"Professor Bergman." Controller Winters cut in on Bergman's commlock. Unable to comprehend, he was relegated to even deeper levels of his natural state--numbskulledness. "If you could check out the perimeter, and give us your opinion on this, it would be greatly appreciated."

The optical effect was unfamiliar and bizarre. Ang tried to consult her memory on optics and optical phenomena for an explanation. The lunar surface was...transparent.

"Whaaa..." Ang's mouth went dry. She swallowed hard in an attempt to lubricate her throat. The five of them were transfixed at the window. Carter looked to Ang for an explanation but the blank look on her face told him she did not have one.

"Professor?" Angelina looked to the older and more learned Bergman, at one time her graduate advisor. She felt like a graduate student again. She had no clue or explanation of what she was watching through the viewport.

"Opinion?" Bergman said, grasping his commlock, his astute dawning in, and out of the bright reflux. "It's strange. That's my opinion."

An oval foreground had formed, moving through the Plato sandbox like a spotlight. It evoked images of fugitives, fleeing from rough, well-deserved justice; nightclub improvs'; Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers--flying to Rio on winged shoes. Wherever it zigzagged over the unbroken mounds, and barbettes, the Imbrian aged topography, rife with FeO, became transparent; the old dream of surface desert, and craters becoming undetectable. Within the field, which gave off light the way a boiling teakettle will give off steam, there was an eerie, conspicuous, mobile glimpse at the Moon's lifeless core. Imponderable lines, shaped like careless Z's carved through hundreds, upon thousands, upon millions of tons of geological stratum, disappearing down a red ventilation shaft that it would have taken the WSC Core of Engineers eons to dig.

"How long has this been going on?" The professor inquired, keeping a tight clamp on his preconditioning.

"Not long." Winters replied optimistically.

Palms on the sill, Carter stood in his bare feet, and blue, karate pajamas betwixt Ang,' and Mathias, the corners of his mouth tightening in dumbfoundment, and dismay.

"Tell me that ain't a woop?"

Helena Russell was a mass of expressionless oak, her eyes being the only thing to betray her bedazzlement.

The hole in the Moon started towards the Vallis Alpes, stopping at the furrow, and then--as if recalling some forgotten task--started back towards the complex. It shortcutted through the cold, titanium roof of the security cube--the occupants, therein becoming horrificated Gumby figures. It paused by the exterior plumbing at the base of Medical Center, and then crawled up the wall, and entered the base through the bulkhead where Bergman was standing.

"Uh, Winters." The professor's jawbone clacked up, and down with bizarre equipoise. The rest of his body was completely discorporate. "Just my opinion, but I think this may be rather important. Exactly what are you reading now."

Mathias could see through his eye sockets to the burning sun that used to be Ward-C.

"Nothing." The deputy controller said with desperate paze, and freeze. "Absolutely nothing. The network went down about five minutes ago. We're without scanners, and sensors."

CHAPTER 6

As nearly as John Koenig could tell--this was his complete report on the Eagle Five rendezvous mission:

A) Eagle Five Detailed Objectives, And Experiments (0).

B) Eagle Five Achievements (Double Zero).

C) Eagle Five Record Of Lunar Events (Wrecked Ship, and Zero).

D) Powered Flight Sequence Of Events (Head Against DPS Control Panel).

E) Mission Sequence Of Events (0)

F) Translunar, And Trans-Constellate Maneuver Summary (See The Above).

And so on, and so forth.

"Commander, we're all shut down out here." Pierre Danielle said from the darkened equipment bay between the ship's command, and service modules. "Rescue Eagle Three is standing by. Rescue Eagle Nine is with the salvage fleet over Aristarchus. They should be arriving any minute now to coordinate the removal.

"After that, she belongs to the metallurgy team.

"We can leave whenever you're ready." He said, turning to watch the other ship's operations team exit through the temporary corridor. Phil Inoshiro stopped to pick up an ink pen that he dropped. Otherwise, it was a clear, open-and-shut case of ineptitude, and vainglorious waste.

"Yeah." The commander said, handing Big-P the useless flight recorder, which would, no doubt, grow useless acres of wheat for the Lunar Council to deliberate upon. "I'm ready now."

He stooped over his couch to switch off the random, pointless navigational glyphs. It had been as helpful as a fifty-year-old road map. Deprived of the digital imaging provided by the screens, the module was nothing, but loose straps, and blinking emergency lights, pathetically calling for data retrieval that was no longer germane.

He heard the CMP's booted footfalls fade into the passenger module. John Koenig prayed--not for treasures, or imperial powers, or big chested women to sooth him--but rather, for common sense. The native intelligence to find their butts with both hands; to know what was going on.

"You must avoid them...please." An emotional voice vibrated behind him. "They don't know you're here yet."

"Avoid who, Big-P?" He said, shaking his head, but as he turned, he saw that he was standing alone, and in the dark.

"WHAT?!?" Angelina blurted in dismay despite the optical marvel outside. "FIVE MINUTES AGO?!? Why didn't someone call me?!?!"

"Because the most competent person is working on it!" Ben Ouma blustered in the background with arrows of fire. "ME!!"

Ang burst out in frustrated and sardonic laughter. "Right. We're dead."

"I DON'T FUCKING APPRECIATE YOUR ROYAL BITCHINESS, HOLIER THAN..."

"Screw you, Ouma," Ang cut him off and cut the link. She shook her head, dispelling some of the pent up energy. Two seconds ago, if she could reach through monitor-land and pull Benjamin Ouma through the cables to her, she would have done so.

"That dumb ass is going to get us all killed," she bitterly proclaimed as she turned away from the commpost and came face to face with Commander Koenig.

The pawnbrokers of ubiquity turned their camera on Pete Garforth next, turning him into a life-sized version of Helena Russell's anatomical man-statue. His heart, and lungs became panoptical while he doped off. The bio-med sensors on his chest emitted an additional ping with the heightened voltage. To the left, Bob Mathias' clenched fist was caught in the exposure of blood, and sinew. Bergman could see every bone, every carnal, every flanges. He was a physician, without secrets--all the way up the radius of his right arm. Truman Starns entered the ward in time to have his patella, and femur bones placed under spectroscopic analysis.

"It's puzzling." Bergman glossed, staring down at the arc of pant leg that was missing. In this light of all truth, he was nothing, but an annotated tarsal. Somewhere further up, a plastic defibrillator, with a microprocessing chip pumped the blood that plunged through his veins that made him frivolous as the room whirred like a grinder. "What do you make of it, John."

There was no response from the commander, whose bleak visage held Ang' in a narcoleptic stare. His face seemed too white; his demeanor slightly out of character. He behaved like a man who was walking a tightrope over eternity. His aura was one of caution, and paranoia, and suspicion. He looked at Ang' with scunner, seizing her lip, and forcing it up for inspection like a horse's mouth.

"Hey, what gives?" Carter objected, grabbing Koenig by his black stripe. "Commander?"

He landed against Helena Russell's bookshelf, completely unwinded. Dry medical tomes from Harvard, and Yale began to avalanche upon his thick, vertiginous mop.

"Ang.'" Bergman said secretly. "Better step away from him."

He was the first to notice what should have been a dead give away. Then again, how many people truly pay attention to the color of a person's eyes. John Koenig saw the world through circles of extreme blue. This being's eyes were blue, but they were more frozen, and deliberate--they spoke more of manufacture than birth.

What does that remind us of, the professor mused to himself as he viewed the giant, similar-eyed Constellate.

"JOHN!! Stop!!!" Helena Russell pulled at Koenig's arm. "John!! What are you doing?"

Helena Russell pull Koenig away while Angelina Carter backed away, removing her jaw from his grasp. She was a little stunned. It wasn't her jaw that was aching where he had his hold but her head felt like it would explode. She was seeing stars and pound signs and the room was a perplexing array of lights and distorted sounds, as if she was in another place.

Momentarily.

She shook her head and the contours of Medical Center returned.

Helena Russell had maintained her hold of Koenig and she too seem to be in a different place. She did not appear to be distressed and Koenig locked eyes with her, keeping her in a staring contest with him, while holding onto her upper arms. She had returned the grasp on his biceps and remain transfixed in his gaze with a relaxed though odd expression.

For a moment, the Moon was binocular.

The Koenig facsimile gently took the field MED Scanner that Russell was holding, and studied it. After an ignorant attempt to remove one of the rotary switches for inspection, he handed it back to her.

Thank you. A quiver of his pallid lips communicated coarsely. You're inferior, but I'll treat you with respect, I guess.

"This is Rescue Eagle Three." John Koenig's hassled voice broke across the Medical Center link. "Be advised, we're now operating on the APS. We're ranging, and request coordinates for final approach.

"Tell Dr. Carter I'd like to see her in my office as soon as we land."

"Rescue Eagle Three, Alpha." Winters returned. "Pad one has developed a hydro-electrical problem. We're putting you on a star-angled, mid-course correction. On the next orbit, we'll try to set you down on pad two."

"???Try???" The commander blazed from 2,000 kilometers distant, and falling. "WINTERS, JUST LAND THE GODDAMN SHIP."

In the mean time, the intruder vanished, and took his light show with him.

CHAPTER 7

Angelina and Carter assisted each other up and leaned against the sill. Ang was dreading the asschewing she was about to receive from the Commander and probably Morrow. The 'Koenig' that wasn't Koenig in Medical was far more benevolent than the Koenig approaching Launch Pad 2. The Koenig in the Eagle was pissed off and wanted answers; for the first time in her professional career, she had no answers and worse yet, no plan.

Ang and Carter stared out the viewport. The now sleepy, bloodshot 'eye' stared back at them. It blinked several times, as the prominent veins began to recede and disappear.

"We have acquisition of signal." Gordon Cooper said over the white room speakers. "Recovery crews standby."

Several people awaited the ship's arrival. Carter was there, lump on his head. He waited beside Ang,' maddened at Koenig's crude observation of his wife's upper lip. It was Koenig; it wasn't Koenig. He is Rock Quarry. Bergman was ombudsman. He waited patiently, trying to build a structure around these baffling conundrums. Helena Russell stood beside Ang.' Ang,' in turn, was standing beside Ben Ouma who refused to talk to her.

Carter smelled sunrise peaches.

Harness Bulls Dyronforth, and Pound were the gatekeepers. They stood in the margins like concrete caesars. The latter was recently emancipated from a broken down, travel tube car. The former swore solemn oaths, never again to eat Gonzales' crappy food in the dining complex. He hated the new rooster, which had flogged him, and gnarled his helmet. His cudgels were heard loud.

The red, striped rescue Eagle floated down onto the turntable in an exhaustive, 29 fps spray of plasmatics. Long shadows grew across her port side from the surrounding depot lights as the boarding tube telescoped towards the primary hatch. The water-glycol, coolant loops began to hum as the crew egressed at their leisure.

The pumps hissed. The rescue team was sterilized. The indicator light over the outer airlock went from a fiery red DANGER in countdown font, to the pressurized, admissible green for 'GO.'

The sealtite on the twin doors peeled away, and out stepped a pair of aliens, each seven feet tall, approximately. They stood at different poles, both long, and gaunt of face, improbable of eye, and wearing long, lavender robes, of European reminder. Their garb included long headdresses that wrapped about their chins, and looked almost papal in design.

Angelina Verdeschi Carter, Chief of Technical Section blinked at the illusions and it was gone. She considered that perhaps she only WISHED she saw aliens emerging from the doors. If the individuals had been alien, oh yes, at least Koenig's attention would be occupied by something other than all of the screw-ups and breakdowns across the base.

Commander John Koenig, followed by Pierre Danielle, who preferred to hide in the shadows, was incensed and stopped suddenly, looking back and forth between Angelina Carter and Benjamin Ouma. Ouma, who had a smug 'Now you're in for it' look on his face, shifted his stance, looking away and realizing that he would not escape the coming fire storm either.

Angelina had never seen Koenig like this before. His red face was set in stone with the exception of the bulging veins in his temple. His eyes, their natural color, pierced like icy daggers.

She cleared her throat, nervously. "I'm glad to see you are not injured, Commander," she offered. His silence was unnerving and dread spread to the pit of her stomach.

"OH NO." Koenig cut emphatic air between himself, and Benjamin Ouma. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT."

He stormed down the accessway to the Ready Room, and tossed his EVA harness to Marilys Singh, and Ozro Covington. Pierre Danielle did likewise, only he was nicer about it. The petite Singh showed amazing physical prowess, catching the 02 tanks, and hitching them onto the table without sweat, or duress. Covington was working on the CMP's right seal ring. Singh was detaching the lanyard pocket. John Koenig climbed out of his own for chrissakes suit, ripping the slide fastener down, and dropping the orange beta cloth onto the floor.

With angry chagrin, he noticed that Bergman, Carter, and Dr. Carter were standing by the shield door.

"You haven't even heard what I have to say yet." The computer chief began to plead with dire inclemency.

"Before the engines were gimbaled." Koenig argued, leaning against the locker to zip his boots. "Before launch sequence initiate." He paused, thanking Ozro Covington for tossing his belt to him. "Before I even stepped off the damn travel tube, computer gave a high estimate on the capability, and duration of our PGS.

"I know these things, Ouma." He asserted. "I should. I was sitting right there when Dempsey ran the checks."

It burned John Koenig's soul to be presumed stupid.

Helena Russell ran the bioscanner over Koenig and aside from elevated blood pressure, which was both expected and explainable under the circumstance, the commander was physically okay. She nodded to him but also gave him the 'eye' (no pun intended) to take it easy, that she would be 'watching' him.

"There is nothing wrong with computer," Ouma launched his attack with both barrels. "My team and I have gone over and over the software routines and we can't find anything."

"Oh really?!?" Ang cocked an eyebrow, challenging. "You've gone through EVERY program? EVERY subroutine?!?! Right. Sure, Ben. What a crock. That sort of examination takes days, Ben, DAYS not HOURS!! What do you think I am, an idiot?!?!"

"Well...." Ouma eyed her coolly then turned to face her. "With the exception of Eagle 5, which is STILL unknown, the loss of gravity appears to be MECHANICALLY related, the malfunction of the Commander's Eagle appears to be MECHANICALLY related and the general breakdown of equipment and services all appear to be MECHANICALLY related...."

"NOW WAIT A MINUTE," Angelina angrily interrupted, "You're pulling theories out of your ass. Just because you ran some preliminary scan of a subroutine and didn't find anything software, you wash your hands of it and say 'Not me! Not computer' without any attempt to rip the fucking thing apart! While my technicians stumble all over themselves trying to figure out what is happening, your people are convinced computer is not the problem and taking off for yet ANOTHER coffee break!!!"

"ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF NOT DOING MY JOB?!?!?!" Ouma fumed angrily, almost nose to nose with her, fist clenching.

Angelina merely stared at him, slightly smirking and not answering him.

'Go ahead,' Ouma imagined her taunting him with her eyes,'go ahead and belt me a good one.'

He wanted to bitch slap her a good one. He always liked working with her before; they had always been friends and cooperative allies. But now....Now he REALLY disliked her. He locked her into the stare. No, he would not smack her. He really didn't care that it wasn't decent to strike a woman but the fact that her husband with famous painful left hook was standing less than 5 feet from her would repay the slight, despite his battered condition, one hundred fold did not appeal to Ouma. He was not interested in getting a rearranged face.

In the viewport beyond the scene, the eye studied the confrontation, lids squinting.

"It's not good to put things on the never, never, Ouma." Carter speculated. "Especially with the way I'm feeling right now."

In space, the Constellate dimmed.

"???Do you mind???" Koenig hectored as Russell moved her MED Scanner over his liver, and kidneys. That was always her final check. He didn't know if this was true when she examined others, but it was in his case--as if he was a chronic alcoholic.

"You WILL let me do my job, John," Helena stated with icy firmness and resolve. She was beginning to get a headache and not in the mood for his argumentative nature.

"Oh." Bergman stumbled, looking for a way to disarm these cruise missiles. "I wanted to tell you--we had something EXTRAORDINARY happen." He brimmed over, rubbing his palms together fervently--as if having your upper lip pulled up by a phony commander, and being turned invisible were the equivalent of gold bullion.

"Really?" Koenig scowled. "That's great, Victor. I too had something EXTRAORDINARY happen. I crashed.

"Several people were injured during that debacle in the computer room, and as nearly as I can tell, we're in as dangerous a situation as we've ever been in." He turned, frowning deeply at the open doorway. Bergman watched the manner of this aside, and it was less of a turning away as it was a reaction. "No." Koenig said to the wall. "Thank you...I don't have time for that now."

His gaze softened--as if he felt guilty for being so terse to the lifeless, open doorway.

Carter looked at Ang' with dizzying uncertainty, his brow furrowing at the weirdness of what they were watching. It was odd. Koenig looked dumb. No person rapped to himself or herself at length like that. Ouma was too busy, helming the schooner of selfishness, and self-reproach to notice that the commander was talking to himself.

Helena stood transfixed, watching Koenig carry on a conversation with himself when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Victor begin to sway. The professor became flush and began to sweat profusely, raising a wizened hand to his forehead.

"Just FAX it to me later." He told the space between the two walls. The open air didn't take offense, fortunately, and he did a worthy job of forcing a smile until nobody, and nothing exited the room. "Strange. I've never seen her before." He told the others wistfully, and chuckled like Dwight Frye doing Rennfield.

As Koenig turned toward the group from his one-man world, Bergman collapsed backwards as Ang tried to lower him down and Carter grabbed his other arm to help support the weight

"Professor!!" Ang exclaimed, worry etching on her face as Russell raced to his side, once again retrieving the bioscanner from its case and began to run it over Bergman. "What's wrong with him?" Ang asked, before the first pieces of data were fed into the scanner.

CHAPTER 8

I feel more like me now that I'm here, than I do now, or so the melody came to be written.

From far, and abroad; transcending the foaming waves of the blue Atlantic....

Professor Guntram Borkenville, PhD, MA, BA, BSIT, LSM, DVA, SMA; University of Phoenix, along with the practical MSCIS; Senior honcho, and creator of '98 PC Applications, which revolutionized disks, memory, and sent DOS to its final resting place; professional engineer, and exchange consultant for Johns Hopkins, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Prometheus of pneumonic circuitry, and holographic delivery systems; adjunct Lucasian professor of mathematics at Carnegie Melon, posthumously; author of twenty (not nineteen, or eighteen) books on hypothetical singularities, and not a one of them interesting; advisor to Neil Turok of Cambridge University, and contributor to the 'partial theory;' explorer in the further reaches of Tetpartite Computer Mechanics, and artificial intelligence; hailed by CGI dickheads all over the globe for his use of primitive software to display the properties of the number 'one,' followed by 24 zeros (as representative of the observable universe); quadruple winner of the NOBEL Prize.

Beneath the Champs Elysses....

Replicator of a functioning, multiempathic interface, but with precious little remuneration, or approbation from his fellow parisians who satirized him, and denounced him for his attempts to create an android ground hog. Revered by NATO for his creation of Borkenville's Yarn (and by this, not an authorized biography of his life, and times, but rather a logic bomb that could melt the hardware, operated by attaches of the Tricontinent).

Hater of women, murderer of love, and drinker of acorn sap.

"This bothers you doesn't it?" His tormentor said, floating next to him in the airless, confined maze of the crystal cerebellum. All around them, bursts of mineral knowledge gravity fed their way to rapid memory retrieval. The effect was what powered Moonbase Alpha's nervous system. "Having to shut down? It leaves you feeling alyo gazrazh, does it not?"

Had he not been wearing a pressure suit, the smug bastard would have blown his nose, the genius mused. He was still smarting from a too close shave with a straight razor, and now was not the time for Colonel Yuri Petrov's intimidation, and relentless assholery.

"No." Borkenville quivered, selecting the only vitreous node that contained black veins. "I don't feel ironic."

He understood the Russian transliterations. Skoal, comrade. He should. For the past ten years he had been cajoled, even threatened with them in an ongoing, perditious cycle.

"The commander requested that central computer be turned off." The colonel said, looking at a diamond shaped impurity in one of the many facets. "I have allowed you to assist because it is for the good of the base. Only you can shut down the higher functions, while allowing the purely autonomic functions to continue."

The professor sneered, tracing the artery to it's quantum core.

"The common good?" He repeated in unlikely tones. "To you, my friend, what constitutes 'goodness' is to keep me imprisoned in a cell, deep in the cortex of Evil Mushroom."

"Such pessimism." Petrov criticized. "Friends do not do such things."

Borkenville felt the tug on his 02 feed prominently.

"All I want." The colonel explained, pulling even harder against the tube which fed into the professor's life mix tank. "Is to ensure that you don't bring anything to the surface that we wouldn't allow down there in the bunker.

"After all, you, and I--we're but Vasya Pupkins? True?"

For a moment, Borkenville believed that he was about to die, but at the last minute the colonel relinquished his reaper's clutch on the professor's air hose.

"We're o'kay." The colonel smiled, with thunder, and probable gaze. "Finish your work here, and let us return to our duties."

He did, and they did.

CHAPTER 9

The eye gazed sullenly at the group through the viewport of the Commander's office. Ang stood by the window as the rest of the Command staff filed into the pit area and took their seats. All except the Commander, who was still at his desk, receiving and reviewing the mounting number of mechanical and electrical failures around the base.

Ang took her seat next to Carter; on her other side was Sandra Benes, who actually sat between Ang and Ben Ouma, as a buffer or a wall. Dr. Russell rushed in and took the seat next to Ouma. The empty moduform chair on her other side would soon be Koenig's and next to him, Morrow was pulling up his chair with palm pilot in hand. Conspicuously absent was Professor Bergman, who was still in Medical under evaluation.

Koenig closed the privacy door to Main Mission and stepped into the pit to his chair. He was not a happy camper. He gazed sullenly at Angelina Carter then Ben Ouma then shifted his attention, temporarily to Dr. Russell.

"What is the situation with Victor, Helena?" He paused then added. "What is your report in general regarding the mental and physical health of the people on this base?"

"Awry." The physician responded flatly, the starlight giving her fair features a puffed, sardonic look. "One ward is full. No thanks to central computer. Everyone else is fairing as well as can be expected, considering they've been blown up; dropped on their heads; electrocuted; trapped in elevators.

"Professor Bergman's experienced an anomalous defibrillation. It's definitely a cardiac problem, and we have no idea why it happened." She glummed. "Go figure.

"Since medical implants aren't a computer domain, we're looking into the somatic possibilities. Exploratory surgery isn't exactly my first choice as far as solutions go, but if it continues, I'm afraid we'll have no choice."

"Yes, yes, yes." Ouma squawked. "Let's all blame it on computer."

He was pecked to death, and fresh out of superlatives.

"Well--I reckon I do blame it on computer." Carter retorted proudly. "Commander, it's like I was trying to say before--it's got us right behind the eight ball. It's amazing how many people can die when a piece of software goes this much bonkers."

He showed them an inch betwixt his two forefingers.

"Since when are you a computer expert, Captain?" Ouma launched the flaming arrow, seething. "Commander, I have my best people working on it now. I have none other than Dr. Borkenville working on the subroutines, looking for bugs. So far, he hasn't found any and in his professional opinion, there probably won't be any problems."

"Far be it from any of us to question the intellect of a 'genius' such as Borkenville." Ang sneered in response, narrowing her eyes.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Koenig shouted while slamming his fist to the table. Helena Russell merely blinked.

"EVERYONE KNOWS THAT TECHNICAL SECTION IS FUCKING UP, COMMANDER!!!! SHE," Ben pointed to Angelina vociferously," AND HER ARMY OF HALF WITS CAN'T SEEM TO KEEP THE FRIGGEN BASE TOGETHER BUT, OH NO, ITS EASIER TO BLAME COMPUTER!!!"

"You're so pathetic," Ang hissed. "Defending that goddamn machine to the last."

"I SAID ENOUGH!!!" Koenig beat the table again while standing, this time startling Ang and Sandra in their chairs.

Then Petrov arrived for the occlusion--as always, precisely on time, and with vetted report.

"Commander Koenig." The colonel--'spokesperson' for the Great Borkenville--said from the commstation screen. In the module below, the analogue lunar clock was an hour behind. "The Plugs-Out procedure is now completed. Per your request, 8192 375 crystal based processors, deactivated. Five terabytes of memory, unavailable; still capable of processing 5.6 teraflops."

"Upon reactivation, there may be a problem with LOGOS, and SYNCHO." The professor reminded him from somewhere, stage right, but Petrov beat him into submission again with thinning lips, and possible brows.

"Stand by for updates." The colonel told them all as his coolness was replaced with the moonbase test pattern.

"That guy's a weirdo." Carter commented, and the eye in space grew wider with trepidation. "Borkenville. Do we really need him working on this? Dr. Belgarion knows those systems.

"Hell, the good Dr. Carter there could throw the switch." He brimmed with orbiting pride. "Why do we need bread baskets from a psychopath?"

"Plugs-Out procedure?" Ouma ignored him, turning towards Koenig with cryptic disbelief. "What did he mean? The PO is a down-moding directive. You ordered computer to be turned off?

His head grew oblong with piteous, unacceptance, and his vocal cords were strained as he held back the canal of ridiculous schmaltz. To hear Ben Ouma talk, his childhood friend had just been eviscerated with a machete. Carter thought he was nuts. He wasn't acting like himself, to say the least, but at the same time, the lemonade optimism of Ouma remained intact on the surface. He continued to smile, but it was overwritten with maudlin self-indulgence, and a puny surrender to fate.

The pilot wanted to slap him.

"That's right, Ouma," Koenig swiveled slightly toward him with wrinkled and annoyed brow. "In order to eliminate computer as a possible culprit, we have to take it out of the equation as much as possible. Technicians have been reassigned to monitor critical systems and non-critical functions will be temporarily unavailable or under manual operation."

Ouma shook his head sourly in response but otherwise said nothing.

"That means that elevators and travel tubes have been disabled. We walk around the base now." Koenig looked around at the staff.

"Sir," Sandra offered, "have we even eliminated the possibility that...that thing," she pointed to the viewport at the eye, which turned a sleepy glance toward her, "that thing may be somehow responsible for all of this?"

"Although it is a little unnerving," Ang attempted to answer, "well, ok, actually A LOT unnerving, it's not showing any evidence of influencing us. It is not emitting energy, radioactivity or magnetic fields. It's just...well, its just sitting there, staring at us."

"Yes, but our sensor data is only measuring what is known to us," Sandra interjected.

"True," Ang nodded.

"And, the data is being analyzed by computer which is also in question..."

"Oh CHRIST! Here we go again!!!" Ouma interrupted, slamming down his red flimsie, his cheeks now flushed purple against his dark skin.

"Talk about a freeze-out." Carter observed, blocking out the computer's bleepity-bleep, histrionics. "No briefing; no bio-medical telemetry?" He said, giving Russell a consolatory nod. She replied with an affirmative blink. "No summary upon which we can develop a procedure, or a practical plan of action.

"A bit more choke, and we would have started." He said, relaxing in his moue. Out of number four, he saw the Constellate, undulating...it's lids mostly closed, as if sleeping, and dreaming. "If that's the source of our problem, we'd best be settling its hash, and fast. You know...." The pilot trailed. "If it's nosey enough to want to kill us, that's one thing....

"I prescribe a laser Eagle--give it a couple of hyper Dioxide bursts. Blind it, and be done with it."

"That may not be enough." Lorna O'Brian--Victor Bergman's subrogate hypothesized. "An effective solution may involve killing it."

She had never killed anyone in her life. Not even Klaus Rotstein, who probably deserved killing.

"'I am life, and I am death.'" The seemingly omnipresent Colonel Petrov extracted from the open door to Koenig's office. He shook his head sadly as he returned his commlock to his belt. "A glut of blood might change your mind." He said from experience, his flares deigning the steps as he moved into the meeting area. "Certainly, it changed mine. Pardon me for being late commander." He apologized, as he dropped into the open seat next to Paul Morrow. "I had urgent business to attend to."

M. Borkenville was stowed away now--back to manacles, and salt-water refreshments. It was the best thing. A kilometer below the surface of the Moon, Evil Mushroom was refulgent, and unified once more.

Then a chromatography of light pierced the big doors, and came to rest on Angelina Carter's forehead. No one seemed to notice as it spoke to her, and vituperated her. It insulted her style, and waited for an angry response to emerge.

No, the light laughed like Don Rickles, and in Angs' mind, she was already a hockey puck. No one else can hear, or see this. Why should they? The light asked her vengefully. I will be a helpmete, but on my own terms, no? Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

I'm sure you agree. Do you read Camus? The light asked arrogantly, not allowing her to get a thought in edgewise. You're drinking coffee. It said tragically. I need a cup. Caffe with cream, squeezed from healthy, bearded goats.

As Yuri Petrov spoke, everyone appeared to listen attentively, but Angelina could not hear a word he said. His lips moved in painful slow motion. She was deaf, except for the voice of the light. Even the background noise was muffled, and the voice echoed and grew louder. She wanted to speak but there was a disconnect between her brain and her vocal chords. All she could do was listen to the disembodied speaker, while watching Petrov's lips move. It was almost like she was watching a poorly dubbed movie and the colonel's mouth movements were definitely out of sync with the voice. It struck her as odd, even amusing.

Her amusement faded as her stomach started to turn and Petrov's lips seemed to grow to monstrous, funhouse proportions. She felt deathly ill and wanted desperately to get away by passing out but it would not let her go.

"Yes, the truth." Petrov pondered with considerable, bottomless pit meaning. "Alright, your plan is ridiculous." He confessed, twiddling his thumbs. "It has a few logistics problems, to say the least. A tactical disaster? Most certainly."

Honesty purged his soul.

"???Why???" Carter huffed. He could tell by Angs' purposeful silence, and Florence Nightingale manners that she agreed with him.

"The ships are small." The colonel explained simply. "The target is quite large." He added with a nod towards the vision port. "It would be the equivalent of using two gnats to launch an attack on the USS Missouri, to quote an Americanism." He chuckled at a joke that was beyond Ben Ouma. He also felt excusatory. It embarrassed him to have to be so elementary before John Koenig, and his brothers, and sisters of science. He considered offering a quote by Douglas MacArthur: "Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul!" He didn't think they would understand the portend of that either.

He was always right, his Talbot-like curse.

Idiot. The light nudged Angs' shoulder to get her attention. Listen to him. To hear him talk he's the king of Tunisia, and just as memorable. He'll never change. Not in a million years. Not in a million, billion, trajillion years. The voice fried, and popped with vitriolic grease, but paused to return to positive thinking. He was worse when he was younger. The light conceded in all fairness.

Ma soeur, you seem ill? Photon digits stretched over a corner of her medulla oblongata. Swallow an aspirin with a glass of Absinthe. It works for me when I have the heaving belches.

"No." Carter rebuked, shaking his head. "Look here--we send a couple of battle wagons out. They're armed to the hilt. We follow coordinates provided by Dr. Russell, and we-"

"Perform Lasik on it?" Petrov surmised, and Sandra Benes snickered.

"Maybe." The pilot debated preposterously. "That would be better than just sitting on our cans while the base falls down around our ears."

"What if...." The colonel proposed. "You travel to the appointed killing zone, and discover--irrevocably--that they eye has been replaced by an anatomical part that is much more threatening...a foot...a set of teeth. Where will you be then, my impetuous friend?"

Mademoiselle. The light said rudely, but it needed her attention. Look, the carnival of Antwerp--famous throughout all of Europa. Then the Waffen SS arrived, and spoiled everything. Holographic ghosts carrouselled around Angs' reeling head. She saw Black Summatran Rhinoes, Orungutuns, miniature donkeys. She was vilified by the aroma of wild animal shit.

"Ang,' do you have anything you'd like to add to this." Koenig wondered, squeezing the horrific aggravation from his eyes.

With a rasping exhalation, she slumped backwards in her moduform chair. All she could see was blackness but she heard the insistent voices, the movement of chairs, a pair or two of arms around her, lowering her to the gray tile floor.

The voice of the light seemed to be lost in the shuffle though it was still there.

"Ang...Ang.." Dr. Russell's crisp voice snapped at her through the blended voices and sounds. Angelina's eyes were half open as she tried to bring the room back into focus out of the blackness, but her lids weighed 1000 tons and when she closed them, everything was black again; except for the ghostly image of the eye.

"When did you last eat?" Russell again persisted as she scanned her. Coffee with imitation cream in the morning for breakfast; otherwise, Ang did not remember eating that day.

"I doubt if it was today," the CMO said in veiled disgust. "I would say that this is a result of low blood sugar." Helena Russell stated her oversimplified diagnosis.

Dr. Russell never ceased to be amazed at the often simplistic stupidity of the Command Staff. They were all intelligent, hard working and dedicated people but when it came to taking care of themselves, they often overlooked themselves. Helena shook her head. She had enough patients in medical with injuries due to stupidity.

"That's it," Dr. Russell stood up, exasperated. "I want food sent in for everyone in this room right now. No one leaves until everyone has had dinner. Can anyone of you tell me you've taken time for nourishment today?!??!"

Her question was met with silence. Sandra Benes quietly pulled her commlock from her belt, contacting Gonzales, as Russell raged on.

"I don't get it," she paced between the conference table and the viewport. The eye appeared to awaken from its slumber, looking on curiously. "You are responsible for the people and processes of this base yet you know that if you don't take care of yourselves, you will not be able to effectively perform your jobs!!!"

"Helena.." Koenig interjected.

"NO, JOHN!" She moved away. "You all are ridiculous and irresponsible!! How many times must you be told, like children, that you must eat regular meals for optimal energy. HMMM???"

"It...it...won't hurt us. It just watches and learns. It won't hurt us," Angelina mumbled, barely coherently from the floor. In a half sitting position supported by Carter, she tried to fight her way back to full consciousness again, refocusing on the yellow wall panels of the room.

To teach is to know oneself. The sunbeam contradicted, warming her rankled forehead. It settled into an empty seat beside Petrol, and glowed livid with rage. The fact that he was held in such contempt appeared to be lost on the colonel, who continued to stare at a fix between the big doors.

"Maybe her problem isn't food." He suggested, but went no further.

Clever, isn't he? The ray imparted facetiously to Ang,' moving cautiously away from the colonel whose astute appeared to follow it across the room anyway. The beam stooped to whisper sweet nothings in Angs' ear. Three hours from now, we will reach the end of the lunar day. It confided. You must go the Alpine Valley--the EOG plant in Worden's Cavern. I'll leave something for you there. What's on the label WILL NOT be the true contents of the item.

When you find it, you shall know what to do with it. No?

Oh, it said, leaving hurriedly. Incidentally, let us keep this secret between the two of us. He's such a moron, isn't he? It said of Petrov, and then left her alone.

CHAPTER 10

A complete meal from the four food groups (reprocessed and pasteurize to resemble the four food groups but nutrition nevertheless) and a 3 hour nap did not quell the burning anxiety in Angelina Carter's head. She stared up at the ceiling, in the near darkness, miserable and angst ridden.

Alan tossed and turned next to her though Nicky slumbered deeply, curled up between them. Apparently, the toddler was also unsettled by the presence of the 'eye' in the black sky and had crawled into bed with them. 'Its good one of us gets a goodnight's sleep,' she thought, as she pull