

The Osiris Invasion

By Anne Spackman

Copyright 2012 by Anne Spackman

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Boris Rasin

Vous etes empereur, seigneur, et vous pleurez! You are emperor, sire, and you weep?

—Berenice

Prologue

#

Like many unattainable things, the stars are most beautiful when seen from a distance. He had seen his share of them. There was never any end to the unchanging stars. No night, no day. No matter how far he traveled among them, his position seemed to be frozen in space. There was no escape.

I would tell you, my love, of all my life, now that my journey is nearing its end. If only you were here.

He was alone, or nearly. There was only one other passenger on board his spaceship Selesta.

On and on the ship traveled. Stars ahead, stars behind, enveloping him. He felt hopelessly lost in the infinity, even though he knew where he was going. If he were human, he felt certain the stars would have driven him insane long ago.

He was no longer human.

He was Ornenkai, an immortal. His soul memory was stored in the computerized databank of an ancient spaceship, the Selesta. A spaceship that had seen the rise and fall of the greatest alien civilization ever to have developed. A civilization so advanced, that it had been able to store the memories of a human man in a machine—and so, he had become a computerized entity, trapped forever in Selesta. Selesta, a ship created from the ruins of an ancient Enorian flagship.

If only I could be a human once again... The miracle he and the eternal Emperor Marankeil had waited for, that their computerized souls could be rechanneled back into an immortal human form after so many years of living as machines.

He had lost hope of it ever happening, as the ship quietly slipped through the soundless void, threading its way through the ancient star gates of the Seynorynaelian Empire, an empire that had destroyed lives more numerous than the stars.

The Empire, alas, was no more.

Within that infinite silence, Ornenkai could receive messages from the lost Empire worlds, if he chose to listen. The ancient territories were not far from him, but he kept away from the planetary systems. From the traffic of emissions coming from them, he learned that wars had broken out between the old territories. Let them annihilate each other. Only give him some news on what had befallen the emperor Marankeil!

The man he was sworn to destroy. Once, his best friend and brother.

If only I knew what happened to the emperor...

At first he had struggled to keep his secret incarnation from the immortal woman Alessia and Hinev's group of explorers, who had lived on board Selesta for many years. He had been obliged to deceive them; he had not wanted to. But in time, he had grown accustomed to imitating a computer's detachment as he dealt with the crew. It seemed such a simple adjustment, to pretend that he, a living being, was only a machine. The explorers were now dead, except for Alessia. And in the circuitry of a machine the soul of a man, Ornenkai's identity, was slowly dying.

The pain was remembering his human life. Moments in which he remembered clear sensations of what it meant to be human. He remembered the feeling of his physical body, an ecstasy of movement that would be denied him for the rest of time. His memory was his torment, but it was the only thing keeping his whole identity alive. Then—there came endless hours in which he battled off the encroaching nothingness of an existence without any sentient feeling—and then the former Vice-Emperor Ornenkai, once sovereign over a thousand galaxies, knew fear.

He did not wish for his mind and soul to remain trapped in a machine for all eternity.

He could not forget himself. He could not give up!

Ornenkai had never really realized how much the Immortal Alessia's presence staved off the encroaching darkness. Since leaving her, he found the moments of nothingness lasting longer and longer. Emotionless life led to the nothingness—even though emotions he had once thought merely vain fantasy and indulgences. He wondered if love truly existed as a force in the universe, for it was all that gave him life. His love for Alessia, and his love of life.

When his personality, his dying sentience revived, he realized how fortunate he was to have Alessia's baby daughter Selerael on board with him as his only companion. He had stolen her away. Her presence made him remember his quest. Once he reached Kiel3, now called Earth by its natives, she would have to find the Enorian singularity, the most precious of exotic matter in all the universe, for him.

Seizing control of the singularity was the only way Ornenkai could disempower the eternal emperor Marankeil, once his greatest friend. It was the only way he could ever make amends for the part he had played in building the Seynorynaelian Empire and for what that that evil Empire had done.

Ornenkai knew he had to earn his redemption before he forgot himself entirely, and his soul became lost forever, perhaps on board Selesta. His greatest fear since the demise of the evil Seynorynaelian Empire was that, as the angelic Enorians had suggested, there was a kind of divine justice at work in the universe, and that there was a special kind of hell waiting for the former Vice-Emperor of the entire Seynoryanelian Empire.

There were only two who could save the future of all life from Marankeil's evil reign. For no mortal being could live long enough to reach the singularity on Kiel3. That was why Ornenkai had betrayed Alessia. That was why he planned to use her daughter as his agent on the planet. He had no physical power beyond the spaceship, but Alessia's daughter, little Selerael, did.

Could anyone really prevent Marankeil from seizing control of the galactic empire once more, now that the planet Seynorynael was gone? For the planet Seynorynael had been destroyed by the supernova of Valeria, its blue star. And could Ornenkai ever atone for his past crimes even by saving the future? Or would it be better to just succumb to the encroaching nothingness? If that was hell, at least he would feel nothing there.

As it was, Ornenkai felt he was already in hell. A man with a human conscience forced to live through an inhuman eternity, he had nothing but time to dwell on the evil he had done and time to contemplate his own damnation.

* * * * *

"Now what could it be? And yet the ship Selesta is slowing down, after so many long years. I have followed it across the stars and now, at last, it begins to slow down. But why are we here?"

Sargon, leader of the Orian race from the system Rigell, stared at the image of the planetary system that the ship Selesta seemed headed to like an insect drawn to a flame. Even at high resolution, the ten planets in the system could barely be discerned—or actually there were eleven planets, if he counted the wayward planetary rock orbiting the weak little yellow star from a greater distance.

Sargon was a handsome man, in appearance only about 27 Earth years old, but he had lived many thousand years as an Immortal.

"Alessia, are you indeed still aboard the Selesta? For you cannot escape your crime. You are the one who made me immortal. I will find you, and wrest the secrets of your past. If you can, you must heal me! For I fear my metamorphosis was not complete.

"I cannot die, but I do not live. You must know the hell I live in, and yet you run from me. I did not think you were so heartless. It is to this world we have come at long last, but for what purpose?"

And Sargon, the Great Leader of the Orian race, was powerless to know why.

Already the spaceship Enlil had received waves of transmissions leeching out into the void from the nearby civilization of odd, stockier, earth-skinned humanoids who seemed to inhabit this tiny province of space. Their planet's gravity must have been greater than his own world of Orian, for these humans were shorter than the grey-skinned Orians.

But who were these humans? he wondered. Lost children of the Seynorynaelian Empire perhaps, the fallen empire?

"Are these colonials also a force to be reckoned with?" he wondered. "If they still wield ancient and unknown relics of advanced Seynorynaelian technology..." Did his Orian subjects, the descendants of a thousand generations that had lived aboard Enlil since the spaceship left the planet Orian, have a reason to fear these colonials? He wondered.

Did his people have a reason to approach their sibling colony with caution? He couldn't be sure one way or the other. In any event, the primitives clearly weren't Seynorynaelian, or descendants of Seynorynaelians, like his own Orian people; they were other humanoids, perhaps descended from the Enorian creators.

"Well, I don't really know, and it may not matter," Sargon thought. What only mattered was that Alessia had fled here in the starship Selesta.

"She must be found. For she alone knows how to traverse the universe through the centipede cosmic hole gates. She alone has all the information about the universe that might find the Orian people a new home. I can't lead my people to another livable world without her. Alas! Her powers remain greater than mine.

"There is also the Selesta iself, and Alessia herself to be reckoned with. For I must find some way to live, as a mortal man once more, or as an Immortal, a true Immortal, not in this hell of imperfect immortality.

"I fear that the immortality serum in Alessia's veins was a poison as well. She saved my life with a blood transfusion and made me immortal in the process. Yet I fear my body didn't respond well to the metamorphosis. I did not retain the unique mind I once owned. Curse on her! She didn't warn me or prevent me from taking my newfound power to invade a thousand minds through mindlinks, memories which gained now linger in the depths of my own mind, like a maelstrom of chaos!"

The reason for coming to this system was unclear to Sargon, but there was no sense in jumping to any conclusions about the natives or rushing headlong into a hasty confrontation with them.

And gradually, Sargon had begun to wonder... could his own people live on this world? As soon as possible, his Orian scientists had taken data and informed him that yes, the Orian people could live on the planet Earth.

And with that discovery, the Earth's fate was sealed.

"A strange people," Sargon had thought over the last thousand years watching their customs and habits by monitoring a millennium of their radio and video transmissions. He had come to know them well. There had been a silence of several hundred years in the middle of all the communications. After that, the civilization of these humans had transformed into something unrecognizable from the previous broadcasts.

They had destroyed their own world, and rebuilt it from the ashes.

Soon the Enlil would arrive on Earth.

"Let the games begin." Sargon thought, looking forward to what might come.

*****

Basic Timeline of The Crisis Years on Earth and a summary of Earth History 2050-3069 AD

(Most reliable dates have been given)

By Dr. Alistair Cameron, Head of Astrophysics at The United Earth Scientific Research Center and Dr. Gordon Barrett, Professor of Archaeology and Early Modern History, Melbourne University.

Dates are given in AD years. AR (year of the Restoration) dates are given after 2236.

2010-2050

Evidence shows that giant holes developed in the ozone layer and ozone warnings were issued worldwide.

Ozone depletion, fluctuations in the natural global temperature cycle, or both factors combined caused average annual temperatures to increase by five degrees between 2010 and 2050.

As a result, the ocean levels rose by three meters worldwide and average humidity increased.

The technology to incapacitate human beings and animals with an electromagnetic radioactive ray is invented, as is the scrambler that can protect a select few against the stun effects of the energy beams, thus granting power secretly to a privileged few in the US government. Information about the technology is classified top secret, and continues to play a secret role in the outcome of current events.

Wonder weapons are created and kept secret: the alpha ray, a communication device used to link computers and the human brain for the purpose of transferring information, the stun ray, which utilized the same technology but set at a certain frequency could stun or paralyze the human body, and a lethal form of the stun ray that incinerated human body parts on the inside, known as the infrasonic radiation beam, or INRAD.

Also, the PIS, the psychotronic influencing system, is invented. The PIS makes it possible for people to be turned into automated toys, or super agents, that can be used to perform tasks and later brainwashed so that they would have no memory of what they had done. A secret police force utilizing this technology is established to keep the IS government in secret control of the world.

2053

A clean water shortage became critical by the year 2053. We know this from records of the UN (United Nations—see Barret's notes on what this agency was).

The UN formed an agency to promote and regulate treatment of sewage-contaminated rivers and lakes in order to restore and purify natural water resources. The agency was named UNCCW, or the United Nations Committee for Clean Water. It appears to have failed in its mission because of lack of funding and inability to enforce regulations.

2067

A small asteroid struck the Ukrainian steppes which provided much of the world's grain production. There were massive food shortages that year and the next.

2070

Members of the scientific community came to realize that the impact had a significantly more detrimental effect on the environment than expected. It was discovered that the impact of the asteroid has caused some of the ozone layer to drift further from the surface of the planet.

2096 AD

First signs of an irreversible climactic change. Global precipitation increased by 14% percent since 2000. A mutated form of the AIDS virus appeared in Calcutta. The older AIDS vaccines proved to be ineffective against this new strain which could survive outside the human body for an extended period of time where there was high humidity. The disease became air-borne and epidemics occurred in all tropical and sub-tropical areas around the globe with high humidity. Millions of people died in the most disastrous plague since the Black Death of the Middle Ages.

2096

Nuclear fission has become the most common means of generating electricity throughout the world. Effective standards for the safe storage of nuclear waste were not rigorously enforced, and several accidents causing radioactive contamination occurred.

The United Nations attempted to regulate the storage of radioactive waste and began an ambitious program to inject the waste into the Earth's magma core.

The holes in the ozone layer became larger.

Genetic engineering companies have developed processes that can increase the intelligence and longevity of children through bio-engineering alterations to the embryo within a few hours of conception. These processes are extremely expensive and are only available to the most wealthy parents.

2114

Bio-Pharmacy, Inc., a high-technology bio-engineering start-up company with ties to several major universities announced a major breakthrough with a vaccine effective against the resistant AIDS virus. Archaeological evidence appears to indicate that the vaccine was grown in live human tissue and that governments approved the disappearance of homeless and other "lower value" people who may have been kidnapped turned into live vaccine factories.

The bio-engineered children of the late 2090's began to take dominant roles throughout society. They formed an elite social class and non-bioengineered people were considered to be inferior.

2115-2150

Frequent radiation leakage from improperly stored nuclear waste with increased ultraviolet exposure levels owing to ozone depletion more than doubled the reported cases of leukemia, melanoma, and other cancers on Earth and contributed to other birth defects in humans and livestock in many of Earth's old divided regions.

The Aral, Baltic, Caspian, and Mediterrian (once called the Mediterranean) Seas had become disastrously polluted.

2150-2169

Fossil fuels have almost run out. Conventional automobiles and transports have become useless through lack of fuel, and air travel became highly restricted. Electric cars began to appear in greater numbers.

Environmental pressure groups collaborated in 2160 to curtail global warming, but the "runaway greenhouse effect" had already been affected. The environmental groups discovered that there was nothing much they could do to stop it.

The U.S. became crippled by internal political problems, and its power and influence steadily decline over a period of years. Its ultimate fall was later marked as the herald that ushered in the Crisis Years.

With economic decline came social instability.

A worldwide power shortage occurred as fossil fuel reserves ran low. Extreme rationing was imposed worldwide, and a worldwide economic Depression ensued.

International disunity rose. Pollution problems were no longer addressed.

Newspapers in Brazil reported that the Department of Agriculture admitted that only two hundred square kilometers of native rain forest remain.

The sulfur dioxide and other waste products produced by industry have damaged the troposphere.

The hydrofluorocarbon and methane content in the atmosphere continued to rise, along with water vapor and carbon dioxide.

These greenhouse gases have raised global temperatures a few more degrees.

2169

As the temperature rose, carbon dioxide outgased from rock layers below the ocean. Once permanently trapped as carbolic acid at the great depths, this gas began to rise to the surface to add to the changing atmosphere.

The average Earth temperature has risen six degrees since the year 2000, and average precipitation had increased by 23% worldwide.

2170-2185

The dams built in the 2150's to shield the coastal areas of California, New York, and parts of Western Europe from rising sea levels are subjected to storms of unprecedented ferocity and break at different times. Millions of people die in the destruction of Los Angeles and Rotterdam; these cities are not rebuilt.

Efforts to protect India, Bangladesh, China, and other parts of Southeast Asia from the rising ocean and global precipitation failed. 670 million people died in a string of sudden disasters.

In the United States, the two-party system has virtually ceased to exist. The Congress has been filled with a multitude of independent and special-interest representatives. A large minority group pressed to risk worldwide nuclear war and to militarily take over the last remaining oil fields in the Middle East. The Congress became paralyzed, and the President declared martial rule.

The governments of other once strongly democratic states such as England, Germany, France, and Japan have become significantly weakened by the burgeoning global disaster and can no longer provide stability and security for their people.

The Crisis Years have begun.

2185-2204

Average humidity continued to rise, but some areas experienced severe drought and desertification.

In 2187, during a period of severe drought and record high temperatures, almost the entire harvest of the American breadbasket region burned to the ground, producing a worldwide food shortage and mass starvation.

In 2188, spontaneous combustion destroyed the last of the ancient Redwood forest in Northern California.

The Black Forest burned down. The Ukrainian forests burned down. The woodlands of America's southeast burned down.

Over two thousand species of bird, insects, and mammals became extinct.

Four hundred species of aquatic life became extinct.

The rising worldwide temperatures have caused the glacial ice sheets to disappear.

The polar bear, sea lion, seal, and other northern species have disappeared from the North Pole, unable to adapt to the changes in their environment. A few remnants survived in wildlife preservation centers in northern Canada.

The Sahara desert expanded south to encompass the Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Congo.

By 2194, the global population was reduced to approximately 2.4 billion.

2205-2336

The world is gradually thrown into a dark age. Some small centers of culture and learning in survive in the North, where there is less threat of climactic upheaval.

Countless libraries, buildings, and cities in countries south of the Tropic of Cancer burn down. People revert to a more primitive existence in the most affected areas.

Once strong political states such as the United States, England, France, Germany, and Japan maintain a loose democracy but can no longer provide stability for their people. The voluntary positions of police regulators are taken by all kinds of power-abusive vigilantes.

Families lose contact with distant relatives as communication lines break down. Another factor for this is the growth of deserts and other new geographic obstacles.

Cities that catch fire burn down without permanent fire stations despite some organized and haphazard efforts to save them.

Transportation lines break down.

Electricity becomes rare.

Literacy declines, disappearing in the South nearly entirely.

Cholera epidemics sweep the southern cities.

Other political states are dominated by anarchy and individual self-interest.

2336 (1 AR)

A climactic analyst from the Scandinavian region named Inge Hellie proposed a plan to reverse the greenhouse effect.

By the time The Proposal is made, some degree of climactic stability has been achieved, primarily because the greenhouse effect is tapering off on its own; temperatures only marginally increase each year.

People are adapted to their present situation. Few know about The Proposal and fewer still attempt to contribute to the success of the plan.

Most of the people involved in the plan of Inge Hellie are the genetically unaltered classes of society living around the major northern political capitals and the wealth of knowledge from the past.

Word reaches the Americas and Asia after several years. There, a few groups send representatives on a long journey to Scandinavia by boat, something only the richer members of society had been able to do for the past century.

2347 (12 AR)

An International Committee on the Proposal is called to order. The bans on future detrimental actions if such a reversal could be affected, were put into writing for the first time.

Inge's proposal includes replenishing the ozone layer by an artificial chemical process that bound free chlorine ions with nitrous oxides and recombined diatomic oxygen with free oxygen to create ozone.

However, even after the ozone-accretion plan begins in 2253, it takes more than forty years to entirely filter the atmosphere and initiate a chain reaction.

In the northern regions, a plan to re-plant deforested land near water supplies means that constant supervision has to be maintained to fight possible fires.

2379 (44 AR)

The global temperature drops by a degree.

Species of plants and trees that have survived to the north are gradually being reintroduced to their native lands, and animals that have somehow survived throughout the years began to reappear in greater numbers around the newly re-forested zones.

A few people attempted to raise the Earth's albedo, or reflectiveness, by creating large reflective screens and placing them in the atmosphere with hot-air balloons, thus curtailing warming. But this method is only a temporary aid; it can do nothing to diminish the greenhouse gases in the air, notably carbon dioxide, which had instigated accelerated global warming in the first place.

Only the algae farms which appear at the end of the twenty-third century help decrease the actual carbon dioxide content in the air.

2431 (106 AR)

A German scientist by the name of Friedrich Hedelberg invents a means of converting large quantities of the carbon dioxide in the air into its component oxygen and carbon atoms by a catalytic process that released the oxygen and stored the solid carbon deposits. His ingenuity, added to the large-scale algae farms spreading across the planet, accelerates the rate of global cooling. Others replicate his filtering device across the world, but permanent changes come slowly.

2498 (173 AR)

Carbon dioxide falls to about 740 ppms (parts per million) in the atmosphere.

2500 (175 AR)

A study reports that the global temperature has dropped another three degrees since 2280.

There is a reawakening in culture across the world. The year 1 is dated from 2336AD, the year of Hellie's Proposal. AR1 is called the year of the Restoration.

An international government is formed. One of the stipulations of the First International Committee was agreed upon by all of the nations, and the Earth was divided into zones: forested and natural zones, agricultural zones, and urban zones, so that never again can the Earth repeat its mistakes.

People must live in the urban zones. Food is grown in the agricultural zones. And the rural zones are forbidden, except for two week rural zone passes yearly. Human influence is reduced outside the urban zones by removing all urban materials, wastes, and structures from the territories in the vast rural areas.

The relocation of the world's population to established and new urban zones takes half a century to carry out.

Only a select number of domed cities are to be built from 2500 on, eventually being linked to one another by closed transport tunnels. In between these zones, the committee creates the agricultural and rural zones.

Many historical cities are preserved as a part of these new urban zones, though some receive new names.

202 AR (2527 AD)

As the Earth's northern polar region begins to be restored to larger glacial sheets, once-flooded regions of the ancient coasts surface, to the delight of historians and archaeologists.

Archaeologists search to regain the knowledge lost in The Crisis Years. The northern centers are missing many ancient works and records.

Landfill archaeology is born.

The uncovering of the landfills dating back into the early twentieth century up until the twenty-second century provides a primary source of raw materials as well as information on history and technology.

Priceless plastics unavailable since the fossil fuels ran out centuries before are found. The landfills are rich in various non-biodegradable forms.

287 AR (2612AD)

New domed cities arise.

New forests are growing in the rural zones.

Pollutants and noxious gases have dropped in the atmosphere.

The air is said to taste as sweet as it once did before the industrial revolution, nearly a thousand years before.

Once-polluted seas and rivers are cleaned as best as possible.

The official end of The Crisis Years is announced.

The Restoration is still ongoing.

300 AR (2625 AD)

Scientific advancement progresses in leaps and bounds.

New institutes of scientific learning instigate a revival of twenty-second century technology. They redesign transports and other technologies to suit a more biologically and environmentally conscious society.

The world government becomes the United Earth Government, or the UEG.

The UEG creates a plan to restore the Earth's natural mineral and gaseous resources. The Earth intends to mine resources at Jupiter, and must build a space technology to do it.

Over the next 20 years, the UEG sends out mostly unmanned expeditions into outer space to collect raw materials and gases from other planets. Liquid nitrogen and oxygen is specifically wanted, since they are used as fuels in spacecraft and in new airborne "terrestrial" transports.

The Explorer and the Savior are lost in space. The third mission led by the manned ship Thea reaches Mars, Jupiter's orbit, and Titan, a moon of Saturn.

375 AR-424 AR (2700AD-2749AD)

Colonies on the moon, on the large asteroid Ceres, on and above Titan, Mars, and finally, even on the surface of Pluto itself are established.

The plane and airborne transports become mass produced. Most people learn to fly them but rely day to day on automated piloting. On Earth, transport tunnels are used, and the use of planes over rural zones is kept at a minimum except by a fleet of several hundred patrolling recon squadrons.

The colonies serve a variety of functions including observation beyond the solar system, tracking of asteroids and other celestial objects, and a future launching point for the explorer probes sent to alpha centauri.

Automated government enterprises use these tellurian colonies to grow food in mineral-rich soils.

With the creation of automated labor, few colonists remain long in the new territories and only as overseers and intelligence specialists for jobs unsuitable to computer-run robotic machines.

There are still labor tasks the robots cannot do.

Ectogenesis (growing children in an artificial growing environment) is practiced for the first time since America's legendary revolutionary experiments in ectogenesis, which date before The Crisis Years.

506 AR (2831AD)

The enormous rotating, orbiting space station Gabriel around the Earth is constructed.

507 AR-665 AR (2832AD-2990AD)

The Lagrange, an enormous zero g/microgravity multi-purpose station is launched to advance crystal and pharmaceutical production, taking the place of an abandoned ancient satellite left long ago in the same coordinates and several smaller satellites launched at the beginning of the twenty-eighth century.

The solar system colonies expand.

It is no longer necessary to work to live. Robots perform all minor labor tasks.

Most people do not work. Militant pacificism appears, since war and the need for it have disappeared since The Restoration.

Militant pacificists try to ban all nuclear uses, to prevent nuclear disasters occurring ever again to prevent war from being possible again.

A small ratio of highly motivated individuals works to advance science, art, and culture. The rest of the world live comfortably.

A manned mission to alpha centauri is planned. It will take centuries to make it possible, to create a spaceship that can take humankind to our neighboring solar system. Once the ship is nearly finished, a crew will have to be trained.

Nearly everyone on Earth can fly a transport and owns one kind or another.

Social restrictions are imposed on the population to prevent famine and poverty.

705 AR (3052 AD)

The technology now exists to create the alpha centauri mission ship, and construction of the Procyon begins. A search for future alpha centauri mission candidates among the staff of renowned scientific research bases is underway.

The Earth has at last nearly recovered from The Crisis Years. Only a few scarred deserts formed during The Crisis Years remain in the south of America and Asia. The Earth is thriving.

722 AR (3069AD)

An alien ship crashes on Earth and changes the course of human history.

Another alien ship appears and threatens the survival of the human race.

Our greatest test of survival has begun.

Chapter One

722 AR (3069AD)

UESRC laboratory 227:

Dr. Zhdanov, Head of Biochemistry at The United Earth Scientific Research Center and

Dr. Cameron, Head of Astrophysics at The United Earth Scientific Research Center

# Maximum Security Research

"Are you absolutely certain that this is really an alien spaceship and that it will pass within our solar system?" The intonation of the question sounded more Ukrainian than the accent itself, though Zhdanov still tended to trill his R's.

"Pos-i-tive. Is Cameron there with you?" The image of Sullivan Dawe beamed at him on the communications screen. "Where is he?"

"Yes, he's here, in the storage room, likely. Of course I'll pass the news on to him, but he won't like it." Zhdanov nodded, as Cameron himself came out of the storage room with a couple of boxes in his arms. "Try hailing it in every language you can think of, and get me some information—yesterday," Zhdanov added.

"Will do. I think Knightwood might already be trying the communications part." Dawe said. "The computers are doing everything we can think of."

"Let us know every single detail of what's going on."

"What should I do about Arnaud?" Dawe asked. "He's about to bust a vein calling everyone in ASAP. No videocoms. He wants people in the Communications Center so they can be reached and monitored."

"Ummm, just tell him we'll be there soon." Zhdanov replied.

"Things are falling apart around here pretty darn fast, Zhdanov."

"I understand, and we'll be there as soon as we can." Zhdanov said.

With a quick motion in the air, Dr. Sergei Andreyevich Zhdanov deactivated the receiver of the intercom net by activating the manual override. Dawe's round face disappeared abruptly from the visual monitor, and Zhdanov withdrew, exhaling with deliberate control.

"Cameron?" Zhdanov called in his deep voice. He hadn't spoken to ascertain Cameron's whereabouts; his colleague stood but a few meters away. Zhdanov had spoken to shake Cameron out of reverie and to attention, for once reversing the roles of their established relationship.

A silence hung in the air between them, made more noticeable by the persistent bubbling symphony of the surrounding test tubes and flasks. The older man waited, unmoving, his back turned to Zhdanov; Cameron stood leaning over the lab table. Then, with his back still turned, Cameron's shoulders began to heave. He pressed his palms flatter into the table.

"Snap out of it, don't give me a reason to worry about you now," Zhdanov said. Cameron didn't answer. Zhdanov shook his head, unable to fathom his colleague's silence. He could not read his mind. Cameron's brain, as most high-ranking scientists, had mind control blockers, sensory augmentation chips, memory booster chips, and more hardware in his brain than a computer monitor.

"I'm fine, and I heard everything," Cameron offered after a moment. "Just give me a moment to catch my breath."

"Ok." Zhdanov stood still, mutely watching Cameron's back. He then began to perceive that he understood what was wrong. Cameron couldn't handle the news. He was expecting the worst. But Cameron always expected the worst.

Zhdanov, on the other hand, believed it was better to withhold judgment until all of the facts were in, though he tended to be optimistic.

The human race had just got proof that life existed in the universe outside of the Earth. Maybe it wasn't an honor to find it out this way, rather than finding it, having it find them, but the discovery certainly was exciting, as long as it didn't prove fatal.

Alastair Cameron was sixty-five and had thick but fine brown hair with a few scattered grey hairs. Average life expectancy for a man these days was somewhere near a hundred and fifty, but few men ever made it to such an age with all of their original organs intact, much less their hair. At sixty-five and still in his prime, Cameron's marvelous blue eyes were clear as glass and sharp as a hawk's (and every bit as intimidating), set above high cheekbones and a wide, tapering jaw.

Cameron remained wiry and lean by the grace of good genetics, as far as his colleague could tell, and not by much motivation on Cameron's part. No major bone strengthening or replacement procedures, nor heart or any other organ or muscle replacements. He was fond of reminding Zhdanov that it was all due to his natural vitality.

"Sure, I'll give you some time to take it in." Zhdanov added after a moment. "But we have to hurry. Dawe has called everyone to show up in person in the Communications Center."

Sergei Zhdanov was only thirty-two years old; however, what Zhdanov lacked in experience, he compensated for by bringing talent, energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to his job. Still, many of Cameron's colleagues had considered Zhdanov too young to become a senior member of the UESRC, the United Earth Scientific Research Center.

In personality Zhdanov was what one might almost call a naturally noble man, by choice and by nature: he possessed fair judgment and great mental discernment, though he had little inclination towards making verbal criticisms. However, this integrity of spirit which gleamed through his eyes was often mistaken for upbeat enthusiasm or taken to be the effect of an overabundance of alcohol by those who did not know him well.

Around the UESRC, Zhdanov was becoming better known for his distinctive appearance than his many talents; he was a tall man with a natural grace and a purposeful stride and with short, curling brown hair the color of dry autumn leaves. His youthful features offset a peculiar thoughtfulness in his deep-set, dark eyes.

"I can't believe what's happening," Zhdanov said. "This is unexpected—and I don't know what to do or say to anyone," Zhdanov said, thinking out loud. He saw his face reflected in a glass beaker at the lab table and suppressed the usual urge to smile. His lightly freckled nose was rather flat at the base of his forehead but ended in a slight uptilt, and his cheekbones were set rather far apart, making his jaw seem to come to an abrupt point. His small, lobeless ears lay relatively flat against his skull and accented his heart-shaped face. On the whole, his expression was intelligent, composed, competent, but somewhat unapproachable; fortunately, his uneven smile always restored friendliness to his features, and Zhdanov often smiled.

Right now, though, Zhdanov wasn't smiling.

"Yes, yes, sure, I know," Cameron said, straining to suppress racing thoughts. The object he'd been tracking, moving at near the speed of light—was after all, a spaceship!??

Just as he had suspected. The object emitting radio wave transmissions had appeared while he had been gathering data on a luminous nebula. It had suddenly distorted the nebula with gravitational waves. He had attempted to calculate its rate of speed, with no luck. Not enough radio wave emissions. Something had blocked the signals as the object traveled away from the region—interstellar dust, dark absorption nebulae, or a black hole—he had no idea.

Well, so what? he thought. The Gamma Ray Observatory on space station Gabriel and Flux Collector Base on the moon received and relayed thousands of unusual signals every day. Then almost a year later, another object emitting waves following nearly the same vector as the first entered the Milky Way, just above the zone of avoidance near the galactic plane, where a high concentration of interstellar dust obstructed the view of the galaxies behind it.

The vector it followed was almost the same as the object he had formed and lost a year before.

Gut-clenching fear kept Cameron from sleeping for days. The UFO could have been anything, but Cameron always expected the worst—it was his job. The most recently emitted waves supported the calculation of a blue shift. It was approaching the Earth.

More complex tracking equipment was brought in, and someone instructed signal readings to be relayed from Gabriel's giant bolometer. A few hours later, and—

A spaceship. Shake me, Cameron thought. Shake me hard.

"I don't know if you heard Dawe or not, but it's in the solar system already. Current estimates give us only eight hours before it passes near Earth air-space."

"Where?" Cameron asked hoarsely, his mouth forming the superficial question for him, while underneath, all the while, the core of himself was paralyzed.

"Don't know yet. If it hits us, we're wiped out. We'll have to shoot it down before it makes a terrestrial impact. But right now it's on a course that will sling it by us. I hope to God it's not coming here. For us."

Cameron remained silent.

"We should go now. Once we get to the Command Center, they'll be asking what we need to set up for contact, observation, or exploration, if the object continues to decelerate."

"Ok." Cameron straightened his back and turned around, gazing at his partner languidly through tired eyes.

Zhdanov, meanwhile, was hurriedly collecting his electronic notepad from under the table; finally, with a grin of successfully assumed self-composure, he took a few jaunty steps toward the door and waited for the elevation device to run the lift to their floor. Intoxication had possessed Zhdanov.

Why was it that the unknown was exciting to the young but frightened the old? Cameron wondered. Because the young didn't know any better, he told himself.

"Let's get this show on the road, then." Cameron muttered again and headed for the door where Zhdanov stood waiting, his white labcoat flapping with the force of his sudden speed.

* * * * *

As morning broke over the UESRC, an inter-cranial alert siren blared from the communications center, transmitted to all of the staff who had communication microchips in their brains. The UESRC was not only a secluded scientific observatory, nestled in the agrarian or "rural" zone northeast of Utopia City but also the Space Exploration Division's main training facility and the Space Exploration Division's main training ground. The inter-cranial alert siren frequently sounded during disaster drills. However, the technical staff of the observatory were not often subjected to it.

"Damn thing makes too much noise!" Cameron clicked off his inner ear communicator to extinguish the piercing noise. He felt certain he would have to endure enough of the siren when he reached the Communications Center itself, until someone had the good sense to turn the infernal transmitter off.

"I can't stop my wriststrap from scrambling," Zhdanov said in irritation, as the communications system on his wriststrap malfunctioned from a system-wide overload of communication. "I'll just turn the communications off." And he interfaced with the wriststrap to turn it off.

Cameron and Zhdanov passed several windows in refreshing silence before taking the transport down into the underground section of the observatory. Cameron looked out at the rural zone as he walked, half-wishing he could just turn around and go back.

"I feel like my body is turning to lead," he thought. He felt terrible, and would no doubt be seeking medical attention within the end of the day.

As expected, the sun had risen a little earlier than it had the day before, and living creatures in the nearby rural zone were waking to the crisp air of a spring morning, identical to so many other spring mornings that had come and gone.

Cameron sighed. I would gladly trade this morning with one of those others. Nonetheless, he had never seen a more beautiful sunrise. Outside, the eastern sun had just tipped over the distant mountain peaks and nearby forest and had begun to climb into the powder blue sky above the eastern Quebec province, illuminating streaks of rose-colored clouds; then suddenly the view was cut off by the automatic silver doors of the elevation shaft.

"Give me a status update," said Cameron to his video wriststrap, which hadn't malfunctioned.

"No change since your last interface." The system beamed information to the microchip in his brain.

Meanwhile, the elevation unit activated and let out a low whine that increased, then decreased in pitch; Cameron found himself distracted as they waited to reach the appropriate level.

How strange it suddenly seemed to Cameron that Earth's living creatures remained eternally insensitive to any events that took place outside her fragile globe. He found himself wondering about a day so many millions of years ago, when a giant asteroid had crashed to Earth and obliterated the dinosaurs.

Had that morning dawned as fair? he wondered, letting a little pessimistic sentiment into his thoughts. At the moment, he, an artificially enhanced super-human, envied the wildlife their ignorance.

On Earth, only humankind had the ability to predict events that might affect the planet's future, but the Earth had been too busy regulating her own affairs to give a thought to an extraterrestrial encounter; in fact, the human race was not at all prepared for one. To be fair to the human race, they had been preoccupied with redressing the global ecological disaster they had caused—no small feat—but admittedly, they had been well clear of the end of The Crisis Years for the past three hundred years. The simple fact was that the human race had just assumed, wrongly, that it would be the first to initiate contacts with other worlds.

"I heard your update," Zhdanov suddenly said. "But we'll get a better status report when we arrive at the Communications Center."

Cameron nodded, still lost in thought.

Cameron had always wondered why technologists presumed it to be that we would be the first to make contact with another world. Even some of his own colleagues tended to cling to traditional conceptions of how the universe operated until overwhelming evidence forced them to accept the truth of new theories. They were creatures of habit and did not let go of cherished notions without a struggle. Cameron could be as stubborn as any of them when it came to certain things, but more often than not, he was at the fore to embrace new, and unorthodox, ideas.

"I'll give this thing another try and see where Knightwood is now." Zhdanov said suddenly.

"Ok," Cameron said.

Many scientists thought that because the Earth had not received any radio signals indicating the existence of any alien species, much less one more advanced than Earth, that no higher civilization could have developed anywhere in the universe. This premise was that if an alien intelligence did exist, it must be at the same level of advancement as the Earth or slightly behind, since no evidence of an intergalactic civilization could be interpreted from any signals or black hole energy mining.

Cameron was laughing now. Cameron had always found such logic anything but logical. The reality was that the evidence might simply not have had time to reach the Earth yet; any signals from far off civilizations could remain undetected for millions of years as the signals traveled through space. An intergalactic civilization could even have flourished and died without disturbing the small group of galaxies that held the Milky Way, one small needle in a universal haystack.

"Now they're re-considering!" Cameron laughed out loud.

"Knightwood is in the Communications Center," said Zhdanov with a smile.

"What are you laughing about?" asked Zhdanov.

"Nothing," said Cameron a little self-consciously. He was still thinking to himself.

Yes, there were even more arguments for the possibility that the Earth was not alone. Had some alien civilizations ended millions of years before life on Earth began, the evidence would have been lost, unseen by human observers. The human race simply would not have known about them. After all, human technology had only a brief history of barely more than a thousand years, not even a blink in the eye of the universe. Some alien culture out there might well have thought that no life could exist on the Earth from the brief period in which human culture had thrived! The signals from Earth had only traveled a thousand light-years, not even out of the Milky Way!

But you never could argue with the idiots, thought Cameron.

This debate had now been permanently and irrevocably resolved with this arrival of an alien ship in the solar system. Apparently, at least to Cameron's mind, someone or some thing had finally noticed the development of the human race. There had been no forewarning of the alien ship's coming, but there could be no denying the impact it would leave.

"Almost there, thank God," said Zhdanov, fidgeting with his sleeve.
Chapter Two

The spaceship Selesta began to decelerate now that she was passing the planetoid Pluto and its twin planetoid Charon, but Ornenkai had no intention of stopping there. He was well aware that, once his only living passenger, the girl Selerael, had been released from her suspension capsule, she would not be able to withstand the harmful effects of traveling at near light-speed, if indeed she was as human as she appeared; that left him little time to prepare the child's awakening from suspended animation sleep.

When the ship passed the eighth planet of the Kiel system, in one of the ship's many laboratories, the domed, bubble-like covering of a dormant suspended animation capsule finally popped open, dispelling hazy blue vapors that hissed like vipers as the liquid within met the atmosphere.

The tiny child inside blinked her eyes open almost ruefully, unaware of the presence of the ships' computer entity Ornenkai surrounding her, watching her. There was a genuine panic in her movement; after a confused moment, she yawned, then swung her legs around the edge of the capsule and hopped down, one hand still clutching the side. She moved like a wild animal of inordinate power at first, then calmed to something that resembled an observer's expected notions of a little girl.

Her head throbbed painfully. The mist that clouded her eyes had been the source of the panic, the fear, the confusion. Her infant mind was unable to comprehend the blindness; she understood instinctively that there had always been sight before. Then an image formed in the child's mind's eye, an image of a woman obscured by a bright light; the woman's eyes brimmed with tears.

It was the last thing she had seen before being placed into suspended animation, the image of her mother.

When the image faded, this time it was the little girl who cried with tears of anguish. Reduced to a skinny, fragile mass of arms and legs that seemed to crumple beneath her. She sat on the cold floor in helpless blindness for several moments. The one memory she had been able to recall had left her; now there was only mist and the strange world that held her, an uncertain world whose objects she could feel around her, though to her they were only obstacles.

In a moment, she got to her feet again, overpowered by the need to find someone, to seek out something in this strange world that would respond to her presence. Her mind held the definite keen thought of a predator, and even at that tender age, it meant business. Her innocence was her weapon, a cloak of superficial fragility that at times became real.

The moment she began to wander, there was no going back. She would never again find the room where she had awakened; it had melded into the great space and never-ending maze of cruel, sharp objects that surrounded her.

She bumped into the wall around a few corners, walking until her short, bruised legs grew tired. Ornenkai watched in concern when Selerael fell and would not move. For a long time she sat huddled on the floor, until finally, dissatisfied with defeat, she clambered to her feet.

When at last, perhaps an hour later, her sight began to return, the colors awed her. Faint forms leaped out at her from the fog around her eyes, but now she was bold. The visible world could not frighten her as the blindness had. At last the invisible shapes had form. It was she who had come to them, not they who had followed her.

Selerael reveled in her own movement now, in watching the perspectives change the images as she passed by them. Now exploration fully occupied her thoughts. She had not yet remembered that she was alone.

Selerael was tiring again by the time that she had found her way to a dark, cavernous hold. She stopped, afraid for a moment that the blindness would return if she ventured into the dark. Then light illuminated from the hold above, encouraging her forward, and she was no longer afraid.

Arranged in identical rows and columns, shining space fighters gleamed as if to celebrate her awakening, each with a different animal icon on its prow. Just above her head, a rectangular protrusion hung from the inner wall in open space. The command post which had been used to help guide space fighters coming in at high speeds and to check the status and number of the returning craft meant no more to her than the fighters. Equally, she had no way of knowing that this meant that there was an airlock and exit hatch nearby.

After a while, she sat down for the last time, surrendering to exhaustion and still unsure of where to go. Somehow she sensed that here was another maze she would have to find her way through. She just didn't have the energy to try to make her way through it. But a moment later, a rumbling sound beneath the floor sent vibrations through her.

Then the world tilted, sending her skidding across the floor.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the UESRC, plotting data of the alien vessel's current position were pouring in from Gabriel, the recon satellites, and the moon, Mars, and Titan bases. Dr. Cameron spared a brief moment thinking about the space stations and colonies as he conferred with Knightwood and Zhdanov. Millions of people lived in them; they were humanity's furthest outposts, the first to be in the path of any vessel coming from space, but completely defenseless, except for their anti-asteroid missiles and a few industrial lasers.

Cameron's only consolation was that the government had built and maintained the space colonies, and that meant hope. Not only would the government keep order throughout any crisis—but if this alien space vessel left the Earth unharmed, the government could swiftly approve a tracking program to trace its continuing path.

In truth, Cameron reflected, it was a good thing that the space stations and colonies had been created by the government and not by the few private companies left on Earth. Of course, the government could also cut corners—durable materials were expensive but vital to those living in such a hostile environment, where but a simple hull leak could suffocate thousands—but luckily so far, it hadn't.

A few minutes later, Knightwood, Cameron, and Zhdanov, three heads of the five main research teams at the UESRC from the biochemistry, astrochemistry, and chemistry departments, were conjecturing hypotheses as to the ship's origins as estimates of its arrival point and time were confirmed.

Cameron's feet were beginning to throb, but he forgot his own discomfort as the young tracking operator turned around, still seated, and sent a thought-message to him and the others. Every person on Earth had a microchip in their minds that allowed them to send thought sentences and have them received by third parties of choice. However, most people still chose to speak out loud.

"The alien ship will pass between the Earth and the moon in twelve minutes." The communications officer interrupted.

So, maybe it was going to bypass the Earth, as Zhdanov had suggested, Knightwood thought.

"Patch us in to Security Chief Hollendar." Knightwood ordered out loud. The delivery was crisp, deliberate.

As Knightwood waited for Hollendar's gravely voice and facial image to patch in, she glanced around in satisfaction at the orderly commotion of the UESRC communications center with large, luminous, dark brown eyes.

A co-effort between the United Earth Science Committee and the United Earth Security Service, the UESRC was composed of an enormous, aboveground relay observatory and two security bases for internal and environmental control maintained and operated by the United Earth Government. The first base had been constructed beneath the surface to preserve the nearby rural zone habitats; it was a sprawling, spider-like multi-level complex, augmented by an aboveground astroport and training station.

The newer, second installation consisted of an enormous cluster of ground-level buildings; the buildings had been built above the East, South and West Wings of the original base, extending the underground facilities. There were also new aboveground barracks, cargo holds, and instruction buildings.

The government had built this giant complex for the principal purpose of preparing a scientific expedition of exploration to the alpha centauri solar system. Although alpha centauri was the closest star to the Earth, little was known of its planetary system and the government wanted this expedition to be prepared for any eventuality. Volunteers were chosen from among the brightest young scientists, technologists, and engineers. These young men and women had to cross-train each other in their various disciplines—training that was supplemented by some of the world's foremost technical minds. These mission-specialist volunteers had to undergo rigorous physical and survival training, exhaustive flight training, and in a seeming conflict of disciplines, they had to study both self-defense and diplomacy. They had to cooperate with each other while knowing that they were all competing for a few positions on the expedition.

At the moment, most of the base's senior scientists and head mission specialists stood clustered together in the communications center, united by the unprecedented event taking place. Only Security Chief Hollendar's presence was missed; he was still on board a shuttle returning from the UESS Council meeting in Statue City.

As the commuication operator Hastings punched in the controls to try to reach Hollendar, new schematics erased her screen, signifying that the alien vessel had made a course change. The new estimated coordinates of the alien vessel's arrival point were plotted.

"I don't believe it!" Hastings exclaimed. Hastings' ordinarily calm manner vanished; the effect of this sent a sensation of mild alarm across the center. "It is now heading directly towards Earth's coordinates—"

"Estimated arrival point." Dawe demanded, his voice deliberately steady. There was no time for surprise, only reaction. His gut clenched.

Knightwood's heart leapt into her throat. So, the Earth was its destination after all. The alien ship's appearance in their solar system was no mere coincidence, as Zhdanov had initially suggested. It had deliberately changed its course towards their planet.

"Oh shit," Zhdanov thought, his heart racing.

In the back of their minds, the assembled scientists mentally enacted all kinds of possible catastrophes in light of this new information. Cameron was thinking about the asteroid that had destroyed the dinosaurs with its impact; the alien ship, or whatever it was, was large enough to obliterate all life on Earth if it crashed with the same force.

Knightwood noticed Cameron's reaction. She half-turned, incredulous at his detachment and unmoved expression. She did not perceive that he was only acting stoically.

Cameron felt the tense minutes drag by like hours. He never criticized the impatience of youth. In the times that tried men's souls, his own patience wore thin too easily. He could have taken an injection to calm himself but chose not to. After what seemed a long time to him, the operator cut off her own steady monitoring with a conspicuous flinch.

"Object now fast approaching north-central quadrant of sector eight. Projecting minimal impact damage—" Hasting's voice sounded incredulous, and for a good reason. She knew that the impact of an ordinary meteorite or asteroid would have had a catastrophic effect on the Earth's climate and ecosystems, much less an object that had until recently been traveling at a near light-speed. But the computer relayed that it had decelerated phenomenally with its course change.

Minimal impact damage? How was that possible??

They took in the news with tremendous relief, silently—there was no time for premature celebration. It was still headed their way.

"The waterfall," Zhdanov whispered despondently, seeing further. It was an ancient landmark in sector eight that had survived the years of ecological disaster, proving itself stronger than humanity's attempts to destroy it.

For a moment, Zhdanov considered that he was beginning to think like that pessimistic old skeptic Cameron; maybe their collaboration had rubbed off on Zhdanov after all. Perhaps the destruction of the last great natural landmark in the area was a sign that things were going to go downhill, that an uncertain future had dawned, Zhdanov thought. Perhaps humanity hadn't suffered enough punishment for her sins against the planet itself, and the stars themselves had sent an additional punishment.

"Confirming minimal impact—object landing in two minutes, fourteen seconds—

" Hastings continued.

"Dawe?" Knightwood asked suddenly, turning. She was not about to dwell on their relative good fortune; even if an impact greater than a nuclear bomb had been avoided, there was still too many unknowns to consider that the worst was over. "Can you contact one of the trainers and ask one of them to send out a team to accompany our reconnaissance shuttle?"

The stocky, barrel-chested Head Flight Trainer nodded. He was a man of "honest vices" (or so he called them) and had more than his fare share of tenacity and wits; Dawe was efficient, competent, disciplined, and organized to a fault. "You got something in mind?" He asked, narrowing hazel eyes on her, but not without a trace of affection. Knightwood was one of the few scientists Sullivan Dawe respected, if only because she was bold and brash and didn't take shit from anyone.

"Yes, I'm going over to check out the impact site." She said firmly. "Would you boys care to join me?" Knightwood asked, turning to her colleagues, and proffered a challenging smile, her soft features exuding youthful excitement, her arching brown eyebrows raised.

"Isn't that a bit dangerous?" Zhdanov managed.

Dawe laughed gruffly behind him but didn't say anything. It wasn't that he disliked Zhdanov per se, but he did instinctively dislike the Ukrainian's speech, the soft, trilling foreignness of it. He resented its lilting intonation. It was simply unpleasant to his ear, which preferred quick, plain, efficient speech to this kind of unforgivably feeling, artistic elocution. Still, in all, he didn't dislike Zhdanov. Zhdanov was a good man, a fair man, and a good leader, he admitted, and Dawe knew Zhdanov's question had been directed more in concern for Knightwood's safety than Zhdanov's own. Zhdanov was no coward, but it sometimes gave Dawe pleasure to think him so—the man had to have some major flaw in his character! Dawe just didn't know what it was yet.

"They haven't attacked us yet," Knightwood commented, flashing Zhdanov a bright smile. "And they haven't sent us any communications. Oh, I forgot—you boys missed a lot of the early action. Time to update you, isn't it? The alien spaceship passed right by one of our biggest colonies without any show of hostility—"

"I'm not sure that's such a bad thing," Cameron remarked dryly, shaking his head. "Having missed out on anything, of course. Still, 'action', Knightwood? That's hardly an appropriate description if they've done nothing to us thus far."

Knightwood frowned but refused to let him daunt her. "Let me finish, Cameron! I didn't have time to tell you while reports were still coming in, but Pluto base reported earlier that the ship sent some of our own old Earth transmissions back to us, some dating back almost a hundred years!"

"You're sure they sent them back?" Zhdanov asked, his eyebrows knitting together, making little creases in his forehead. "Could the radio waves have been reflected back to us by some natural source?"

"No," Knightwood said firmly. "We've confirmed the source. It's them, all right. But do you know what the strangest part is? Most of the transmissions were turn-of the-century progress reports on wildlife in the rural zones!" She laughed.

"Odd choice," Cameron agreed, contemplating the news.

"Indeed," Knightwood went on. "And don't you think it's a little odd that they changed their heading towards Earth, and yet they can't keep from crashing on the surface?"

"Yes, that's something I was wondering about." Zhdanov admitted. "Any ideas about it?"

Knightwood nodded. "All I can think is: it would have been easier to maintain orbit above the Earth and send down smaller ships if they wanted to pick a fight with us. Once that giant thing is grounded, it won't be easy getting it out of the Earth's gravity again. So, if you want my opinion, I'd say that all the signs indicate that ship's guidance systems are out of control."

"Or something else could have gone wrong." Zhdanov suggested. "Whatever happened to them, it seems as if they have to find somewhere to land, and quickly."

"We have eight other planets—and plenty of rocky moons," Cameron interjected. "So why Earth?"

Knightwood narrowed her eyes at him. "All right, let's just suppose that my assumption is completely off. The fact remains that it has landed, and I think we need to check it out. Now tell me what else should we do? Any suggestions?"

Neither Cameron nor Zhdanov said anything.

"We could also be getting worked up over nothing." Knightwood declared.

"How so?" Zhdanov asked.

"It's like you said before, maybe they don't care about us at all but just happened to be coming here to stop and make repairs on a hospitable planet." She explained. "Or we may never get close if there's some kind of disastrous force at work, say a radiation leak, for example, or I don't know—what if they even managed to fix their ship and decided to leave before we could learn anything about why they're here and where they came from?"

Zhdanov shrugged.

"I'd say good riddance to them," Cameron opined.

"All right," Zhdanov acquiesced, ignoring the remark, and turned to Knightwood. "If you're so eager to get yourself killed—"

"You're telling me you're just going to stand here, with that thing out there?" Knightwood demanded, as her own horrible fears of the potential, unknown danger surfaced. "Maybe no one on Earth will be safe for long, anyway. We need to know whether this alien ship is hostile or if it is not. And if it is, we need to determine as early as we can if there is anything we can do to defend ourselves against it. Or would you rather just stay here and wait to see if they will fry us?" she added cynically.

"Of course not," Zhdanov's voice was firm, then he seemed to check himself.

"If we don't go, then who should?" Knightwood asked.

"I don't know—this is all happening so quickly." Zhdanov shrugged. "But all right, I agree, we should be the ones to go and we should go now. Coming, Cameron?" he asked, but the older scientist seemed unaffected by their conversation.

"Cameron—" Knightwood began, summoning her most persuasive voice.

"Just leave him alone." Zhdanov advised. "After all, there's no sense in all three of us risking our lives in this. Maybe we should wait until we hear from the UESS Council."

"If they ever make up their minds what to do about it," Knightwood said. "It'll be too damned late by that point," she added, turned away. Cameron watched Knightwood's thick brown ponytail swish from side to side as she headed for the door. Zhdanov hesitated for just a moment, then he followed her out. Cameron's face expressed doubt, concern, but for no one to see—Dawe had already moved to the operator's console to monitor the schematics himself.

Cameron hesitated, then followed Knightwood's lead irresolutely a moment later, his steps leaden.

It would be better to get it over with, he thought, and prove himself right or wrong—at least for the sake of his own sanity. He hoped, however, that he was wrong. He could live with being wrong. He hoped that the alien beings who had created this monolith had no malevolent purpose in coming to Earth, that their presence might peacefully end humanity's solitude but not the human race itself.

After all, vindication did the dead no good.

* * * * *

Sasha Blair was in the shower when a knock came at the door. It never fails! she protested, resigned nonetheless to the inevitability of these intrusive interruptions.

"Off," she said. The water flow ceased, and she stepped from the shower stall. "Just a minute," she shouted much louder, hoping that the person outside her quarters could hear her and would wait in case it was something important, while at the same time hoping she didn't slip on the floor and break her neck, as fast as she was drying herself.

"It's just me." Her husband's voice filtered through from the living area. She heard the front door swish closed.

"Why did you knock?" She called through the door, her voice echoing in the small bathroom.

"I didn't." Richard's voice came through, faint and muffled. "That must have been my helmet when I dropped it on the floor." He laughed. "But it saves me time getting you out of there. We've got a job to do, so you'd better suit up quick."

Sasha stopped what she was doing and stood a moment in mute shock, clutching her towel in tightened fists. Cold drops of water fell from her damp, dark blond hair and began to slide down her back; she gave no thought to drying them, but instead suddenly pressed the towel into her face to blot out any sound she made.

"Hello, did you hear what I said?" Richard called from outside the door. She heard him get up from the sleep panel and realized he was coming to check on her.

"Sure. I'll just be a minute." She shouted pleasantly, as if what he had said had not alarmed her. However, the way he'd said it reminded her of what she loved most about her husband. She could tell that he was more worried about her reaction to the news than whether or not she actually hurried.

"Dawe's got orders to send a recon team over to check out sector eight. They didn't have the chance to send a vidmessage yet," Richard continued, sensing that an immediate explanation would help Sasha to deal with the surprise. Sasha was so methodical, unlike himself. She had a highly intelligent, organized mind, but it was slower and more thorough than his own, and she liked to have all of the data before drawing conclusions, while he almost always made rapid, straight-forward judgments, being a quick thinker and far more impulsive by nature than Sasha was even when she made an effort to be.

"We'll get the details later—assuming they don't leave without us." He informed her.

"Very funny, Mr. Mathieson," Sasha called, not sounding amused in the slightest.

From the silence that ensued, Richard inferred that she thought he had been joking with her. He had an old habit of teasing her that had made it impossible for her to tell when he was being serious.

"Dawe said something about Harrison and Cummings both being at Gabriel—so that leaves yours truly, team Pegasus to act as the recon escort." He pursued more decisively.

"You're not joking?" Sasha asked, sounding disturbed by this news.

"Sorry, not this time. They've got a big shuttle waiting in the East Wing docking bay."

The bathroom door opened. Sasha emerged wrapped in a towel and hurried to the bedroom closet for her white flight suit uniform, avoiding his gaze until she could recompose herself. She was a rather lovely woman just past thirty and of medium height and build. Her husband followed her with his bright hazel eyes from his position on the sofa.

"It's been four years since I've been called for a recon mission." She commented.

"Gurney seems excited about it, though." Richard leaned back, lacing his fingers as he brought his hands behind his head. "I met him in the hanger on his way back from training flights. They'd all been canceled—he didn't know why. I was about to get lunch, so we went to the canteen—one of the staff found us there and gave us the message. They were so busy they never even got around to hailing us directly."

"They canceled the training flights?" Sasha echoed. "You didn't hear anything in the Engineering department—?" She had spoken too quickly for her husband to hear the last comment, but it hadn't been intended for his benefit.

"Something wrong?" Richard asked with deliberate calmness.

"All of our classes were canceled this morning, too." Sasha replied, digesting the information. "You think this recon business has anything to do with it? Sounds like too much of a coincidence to me."

"I don't know," he sighed deeply; there had been few such mysteries in his life. "But the atmosphere around the place today seemed tense—artificially silent—I can't describe it to you. People weren't talking. And all of the video transmissions have been curtailed to a minimum."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that." Sasha said, turning around to regard him from the open doorway. "I had to put in my day of odd-job duty for this month today. They had me organizing the cleaning equipment, emergency coding in noon meals for the cadets on flight call, running practice simulators, and minding the security officers' children while they experimented with color emulsions. Wipe that grin off of your face, mister you've got three days coming to you, too."

Her husband's amused smile twisted into a grimace. Odd-job duty was the government's way of helping its expedition trainees prepare for various duties when the crews were finally selected and sent on the years-long mission to alpha centauri, planned for the near future. At least that was the official version. Richard liked to think odd-job duty was the government's way of putting the elite corps of trainees in their place, of trying to humble a bunch of arrogant fucks.

"Don't remind me." Richard shook his head, then brushed his short, dark hair away from his eyes and looked up with a serious face. "I hadn't thought about it, but I've never heard about canceling all of the classes and training flights before. Honestly, I don't know. There could be a connection—but no one will say anything who knows what's going on. Gurney says he overheard a radar operator talking about a supply shuttle that was out of control—she said something crashed in sector eight. It's strange though, that—and for the moment I'm assuming the story's true—we haven't heard of any reported casualties."

"You'd think they would have made the announcement already as to whether or not anyone was killed. They should know by now." Sasha agreed, considering the scenario.

"I thought of that, too," Richard said. "But that isn't what's been bothering me. Have you ever heard of a shuttle pilot who lost control of his craft being able to warn us about it?"

"It doesn't happen very often. So?"

"Neither have I. The ships usually just crash. And the rest of us find out what went wrong afterward. So, how does anyone know this shuttle pilot had lost helm control? We can't know what really went wrong yet. How do we know there wasn't just some kind of spontaneous navigational system malfunction at work—or one that the pilot didn't know about?"

"What would it matter?" She asked, not following. "Aren't both cases essentially the same thing?"

"At first glance," Richard said. "But it doesn't really make sense."

"Why not?"

"Think of it this way: if there was some kind of accident in the shuttle cabin out in space, some hull leak which killed the pilots en route—"

"No one said they were dead."

"No, but suppose if they were, then the automatic guidance systems would have activated as they always do so that the ship and any cargo isn't lost. Thus," he raised a forefinger, "no shuttle can ever be lost—or crash—solely because of a pilot's death."

"Yes."

"And we would have automatically guided the ship through a landing window and safely to the ground."

"Agreed."

"So if the shuttle was out of control, there had to be something wrong with the entire navigational system, and it wasn't the pilot or the co-pilot's fault. They didn't know about it in time. And they were alive. If not, why worry so much about a shuttle crash in a rural zone? Only a search and rescue mission would be worth all of this effort."

"All true. Your point?"

"In that case, there's no way we wouldn't have been able to track that thing and not realize something was wrong for some time before the shuttle crashed, even if the pilots didn't know. If the pilots were alive, we would have warned them. And we would have advised them to use an escape capsule. We wouldn't have waited. So—"

"No need for a search and rescue mission."

"Exactly. So everything had to seem fine from the ground—unless for some strange reason we wanted the shuttle to crash and the pilots to die."

"Richard, I'm confused."

"So am I. Even if there was damage to the communications system, and the pilots couldn't warn us, we had to know. Yet we waited—why? If you ask me, this whole situation almost sounds like some kind of cover-up story, but for what?"

Sasha's face took on an uneasy expression that Richard caught with a mild sense of alarm.

"Still, I guess there's no way of knowing until we get there." Richard shook his head, summarily abandoning the argument.

"Richard, do you suppose this is all just an elaborate disaster drill?" Sasha asked a moment later.

Richard thought about that, then shrugged. "We just had one," he reminded her.

"Ah—but this would be the best time for another one, then." Sasha laughed. "After all, who would be expecting it? Getting the whole base involved and canceling classes would certainly be the best way to fool us."

"I don't know," Richard admitted, considering. "If that's the case, I'd have to say whoever's in charge has a warped sense of humor." He declared, unamused.

"You'd be the one to know, now wouldn't you?" Sasha teased, grabbing her helmet and heading for the door.

Chapter Three

Sweat trickled down Sasha's temple within her flight helmet. She took several controlled breaths, then let her eye wander, surveying the gauges and gears surrounding her. She'd already made several studies as they waited in the East Wing Airport near the Command Shuttle, amidst the hurried activity of attendants and technicians.

Then finally, a heavy echo signaled the beginning retraction of the great overhead dome. A scraping sound came and went as the heavy dome laboriously arced away. The seconds ticked away slowly, and the sunlight filtering through grew brighter, the massive arc of daylight yawning before them. After a moment, the ground crews retreated, leaving the planes alone on the outlying runway, exposed to the open sky.

Sasha activated her engines; they suddenly thrummed with life, growling as though they, too, waited impatiently for take-off. It's surreal, Sasha thought to herself, glancing at the last of the retreating flight crews. What if she wasn't ready for this mission?

However, by the time they were airborne, such doubts had dissipated.

The simple truth of it was that the love of flying never worked its way out of a pilot's system.

Sasha pulled in her breath sharply when her husband's image flashed onto the left video screen without warning.

"Take it easy, there," Richard laughed. "I just thought I'd see how you were doing."

"Oh you did, did you?" she reacted with a humorless smile. "Well, I'm fine. Everything's fine." She said abrasively, but Richard only laughed again. Even in her excitement, and perhaps because of it, Sasha barely held her nerves in check. The concentration-boosting chemicals kicked in, injecting fluid into her arm, in response to her nerves. A steady flight usually helped to calm the pilots down, but though they had been in the air nearly ten minutes, the escort had yet to receive any explanations from the shuttle crew. Now the automatic mood-elevators were coming through.

Richard chuckled to himself, but he spared his wife his amusement. She hadn't much cared for his interruption. He had hesitated a moment, admiring the rapt expression in her eyes, sorry to have to break it, but at the same time he really enjoyed making a pest of himself. At length, she began to relax, and he suppressed a desire to startle her again.

Usually, Richard naturally coped better with anxiety by refusing to allow it any hold over him, even sometimes sacrificing his better judgment with it; today, however, he perceived that this mission was special. He couldn't help being curious about just what had happened to bring them out here.

A moment later, it came at last—the flash of a hailing signal from the shuttle crew.

"This is space pilot Richard A. Mathieson from Pegasus recon escort crew. We read you—over." He responded.

"Security Chief Hollendar requests you to follow orders of recon shuttle crew." The shuttle co-pilot, a freckle-faced, red-headed youth of about twenty years, was trying very hard to sound composed and efficient, as if this kind of mission were routine. "We are breaking communication during descent. Signing off." And he meant it, not waiting for an answer. The video comline buzzed with static as the message ended.

"Hollendar's back?" Sasha asked, intrigued. She knew that Hollendar had been gone for several days now. He would have to have taken a private shuttle to get back this early. What could bring him back so soon? she wondered. Did it somehow have to do with this strange recon mission? Given that Hollendar liked to be where the action was... exactly what was going on here?

"Isn't he always wherever the action is?" her husband asked, voicing her own thoughts. "I wonder if he knows about this shuttle."

Sasha had made the same connection, he saw by her face.

"Pardon the interruption, Mathieson," Gurney's scratchy voice came over the net; his face appeared in the monitor.

"Perfect timing as usual," Richard said. If there was anyone on Earth who could make Mathieson look like a stick-in-the-mud, it was Gurney.

"It's a gift, I know," Gurney responded with a wry grin and a nod. "But I thought I'd let you both know that the recon crew is sending us a green light to proceed ahead and land with them at point Acadia." He paused, listening to another communication. "Roger that, taking her down," he chirped, and his ship, the Pride of Progress suddenly descended before the others, looping and spinning like a paper airplane.

"Are you in some kind of hurry?" Richard demanded sharply.

"They said to proceed ahead," Gurney offered a moment later, unapologetic and with a hint of dry, playful humor. "So I thought I might practice some maneuvers on the way."

Richard suddenly burst into laughter but held back some in light of the gravity of the situation; Sasha shook her head yet cracked an involuntary smile. Few outsiders understood the pilots' way of staying sane on long training flights. The body became physically cramped, but the pilots ignored that. Sometimes they remained airborne for hours at a time, but they had to stay alert. As long as they kept their wits about them, they were safe.

Mathieson had been Gurney's friend it seemed like forever, but Gurney wasn't really jealous of Sasha, as much as he could have been. In the old days, they had all worked together on recon over the rural zones and in training for the future alpha centauri mission.

"As ordered, taking her down." Richard said, letting his ship, the Harlequin, plunge through the clouds. The sudden dive took him past Gurney, as he had planned. They were the greatest of friends; part of this was that they were always trying to out do each other. Meanwhile, Sasha stuck to the recon as it slowly descended through the clouds. After a moment of quiet, the ship hailed her.

"This is Doctor Knightwood aboard recon shuttle. We are descending to one thousand meters. I want to take it slow, though, so we can get a good look at the waterfall at point Acadia. Signing off."

Sasha waited until she was within two thousand meters to re-establish the visual linkup between her, Richard, and Gurney. "Okay, listen up!" She shouted. Immediately the pair redirected their attention to her, sensing news. "Knightwood wants us to head down low to the waterfall so that we can survey the landscape."

"Knightwood's—on the shuttle herself? 'Must be something pretty serious." Gurney whistled and shook his head as best as he could with his heavy helmet and harness holding him stationary. "I thought she hated recon. She's been afraid of flying ever since that shuttle to Gabriel blew up—"

"Exactly." Sasha agreed, cutting him off; Sasha had been thinking the same thing. The explosion that had destroyed the shuttle Halcyon was common knowledge; it was a miracle Knightwood had survived, drifting for two days in her spacesuit before she was rescued. People knew that Knightwood had hated flying ever since. So, Sasha thought, this wasn't an elaborate drill. Knightwood wouldn't have agreed to come out here for nothing. Sasha felt suddenly anxious. "But in case she's listening, I suggest—"

"Play time's over," Richard coughed and opened the frequency to the command shuttle. "Message understood," his voice resumed in a more serious tone. "This is Mathieson slowing down for initial flyby..."

* * * * *

The ground was so hot that Selerael's feet at last began to burn within the shoe coverings she wore. She yawned a couple of times, then shot up from where she had fallen hours earlier, awake now that she felt pain.

"E-ah! I'm burning!" She screamed, jumping up and scrambling away from the super-heated ground. The words themselves startled her, remembered instinctively, but she had almost forgotten the meaning. It was as though she spoke in unintelligible animal sounds, something she knew had meaning but could not comprehend. Memory was nothing to her but white shadows. She did not know herself anymore, and that was the most frightening thing of all.

Yet as all living things, even a careless child will blindly seek its own comfort, and soon her thoughts centered on finding somewhere to cool her feet and to sit, for she was growing tired again. However, a thick, moist, warm fog billowing around her cut off all view. It was like the blindness that had afflicted her before; she recalled the moments of her awakening and hoped that if she could only find the light to illuminate this world, the vapors would dissipate. She did not understand that the sun was already shining high above, a luminous white orb in the gloom.

A moment later, she could just make out something dark up ahead, a distant, ant-sized, brown pole rooted in the ground. She rushed to it as though it had been an oasis.

Up close, the brown pole was charred black, pitifully twisted and ugly, but in its shadow, the ground was cooler. She could see nothing else nearby, having lost all sense of direction, having no idea at all where she was. Breathless, she sat down carelessly to rest again, burying her toes deep into the cool earth.

* * * * *

"Lord almighty! What happened here!?" Richard Mathieson exclaimed as the recon shuttle and escort ships approached the area that had once been the Acadia waterfall. Steam rose from the ground in great clouds stretching at a guess around a radius of a thousand meters from the center of where the waterfall had been into an ever-increasing sphere of vapor that persisted in the still spring air.

"It looks like something hit all right." Gurney announced just as the team received a communication from the shuttle.

"We're going to circle around several times until the clouds clear away. Then we'll have a look." Knightwood's said in a smooth, decisive voice over the videonet. "Stay sharp, everyone. We might have—some difficulties out here." She added, rather tersely, mysteriously.

"Now she tells us," Gurney whistled, feeling more uncertain than ever about the secretive nature of this detail and sure that the scientists were keeping something big to themselves.

Ten minutes later, a clearing broke in the artificial cloudcover. Something dim and dark showed beneath, like still, black water.

"What does it look like? Can you see?" Zhdanov asked on the videonet. The artificial clouds drifted further, dissipating as they met cooler air beyond the impact site.

"I don't believe it." Richard breathed, the blood draining from his face.

The pulverized cliff side appeared on the verge of landsliding over the object that had vaporized the Acadia waterfall, a gargantuan vessel from space that had crashed headlong into the ground at an angle of about twenty degrees. Already the clouds of dust had deposited a fine layer over the lower half of the ship, and loose rocks blown into the air by the impact had fallen into the crater and over the part of the bow that remained topside. With the exposed third of the ship and the buried silhouette, the ship measured more than seventeen kilometers long.

Richard suddenly felt as though someone had played a cruel trick on him. He watched, mute, yet his mind continued its train of thought where speech had failed. Dawe had to have known about this! he thought. And yet he hadn't said a word about it when he sent them out here. Good Lord, though! An out of control shuttle? This was an alien spaceship, for God's sake!

Richard tried to calm himself down, but anger was better than fear, he reasoned in a small corner of his mind; the anger occupied the better half of it. He looked over to the monitor; Sasha's pale face had gone white as a sheet, but she seemed to be managing her ship well.

Right now, though, he wished that she were anywhere on the planet but here.

For a long time, silence prevailed on the net. Then Knightwood's inappropriately calm voice ventured, "Let's land on the other side of the cliff and take a look. Our scanners aren't identifying the composition. It seems to be emitting some electromagnetic interference."

"There's probably a good explanation for that." Gurney said. There was a tremulous quality to Gurney's voice that had never been there before. "You know what they say—curiosity killed the cat," he added, attempting a joke.

Actually, Gurney was re-evaluating the importance of life in general and his own in particular at that moment, and something told him he had more to accomplish before becoming air garbage, assuming that thing was what his eyes were telling him it was and that little hostile green men inside it weren't planning on making sure he didn't come too close.

"Where the devil did it come from?" Richard wondered out loud, thinking that it was time to start their mission—and get it over with all the sooner. Not that he thought this ship was going anywhere now, but he didn't want to have anything further to do with it after today, if at all possible. "We could run a few electromagnetic scans, but we may risk antagonizing whatever's inside that thing."

"Yes," Zhdanov agreed over the videonet again. "It would be foolish to do anything which they might perceive as threatening."

"They?" Gurney echoed uncomfortably.

"The proportional counter reports safe levels of gamma radiation," Sasha announced evenly.

A minute later, the planes landed as instructed beside the shuttle just at the curling edge of a crater the ship had created, about thirty meters ahead. The various members of the expedition disembarked and met formally. Like the recon team, the shuttle crew was attired in flightsuits, but they carried their compu-helmets down the gangway.

Knightwood descended the gangway first; she was a bit shorter than Sasha, with light brown skin as clear as honey, huge, mercurial, brown eyes with long, dark lashes, smooth, round cheeks, and a long, thin, aquiline nose. Her accent and bearing were quite proper, but her language and bold behavior often shattered this image of propriety.

To Mathieson's mind, there was a look of efficiency and fearlessness about Knightwood; with Knightwood, one came to expect the unexpected. An air of supreme effectiveness moved through and around her like a mist; her presence alone seemed enough to guarantee that not only had all been planned, but all would go as planned.

The recon crew knew Zhdanov and Cameron, the latter of which had remained silent up until now. Sasha and Richard had been friendly with the doctor for a long time; for that reason, Cameron's presence took them completely by surprise.

Cameron was well-known on the base as a brilliant, self-effacing man whose demeanor had become more grim and reserved in later life, though he had once been, by all accounts, quite amiable. Rumor had it that Cameron's personality had changed markedly when his wife died nearly forty years before; Cameron had never remarried.

Cameron was that rare kind of genius that came around once a century. Nevertheless, the man was, to the world's collective astonishment, completely unassuming, even taciturn. Cameron had been dubbed the world's only living Renaissance man, and as a scientist, he had proven that he deserved that title. At one time a renowned cellular biologist and medical research doctor, Cameron had given up his profession in mid-life on what his peers had regarded as a whim, only to become a leading astrochemist and pioneer of new frontiers in radio astronomy; Sasha had been one of his subordinate research physicists eight years before.

However, Cameron had met Richard Mathieson when he developed an interest in astro-engineering; five years ago, Cameron had acted as one of the project managers, and Richard Mathieson had briefly worked in his engineering team.

Cameron's knowledge in astro-engineering had, in only a few years, grown as deep as that of his previous fields of study; in a short time, Mathieson and the other engineers had developed a great respect for the man. In truth, it was difficult not to admire him. Cameron was one of those rare people with an instinctive understanding of how things worked and an inventive mind that saw where there was a margin for improvement. He was highly analytical but at the same time creative and surprisingly tolerant—a maverick scientist in attitude if not in bearing and a natural technologist and inventor.

Cameron had, in essence, devoted his entire life to the study of the sciences—to anything scientific that piqued his interest—and to the study of how the various branches touched another; he was always working on some new, ambitious project and looking for opportunities to expand his knowledge. Cameron was now rarely seen outside the perameters of the UESRC research labs.

Sergei Zhdanov, too, seldom left the labs. He was a man in Cameron's mold, hand-picked by the older scientist as the newest senior member of the UESRC, replacing the former head of the chemistry department, Maria Guzman, who had retired after nearly a century of work. Zhdanov was, by all accounts, a mathematical genius and brilliant chemist, a fact which had initially brought him to Cameron's attention.

Yet Zhdanov had struck Cameron as a decisive force, a breath of fresh air that the UESRC badly needed. And importantly to Cameron's mind, Zhdanov was also very pleasant to deal with, a natural at explaining the complex in simple terms and thus the perfect UESRC spokesman.

Zhdanov himself vaguely remembered the shorter, wiry blond man, Gurney, and the husband and wife team from several years ago, when he had met them all on a brief visit to the UESRC. Cameron had mentioned them a few times since then, but Zhdanov was still trying to put names to all of the faces at the UESRC. The three pilots had established themselves as promising potential alpha centauri flight crew. But, Zhdanov thought, who knew if that venture would come to anything now?

Zhdanov signaled the recon team over to the gangway to see if they had any weapons packed away—just in case any aliens on board the spaceship turned out to be less than friendly. Zhdanov shuddered at the thought of meeting any. Then he smiled to himself.

"Strange thing to be toting a laser gun," said Zhdanov. There were few weapons on Earth.

The shuttle crew had a few small laser stun guns, most often used to fend off large animals on expeditions into the rural zones.

"Could we use the hand-held laser batteries as weapons?" Gurney asked.

"We could give it a try," said Zhdanov. The laser batteries power packs had been stowed on each ship in case of emergencies, to repair, weld or cut a way out if necessary.

"Agreed," said Knightwood.

Gurney, Sasha, and Richard retrieved four heavy tubes with pencil-thin nozzles, then slung them across their shoulders before Knightwood took the lead. There wasn't much point to bringing any more weapons; even if there were hostile aliens on the alien ship or around it, the Earth possessed no weapons that would adequately defend them against any alien technology, which obviously surpassed that of the Earth. Weapons of any kind were almost pointless, but the team still wanted something to use in self-defense.

"Ready as we'll ever be," said Richard.

The ground felt sludgy and hot even through their flight boots. They took tentative, strained steps across the yielding ground, gradually tiring with the effort; about two meters from the ship they halted. There hadn't been any apparent signs warning them to stay away. In the eldritch atmosphere created by the steam, no sound could be heard except the shuffling of the material of their uniforms swishing as they edged closer, yet the heat had a nervous effect upon them.

At long last, thought Cameron.

Much to Knightwood's surprise, Cameron was the first to step forward and raise his hand to stroke the hermetic surface of the alien vessel. For a moment, they all waited with baited breath for something to happen, but after a few minutes passed uneventfully, they each began to breathe freely again.

"No one seems to be home," Gurney suggested, shrugging.

"That may be, or they don't much care for our welcoming party." Richard said. "But they're actually probably studying us. Waiting—for us to do something first."

"You think they know we're here?" Gurney asked, stepping back reflexively.

"I'd say definitely," Richard guessed as he stared up at the sheer face of the ship that stretched upward to the clouds. It was so beautiful, a liquid-looking midnight blue. How could anything so beautiful have been fashioned by hostile creatures? he wondered. It was unimaginable. Yet this thought offered him small comfort; he kept expecting to be incinerated by some kind of evil, energy ray.

"They could have all died in the crash, though, couldn't they?" Gurney retaliated.

"It's possible, I suppose, but not likely," Knightwood said.

"Maybe the ship was automatically set to approach the nearest planet that could sustain life," Gurney suggested. "Or—maybe not," he shrugged, noticing how Knightwood studied his words.

"Hmmm," she replied. "That is an idea. I do think we are being watched." She added. "And if these creatures are far more technologically advanced than we are, perhaps we interest them. Perhaps they may watch us rather than destroy us. What would they hope to gain by annihilating us, if they can create ships like this that can fly all the way to our galaxy?"

"Good point," Zhdanov said with a nod.

"What does it feel like, Cameron?" Sasha asked curiously, standing close behind the scientist. In a minute, she avowed silently, she was going to see for herself no matter what anyone else did.

"Remarkably smooth." Cameron declared, still touching it with the flat of his palm.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sasha remarked appreciatively. "It looks seamless," she commented, equally impressed.

"It does, doesn't it?" Cameron agreed with equal admiration. "In that case, I vote we all look around for a way in."

"What?!" Gurney protested, shaking his head. Had Cameron had lost control of his mental faculties?

"I don't mean we'll be paying a visit." Cameron amended himself. "I must admit I'm more than a bit curious as to what exactly this is. However, I'm not as foolhardy as you might think. I merely wished to suggest that we at least try to figure out where they might disembark, if indeed there is a way out."

"You think there might not be? So, is it a tomb of some kind, then doctor?" Richard asked.

"I'm not saying that necessarily," Cameron replied, shaking his head. "It could be anything. But it does appear to be remarkably well sealed. It could be an alien refugee ship under some kind of quarantine for all we know."

"Yet you're suggesting we walk around it?" Zhdanov asked skeptically.

"What else?" Cameron shrugged. "Since we've failed to discover anything by using a scanner. And a ground shuttle might be perceived as threatening."

"I suppose," Zhdanov admitted.

"Anyway, someone has to go first." Cameron threw out, in a manner that was disturbingly fatalistic to the others.

"Who does he mean?" Gurney whispered to Richard.

"We will all go, of course; we'll divide here and each group take one direction around. I only meant that someone has to take the risk first." Cameron explained, remarkably composed under the circumstances. "If it isn't us, then it'll be someone else."

"Only why did it have to be us?" Gurney said under his breath.

"Anyway, you can be certain whoever's inside has a plan." Cameron continued hastily, to cut off any interruptions. "We can't change that. If they wanted to kill us, they could have done so by now; when they decide they've learned enough about us, they still may. And if they exterminate us, you'd better believe that we won't be the last.

"But the point is: whatever they decide to do, it's out of our hands, at least as long as we stay here without doing anything, without trying to learn anything about them. If they've got a plan, we might as well try to figure out as soon as possible what that is. Someone has to."

"What if they aren't hostile at all?" Sasha wondered. "Suppose they came here because they need our help?" she suggested, her pale eyebrows raised. Gurney turned to offer her a galvanizing grin. "I don't know, perhaps they need supplies—" Sasha continued, then conceded defeat. "Okay Gurney—knock it off—" she sighed, ignoring his antics. After all, what could these aliens need from the Earth?

Meanwhile, Knightwood regarded her mentor thoughtfully, astounded by Cameron's sentiments. She had thought he would swear off the thing like bogeymen were inside. Here he was agreeing with her, more or less, even if they had little choice anyway but to look for some sign of activity.

There was only a handful of other scientists around the world who would know what to look for around the spaceship or know how to read the signs and take useful data, as they did; Knightwood had tried to make it easy on herself by volunteering for this mission, before she was ordered to go, not that anything would have kept her from it. She was a patriotic fool when it came to this little planet called Earth.

And even any fool could see that the fate of the world was at stake.

Chapter Four

From the far distant trees, came the cry of some kind of owl. After an hour and a half in fruitless searching, the two teams made their way back to rendezvous at their initial arrival point.

"Good to see you," Gurney mouthed, hailing them from a distance.

Richard thought he detected relief in Cameron eyes when the others approached, but all he said was, "They took their time, didn't they?" in tones of mild reproof.

"Not much this way," Gurney was breathing hard as he spoke, now within hearing. Their team had been absorbed in the search and had to hurry to make it back by the designated time.

"We think we found an airlock." Richard said, relishing the two other scientists' reactions.

"Can you be sure?" Knightwood asked excitedly, looking directly at Cameron for corroboration.

"Well, actually no," Cameron admitted, arms akimbo. "We did find a seam in the smoothness of the hull. I ran my finger over it, but I couldn't feel a depression. I'm inclined to believe we found an entrance, but we couldn't get it to budge. Not that I ever thought we would."

"Is he always this optimistic?" Gurney whispered to Richard behind his hand. Richard only shrugged.

"I know what you're thinking, Cameron," Zhdanov said, wagging a finger at the older scientist.

"You do?" Cameron stood his ground but seemed curious to hear it.

"We'll have to wait for their move now, whatever that may be."

"Yes, well, I suppose I would have said something along those lines," Cameron admitted, then coughed. "I had not thought myself so predictable."

"You think maybe the entrances aren't at ground level?" Knightwood suggested, to no one in particular.

"Maybe we just can't detect them," Sasha offered.

Cameron nodded. "In either case, I suggest we head back to the base, make a report, and discuss the situation with our colleagues. We've done all we can. Besides, if I know Hollendar, he'll have the entire base up in arms if we don't get back soon."

"What if they're waiting for us to leave before they come out and zap the place?" Gurney asked, looking towards the ship.

"You may be right," Cameron responded, "but there would still be nothing we could do about it here."

"All the same, I think we ought to look around the impact sight first and take some samples of the ground and vegetation. We may learn something crucial about where this alien dreadnought came from," Zhdanov suggested.

And we could still get that encounter you're looking for, and end up wishing we hadn't gone poking our noses around here, Gurney thought to himself.

"All right, we'll start at the edge of the impact crater," Knightwood agreed.

Cameron muttered something about protocol but did not object.

"We'll accompany you," Richard said.

"Yeah, I don't think I want to stick around here," Gurney whistled, looking back to the ship, thinking he wouldn't mind putting some distance between it and himself. "I've got a date with Nina tomorrow, and I don't want to miss it."

"Well, you could go back to the recon shuttle and wait there by yourself," Sasha suggested.

"I'd rather not," Gurney rejoined in good humor.

A few minutes later, Knightwood had gone ahead to the tree line while Zhdanov stopped to collect a few rocks from the impact crater. The recon escort team lagged a little behind with Dr. Cameron, who appeared willing to let his colleagues take the samples by themselves.

"Always rushing about," he laughed, this time in approval. Richard and Gurney exchanged confused glances. Her eyes fixed on the tree line where Knightwood was preoccupied gathering the samples, Sasha suddenly halted. On her left, Cameron, Richard, and Gurney continued walking. Sasha shook her head and tried to continue but lagged a few steps behind the others, slowing when a vague sound came to her ears again.

* * * * *

"Stop," Sasha called ahead. "What's that noise?"

Mathieson and Gurney turned around. "What noise?" they asked in unison.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have asked," Sasha returned. "But I think it came from over there." She pointed a few hundred meters to the left of the spaceship and to their far right, where the surviving tree line began.

"There are a lot of strange noises around here." Gurney shrugged, then looked ahead and noticed that the recon shuttle team had turned around. Knightwood looked up, wondering why she hadn't heard anything.

"We can't rule out the possibility that some animal out there was hurt by the impact." Cameron said to Sasha. "If we find an injured animal worth saving, we can take it back to the lab and take a look at it to see if or how it was affected by the radiation. Why don't you go with Mathieson and Gurney and check it out—I'm sure we'll be fine without an escort." He said, stepping towards Zhdanov and Knightwood. Sasha nodded.

"All right then, we'll follow you," Mathieson announced; almost at once his wife headed in the direction from which she had heard the sound, not waiting for anyone to catch up with her.

She peered around in the steamy air and pressed forward until she felt that she was near the area where the call had come from. Vaguely, she sensed that Richard and Gurney weren't far behind her. After a few minutes, she stopped and leaned against a large oak tree, wondering if the sound had only existed in her imagination, when she heard another call, loud this time, and nearby. This time, the call sounded human.

"Hello? If you hear me, please answer. I'll try to help you." Sasha cupped her hands to amplify her speech and waited, listening attentively. This time she recognized the answering sound as a kind of cry. She followed it, pushing back branches and stooping under boughs in her way. Then she came upon the person who had been calling to her.

It was a little girl dressed in some ragged piece of clothing, sitting forlornly under a tree and rubbing a bare, mud-caked foot with her hand. The girl heard Sasha coming and stopped crying, then scrambled to her feet, looking about with bewildered eyes.

Sasha stared at her. She was a remarkably beautiful child, with a mess of wild, unruly blond hair that had been covered by a layer of moist, clinging dirt; sapphire-colored eyes bright as a fish's scales reflecting sunlight peered out of a dirty face. When she saw Sasha, the little girl took a step back and regarded Sasha anxiously. After a few seconds, she suddenly burst into tears and ran toward Sasha, then clasped tiny, deceivingly delicate arms around Sasha's leg and squeezed hard, burying her face there.

The cut on her arm was beginning to disappear.

The others arrived moments later.

"Well I'll be damned!" Mathieson exclaimed, looking down at a wild creature that resembled a little girl, clinging tightly to his wife. Muddy streaks had marked Sasha's white uniform near the child's face. "Where did that little tyke come from?"

"Don't know," said Sasha, in shock.

"Seems a mystery but we can't leave her here, can we? There's no telling what happened here before the crash."

"Hey, pretty girl, don't cry," Gurney said as the child turned her face to look at them. "We'll get you to safety." The girl had a sweet, delicate face, with a kind of inborn grace of her features and gestures. An expression of such sincere grief had taken possession of the girl's marvelous eyes that Gurney wanted to hug her himself.

"This one's gonna be a devil of trouble to some man," he laughed. The girl's expression was disarming. "There, there, don't cry," he said.

"Why would anybody bring her out here, anyway?" Gurney added. In truth, he sometimes got along better with children than with other adults; he was a reluctant champion of the defenseless.

Meanwhile, Sasha's face had hardly moved, her surprise frozen as if in the face of an exquisite ice sculpture. Mathieson watched his wife closely as she conquered indecision, took the little girl up in her arms, and then held her.

Neither he, nor Gurney, nor Sasha heard the high-pitched frequency vibrating through the air, an alien signal that arrested the child's movement as Sasha carried her away.

The little girl stared blankly back over Sasha's shoulder, her body limp as a broken doll. She could not fight the strange voice that reached out to her, no matter how far she ran or where she hid. She knew somehow that he would always find her.

Yet for now the voice grew dimmer as the Earth pilots threaded their way back through the trees toward their shuttle companions.

Go with them, Selerael... The diminishing sounds instructed her. Find the singularity, and bring it to me. Then we will step across time together, and destroy the Emperor.

* * * * *

Fewer than fifteen minutes later, the recon team had returned to the impact crater, where the three scientists were busy talking about tests they planned to run. Knightwood looked up when she heard the team approach and stopped working, motioning Zhdanov to be silent with one wide, almost involuntary sweep of her arm, her studious eyes fixed ahead.

Zhdanov and Cameron followed her gaze to Sasha Blair and the little girl who had appeared with them. The little creature could not have been more than three years old, her tiny feet shuffling along, her hand tightly clasped in Sasha Blair's. She was wearing a strange, slightly burned fur and leather garment that left her muddy legs bare.

"What on Earth?!..." Zhdanov's voice simply died. His own language didn't have that expression, but he had taken a liking to the meaning of it and used it when occasion arose.

"We found her out by the impact site on the other side." Gurney explained quickly, already ready to defend the child.

"Anyone else out there?" Cameron asked, looking at the girl with unmeasured pity.

"No." Mathieson shook his head. "No readings at all. And we looked around for physical signs of her family, but there wasn't anyone else we could see, and no tracks of them anywhere. If there were any primitive hermits living out here who shun technology, they're gone now. Some of the girl's footprints in the moist ground near the tree line led away from the impact crater—it could be that she was the only survivor of a group living here before the ship hit."

"We'll have to take her back with us to figure out where she comes from. Perhaps one of her parents is still alive in one of the urban zones," Zhdanov suggested and made a gesture that they should be going.

"I'll take her," Sasha volunteered, already standing protectively in front of the little girl. Mathieson's stomach tightened. Something in Sasha's eyes told him that she had bonded to the child, and she wasn't going to like giving her up, especially if she believed the natural mother to have been negligent.

No one objected to Sasha's suggestion, so the girl rode with Sasha back to the UESRC. The little thing clung to Sasha fearfully as they disembarked in the giant East Wing Docking Bay, where dozens of maintenance technicians waited to clean up the shuttle and recon planes. Sasha and Richard stood a while to let the child get accustomed to her new surroundings, while Knightwood and the other scientists hurried away to the communications center to transmit their news to the global scientific and political community.

Gurney mussed the child's head affectionately before heading back to his duties; then Sasha and Richard escorted the girl as directed to Cameron's lab, where they had been instructed to wait until the scientists could return. After Cameron and his protegés had ascertained that the foundling child was physically healthy, they planned to try to find her lost parents.

As they made their way to Cameron's laboratory, Richard tried to quiet misgivings about his wife's apparent growing attachment to the strange little girl. In light of the larger event of the arrival of the alien spaceship, an event which was certain to change the course of human history, the discovery of a lost child had to be regarded with the proper perspective as but a trivial matter, he reminded himself.

Yet whither went reasoning at such a time as this? If he were to be honest with himself, Richard Mathieson was too preoccupied at the moment to entertain any other substantial emotions but relief, in the deepest sense of the word.

They had gone unwittingly to the fire but escaped unscathed!

Or so he thought.
Etiam oblivisci quid sis, interdum expedit. It is sometimes expedient to forget who you are.

—Publilius Syrus

Chapter Five

More than two hours passed before Dr. Knightwood, Zhdanov, and Cameron arrived at the laboratory where Mathieson and Blair had been waiting. Knightwood had returned briefly to take a small swatch of the fabric of the foundling girl's garment away to another laboratory to analyze it, leaving Mathieson and Blair to watch over the child a while longer.

Knightwood now stopped behind Cameron to observe the couple, her brows furrowing. Few people might recognize the surprise that had registered in her eyes—the rest of her features were expeditiously employed in disguising it. She didn't like to admit that anything could disturb her, that anything could occur that she had not at least partially anticipated.

The three of them: the child, Mathieson, and Blair, were playing a chasing game from the looks of it. Knightwood followed the girl with her eyes. The wild little creature was running around, laughing, wriggling away from Richard Mathieson in triumphant delight, with the ease and natural coordination of young children.

Mathieson himself appeared winded but seemed to be enjoying the exertion tremendously. Finally, he collapsed to the floor in defeat as his wife had already done, letting the child sit on his chest and slap his cheeks playfully. Sasha smiled affectionately down at the pair, then straightened as she saw the three scientists entering the room.

Mathieson blinked, then followed her eyes to the trio in the doorway. His easy expression melted away. Holding the girl tightly, he picked himself up, then set her down and stood at attention without a word.

"Hi, glad to see you again." Sasha said to the scientists.

"Yes," Richard agreed with less sincerity.

Deep down, Richard Mathieson knew why the scientists were there, why Knightwood the hard-nosed bitch and Zhdanov, Cameron's apprentice scientific pundit, were there, anyway. They had found a ground-breaking case study, the perfect example with which to deduce the effects of environmental isolation. If they were lucky, the girl might even show signs of malnutrition or aberrant socialization patterns that had not been witnessed in eons! What an opportunity!

Mathieson cleared his throat, betraying small signs of his hostility. No child should ever be treated as a guinea pig, his eyes said. But he reluctantly had to admit that Knightwood and the others might be able to help the girl where he could not. The girl didn't appear to understand English let alone be able to speak it. So far, she hadn't said a word in any language.

Richard almost smiled then, thinking of how just an hour ago she had been sitting in Sasha's lap, looking around cautiously. Richard had not been able to help himself but try the usual tactics he used on his wife and had sneaked up from behind to tickle her.

She hadn't laughed at first. She had regarded him with an expression of uncertainty. Then gradually, as the child forgot her fear, she'd begun to smile. In only an hour he'd managed to gain her trust and get her laughing. Now, as more intruders came into the room, he felt her draw behind him, clinging to his leg as she had done to Sasha's before. He looked down on her, but now he saw something beneath the fear—curiosity?

"She cleans up well," Zhdanov commented, motioning to the child. At some point, Blair or Mathieson must have made an effort to clean the child's face at least, understanding without being told so that they should leave the rest alone in case an analysis of the mud which had caked on her legs was warranted.

Meanwhile, Knightwood tried not to stare at the little girl as she analyzed the child's features mentally, now noticing the excessive pallor of her skin—Knightwood concurred that she must have been undernourished and had somehow avoided much direct sunlight, living in the forested glades of the rural zone perhaps her entire life.

The child's eyes, though, were the most unsettling thing about her. Even without the dirt they managed to shine in the pallor of the girl's face, an enchanting shade of sea blue; yet Knightwood found them somehow disturbing.

Even as she thought so, without warning a mild wave of neuroticism struck Knightwood from out of nowhere. Knightwood suddenly imagined with a pang of fierce horror that the child's mind and consciousness had found its way inside her own.

And for the first time in her life, Knightwood literally felt that she was not alone. There was something else in her mind with her, something predatorial, something not of her and not of her own imagination. The consciousness that was Knightwood, that regarded the world in its Knightwood-way and the thought process that channeled the world to Knightwood's mind and memory had been invaded. A parasite had entered Knightwood's mind and was making contact. And as it encroached upon her, she shrank in terror. There was no escape from this kind of invasion.

Knightwood looked at the child's half-smiling countenance and recoiled instinctively. Who was this girl? Knightwood felt her thoughts unrolling, exposing memories, her secret heart and deepest thoughts. Something in her mind was trying to paw its way through her soul. Whatever it was, Knightwood sensed its own hidden, foreign memories there in her thoughts, its own feelings and philosophy. What could she do to fight it? Could she, Knightwood, also look into that soul?

No. Knightwood's memories pooled around her, getting in the way. Whatever had been responsible for that also had complete control of Knightwood's feelings. Knightwood found she could do nothing to protect herself or to reach the foreign consciousness that had invaded her mind...

Then, suddenly, mercifully, Knightwood felt alone. Reality had returned to normal; her sense of security returned and wrapped itself like an aegis about her secret thoughts. She looked ahead, where the little girl had turned her head and buried it into Mathieson's leg.

What had just happened? Knightwood thought, struggling to remember. Something had just stolen away a memory from her—but no, that was ridiculous! Knightwood assured herself and shook away the vague, uncomfortable feeling to concentrate on her present agenda, attributing her momentary weakness to stress and a mild case of insomnia. Why was she suddenly remembering her brother, Sarn, now of all times? There were important things to be done.

Still, each time the child's unwavering, knowing gaze fell upon her again, it put Knightwood unexpectedly on her guard. Knightwood did not exactly remember why the child's eyes disturbed her; for no reason at all, there seemed to be several strange ideas and memories scrambling her thoughts at that moment, as much as she tried to suppress them.

"Let's run a retina scan and then try to make a match with the registry." Cameron suggested before setting up the devices that they needed to use. "Come here, child. We'll just try to find your mother." Sasha would have laughed at Cameron's attempts at playing the kindly uncle, but she was too preoccupied, hoping guiltily that he wouldn't be able to find the girl's parents in the files, as unlikely as that might be, since retina scans for everyone were registered at birth.

Some time later, after Cameron had released the child from the device, the girl ran back to Sasha and took her hand. A minute passed. The assembled company waited in silence, avoiding each other's glances as the computer searched for a match. Sasha remained oblivious of the tension between her husband and the younger scientists, her entire attention once again focused upon the young girl.

Sasha didn't understand how, but the child seemed able to perceive Sasha's wound and reciprocated with her own unexplainable sadness, drawing the two together, despite the short stretch of time in which they had known each other.

"Will you look at that!" Knightwood exclaimed when the program ended, strangely more disappointed than surprised, to Sasha's way of thinking. "The computer reports no retina match."

"What?" Mathieson said, swallowing his disbelief.

"Perhaps there was some sort of malfunction. Let's run it again." Zhdanov's words killed the hope that had briefly risen in Sasha's heart. She stroked the soft, fine hairs on the girl's forehead while they waited again.

"No," Knightwood repeated a minute later, "no matches. But this is really not altogether unexpected," she admitted.

"Really?" Sasha asked.

"We did suspect that this girl wasn't born in a hospital." Knightwood explained. "You said it yourselves, her family must be one of the hermits in the rural zones—one of the uncivilized people."

"How do you know for certain, though?" Sasha wondered, secretly hopeful.

Knightwood looked to Zhdanov and Cameron, as if confirming that it was acceptable to inform the two. The recon couple was already deeply involved—a little more earth-shattering information couldn't do them any more harm, Zhdanov's expression seemed to say.

"That garment she's wearing," Knightwood pointed to it. It had the appearance of some primitive craftsmanship, not like the sewn garments many of the hermits wore, but then again, their habits were not well-known.

"That garment was made from the hide of a Giant Deer." Knightwood declared with an air that acknowledged this fact as miraculous. "Aside from the burns, it is in near perfect condition."

"So?" Mathieson failed to see the significance.

"So, from what we know about it," Zhdanov continued, "that particular species of Giant Deer died out more than ten thousand years ago."

The recon team responded with a stunned silence.

"How did the hermits get a piece of that?" Sasha finally began, flustering with her words.

"We don't know." Knightwood shook her head, pleased that they finally understood the magnitude of the situation. "The material has been preserved perfectly, but it is clearly many thousands of years old. It is possible that one of the hermits found it in a ruined city, an ancient museum buried somewhere, in a remnant of the Earth's civilization before The Crisis Years.

"But until we can figure this mystery out—indeed if we can—we should run the basic physical tests to see if the girl's vital systems are in order. There is a chance that she may have medical problems that we no longer have in the urban zones. And the child herself can't tell us anything, it seems. Plus, you might as well know—the recon ships have been out looking for her mother, but so far they've found nothing."

Mathieson and Blair digested Knightwood's news and suggestions as the trio of scientists set up the equipment for a composite body scan. A videocall on the monitor sounded at that moment, and Cameron turned to look at it. The noise of the scanner quelled the conversation between the scientist and the message, but Cameron soon returned to their conversation. He announced that the UES Council had called Knightwood and Zhdanov to the communications room, and he offered to continue the examination in their absence.

Knightwood nodded quickly, dissembling her irritation at being interrupted. She and Zhdanov left in a hurry.

"Single-minded, isn't she?" Mathieson watched the door close behind Knightwood.

"Well," Cameron hesitated, thoughtful. "She seems so at first. But I have to say, underneath it all, well, she's a complex person. She doesn't make a show of her feelings in front of others, mind you, but she does indeed have a heart."

"Can't say I've seen much evidence of that," Richard said with an uncertain laugh. "But since she's still alive, I'll take your word for it."

Cameron shrugged. "Well, one gets used to her," he offered. "Hmm," Cameron laughed suddenly after a moment's thought. "I couldn't tolerate the way she used to rush about this place at first—but I have to admit the two of them have grown on me. And don't let Zhdanov fool you. Quite a plucky young man, usually. He had a cold last week, but you should have seen him this morning." Cameron sighed and shook his head with almost paternal affection.

In truth, Cameron knew that Zhdanov had no father—at least Zhdanov had not known his father for very long. Zhdanov had once told Cameron that his father had been a hard man capable of violent mood swings and terrible cruelties, who did not permit others to medicate him, and that was why Zhdanov's mother Marússya and his grandfather had raised him. The reality of Zhdanov's history was perhaps why Zhdanov and Cameron had grown so close. Cameron had no children, and Zhdanov had never really had a father. Was it any wonder that they had become like father and son?

"Well," Cameron said after a moment, his gaze falling to the strange child they had found. "Perhaps Seriyozha was right to be optimistic—but back to matters at hand. Let's see what the machine's picked up."

Over the next few minutes, Cameron kept them informed of his assessments as he worked.

"No malnutrition, though her lymphocyte count is abnormally low, and her lymph nodes are enlarged, but her temperature is stable, and her pulse and blood pressure are within normal limits. Hmmm," he added thoughtfully. "The organ verification unit indicates that she hasn't got an appendix."

"You've seen that before, doctor." Mathieson interrupted. "When our team came in for the last composite physical."

"Well yes," Cameron admitted, "in some of the less diluted descendants of the supposed 'superbeings' that were genetically engineered during the twenty-first century, we have seen a pattern of diminishing size of the appendix, like in the case of your friend Gurney. But this case isn't quite the same." Cameron shook his head, peering down at the analysis readout.

"She hasn't got any kind of trace organ remnant—but her appendix wasn't artificially removed." He shrugged. "I suppose it could be a mutation, though."

Cameron caught Sasha's nervous expression and smiled. "Well, aside from that, the superficial scan isn't showing anything out of the ordinary, but we'll need a psychological evaluation to look for emotional scars."

"Oh, yes." Sasha agreed.

"In the meantime," Cameron went on, "I prescribe lots of playtime, a good night's rest, and good eating. It is surprising, though, isn't it, that she's so healthy after living out there?" Wrinkles gathered between his brows as they drew together in contemplation.

"Where will the UEG send her, doctor?" Sasha asked, squeezing the child's hand and smiling down at her. "We haven't got any permanent care facilities here at the base, and we can't send her away from her home territory to Utopia City."

"I honestly don't know what they'll decide." Cameron admitted. "We've never had to deal with a situation of this kind before. I assume we'll have to find a place for her." Cameron clasped his hands together and pursed his lips in concentration.

"Well, if it's possible," Sasha ventured tentatively, looking to her husband, but Richard already wore an approving expression. Government care was out of the question. "We'd like to take care of her," Sasha continued.

"You would?" The way Cameron asked conveyed that he was not in the least surprised.

"Yes. We could adopt her." Sasha suggested. "Richard and I are moving to a larger room next week when Moira turns six. We'd have more than enough space. Can't you use your influence, doctor, to have her placed with us?"

"Well," Cameron began gruffly, then smiled. "You know, I do believe Knightwood would be happy to hear that the child isn't going anywhere. If you're sure you want to, I'll see what I can do to make the arrangements for you."

"We'd appreciate anything you can do." Mathieson said.

"Yes, it may be beneficial to keep her here for surveillance." Cameron added, almost to himself.

Mathieson was about to ask another question when the videocom tone announced a message, and a communications operator's small image patched through. They stilled to watch, reminded of the gravity of what had so recently transpired in sector eight.

"Dr. Cameron, the Acadia cliff side has just fallen. Instruments report a giant avalanche fifteen minutes ago swept into the area and buried the alien spaceship under several million tons of rock."
Chapter Six

"I am asking for your silence, Zhdanov." Orrin Hollendar addressed the figure sitting in the dark. Hollendar was a tall, long-limbed man, muscled like a long-distance runner, a man of striking regal bearing, whose skin was so coal-black it seemed to shine.

Zhdanov's features were turned away from the Security Chief, his pensive gaze intent upon the landscape outside in the late hours of the day. Lead grey clouds outside the narrow window of the aboveground office hung upon the land, settling upon the upper branches of the dense forest, giving the impression of descending twilight even though the sunset was still over an hour away. A flock of dark birds swept across the nearest trees. Inside, however, Zhdanov's office was very dark.

Zhdanov watched a few raindrops fall soundlessly on the astroport and onto the nearest row of majestic oaks beyond the base; he could see the leaves dipping under the heavy rain, but he could not feel the cold sting of it, or hear the wavering sigh as the rains tapered off and began again with new strength.

"Do you think the rest of the UESRC will actually believe that the ship was buried and destroyed—by a landslide?" Zhdanov asked at length, shaking his head.

"We already have classified files to prove it—"

"Which intense scrutiny would show to be false." Zhdanov interrupted. "Would you rather the people know that they could be attacked any day right in their own back yard?" Hollendar asked harshly, each question like a volley. "You know we couldn't prevent it if it were to happen—and anyway, we have no evidence to believe that the ship came here to attack the Earth. If that were the case, it seems likely we would have seen some signs of activity after the avalanche, but we didn't."

"So the rest of the world sleeps easy, and you and I live in terror." Zhdanov said, turning to the tall, dark form standing in the shadows behind him. Hollendar's steel hard, coal-black eyes narrowed on him, making the bright whites of his eyes disappear. The rest of his face was hidden by the darkness.

"Yes," Hollendar said, an acerbic edge to his voice, but he was glad the darkness hid him. Right now, he felt a comfort to be lost in it. He could be someone else, then return to himself, untouched by the unpleasantness which must follow. He was not himself now; he was not really listening, even to his own words. "If you say anything, I will have to do something to stop you," he warned.

"You didn't see it." Zhdanov said with an odd sensitivity, turning away. "Do you have any idea what kind of technology it took to create a ship like that? The occupants have activated some kind of anti-radar that keeps it invisible to our scanners."

"Why would they do that, Zhdanov, when they know that we know where they are?" Hollendar said, his tone critical.

"I don't know, damn it! The fact is that they have."

"Exactly who are they? We have no proof that there's anything inside, and no signs of activity. Anyway, it's out of our hands." He moved his great, naturally muscular shoulders in a small show of aggression. Zhdanov heard the material brushing upon itself, a quick beat. "The Security Federation has decided to keep this secret to prevent mass hysteria. Period. You don't talk about it."

Zhdanov twitched his head slightly, a faint symbol of his objection.

"For God's sake, Sergei, you are a stubborn bastard!" Orrin said, then drew himself straighter, upright. "And you leave me no choice. I am not asking for your silence, Zhdanov, I am ordering you to keep it. By no means are you to let news of this out, not to anyone. Is that understood? If you do, I will have you executed." He waited, deaf to all but the necessary words, aware that he was very much an instrument of his government.

"Very well," Zhdanov nodded. "Lie."

* * * * *

After a long week of recon flights and late nights examining radioactive and electromagnetic emissions from the area surrounding the alien ship, Cameron finally cleared an afternoon to examine the tests and tissue samples taken from the young girl Sasha Mathieson had found.

Cameron's initial relief that the blood screen and genetic grid analyzer picked up no signs of infectious or chronic diseases quickly faded the moment he sought to confirm the computer's assessment by examining the blood sample himself physically. As if she had never even been exposed to the simplest cold, the girl's blood contained no antibodies, and a low ratio of white blood cells to red blood cells. Otherwise he would have to admit, the sample seemed pretty normal.

But Cameron stared at it for hours, searching through the solution, his eye pressed hard into the eyepiece of the microscanner, producing a sore circular patch along his eye socket at the ridge of his brow and along his upper cheek, a discomfort which he chose to ignore. He could not say why he felt compelled to continue, and every minute that passed only affirmed the normal pattern he observed.

Then at last, Cameron began to see an aberration. Under high magnification one of the cell nuclei that had appeared blurred finally focused into a distinct shape, formed not of one but of three swirling nuclei pressing inward upon each other. Cameron watched, entranced for a moment and then shifted his attention to the rest of the cell, where he observed the faint clear outline of a familiar structure.

There should not have been any other cell apparatus in the mature red blood cell. But he wasn't concerned about that specifically. He had found what resembled a chloroplast, the square-shaped cell machinery responsible for photosynthesis in green plants, though this one appeared smaller, roundish, and clear.

Cameron jumped up from the microscanner at the sound of the door.

Zhdanov uttered a greeting and continued to speak, his face pulling into an expression of concern.

"Take a look at this," was all Cameron managed, without understanding a word from his colleague.

Zhdanov shrugged and approached, then leaned over towards the microscanner.

A minute passed as Cameron held his breath.

Then Zhdanov rose. "So what's wrong?" he asked pleasantly.

"Don't you see it?" Cameron huffed, sounding flustered, and quickly reached for the eyepiece. "This proves—" he stopped, and spent a moment making slight adjustments to move the sample. "I don't understand—" he faltered.

"You've been working too hard. Take some rest," Zhdanov suggested, wondering why Cameron always insisted on getting his hands dirty. Cameron only blinked at his colleague, watching the younger man retrieve his lab coat before leaving. Alone again, Cameron turned to the sample.

"Perhaps I was hallucinating," he thought aloud; Cameron then leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes in a circular motion. "Suspicious old man." He added in self reproach, shook his head, rose, and uttered a word to snap off the overhead lighting.

* * * * *

Sasha forgot the cheerful tune she had been whistling and dropped the dinner plate. The vegetables rolled around in their partition as Sasha fished around in her drink for a piece of ice.

"What did you do, Mommy?" Moira asked, looking curiously into the food preparation room from the living area table.

"Mommy's a little careless, Moira. Mommy forgot to set the auto-temperature and burned her hand, but she'll be okay," Sasha said, picking up the two other dinner meals from the food preparation unit in one hand and bringing them over to the table.

When Sasha returned to the food preparation room for her own dinner and came back to the table, she found her new daughter still watching every movement she made; the little girl's dinner remained untouched. She seemed to be staring at Sasha's hand with her wide, unblinking eyes. Without warning, her two small hands reached out to take Sasha's burned one.

"It doesn't hurt," Sasha reassured, noticing the injured look on the girl's face. Much. She added inwardly, feeling a blister forming under the skin.

The child's expression was not the look of token sympathy, however; it had the appearance of one in genuine pain.

She doesn't understand me, Sasha thought to herself, wishing her husband were there. He had left more than an hour ago with Gurney to oversee the addition of a room to the family's new apartment in the east wing. With the addition to their family, Head Trainer Olery Arnaud had granted them clearance to move in a few days early. After dinner, Sasha had planned to bring the children over and then return to pack up their personal things.

Permission to adopt the young girl was given that afternoon, along with a little note of congratulations signed by Dr. Cameron, and now that Sasha no longer feared the child being taken from them, she didn't mind being separated from her for a few hours.

Sasha smiled and showed her new daughter how to hold her knife and fork again; the girl seemed to forget what to do each time she sat at the table. Fortunately, she always turned to watch Moira and then began to imitate her.

A few minutes later, the door tone unexpectedly sounded.

"Come in," Sasha called cheerfully, imagining that her husband had returned to collect something. The door swished open, but Sasha didn't look up.

"Excuse me for the interruption," Dr. Saira Knightwood's voice ventured politely, "but I just wanted to drop by and wish you my congratulations and to thank you for your generosity in accepting the girl from point Acadia."

"Oh," Sasha managed, turning around in her chair. "Can I get you something?" She added after a moment, remembering her manners.

"No, thank you." Knightwood said pleasantly, still maintaining some distance. "I don't mean to keep you very long. I just wanted to come and see how the little girl is adjusting. But personal matters aside, I do believe that this is the best solution to preserve top security—and to maintain an eye on her progress without giving her a conspicuous childhood at a government facility," Knightwood added, moving into Sasha's view.

"Moira, dear, don't chew with your mouth open," Sasha said in a distracted voice.

"Please, don't mistake me," Knightwood added a moment later, suppressing amusement. "I do wish you every congratulations. I'm afraid you've taken me for a cold fish, but being a scientist isn't my only profession—I am in part responsible for the security of this base. Under such circumstances, I do what must be done, without stopping to consider whose toes I'm stepping on. But believe me, I respect what you are doing. And I hope—that in time you'll accept my friendship and good wishes."

"I understand, doctor. Thank you for coming by," Sasha said; afterward she realized there had been a trace of hostility in her voice.

"Yes, well, enjoy your dinner, girls," Knightwood offered a gracious smile to Sasha's children and turned to leave.

"Knightwood," Sasha called after her; something in the tone made Knightwood pause in her steps as Sasha fumbled for words. Glancing at the youngest addition to her family, Sasha swallowed and took a sharp breath. "Thank you." The words were simple, but Knightwood appreciated what more they meant.
Chapter Seven

After some time, the unnamed, unidentifiable foundling child from point Acadia chose the name Erin in a book of names, so Erin she became. This made an improvement over "Sasha's shadow".

The child in question had been sitting quietly beside Moira for the better part of an hour one evening while her new sister tirelessly plowed through names, and Richard and Sasha vetoed them. Then the little girl had chosen for herself, suddenly bobbing up and down like a cork at "Erin". Almost at once she answered to the name, but she still could not tell her new parents if it had once been hers.

In fact, she hadn't told them anything. For weeks Richard worried that she wasn't ever going to speak at all, but Erin had finally uttered her first words when they made a family outing to the observatory gardens. The next day, Richard took Erin to Cameron, who agreed this was a good sign; both of them were relieved to know that it had not been too late for Erin to learn how to speak despite her abandonment.

Cameron felt certain that this ability to comprehend what was said and to speak meant that Erin's original family must have constantly interacted verbally with Erin or else she could not have been able to develop such a language skill. For a moment, he imagined Erin's birth mother and father with their child; tenderly loving her. The vision evaporated as he realized that this same hypothesis meant that they could never have abandoned her—that they must indeed have been with her and killed by the crash of the alien vessel.

Cameron suggested Richard and Sasha put Erin into school to help her to develop social skills. Richard didn't feel that Erin was ready for it. However, since the floodgates opened, she'd been speaking almost as well as any child her age, as though she had been committing the English language, and all of her observations, to memory all along.

Yet it was the strangest thing, Richard thought; they couldn't seem to correct Erin's voice and accent—Erin very nearly sang her words. And her voice was music, music as strange and as untamed as the wilderness from which she had come.

* * * * *

Six months later, just after coming on duty for the morning shift, communications officer Hastings received an emergency call from the Comet Tracking Operator base on Pluto.

"Pluto base Cerebus calling UESRC, Pluto base calling UESRC. If you read us, please respond. This is Chief Gallagher's aide calling to establish communication. Please respond—over. Will relay message momentarily and await suggestions."

The message that had traveled just over five minutes from Pluto base had just arrived in the UESRC communication room as Dr. Zhdanov entered, teacup in hand. Dawe and Hollendar were in Central City at a UES Council monthly alpha-centauri progress meeting and Arnaud was unreachable; Zhdanov knew that meant he was expected to deal with the situation.

"Halt all other communications. I want everyone listening to what Pluto has to say. Gallagher never calls unless it's important." At Zhdanov's words, all commotion ceased, and the assembled company paused to wait for the news. A moment later, the operator received another message.

"Calling to report temporal and spatial fluctuations outside our solar system sending acceleration waves in our direction... we will wait a few minutes until it reaches a distance of ten million kilometers before we can get a positive identity confirmed—wait a minute, the waves have stopped."

Zhdanov shifted uneasily as the crew waited still further. It was unnerving to be kept like this, so artificially silent. There were a few coughs in the room, some shuffling, and isolated whispers before they heard the aide's voice over the communications system again.

"Not another!" The aide shouted. "Excuse me, but we've just confirmed a visual of another space vessel, roughly identical to the first in size on a direct course for us, cloaked by some kind of anti-gravitational wave device. With the visual tracking data, calculations estimate it will arrive here in just under five minutes. Gallagher is ordering us to defend ourselves if necessary with the anti-asteroid missiles. I will continue to transmit at his orders in case you miss any information."

Everyone in the room listening to the message began to speak. The first alien ship had not been confirmed as dangerous, but it certainly wasn't a good sign for another to be coming along. How many more were heading in their direction? Zhdanov wished to God he knew.

Those assembled in the communications center at the UESRC listened anxiously as the aide near Pluto updated them on the ship's progress. Suddenly the sound of the defense alarm began to blare. In the background, Gallagher's voice could be heard.

"Of course I can see that it's stopped. What are those things—enemy fighters? What? No, I didn't notice. I see it now. I think that's all the confirmation we need. We can see that the hull plates are moving—yes, we have proof of hostile intent. Prepare to fire the missiles." A flurry of commotion and various sounds followed. Gallagher gave the order to fire.

"Our missiles were a direct hit, sir." The aide said to Gallagher, all thoughts of his transmission to Earth forgotten. The assembly in the safety of the UESRC communications center listened helplessly to the broadcast conversation. "We've annihilated their missiles." The aide went on, sounding less composed than before. "A few managed through to their ship, but tracking plots show the alien ship's hull wasn't scratched."

"Can we get a vis—" Gallagher began.

"Sir, they're preparing to fire again!" The young man cried. "Oh God, have mercy—!"

The communication broke off into static.

* * * * *

Late that afternoon, now that she had finished teaching her third year physics class, Sasha hurried on her way to pick Erin up from social instruction care. Richard had probably just begun his second training session about now, and Moira was still in school. From the doorway to the children's playroom, Sasha could see Erin sitting in the corner, slightly apart from the other students.

Some days Sasha found her daughter among the others, but more often than not Erin played on her own and suffered only a few minutes of forced social cooperation before wandering off to the side. Erin was not an unlikable child; Moira and Erin adored each other, and Moira relished the opportunity to take care of and instruct her new little sister, but Erin did often exhibit an unusual independence of mind and seemed perfectly content to do things for herself, without necessarily having to have her own way. She was simply a loner.

This afternoon, Sasha lifted her hand, balling her fist, and rapped at the door, perfectly aware that she had arrived earlier than usual. Dr. Carlisle came to the door and ushered Sasha inside with an air of conspiracy afoot. A broad smile usually brightened the face of the new permanent day-care instructor, a tall, young, somewhat gregarious woman only recently married to Professor Graham, one of Sasha's colleagues—but not today. Actually, Sasha was glad. She didn't much care for Dr. Carlisle, a frenetic (Sasha sometimes used the term neurotic), judgmental woman who seemed grossly underqualified to have earned her doctoral degree, at least in Sasha's opinion. Sasha mentally chastised herself for the uncharitable thought and asked where her daughter was.

"She's over in the corner, Ms. Blair. Now if you will forgive me, Ms. Blair, I believe I must call your attention to a very important matter concerning Erin's behavior."

Sasha gave her a questioning look, feeling suddenly defensive as a cat on its guard but determined to be open-minded.

"What is it?"

"Well, to put it bluntly, your daughter is frightening the other children." Dr. Carlisle said.

"I don't believe it." Sasha responded; the words just rolled out. Well, so what? Sasha thought. At least they were honest words.

"Yes, well, I don't believe she's doing it willfully, either, Ms. Blair." Dr. Carlisle revised her words more kindly and shook her head. "But I have to consider the other children—"

"I—don't have to listen to this," Sasha interjected, incredulous and short-tempered now. What could a three-year-old possibly do that deserved such a diatribe?

"But you should listen," Dr. Carlisle said warningly, as though she imagined some kind of nascent evil in Erin's character. "She has to learn to get along with others, Ms. Blair. I'm speaking in her best interests."

"All right then, what did she do exactly?" Sasha asked, abrasively.

"Ah, well, I'm not exactly sure, because I wasn't there when it happened." Dr. Carlisle admitted, seeming daunted by Sasha's hostile expression. "But one of the other children claims that Erin won't stop staring at her. One of those games children play, I believe. It may sound silly, but she had little David near hysteria this afternoon."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Carlisle," Sasha sighed deeply, hoping to let Dr. Carlisle know just how ridiculous she considered the charges against her daughter, "but it doesn't sound like Erin's done anything wrong—or out of the ordinary—to me." She paused, considering. "But if the other children did something to provoke her—"

"Ms. Blair, I understand your concerns. I know about the trauma Erin's been through." Dr. Carlisle interrupted, nodding. "And I want you to understand that I'm willing to overlook some abnormalities in her behavior, but I thought you should at least be made aware of the problems. But, on a more positive note, I believe Erin is making progress in learning how to cooperate with others. She's made a new friend with the Arnaud-Brasseau girl, but Colleen leaves at the half-day break. You see, that's when all the disturbances start."

"Well then, why don't you ask Colleen what she thinks about Erin's—and the other children's—behavior?" Sasha thought suddenly. "Has it never occurred to you that the others might be provoking Erin? Why not ask Colleen about it?"

Dr. Carlisle nodded. "That would be pointless, since Colleen isn't there when the trouble starts, but I do plan to ask her a few questions, anyway. Still, I hope you don't think badly of me. I do enjoy teaching Erin, you understand. She is such a bright little girl, and independent, which is not entirely a bad thing. However, discipline must be maintained—"

"Yes, I understand." Sasha nodded, ready to leave.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Dr. Carlisle said, "did you just teach Erin to write or was that Mr. Mathieson?"

"Did I teach her to write?" Sasha echoed, surprised.

"Why, yes." The young woman went on, seeming at least as generous in her praise as she was liberal in her criticism. "This morning I found her copying out words from one of our readers with a light-pen. She should almost be finished with it by now." Dr. Carlisle led Sasha over to where Erin sat. The little girl looked up and grinned ear to ear, flinging herself at her mother.

"I'll overlook what happened today, as long as it doesn't happen again," Dr. Carlisle said. "If it does, we may have to involve Dr. Cameron in the matter."

I assure you I will, Sasha thought darkly. After a hug, Sasha took Erin's hand and bent down to pick up the discarded image screens her daughter had been working on. She examined them with a quick and keen eye, wondering at the neat, tiny script, so flowing, so exact and precise.

"Erin, dear, are you going to be all right?" Dr. Carlisle suddenly asked.

"What's wrong?" Sasha asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep irritation out of her voice. She had almost added "now".

"Erin scraped her knee playing earlier—" Dr. Carlisle began, then stopped. "Well, that's strange," she continued, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

Sasha looked down to her daughter's knees.

"They look fine to me," she observed.

"Hmm. I could have sworn—" Dr. Carlisle insisted, shaking her head. Erin was staring at her, wide-eyed, calmly but intently; a moment later, Dr. Carlisle's face broke into an unfettered smile. "Well, I suppose it was probably one of the others..." she said and shrugged easily.

"Yes," Sasha agreed, privately questioning the woman's judgment. "Time to go," she said loudly, shaking her head to clear away random, unsettling thoughts, and took Erin's hand.

They had only made it so far as the children's wing cafeteria when a message came over the communications grid. Sasha listened as a long list of names were read out and to her surprise heard her own included among them. She stopped, alert and waiting to hear her instructions in her mind implant.

"....must all report immediately to astroport E Oceanus Conference Room," the voice continued. "This is a code one emergency..."

Sasha unconsciously squeezed Erin's hand harder. The last code one emergency had been the day the alien ship arrived, and yet the whole base hadn't been alerted even then. Why on Earth would they be sending a message in the children's wing? It had to be.... something big.

Sasha swallowed, finding a lump suddenly stuck like glue in her throat, and was unable to finish her thoughts. "Come on, darling, Mommy has to go now. Try to be a good girl when we get there, won't you?" She added a little nervously, and they continued down the hall.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, Sasha found a seat at the rear of the crowded Oceanus Conference Room and pulled Erin onto her lap. Near the front, Dawe, Arnaud, Hollendar, Knightwood, and Zhdanov were holding a conversation with someone Sasha didn't recognize. She glanced around the room to see if her husband was in sight, but she reckoned he must have been already seated with the training pilots. Anyway, it appeared that the emergency meeting was about to begin, and she didn't have time to look for him.

Zhdanov moved to the podium decisively, still wearing his white lab coat, even though he hadn't been to the labs yet today. Like the others, Sasha knew at once that something was indeed seriously wrong—Zhdanov's face was a mask of serenity, something it rarely was, as he glanced around the room.

Before Zhdanov addressed the audience, he paused, as if to summon energy for what he was about to say, though as to what had drained that infinite, chemically stimulated well of focused energy, Sasha could hardly imagine. And she didn't want to. The sight of Zhdanov like this was somehow disturbing, demoralizing.

"No doubt many of you are wondering why we have called an emergency conference," Zhdanov began, coming directly to the point.

"The simple fact is, ladies and gentlemen," he went on, "you are here as a result of a worldwide consensus reached only a few hours ago. All regional and worldwide authorities have agreed to grant the United Earth Government full plenipotentiary power over our world for the foreseeable future. The United Earth Government immediately decided to combine the United Earth Security Service with the United Earth Science Council. The new organization will be called the United Earth Security Force."

Whispers broke out all over the room. Sasha said nothing but looked around, listening to the whispered conjectures of the others around her. It was not every day that the status quo of three hundred years was amended, much less to create a security—force? The very word was a cause for alarm, and everyone knew it.

Zhdanov raised his hands in an attempt to silence them before continuing.

"I'm sure you are all wondering what has prompted this action. Six months ago, some of you may have heard rumors concerning a runaway ship that crashed in sector eight." He paused, darting his reptilian eyes around the audience. "That rumor was true." Whispers again broke out across the room. Sasha was beginning to get annoyed; would they just let the man speak?

"Please, please, let me finish." Zhdanov raised his voice above the noise, his arms extended in a gesture of supplication, palms up. He did not have the authority to order them to silence, though at the moment, he wished he did.

"However," he continued, "you may have heard that the object was a ship from Pluto, or part of a simulated disaster drill. I would like to dispel any rumors concerning the incident by showing you all something. Could you cut the lights, please?"

Zhdanov motioned to the operator in the communications control box with a thumbs-up signal. Immediately, a three-dimensional vidigital segment began to play in the space beside him; Zhdanov narrated at the same time.

"This is a piece of footage taken by trainee Blair as the Pegasus Recon Team that we sent out to sector eight approached the crash site. In a moment when the gas clouds part, you will see—"

Zhdanov didn't need to finish. At that moment, the audience responded with one simultaneous gasp.

Erin was staring at Zhdanov, sitting calmly on her mother's lap. Sasha smoothed her hair, only occasionally glancing up as he spoke; she had seen the footage before, of course, and then again in debriefing; the memories were too disturbing to watch it yet again. Erin, however, seemed intent upon Zhdanov's speech; the little girl tensed when she saw the ship appear on the conference monitor and opened her mouth as though to cry out, but the words never came.

A moment later, the monitor image faded, and the lights came on again. "We did not release this information because until now the alien vessel has given us no indication of its being a threat." Zhdanov continued. "In fact, only a short time after this footage was taken, the destruction of the ship that began with the impact was finished by several million tons of rock falling onto it.

"Satellite data has shown that the ship first split in half and then fragmented as it was carried further down the cliff side. Most of the pieces were buried and it will take a great deal of time to extract the wreckage. From what we could see, the ship was largely hollow inside and appears to have been a kind of giant cargo freighter. Analysis of the hull will surely provide some answers concerning the vessel's point of origin and what type of intelligence we are dealing with.

"However, another matter must take precedence over our investigation." Zhdanov's voice dropped in pitch but remained calm. "Early this morning we received a transmission from our Pluto base that another space vessel had just entered our solar system."

Now there was a dreadful silence in the room. Zhdanov had their complete attention, and his voice echoed, yet he had expected no less. As he spoke, he could see the same range of emotions in his audience's faces that he had felt upon hearing the news: the same nauseating surprise, fear, uncertainty, and desperation that he had experienced in the aftermath of Gallagher's message, in the privacy of his own quarters where no one depended upon him as a model of courage.

"Minutes later, we lost contact with the Comet Tracking and Explorer Probe Launch Base on Pluto. In brief, we have confirmed that the entire Pluto Base was destroyed by hostile forces aboard this second alien vessel.

"This is why you have been called here today." Zhdanov coughed, clearing his throat. "Under the code of global legislation enacted after the Crisis Years, all military forces on Earth were disbanded to ensure peace. But that peace has now been threatened by this alien arrival, and at the emergency meeting of the United Earth Government, it was decided that to maintain our security, we must actively defend our planet. In accordance with that decision, the new United Earth Security Force has been chartered to build defense bases in each of the major cities of our urban zones and to fortify our bases on the moon, Mars, and Titan.

"I see the disbelief in your faces. To combine our science and security organizations into a single technology-driven security force breaks every tenet that our society has governed itself by since the Crisis Years. But that's the irony of the situation—if our ancestors hadn't come close to totally destroying the entire planet, we might not have found ourselves so completely unprepared for this new threat.

"And I assure you that the UEG is in a state of near panic or it never could have considered such an action. They are demanding that we move quickly. A new combined organization structure will be announced shortly and that will affect us all. However, even as we speak, our top research team under the guidance of Dr. Cameron is already being established to develop weapons to be installed at these bases and at the former scientific centers." Zhdanov's dark eyes swept over the room, picking out scientists and trainees he knew personally.

"Many of you will be transferred to these bases because of your experience as trainees, pilots, and communications operators. At this time, you are our best hope to defend our planet. However, the UEG has also issued an emergency order to immediately set up schools to train new pilots, spaceship technicians, and engineers for the UESF.

"I only hope we can adapt to the abrupt changes we must make in our lives." Zhdanov added in a hoarse voice, then compulsively drank some water to clear his throat; afterward, he realized he had not noticed how the glass got there. No doubt one of the aides had come by with it in the middle of his speech, but he did not remember taking it.

"We do not know how much time we have to prepare for an attack on Earth," he continued, struggling to divert his attention back to his next point, "but please, I ask all of you to remain optimistic. While defense weapons and precautions are necessary, your faith and attitude are essential if we hope to implement any real, lasting defense of the Earth.

"We don't know what the aliens are capable of, or what they intend to do. The only comforting news is that it appears they used only simple missile weaponry to destroy our Pluto Base. It may be that they hope only to terrorize us, to conquer the Earth, to enslave us—and yet they may not hesitate to send a nuclear arsenal against us, or perhaps something far worse," he admitted.

"It is true we are poorly prepared for an attack on our planet." Zhdanov shook his head soberly. "But if we get just a little time, we will have missiles to counteract theirs. And if they intend to conquer our civilization, it seems unlikely they would use nuclear weapons against us or risk destroying valuable territory.

"Both recent events and ancient Earth history tell us that our pilots, and our air force squadrons will be the main forefront of our campaign to protect our home world. Also, we have considered that the aliens will probably use the same strike tactics on Earth as they did with the Pluto Base, so we have initiated a crash program to provide each urban zone with a base for its own defense.

"You will receive your new posts within the next few days. If any of you have any questions, we will be calling a meeting tomorrow morning to answer them. Thank you for your attention." Zhdanov nodded to the audience and walked back to Knightwood, Dawe, Arnaud, and Hollendar, who had been busy working on transfer notices throughout the conference.

Zhdanov's action signaled the end of the meeting, and immediately the Oceanus Conference Room buzzed with conversation. As people got to their feet and others, stunned by the news, seemed unable to move, Sasha was preoccupied with the immediate need to take Erin home. She glanced around the room but saw only chaos. Richard's training group was lost in the madness of the crowd. Suppressing her own fears, she decided to wait outside for him, and quickly carried Erin out through the congested corridor.

Chapter Eight

Ekasi Iriken Zirnenka returned to the bare silver walls of his simple quarters after a long absence. His small, two-room apartment offered relative safety, located far within the spaceship Enlil's interior, but it lacked the luxury of a viewport relay imager. To an outsider, Iriken's small quarters might resemble a holding cell. Still, he did not miss the view of surrounding space. He had lately come to despise the sight of the dark twin planetoids that flanked the Enlil on either side. And for reasons of his own, he found the closeness of Enlil's interior more comforting than oppressive.

Silence reigned in the uncluttered apartment, as thick as the droning noise of his missing time counter which, like his other belongings, would not arrive from his recent temporary post for another hour. The silence, accented by a slight vibration underfoot from one of the nearby gravity generators, overwhelmed the returning soldier.

Iriken stumbled forward a few steps and then collapsed exhausted and fully clothed onto the sliding sleeper panel, his arms limp from the shoulder, his head lolling to the side. He blinked as he waited for sleep, thoughtlessly scanning the various objects he had left behind so long ago on his work station. At that moment, his mind savored only the relief of motionlessness.

The trip across the system to the target planet had taken nearly a month, and another month had passed on the return to Enlil, but the accommodations he had been given on board the Destria class Scorpio Cruiser had not been quite as spacious as these. The Scorpio's destination had been a small, moon-sized blue world, the third planet in the Kiel system, where a race of indigenous humanoids had developed. They called their planet, "Earth", Iriken later found out.

Iriken himself had only become aware of their existence on his first raid. Their unit had flown by an artificial raised transit tunnel, likely a civilian shuttle passageway, just as a transport train was passing below, filled with recognizably humanoid passengers.

How strange these alien humanoids had seemed to him, how different from his own grey-skinned Orian race. Some of them seemed to have no skin pigment at all, and others looked like they had been born of rich, dark soil. However, Iriken had not concerned himself with how and why these human creatures were on Kiel3, unaware of the degree to which his subconscious mind had been fascinated by them. He only knew that if they had been significant to their Leader, they would not have been targeted for destruction. And that the Orians needed this world as a potential new home world. Two weeks of raids and retreats had been executed perfectly and according to plan. What else mattered?

The air in Iriken's apartment was still. He had never noticed how still the artificially oxygenated atmosphere was in his cockpit on Enlil—as far back as he could remember, he had only considered the air a cocoon surrounding his lungs, protecting him against the vacuum of space.

But he had found his plane buffeted by winds on Kiel3, the Earth. He had accepted the obstacle the atmospheric currents posed and reassessed his course of action. The presence of wind did not surprise him again.

Iriken had returned to that blue world seven times, dropping through the white vapors to coastal cities and skirting the edge of the waters with only a brief moment to absorb the beauty of terrestrial wonders he had never seen: waves in the ocean, an indigo sunset, the sound his engines made in the atmosphere.

Iriken had been born on Enlil, or rather created there by ectogenesis; he had known autotropic life only through the cultivated gardens of the Command Wing and believing all planets to be as ugly and inhospitable as the tiny, perfectly silent, ice-covered spheres on the outskirts of the Kiel system.

In order to join the mission as a volunteer, Iriken had been compelled to request a temporary squadron assignment. His fellow pilots hesitated to speak to him, uncertain of how to treat him. Iriken was an outsider, one of the elite that ruled them. The truth was that Iriken had never before left his own particular section of Enlil.

Iriken's entire life had been spent excluded from ordinary Orian children, civilian children born to real mothers and part of true biological families living in the ancient society of their people, trained to fight for the race, yet still living their own lives and making their own choices.

Iriken had never known his mother; he supposed he had one, but he had never thought of his genetic contributors as parents. He had learned to fly early on when his memories began; but this had been only a rudimentary part of his general education. Iriken had been destined for the greater glories of their society, for he was one of the Orian elite children.

Like all of the children of the uppermost level of Orian society, a sect comprised of the Great Leader's greatest generals, advisors, and scientists, Iriken was a product of ectogenesis, selectively grown in a feeding capsule until the complete maturation of his vital organs before being transferred to the care of a cultural instructor. Under the instructor's supervision, Iriken's and his "brothers"' and "sisters"' psychological and physical growth had continued until adulthood.

Each child had been formed with a distinct genetic makeup drawn from the Great Leader's most trusted officials; hardly any were actual clone copies, for the great leader did not care to perpetuate any youthful image that was not his own, or flatter his officials' vanity with identical "clone" children.

Only the most decorated and loyal common soldiers could earn their way into the hierarchy; most of the elite were created to succeed their predecessors. Artificial reproduction of the elite children had been controlled because the Great Leader hoped to preserve the qualities of his elite hierarchy, surrounding himself with generations of dependable and proven followers.

Imagine what had been achieved! For the Great Leader Sargon had managed to breed the spark of ambition out of each man in his army! And Iriken, brilliant though he was, didn't even know he didn't have ambition, that driving ambition his great leader strangely possessed. At the same time, neither Iriken nor any of the others could mourn the loss of what they never known themselves capable of possessing.

Iriken and his siblings had nearly reached official adulthood when their instructor had brought news that their future positions had been decided. A tenday later, just a few days before Iriken departed for the third planet, the children of system 165a had been brought before the Great Leader at his request.

None of them had ever been permitted outside the Command Wing in which they had been indoctrinated, not even to visit the neighboring Command wings of the Upper decks of Enlil. But completion into adulthood meant the beginning of new freedoms and responsibilities.

Out of respect, Iriken had lowered his head with the others but secretly raised his eyes to watch the discussion in progress between the Great Leader and Garen, his most honored advisor, as the elite children were escorted into the private chambers of the Great Leader Sargon.

Iriken's surprise at the first sight of his Great Leader, the ancient ruler of his people, had manifested as his feet ground to a halt. Then with a swift kick to his heels, Iriken's favorite sister Erika Zirnenka had saved him from disgrace.

Sargon had intimidated Iriken in ways he had not expected. The Great Leader did not appear the ancient ruler he should have been. He seemed hardly older than the elite children that had been brought to him.

Then as the elite children had approached, Iriken got a closer look at the Great Leader's face and realized his miscalculation. Keen eyes turned to regard the young man who, after a brief moment of furious blinking, was forced to look away. Great Leader Sargon then pulled himself upright, a slight smile twisting his lips, his fingers curling and uncurling over the arms of his chair.

"Well, Garen, have you seen the new arrivals?" Sargon interrupted the man in mid-sentence; Iriken realized he hadn't been listening to the counselor, either. The Great Leader choked off a laugh, and Iriken felt that overwhelming serpentine gaze, capable of driving a weaker mind to panic and despair, fall on him again. "The two of your children in this group have fallen under my consideration."

"'Consideration' sir?" Garen half stepped aside to survey the group of elite children. A long pause passed before the Great Leader blinked and turned again to his advisor.

"I have chosen your future successor," he announced in an emotionless voice. Then turning back to the elite children, he continued, riveting his gaze tightly upon Iriken. "Iriken Zirnenka, step forward. Among all the children of Garen, I have chosen you as my future counselor. Upon the death of your father, you will become Garen, my chief advisor."

The full meaning of this had not fully hit Iriken Zirnenka until after the group had been escorted back to their sector. While the others had set about reviewing their studies, Erika found a seat behind him in the section lounge and lightly tapped him on the shoulder, which was her way of beginning an interrogation.

"How does it feel to be the child of Garen?" she had asked, half-drawing Iriken out of his reverie. He had been trying to remember his reaction to the Great Leader's sudden announcement but could not recollect anything more than his mouth opening and uttering some random words that had passed for an appropriate response.

Anyway, there had been too much going on in his head at the time; he had heard another voice inside laughing at him, not quite benevolently, but amusedly, even approvingly.

And as he had looked up, Iriken had thought the Great Leader's gaze to have lost some of its intensity and harshness, so much that Iriken felt a rare surge of gratitude. He knew not why such an honor had been given him so suddenly, but he determined he would never let the Great Leader down.

"The rest of us will never know who our genetic contributors are." Erika went on when he kept silent. "Only the positions we will fill. Instructor Menidir was explaining why the Garen is the only hereditary position, but I didn't think you were listening." Erika continued.

"Hmmm? Oh no, I guess I wasn't." Iriken turned his attention to her, laying aside his reflections for later. There was a lovely crest of a swan pressed into her forehead. She was so beautiful, he thought.

"They say it's unwise to know one's genetic contributors." She explained, as if he didn't know, or more likely as though she wished it weren't true. "Each of our leader's officers can receive no less respect than another. Only our Great Leader deserves our loyalty and admiration."

"For saving our people from destruction long ago," Iriken intoned.

"Yes," Erika agreed. "You know, you should be proud, Iriken."

"Proud?" He turned to her.

"Of course." Erika said. "The Garen is descended from our Great Leader's original advisor, and his line alone may be trusted to counsel the Great Leader."

"I know." Iriken returned, his voice fully aware of the responsibility.

"I suppose we will have to quit communication once we begin to train for our future assignments." Erika added, after remaining silent a moment. "I should go now to join the others in the labs." She said finally. She moved lightly.

Iriken looked at her, wishing she didn't have to leave.

"Menidir has said that you are to be left to yourself for the rest of the day." She explained, catching his eye, and stood quickly, her maroon sleeves grazing the arms of her chair with a brief rustle. She left without a good-bye.

As it had turned out, Iriken's new status as future chief advisor had given him the freedom to choose his own experience training. In the course of Menidir's private counsel, Iriken had learned of Enlil's military excursions to the third planet in the system, where smaller cruisers had been routinely dispatched as part of the Great Leader's plan to bring the planet under his control. All of this was necessary that they might determine if the Orians would take the planet for their own and live there.

Moreover, the space vessel Enlil had been following had gone missing. A great expense was being made to find that spaceship before any real attempt was made to colonize the Earth. Soon, Sargon would regain the wayward Selesta and its captain, and either conquer the Earth or find another livable planet for the Orian people.

Determined to prove himself a worthy and knowledgeable advisor, Iriken had quickly volunteered for one of the raids and been granted clearance to accompany a Destria class Scorpio Cruiser to Kiel3. He had not made friends among the pilots, though an unspoken bond of cooperation had permeated their ranks; they had long been comrades. Iriken had begun to see that the pilots' will to serve the leader for the good of their people equaled his own.

In some ways, the pilots seemed even more devoted to the mission, more knowledgeable about Enlil's present situation and the reasons why they had come to this yellow-star system. Perhaps it was because they had been involved in the raids for the past few years, or maybe they knew they had more to gain in victory.

Yet Iriken knew other reasons for the journey to this system, as all the elite children did. He had never really known the past, but his mind had been programmed with memories of a time when their people had lived free, before they had been doomed to the confines of Enlil.

One of their race was to be brought to justice: a renegade woman named Alessia who had once betrayed the Great Leader. She lived aboard the spaceship Selesta that Enlil had followed to the Earth.
Chapter Eight

Zhdanov swirled the bottle around, feeling the weight of the liquid churning within it. He dropped the bottle onto the floor, but it didn't even give him the satisfaction of shattering. Of course, it was made of clear metal—not really glass, though for some reason—it was one of those unexplainable absurdities in the English language—drinking cups were still called glasses. The absurdity of it hit him more now than it normally did, but of course he'd downed far too much of the bottle's contents already; Zhdanov raised his own drinking glass—he was willing to call it anything at present—and poured himself another drink.

He didn't even hear the door opening.

"Is that you, Seriyozha?" Head Trainer Arnaud asked, a hint of surprise in his deep voice. Arnaud the giant bear with large grey eyes that never missed a trick. He wasn't a Head Trainer for nothing; Arnaud was a natural leader among men, strong and tactful, hard when he had to be, but sensitive to the problems around him.

Zhdanov stayed seated before his darkened window, twisting around to look at the intruder. "Ah, vui-pi, vui-pi!" he called, raising the bottle, having finally recognized Arnaud through eyes bleared with vodka.

"No thank you," Arnaud waved a hand as Zhdanov reached for another glass under his beverage facilitator. "You look disgusting." Zhdanov ignored him.

"Arnaud, yak sya maesh?" Zhdanov drawled in Ukrainian now. Arnaud realized with shock that he was drunk.

"How am I?" Arnaud said, shaking his head. "Well, I'm fine, considering. But I hate seeing you messed up like this," he added, when Zhdanov continued to ignore him. His eyes were critical. "You don't drink, old friend." Arnaud said forcefully, coming over to sit in the chair beside Zhdanov. He was a big man, with broad shoulders and a stocky, large-boned frame, dark brown hair and clear grey eyes—they had once belonged to the same old circle of friends.

"I thought it might help." Zhdanov offered, anything but apologetic.

"And do you feel better?" Arnaud asked.

Zhdanov looked up at him, uncomprehending. Then at last, "Much better," he said, tossing back another shot.

* * * * *

That evening during dinner, a messenger arrived with two sealed notices for Sasha Blair and Richard Mathieson from the UESRC's Main Office. Richard had risen to answer the door, carrying the notices back to the table in the family's small kitchen. Nothing was ever delivered by hand, unless there was a possibility of someone else gaining access to secret information via computer. That fact alone gave him cause for concern.

Without a word, Richard handed one of the messages to Sasha. She put aside her knife and fork to take it, breathed deeply, then tore it open.

"What's that, Daddy?" Moira asked in a small whisper. She and Erin had also stopped eating their dinner and were watching their parents closely, aware that something unusual was going on.

"Don't worry," Sasha assured her. "You two just finish your dinner. This is just grown-up stuff. Nothing important." The look that she gave her husband meant that she would discuss it with him later, but it wasn't until two hours later when the girls were in bed that she broached the subject.

"They've called you in, too?" She asked once they were seated in the living room decorated with children's toys, a pegasus rocking horse, and a bunch of dolls. Richard nodded.

"I'm to report to the communications room at seven hundred. And you?"

"Same thing." Sasha replied tiredly, feeling more anxious than she sounded. "What do you suppose they want to see us for?" she asked.

Richard shrugged. He recalled all of the questions other trainees had fired at him in the moments following Zhdanov's sudden conference, but he just didn't have the answers, not then, not now. His experience hadn't cleared things up; it had only raised more doubts.

Ever since the first alien ship had crashed, Richard had been a ball of nerves; sleep was getting more and more to be a luxury, though launching himself into providing for the new addition to their family had helped assuage the nagging concerns and frustration in the back of his mind. Nevertheless, all the time he'd had an unshakable feeling that their safety net was wearing thin.

"I honestly don't know what's going on," he admitted at last. "But to tell you the truth, I'm not looking forward to finding out."

* * * * *

As Richard Mathieson stared down the long corridor to the communications center, he felt as though he stood upon a threshold looking down a tunnel into the future.

"We'll be late," Sasha said and pulled him with her; the automated walkway activated, shuttling them quickly towards the doorway. For the first time in over three years, Sasha and Richard had left together in the morning, after making sure that Moira went to school and leaving Erin with Madeleine Brasseau, a close friend of theirs that Sasha had known before she met Richard.

Inside the communications center, Zhdanov waited for the pair to show up. Setting down a cup of tea, he stood, rubbing hard at his eyes as if by doing so he could clear away the fatigue that lined them. He had been awake for days on stimulants.

"I'm glad to see the both of you," he said, looking up as they approached, then paused to down the rest of his tea. He gestured for each of them to take a seat in the empty operator's chairs before continuing.

"Since I'm going to make a big request of you on behalf of the Earth Security Force, I felt it necessary to discuss matters with you personally. You know, there are going to be a lot of changes around here." Zhdanov gestured with a sweep of his arms. "I have already had to make a few myself," he added regretfully. For a moment, his eyes glazed over with nostalgia, then suddenly they sharpened back to the present reality.

"Ah well, that's enough of that." Zhdanov said, dismissing his recollections in his usual decisive manner. "We can't allow any personal tears to get in the way under the circumstances.

"Simply put, the UESF has decided to convert this scientific base into a military complex." He continued. "It's really quite necessary—this is one of the largest scientific bases on Earth, and we don't know how much time we have before the other vessel decides to follow the first here—indeed how many more are coming. We already have everything we need to convert the base, not only raw materials but in terms of human resources. And since most of the base is below ground, we have a clear advantage that the UESF feels we must make use of." Richard and Sasha nodded, listening carefully for the punch line.

"The current plan is to graduate most of the cadets here and induct them into the engineering development programs or into armed service, retaining most of them as officers here until the new bases are completed. The training staff will be relegated to elevated positions in the military hierarchy, and our scientists will undertake the task of creating weapons for our defense.

"You two have established yourselves as two of the prime candidates for the alpha centauri mission, yet each of you has other areas of expertise which we feel are useful, considering the current situation. Richard, you helped to engineer engines for the Titan and Ceres space shuttles, and Sasha, you have an excellent reputation of being one of the finest astrodynamic physics professors on Earth.

"We are considering establishing a school for cadets once the government makes it known to the public that the Earth is in peril. I would like to invite the both of you to be a part of an informal committee that will develop this school. If you agree, we would appreciate it if you would pass on your knowledge by teaching a few classes once the school opens.

"I have been charged with giving both of you your post assignments. Each of you has been made a Captain in our new divisions. Sounds strange, doesn't it?" He gave a short laugh. "Military titles still sound so archaic to me."

A timer on his desk sounded a faint call just then, and Zhdanov seemed to liven up again.

"That will be all, you may go," he said more loudly, watching as the pair disappeared behind the closing shutter-like doors of the upper level of the communications room.

"Whoever would have thought that humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial life would begin this way?" he mused aloud, then frowned.

Cameron, that old crackpot, had been right as usual.

* * * * *

Elsewhere in the UESRC, Dr. Saira Knightwood was heading to the restricted access Saturn Laboratory of her colleague, Dr. Alastair Cameron. After sounding a bell outside the door, she waited impatiently a few moments. When no one answered the door, she decided to forsake politeness and raised her hand to the identity scanning access panel, then entered when the door slid open.

Five young scientists were gathered around an assortment of experiments.

"Some welcome," Knightwood muttered under her breath, wondering in consternation where the devil Cameron was. As if in answer to her unvoiced question, the old man appeared from his storage room wielding a processor of some kind.

"How are things progressing?" Knightwood interrupted loudly. Cameron looked up in confusion and blinked several times before handing over the test tube to one of the young scientists. He half-stumbled, half-shuffled over to Knightwood's side before removing his goggles, yet his gaze remained fixed in the direction of the experiment that was taking place.

"Ah, Knightwood, my dear," he said, as though he knew she had been there all along. "We're testing a casing right now with corrosive chemicals. It seems to be holding up pretty well. The last word I heard from Dr. Foster was that it's still preventing radiation leakage with near perfect efficiency, but we'll have to keep running that experiment for another day to be sure. Anyway, all things considered, I'd say we have a winner." Cameron sighed and returned to his experiment.

Knightwood stood a moment longer watching the assembly before heading off to the communications room to meet Zhdanov. She found him gazing out over the lower level, teacup in hand, his eyes distant.

"Ahem," she coughed to get his attention.

"Oh, hello." Only Zhdanov's head turned around to glance at the doorway. Knightwood took his acknowledgment as an invitation and pulled up beside him.

"You'd rather be with Cameron, wouldn't you?" She asked, hoping that her choice of question would animate him. He seemed in the doldrums, but she imagined that he was only exhausted considering the amount of work he'd been putting in recently. Goodness knows, though, they'd all been putting in overtime!

As she had expected, Zhdanov turned his attention to her. He looked into her bright, dark eyes, envying her unwavering natural energy, unaware that many others had done the same with regard to him.

"I just don't think that I can be the military organizer that the Security Force expects me to become." He gestured to the commotion below, sounding tired.

"Oh come on, now..."

"I'm just a scientist at heart, Saira." He continued, trying to explain his inner turmoil, but he touched only the surface and came out sounding sentimental. "I would rather be working with Cameron," he sighed. "The crusty old crab." He added.

"You're more suited to giving orders than I am." He declared. "I don't want this position of power I've been given. Oh, I don't mind leading other scientists or committing myself to something—I just don't like telling other people what they have to do. I really can't do it anymore."

Something had really ruffled Zhdanov's feathers. Knightwood knew him too well to doubt it. She wondered why he skirted the real issue—she had seen him in action before—and she wondered why he seemed so deflated. Could it be following certain orders that Zhdanov couldn't swallow?

"I have my bad days," she laughed. "Today, for instance. You should have seen the looks on the faces of all the operators when I told them they were going to be transferred in three months. Some of them have been here for years."

"Cameron thought something like this would happen as soon as the first alien ship got here, you know." Zhdanov shrugged. "I didn't want to believe him."

"Neither did I." Knightwood admitted.

"Saira, I hate all of this secrecy—" Zhdanov said suddenly and looked away.

"What secrecy?" Knightwood pressed him, in a slight state of shock.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "You know what, I found out from one of the representatives that the United Earth Government has been considering taking defensive measures for some time, even before we heard from Pluto." He said, changing the subject. "They must have felt that there was some kind of threat despite the footage they gave us of the alien ship's destruction. They've been preparing a secret fleet of Sky Hawk fighter squadrons in the Ural Mountains near the Ural Base Science Center—and some on this continent north of Statue City."

"No," Knightwood whispered in protest, unable to speak louder. This was the first she'd heard of this news, and it was a little much to take this early in the morning.

"It's true." Zhdanov nodded emphatically. "The UESRC has received more than three hundred completed craft. We still don't know how useful they will be—the planes were designed using the blueprints of our single-person craft."

"How did they keep it all secret from us?" Knightwood wondered.

"The representative only said that they didn't want to alarm the public, or us."

"Typical."

"They said that it was only a precautionary measure, and that if the Pluto Base had not been destroyed, they would have told us once the fleets were finished so that we might begin to train our pilots—" Zhdanov was cut off by one of the communications operators below.

"Dr. Zhdanov," the voice called on the video monitor. Zhdanov and Knightwood immediately headed down the open-air elevator.

"What is it?" Knightwood asked as they hurried to the communications console at the front of the cavernous room.

"Oh, Knightwood, we didn't know you were here. Well—we have received confirmation that two small vessels are heading on a direct course for Earth from the Pluto orbit." The copper-haired youth who had called them informed her. "Gabriel is asking how they should defend themselves, and Cummings wants to know if they should evacuate as quickly as possible."

"Tell our people to get back down here if they can." Knightwood ordered, but she felt a chill descend upon her, rapidly plunging down to her toes. Not again. It's too soon.

"Ma'am? Shouldn't we notify the Security Council representative first and get permission to—" The young operator suggested.

"We haven't got the time," Zhdanov explained, mildly annoyed that he was wasting it in explanation. "They can't defend themselves up there—our single ships weren't built to fly in outer space, and the shuttles can't protect— look, the station has no defenses of its own, and it won't last a minute if they target it. Just get our people out of there. If they're smart, the regulars will follow. They should know that they won't be any use to us—to stay would be a vain sacrifice. If Gabriel isn't hit, then we can go back and outfit it for proper defense later."

"I'll relay your message to Cummings," the operator turned around and patched in a video signal.

"Call the council and see if they have detected the small enemy vessels, and if they have, ask them what they're planning on doing about them." Zhdanov had turned to address the adjacent unoccupied operator. If only we'd had missiles ready, we might have been able to blow them out of the sky, he thought, though such regrets were pointless now.

"In the meantime, send a message to Dawe and see if he can organize our new Sky Hawk fighter squadrons as we discussed." Zhdanov said to the other operator. "Those Pegasus Recon escort pilots we had that day—Mathieson, Gurney, Blair—tell them to be prepared to move out our new Falcon fighters as soon as we have their estimated arrival point." Zhdanov ordered, feeling every inch a phony, then turned a weary glance to Knightwood.

"I hope the Ural Base is more prepared than we are," Knightwood said; Zhdanov only nodded.
Chapter Nine

Ten hours of waiting had been enough to push Richard's nerves to the limit. As he stood up in the cockpit, the overhead hatch open above him, he was glad for the momentary chance to stretch his legs while waiting for his plane to be refueled.

Once his squadron finished refueling they would be heading out again, west this time, to engage the enemy whenever and wherever it landed. Sasha's team was still somewhere over the northern Atlantic Ocean, while Gurney's unit had gone to the Pacific, where they would be refueled at the Hawaiian Sector Observatory.

Half an hour later, they were in the air again. His team had only managed to put one hundred miles between themselves and the base when they received a message from the communications center. Mathieson patched in the video link and waited for Zhdanov's instructions, projecting more composure than he felt.

"The enemy has just penetrated our ionosphere above zone ten, sector two, Statue City." Zhdanov informed them. "All squadrons proceed to that area immediately." Richard cut out the signal and led his squadron, turning southeast and heading towards the North American coastline.

Two hours later his team reached Statue City, guided by Zhdanov's continuing updated information. Two squadrons had been near enough to arrive almost as soon as the enemy planes appeared, yet most were still on the way. Sasha's unit, he discovered, was expected to arrive within the hour.

The destruction was apparent from the moment they descended beneath the heavy cloud cover of early evening. Beneath the canopy, the waning light was replaced by the harsh glare of city lights blinking on and off like twinkling stars. A great billowing waft of smoke curled its way heavenward from the rent in the transparent dome that contained the city; random explosions and fires broke out below like tiny red fireflies.

Richard glanced at his radar screen, horrified to see a swarm of moving targets, where as many as one thousand enemy ships zigzagged around one hundred slower planes positively identified as the remnants of squadrons 2, 13, and 27 from the UESRC.

"Form up in phalanx attack formation," Captain Mathieson announced quietly, but his voice belied the anxiety he felt. He wasn't sure that he could operate an armed Falcon fighter, even one that used the same controls as the firefighter single engine planes he had often flown to protect the rural zones. But as soon as he gave the order, his unit plunged through the artificial opening and joined in the madness below.

Throughout the battle, Richard kept having to convince himself that it was real. He found it absurd that his only experience with moving targets had been shooting nets over injured animals to be brought into the UESRC for treatment, that his only experience with disaster had been shooting extinguishing missiles at fires that had broken out in the forested zones.

In Statue City, fires now consumed the trees along every avenue and in the nature parks, and broken overhead transport highways had crashed to the roofs of buildings and onto the now empty pedestrian walkways when they were hit by enemy fire or the explosions of downed planes.

And always there were the enemy fighters—left, right, at every turn they met him at ground level and high above the city buildings. His laserfire bounced off the surface of the enemy planes until he hit the tail of one near the engine and ignited an exploding fireball.

Using the same method he managed to down four of them in half an hour, but the majority he was lucky to dodge as best he could. From what he could tell beneath the blur of motion that surrounded them, they were exquisitely streamlined and composed of high-density seamless alloy, dark grey-blue with a silvery sheen. He caught his breath the first moment he saw one slow to turn a corner, and he found for a moment that he could not fire.

The air sizzled with highly efficient enemy laserfire; blue light beams of searing energy melted holes in the metallic surfaces of the city buildings. Oddly enough, Captain Mathieson noticed, it appeared that the alien planes were just as intent upon destroying the buildings and killing the civilians within as they were upon annihilating the defense squadrons; indeed, as he observed more carefully, the latter objective appeared to be only a secondary objective, necessary in order to accomplish the first. He ventured to guess that the alien planes even avoided the defense squadrons, almost regarding them as little more than a trifling annoyance.

At that moment, Richard received a video communication, and his wife's image appeared on the videoscreen. He waited for her to speak to him a moment or so before he realized that she was not directly communicating with him but merely transmitting a message to all of the squadrons that her unit had arrived.

Elsewhere, Sasha put her years of practice flying to the test, regretting that she had given up flight training nearly three years before. Ten minutes of continuous dodging passed, and she was running low on ammunition rounds, yet she had only managed to shoot one plane down. She could see her side dying all around her; they were pitifully outnumbered. This sight rankled her venomously, but it made her want to get even more.

"Now I've got you!" she cried, releasing a few slugs at the rear end of a plane that had paused to finish off a building. The building had begun to burn inside out as the flammable materials within were ignited by a sudden gust of blue energy. The accurate laser beam had penetrated the building, leaving a tiny hole in the roof, but the structure took only moments to collapse.

Sasha watched with satisfaction as the enemy exploded into metal fragments. Too bad your engine fuel is flammable in our atmosphere, she mused. Tough luck!

She had her sights set on another plane but soon realized that it was going to get away as it abruptly changed direction and climbed skyward. Like an enraged lioness cheated of her prize, she whizzed her plane around, searching for another victim, but to her utter disappointment found the enemy all following one another, rising from the devastated city in great swarms, like bees charging up through the fractured canopy of the dome that contained the city and off into the darkness of the evening sky.

Signaling Captain Mathieson and the UESRC over her videocom, she was greeted by the effete face of her husband and the sober gaze of Zhdanov.

"Where did they go?" she asked, at once self-consciously aware that she must have appeared quite charged-up from the looks she was receiving.

"Our satellite shows that the enemy fighters are now aboard their small transport vessels." Zhdanov began. Three or four minutes passed in silence before he spoke again. "They have left our atmosphere and appear to be heading for the Mars area. We are awaiting confirmation from our Mars Aries base."

"Is the Mars Aries base outfitted with any defense measures?" Sasha enquired, her voice barely above a whisper.

"No." Zhdanov hung his head, unable to meet their gazes; he did not want to let on how hopeless he thought the Mars Aries base's situation.

"I'm going to go to see if there's anything I can do down there," Sasha announced but waited a moment longer before changing her course. Her husband agreed to meet her at ground level, and Zhdanov cut communications, promising to contact them once he received any new information.

It was an arduous task trying to quell the fires with the overhead dome damaged; many of them had to be left to die down on their own. Zhdanov sent them word an hour into the clean-up operation that the enemy had disappeared before reaching Mars and was probably intending upon hiding in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, away from Ceres. Why they had felt the need to retreat was a mystery to everyone. Surely they must have known that they would only be giving the Earth time to rebuild its defenses? Zhdanov had thought, and he was not alone.

Meanwhile, the Falcon squadrons worked until just before dawn trying to calm and organize the terrorized civilians both in Statue City and in the nearby urban zones that had received word that some unidentified force was attacking zone nine. Late into the night, the United Earth Government issued a worldwide statement that the situation in Statue City was well in hand, and that disaster had been averted by the quick reaction of a newly formed Security Force organized in the early part of the week, when a vessel of alien origin had appeared outside the Pluto orbit.

The UEG Council Secretary-President, Secretary Peter Saunders-Hastings, appealed to his audience not to panic, to maintain faith in human bravery and ability, and in a moment earned all of the support he needed for his reforms as he rode a wave of public patriotism. His Pilot, Engineering, and Science Training School suggestions met no public opposition.

The aliens' raid had delineated the unmistakable value of the fighter squadrons and at least one part they might play in the terrestrial conflicts. All of the Earth's cities would likewise have to augment their own squadrons to defend their civilians. These valid assertions were accepted and circulated by frightened citizens worldwide as if already some kind of universally acknowledged truth.

As their work outside Statue City ended, Sasha walked with her husband back to the water's edge, where they had disembarked from their planes many hours earlier. Meanwhile, the sun tipped the horizon far across the Atlantic Ocean; rays of glorious light ignited the sky. The ocean waters at the horizon seemed to cascade down like a waterfall, layer by layer, coming towards them only as the waters neared the rocky shore. The drifting clouds broke high above, cascading the scarred land below with rosy beams of light.

"Why is this happening?" Sasha wondered with all of the spirit usually devoted to such pointless questions, exhaling loudly, then tasted the chill bite in the air as it filled up her lungs again. She was standing only a few feet from her Falcon fighter but hesitated to climb the landing ladder.

Richard had no answer, but he drew her close to him.

They stood by the shore, hand in hand, watching the eternal sun climb its way higher above the rolling ocean, the charred rubble of a ruined city looming on the edge of sight to their left. In the east, sibilant waves caressed the coastline, dissipating into spumes. A moment later, the even song of the morning wind was interrupted as two planes lifted into the air and headed for home.

* * * * *

Tick, tick. Cameron stared at the small chronometer on his wriststrap communications link which marked the passing seconds. Merciless time, he thought. It was now two days after the attack on Statue City, and Dr. Cameron had called this meeting of the members of the Security Force Council at the UESRC. Knightwood, Zhdanov, Dawe, and Hollendar were present, as well as three council representatives, and Maria Portocarrero, the Security Force Council Vice-President who had arrived at the UESRC the day before.

Yesterday's confirmation that the enemy had retreated from the Mars area without attacking the science station base Aries or the civilian colony left the Council feeling optimistic, but Cameron refused to back down from his position. He didn't trust luck.

And he felt the weight of the millions of people whose lives depended upon him and the present company. Already he had received reports of the many suicides following the attack on Statue City, and thousands more had already fled to the rural zones, for what reasons Cameron didn't quite understand. Most of the population would never be called for active duty, and if the aliens decided to obliterate the Earth, the rural zones wouldn't offer them any protection. Yet, Cameron thought, no one ever said that fear was a rational thing.

Knightwood glanced over at Cameron, and with an unspoken signal, he cued her to begin, now that everyone was comfortably seated in one of the base's few conference rooms. As a rule, Cameron hated to make introductions, even for a meeting he himself had called. He preferred to get to the point and leave the preamble to others.

"I assume that everyone has something important to get back to before too long, so we'll make this meeting short and to the point. Now that everyone is present," Knightwood began unceremoniously, "I'll turn your attention over to my colleague, Dr. Cameron." Knightwood sat down, and all eyes were upon the veteran scientist, though he remained seated as he addressed the assembly.

"Simply put, Zhdanov and I have been testing scraps of the fragments that our salvage teams collected from the destroyed enemy planes littering Statue City." Cameron began. "We have been unable to determine the exact composition of the alloy, yet it has proven useful in an idea that Knightwood, Zhdanov, and I have come up with, as you will see in a moment.

"In addition, we have managed to retrieve footage of the planes as taken by our squadron pilots and have been examining these closely. Thus far we have determined that the enemy fighters were not designed for terrestrial combat, primarily because the fuel of their engines ignites when exposed to oxygen. While this should not be a problem for them in space, on Earth it gives us an advantage, if we can develop a fighter of equal speed and agility."

And if they don't blow us to pieces first. Cameron allowed himself a momentary distraction while his words sank in. Their fighters weren't meant for colonization, obviously, but for space. Maybe they will use the fighters more than they use their missiles and whatever else they've got. Reports from Titan indicate that the big spaceship out there hasn't budged, and that's good news. Maybe they enjoy terrorizing us, like Arnaud keeps saying. In any case, we'd better hope that they came here to take the Earth from us, and not merely to destroy it.

"However, our situation is not that simple," Cameron added in case the council began to feel that all of their problems were as easily solved. "Though we feel positive that we have come up with a substitute alloy which appears to block cosmic radiation as well as the alloy used by the aliens, we have been unable to find any of the enemy planes intact enough to offer any clues as to their interior design, and this alone could deal us some surprises.

"With our present level of technology, we cannot fabricate anything of equal firepower that is not highly reactive and that would not risk the lives of our pilots. And our alien alloy is either a product of unknown processes combining isotopes or compounds we know to exist on Earth or some fabrication of as yet unknown compounds, not naturally occurring on our planet. Either way, we have been unsuccessful in reproducing it.

"As for speed, it is unlikely we will be able to upgrade our planes to an equal standard without sacrificing maneuverability and leaving our pilots vulnerable to collisions, high g shock, and other complications. Still, with compromises, we should be able to develop a fighter that will be able to give them a run for their money, as long as we aim at their weak spot."

"Well then, I don't see what the problem is," Portocarrero interjected. "I admit I'm no scientist, but it sounds to me as if you have everything firmly under control." Cameron suppressed a frown. She was too anxious to adjourn the meeting for his taste.

"We may have solved one problem, yes, but there are a thousand more we haven't addressed." Cameron paused, pleased to see that he had gained their attention once again. "We have no idea as to the number and strength of their fighters. I for one believe that this was merely a small sample of what they can do and perhaps even what they intend to do.

"As matters stand, even if they repeat their attacks in a similar fashion, we will still have to wait for them to arrive on Earth before we can send out our forces. If they retreat again, we will be unable to follow them and prevent them from licking their wounds, assuming we do improve our fighters substantially enough to even the score.

"And they might all decide to come to us. That could mean nuclear obliteration—or worse. If they have discovered how to use antimatter-neutralization, we could completely cease to exist at any moment." Cameron showed them open palms, then steepled his hands on the table.

"What we need is something to take the battle out to them and keep it out there—protect our civilians as much as possible—most of all learn why they have come to the Earth to provoke us. That is why we have been working on an idea for a space fighter and a space-going fighter carrier. With it, we may be able to intercept some of the alien cruisers before they reach Earth air space, minimizing the casualties and damage to our cities.

"I realize that such a proposed project will sound excessively ambitious to some, but we have no other choice than to try. Therefore, we request that our idea be presented to the Global Council as soon as possible so that we can begin construction at once."

Portocarrero hesitated a moment before she responded. "Hmm, this sounds interesting. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to mention it to the Council when I return to Central City tomorrow."

"We appreciate your cooperation," Knightwood added, wearing an antagonistic smile. "I wouldn't want to have to call the President myself." She glanced at Cameron in admiration, still surprised by his uncharacteristic aggressive behavior. "Well, that concludes the meeting, everyone, and we'll be getting back to you on any further progress."
Chapter Ten

On January 12, 3070AD (723 AR) Secretary-General Saunders-Hasting broadcast an update message to an anxious planet.

"Much progress has been made since I last spoke to you after the attack on Statue City. Thanks to massive effort by our engineers and construction companies, we have 257 bases in various stages of construction, and a full third of these are near completion. Falcon fighter construction is accelerating, and we are training pilots as quickly as we can. We expect that the first of these new bases will be declared operational in a few weeks and that others will follow in rapid succession. Our major difficulty in bringing all of the bases to operational status will be the completion of pilot training.

"From the aliens we have seen nothing since they left after the attack on Statue City. Unmanned probes have been sent in all vectors from earth but have reported nothing. While this is encouraging, we must remember that we know very little about the level of technology of our enemy, and nothing about their motives. Therefore our defense plan will continue. We cannot afford otherwise."

Thus the Earth Security Force officially opened its first 257 worldwide bases, though only a third of the hundred or so already established bases which composed that number had been fully converted. The new ESF seemed doomed to endure the din of the surrounding construction for the near future; despite the planned opening, the majority of the new bases remained under reconstruction with completion still several months off.

Throughout the UESRC, men and women hurried about their activities with an air of futile desperation; they packed up and repacked their belongings, called old friends to say good-bye and stopped unexpectedly in on others, then loitered by paths well-known in times past. Reluctantly they waited for the transport shuttles that would take them across the planet to their new assigned posts as still others arrived. In short, the UESRC had never known such pandemonium, and it of all scientific centers was not alone.

Sasha Blair and Richard Mathieson spent the morning helping their neighbors and friends before heading to the D-block Barracks to wish their friend Gurney off; he had been transferred south to Central City's newly enlarged base, third only in size to the UESRC itself and the old security outpost and Science Center high in the Ural Mountains.

Among the shuttles of new officers arriving that day were transports carrying the young students soon to be the first entering class of the newly established UESRC Academy, the most elite of the new training schools. Most of the engineering and science division trainees had arrived the day before, but this first year there had been a narrow pool of students to draw from for the pilot cadets.

They had to understand diplomacy in case by some random chance establishing a peace rested on their shoulders alone; in the event of a global assault against the Earth, no one knew which small handful of survivors, if any, would become the hope for the future of humankind.

"Am I really ready for this responsibility?" Sasha wondered. Could she prepare an elite team well enough for what was to come? She pushed the thought away. She didn't have another choice, even if they gave her another alternative.

Sasha planned to spend the rest of her day helping the young female students of her and Richard's squadron get settled into their quarters underground, quarters that had once been the home of the cadets who now left as full-fledged officers. Early that morning she had watched some she knew head for the Central City Base where the ship Pioneer was being built and where Cameron had gone three days before Christmas to oversee the new vessel's construction.

Though Richard and she were scheduled to teach in the engineering and physical science programs, Arnaud had insisted that their experience as pilots was more sorely needed. But Sasha felt the weight of her new responsibility more than she ever had teaching astrodynamics; the lessons she gave now would mean the difference between life and death.

Pitying herself would accomplish nothing, Sasha knew, but she did feel sorry for the ensemble waiting in the astroport disembarkation center for her and Richard. Most of them gazed about in amazement, seemingly overwhelmed to have come to, to actually be in the UESRC, the long renowned worldwide center of higher learning and the base that had first engaged the alien vessel's forces.

Some of them spoke only broken English, having come from various parts of the world. Sasha spoke German, French, and Russian fluently, but her Japanese was rudimentary and her Mandarin and Norwegian not more than a few phrases; still, she attempted to make everyone feel more at home by asking them questions about their homes as they followed the couple through the maze of busy corridors that characterized the enormous subterranean base. Richard, ho spoke no languages apart from English, had already managed to charm the squadron with typical jocularity, she observed in irritation.

The youngest of the squadron was only seventeen years old; the oldest, Yukiko Watanabe, was thirty-four according to Sasha's list of personal biographies. Yukiko's face betrayed no emotion, no sign of excitement or fear. She appeared to be the most at ease in her new surroundings, but Sasha decided about half of it was bravado. The squadron would train together, but Sasha had been given the responsibility of quartering the female half of this cadet group.

There were only thirteen young women and seventeen young men in their particular squadron; all of the squadrons had been grouped at random once the primary selections of candidates were made. The UESF expected the training groups to learn to cooperate together in practical preparation for squadron divisions after graduation, and they didn't exactly care about personality conflicts.

When they passed into the barracks corridor, Sasha explained that three women would share each room and a single attached shower area. The UESRC had been outfitted with the highest technology; Sasha doubted all of them had seen the many devices before, and so she gave them a brief tour of the first quarters in order that they would understand how to use them.

The rooms were largely bare; there were three desks and closets, all quite ordinary, on two sides of the room. Sasha led the group to the bare side of the wall, on which three panels with various colored buttons were evenly spaced two meters apart. Pushing in the small green button, Sasha motioned for them to stand back as a flat sleeping panel slid from the wall.

"You see, this is how it works," she said, demonstrating the panel.

A hatch above the panel popped open with a push of the blue button, where a pillow had been stored. "The system was devised for sanitation purposes; pushing the last yellow button will retract both pillow and bed for cleaning and sterilization, a process which takes about three minutes," Sasha explained.

In the bath area, a high pressure shower stall provided water at the specified temperature as received by the voice-activated computer control system. Shampoo could be obtained at the side, although a cleansing agent had been added to the first three minute water cycle. There were twenty faucets lining the stall which shot water from head to toe.

After a minute rinse cycle, the warm air drying cycle turned on for about three minutes, unless a longer time was specified, or unless it had been specified not to activate.

"Well, that's it. Now everyone knows where to go, rest up and be ready for tomorrow's ceremonies." She said, leaving the team to their barracks assignments.

Chapter Eleven

In the Narita Conference Room of the Kyoto Physics Academy another meeting had been called, assembling scientific minds from across the globe to discuss the origins of the "Charon aliens", as the UESF Secretary Hilbert had called them, picking up on one of the catchy phrases going around. A thoroughly unimaginative, slow, plodding sort of man, Secretary Hilbert had been proud to have drawn attention to this slogan as quickly and as decisively as he had.

Professor Faulkner, the top geneticist from The Genetics Research Institute in Sydney and a theorist of some merit, had been invited to be the guest speaker for two days but had done little speaking so far this afternoon, as experts in biochemistry and metallurgy presented their recent analyses of the evidence obtained near Statue City.

Knightwood had listened quietly as they presented their initial hypotheses—hypotheses she knew had already been suggested by scientists at the UESRC shortly after the battle—and then reviewed the data, reaching similar conclusions. Everyone seemed to have hit a common impasse—who the aliens were, where they came from, and exactly what they were after remained as much as mystery as they had the day the aliens arrived.

"...so you see, the presence of silicon as well as carbon in the organic remnants suggests that the lifeforms in question evolved along unfamiliar lines..." Professor Najita, a rather tall, middle-aged Japanese man with slightly curly hair, continued in a pedantic monotone.

"Not again," Knightwood thought—she had heard it all before back at the UESRC. As his developmental project neared completion, she and Cameron, along with Dr. Liu, the UESRC's genetics expert, had attempted to decipher the organic clues left at Statue City. Unfortunately, the quality of the alien remains were too poor to deduce very much from them.

With the destruction of only a few enemy fighters, the alien pilots within them had been vaporized to little more than genetic sludge, molecules of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorous—in different ratios than expected but enough like the building blocks of life on Earth to raise a few eyebrows. Except that the odd element had been thrown into the jumble—silicon composed a bare fraction more of the alien chemistry than any life form on Earth. Still, Knightwood thought her fellow scientists gave too much consideration to that fact at the expense of other issues.

"Thank you, Professor Najita," Faulkner nodded his approval. "And now, the task in hand would seem to be discovering how these pieces fit into a much larger puzzle. In the past couple of days, with time to review the material, I have come up with my own evolutionary theory, which might explain the hostility and intent of our alien foes." He paused for effect, glancing about the great conference table to redirect all eyes towards him.

Aidan Faulkner was average in height but long-legged, a natural sportsman and a natural speaker, with a clear voice, full lips, wheat blond hair and small, wide-set, light brown eyes that flickered with hidden intent. Faulkner's face was tanned from the Australian sun, from days spent collecting specimens in the rural zones in the island's interior. Faulkner was an attractive man in his late thirties, by no means effeminate, and twice divorced; yet while Knightwood found his appearance appealing, she instinctively mistrusted him.

"We know from the density and formation of the metal and crystalloid fragments taken from Statue City that the home world of these Charon aliens was likely a planet more highly active than our own, with greater climactic and volcanic upheaval that brought the dense, heavier elements to the surface, constantly reshaping the planet's crust." Faulkner continued in his not-quite Australian accent; he was not a native, though he had lived in Sydney a score of years.

"Under such conditions, it seems reasonable that any species to evolve would have to be hardy, adaptable—able to survive a rapidly changing environment." Wide gestures accompanied his words. "Most likely, such a species might view life in general and other forms of life less benevolently than we. Eons of evolution would have ingrained an instinctive need to struggle. Evolving into a civilization capable of intergalactic travel freed them from their age-old struggle against nature, but they could not escape their own evolution.

"We cannot determine how long they have wandered space since escaping their home, if indeed they came from such a world. It may be that the forces capable of resurfacing a planet drove them from a home they could no longer inhabit. Or perhaps the promise of a better world beckoned them. Yet if they had wanted the Earth, I believe they could have taken her by now. Thus we must wonder what has drawn them to our solar system, why they circle us waiting to strike—why they seem to enjoy the suffering of the prey.

"But the point is: now that we have an idea who they are, we must find a way to stop them."

Nods of agreement followed the geneticist's hypothetical scenario. The theory Faulkner presented conformed to the evidence, created a logical method to the alien madness, and yet Knightwood doubted it. Though the UESRC team had not come up with an alternative hypothesis, another explanation had to exist to explain the clues. Knightwood hated to believe that an entire race would provoke a conflict just because it was supposedly in their nature.

Faulkner looked about himself in satisfaction, pressing his lips together, his hands clasped at his waist. The assembled scientists and politicians digested his hypothesis over the next few minutes. Most of them seemed pleased that he had settled their questions. If no one spoke, Knightwood thought it was because none of them wanted the responsibility of disrupting the neat little package he promised them or the burden of starting over again.

Faulkner frowned as his gaze found Knightwood, his fair brows furrowing, deepening the crease in the center of his forehead.

Blast her! She was a pest, a thorn in his side wherever he went. Faulkner often thought that he would enjoy putting her in her place, though he admitted he wasn't certain how best to do it; at the same time, deep down, he also admitted he enjoyed their seasonal confrontations. There were few things he looked forward to like he did the chance these conferences allowed him to combat her latest arguments and theories with his own contradictory, undeniable proof. At the moment, however, he was well aware that he had nothing but flimsy conjectures to support his hypothesis and little solid evidence at all behind him.

Blast her. What animal instinct made Knightwood capable of sniffing out his secrets? He wondered. Oh, she certainly seemed sure of herself, and that she knew him better than anyone. What was going on in that little head of hers? He wondered in irritation.

In truth, Aidan Faulkner was a shrewd, brilliant man with perhaps the single largest store of ambition in his bones since Napoleon. There was little he wouldn't do to advance his own career and little he cared about apart from a few tacit interests that gave an outlet to his general ambition: his own career had begun as a launchpad towards achieving worldwide renown, until he actually discovered that he loved what he did, and that he enjoyed the outdoor excursions into the Outback rural zones his work frequently made necessary.

He was not a soulless man, in his own estimation; certainly a man of great passions with the one prevailing vice of surrounding himself as often as possible with women of little talent or wit but great beauty, and he made his way from one to another with the alacrity of a wandering honey-bee collecting pollen.

Blast that woman, Knightwood. He thought, as she frowned. He felt that she did not like him, and found he didn't care for the sensation.

"Something you wish to add, Knightwood?" He asked at last, certain of her disagreement. "Does the UESRC propose another solution?"

"No—we have no other suggestions," Knightwood said quietly. "But if the Charon aliens have achieved interplanetary travel, it seems to me that they could find other uninhabited worlds and systems capable of sustaining them aside from the Earth."

"Your point?" Faulkner said, his eye drawn to the small arch of one of Knightwood's dark brows.

"That they came here for a specific reason." Knightwood continued. "Now, if they are looking to provoke a fight, why did they come here? Why bother antagonizing such a backward civilization as ours, a civilization still in the cradle of its own solar system? If, as you say, they enjoy the struggle—why didn't they find a civilization, a planet that could present some kind of a challenge?"

Faulkner said nothing.

"The aliens have developed a superior space vessel, proving that their technology far surpasses our own. If they could reach the Earth, it seems safe to assume that they could have as easily visited other worlds in the area—

"Again, what has that got to do with their evolution and reason for being here?" Faulkner interrupted, with a flash of a smile and bright, blinding white teeth.

"Simple—how do we know that they didn't evolve on a different planet than the one you're suggesting, that they didn't come from one world and use resources obtained on another, richer planet to build their ship? We have no proof where they evolved. My point is that we cannot make assumptions as to their origins and nature without more accurate evidence of their biochemical composition. Find me some proof, and I'll believe the simple neighborhood bully explanation."

"You don't call their behavior so far evidence enough?" Faulkner shook his head like a father chastising a wayward child. "These creatures came to our solar system without warning and picked a fight as soon as they got here."

"Don't forget," Knightwood said, "the other ship that arrived first."

"Are you suggesting that the alien ship on Earth is their objective?" Faulkner allowed himself a chuckle.

"Well, you UESRC chaps may have access to classified fragments of the first alien ship—but the rest of us aren't at leisure to review them, so let's leave them out of this, shall we?" Faulkner gave a derisive toss of his head. "Anyway, the UESF released word that the testing done on them proved inconclusive—that the hull had been composed of an unknown alloy unlike the scraps found at Statue City." A slow smile crept across his face. "Tell me Knightwood, are you hiding something?"

"If you're implying that I have privileged information regarding the composition of the first alien ship, then the answer is no." Knightwood replied evasively.

"Then I will restate my initial question: if the earlier ship were the objective, does it not stand to reason that our Charon aliens would have located the remnants by now and moved onto the site? Wouldn't they be interested in searching the area? Explain to me why they haven't if they're so smart!"

Knightwood could not tell him that the first alien ship had literally disappeared; its anti-radar cloak was the stuff of fantasy, not reality as it was conceived on Earth. Meanwhile, Faulkner's eyes narrowed, sensing her hesitation, and he pressed on.

"Then without proof, dear Knightwood, you cannot ask me to believe that the two ships are connected. Just look at the video reports—the two vessels don't even resemble each other. Conclusion—two random incidents, pure and simple. Highly astounding, the more so!"

"Are you suggesting that three technologically advanced species have come into contact randomly—what are the odds of that happening?" Knightwood asked.

Irritating woman! Faulkner thought, strangely pleased nonetheless.

"You know we can't possibly know about the odds." Faulkner said with a casual shrug. "Because until recently human beings thought all life in the universe existed here on Earth. It may be that hundreds of civilizations exist and have only just now taken interest in the Earth—that a conglomeration of civilizations are out there. Perhaps two worlds discovered the existence of life on Earth at the same time and raced to see who could get here first."

"A galactic race?" Knightwood arched an eyebrow. This was an interesting idea.

"Not exactly, but in the history of Earth great enterprising nations rushed to claim the New World and gain territory." Faulkner countered.

"But they would have marked us and moved on, or at the least attempted colonization by now, or some sort of contact." Knightwood protested.

"Remember, no assumptions—we don't know if they are even like us, much less if they think like us." Faulkner shook a finger at her, his tone of voice admonishing her. He turned around to face the general assembly, as if to terminate the discussion. But Knightwood wasn't finished.

"Exactly." Knightwood had risen in her chair. Her voice carried in the still air, drawing the assembly's attention again and bringing Faulkner's eyes around to face her. "So let's take the information from Statue City at face value until we have more evidence." That devil of a man.

That bitch, thought Faulkner.

Back to square one.

* * * * *

Richard Mathieson must have clicked and unclicked the end of his light pen a hundred times as he sat at his training station in the Kronos East Wing Docking Bay.

His mind would not allow him any peace, but endlessly worked over his problems. Only four months had passed since he had assumed his new duties. Almost a month ago, it had become his turn to collect Erin from the supervised indoctrination facility. Fortunately, Zhdanov had finally approved a schedule that left him a few hours off in the afternoon.

Richard could hardly believe it, but a year had passed since Erin had joined their family, and in that short time it appeared she had recovered well from her early childhood ordeal—as far as anyone could tell, at least emotionally. Already she had learned to understand English, many months quicker than Cameron had predicted. By Christmas, she had written her own stories about an imaginary friend, Kai. But even now, four months later, she was taciturn, only speaking in answer to specific questions. However, she lingered on the periphery of the action, missing nothing with those wide blue eyes.

Still waters run deep, Richard often thought. She was quiet as a mouse.

Yet, as time passed, Sasha thought Erin's imaginary creation was doing her more harm than good and had, rather diplomatically to Richard's way of thinking, suggested encouraging Erin's friendship with Major Arnaud and Madeleine Brasseau's little five-year old girl, Colleen. The girls had met in the children's center before the Charon aliens appeared, before their parents' schedules had been rearranged.

Erin tended to be quiet and observant—traits often mistakenly confused with having a "reserved" nature.

Richard could trace the beginning of his concerns back more than two weeks, to Erin's one year evaluation. One of Cameron's medical colleagues had supervised a few scanning tests, and the computers had registered normal functions. However, though Erin showed progress beyond everyone's hopes towards a complete psychological recovery, she still could not remember her life before Sasha had found her.

Richard and Sasha had taken Erin in a week ago for an additional session with a child psychologist specialist from Central City, who claimed that Erin suffered from a severe form of the dissociative disorder psychogenic amnesia known as psychogenic fugue.

But Richard didn't agree with any of the results since Cameron's departure from the UESRC and suggested taking Erin to the medical center in Coast Charles for a more thorough examination, to see if her memory loss had some medical explanation. One of the attending physicians had been more interested in Erin's odd pallor and recommended some comprehensive blood tests. He'd recommended Dr. Tor Bredesen, an expert in diseases of the blood; Richard and Sasha had allowed the tests, expecting nothing.

The only problem was, it was taking Bredesen much longer to analyze the results than the good doctor had estimated.

And that could only mean that something was very, very wrong.

Chapter Twelve

A week later, Dr. Bredesen finally sent a message that he had finished analyzing Erin's test results. Richard was sitting alone in the kitchen petting the grey cat, Ruffles, before breakfast when the communications line sounded and began to display information across the vidscreen on the wall. They had two cats, Ruffles and Squeaky, the seal-point Siamese.

"Sasha!" he called, and waited, dropping Ruffles to the floor. Ruffles purred and strode away, nonplussed. "Identify sender," Richard said in a monotone to the sensitive computer panel.

"Dr. Bredesen." The computer chimed. Richard stood rooted by the screen, staring at the printout he had asked for when Sasha came into the kitchen, her hair damp about her shoulders.

Sasha retrieved the video message.

"To Mr. Mathieson and Ms. Blair, this is a message from Dr. Bredesen calling to inform you that our tests have confirmed the presence of abnormal cells in your daughter's circulatory system.

"Please do not be alarmed. We would like to verify before we begin to consider possible treatments. We feel positive about our procedures and estimate a full recovery within six months. I would like to confirm an appointment with your daughter some time today, if possible. I'll be available later this afternoon. Sincerely, Dr. Tor Bredesen."

The truth slowly worked its way through them, overwhelming them in one final, dawning realization. Before Sasha could break down, Richard reached for her and held her tightly. Though Erin was only recently adopted, they loved her very much already.

They said nothing as they held on to each other.

* * * * *

Situated around the fertile green woodland zone of sector seven, twelve hundred kilometers south and a thousand kilometers west of the UESRC, Central City had become an important industrial center in the production of new spacecraft. Around the same size as Statue City before the alien raid and another prime target for invasion, Central City had fortified herself over the past five months even though there had been no sign of the aliens re-mobilizing against the Earth.

Dr. Cameron found himself wishing that Zhdanov and Knightwood were with him as he gazed out the observation window to the main hangar below in the Central City base, where the newly finished Pioneer made ready to depart for the Pluto orbit.

Lines of pilots, many of whom he recognized as former members of the UESRC training staff, as well as numerous ex-trainees newly graduated to positions among the fighter squadrons, boarded the new spaceship. For the past several months, they had been familiarizing themselves with the new model planes in preparation for the maiden flight of the Pioneer. They had devoted hours of practice in the UESRC simulation room and in the actual planes on the outskirts of Central City, but many still wondered if it had been enough.

Cameron stood at the lookout deck long after they had all disappeared up the inclined gangway to the boarding hatch. Finally, the booster engines flared, and Cameron stepped back a little reflexively, even though the glass barrier fully protected him. From his position, he could see the massive coil apparatus of the remodeled, depowered electromagnetic coil gun launcher previously used to send cargo into space. The depowered coil gun had been integrated with the Pioneer's own booster engines to launch the vessel into the lower atmosphere, where atmospheric oxygen would be burned as fuel to achieve escape velocity.

As the great vessel tilted and shot skyward through the overhead hatch of the external hanger, billows of steam swirled around, shadowing her ascension for a few moments. Cameron watched the diminishing vessel and prayed that those on board made it home safely.

* * * * *

"I—I'm afraid you may wish to sit down." Dr. Bredesen said timidly as he appeared in the waiting room. He was about forty, tall, broad, with thinning white-blond hair. He did not smile. Bredesen hated having to break bad news.

Sasha jumped up despite his warning.

For the past five hours, Bredesen had been treating Erin Mathieson with the third and last alternative available to fight the unique form of leukemia he and his staff had diagnosed nearly three weeks before. Already he had tried two simple surgical procedures, injecting bone marrow into the tissue and a cancer fighting antibody into her bloodstream, as well as two forms of medication. But just this morning the parents brought her in after Erin experienced a mild seizure.

Erin's condition had deteriorated in only days. Her medical history showed that she had been ill her first year at the UESRC more often than average children, that she had been susceptible to certain nearly eradicated childhood diseases, that she often recovered before any proper diagnosis could be given.

Bredesen had his own hypothesis that Erin's first mother must have died in the wilderness for lack of proper medical care. Conditions during The Crisis Years had given rise to new chronic illnesses that still existed in parts out in the wild regions of the sealed rural zones; if Erin had contracted one of these, it may have lowered her immune system's proper efficiency.

"I'm afraid the operation has not abrogated the abnormal cells." Bredesen said. "A recent blood scan revealed traces of large and apparently unprecedentedly virulent cancer cells throughout your daughter's body that we failed to detect the last time. Unfortunately, the cancer-eating cells she received three hours ago had completely disappeared when we checked her a moment ago."

"I see. So, what else can you do?" Mathieson asked.

"I honestly don't know," Bredesen admitted. "Anything else we could try might harm Erin more than help her in her weakened condition. Under the circumstances I think it best if you just continue to give her the medications I prescribed her, at least until she recovers some more strength for our next procedure.

"Isn't there something else you could try?" Sasha wondered.

"I have developed a new drug that may succeed where the surgery failed." Bredesen said carefully. "But I wouldn't get my hopes too high. I've given the pharmacist an order for some pain-reducers that will curb the fever."

"So, essentially what you're saying is that there isn't any hope?" Richard asked, feeling the words grate over his throat.

Sasha stared at the doctor, glassy-eyed.

"It's hard to say." Bredesen shook his head. "Over 96% of our cancer patients have survived to lead full lives, and in most cases the cancer is eradicated if not in the first then in the second operation. But in we aren't making progress on your daughter. We—I mean, my staff and I—honestly haven't any idea what to do next. This is a new kind of illness, and we simply have no precedent to follow regarding treatment.

"As far as I can tell, only a few cells in the bloodstream, about one in a thousand, are abnormal cells."

"What does that mean?" Richard asked.

"This is an extremely rare condition—in fact, our very first case. Your daughter's condition appears to be chronic. That means that she's had it since birth, though the abnormal cells have remained dormant until fairly recently. Now that they are beginning to make their presence known, the change is significant enough that it has caused her a great deal of pain.

"Why didn't anyone detect this earlier?" Sasha asked.

"I don't know. The only consolation I can give you is that the cancer isn't multiplying very fast at all—in fact, I'd venture to say that it's stabilized. And unlike the abnormal cells in her bloodstream, the cancer-like ones which we discovered in her body tissues seem to have remained completely dormant."

"Dormant?" Sasha echoed. "So it may get worse later?"

"Dormant as in their potential activity is uncertain." Bredesen replied. "For now they aren't attacking the ordinary functioning cells, and they aren't dividing by cellular mitosis at all.

"That's strange, isn't it?" Richard asked.

"Quite," Bredesen replied quietly. It should be impossible...

"But is it good news?" Sasha persisted.

"I am not going to give you any false hopes," Bredesen said, "but it is possible that the cancer will ever progress to Erin's vital organs, and in that case she may lead a normal life. Doctor Cepheras would like me to keep an eye on Erin in case we observe further cases, and he asked if you would consider bringing her in as a case study. He recommended some genetics specialists at the hospital for future consultations. I sent a plasmid culture to him yesterday." He added as an afterthought, as if explaining how Cepheras had gotten involved.

"Do you really think they can give us another prognosis?" Richard asked.

Bredesen shook his head. "To be blunt, I doubt it. But when I talked to him this morning, Dr. Cepheras seemed particularly interested in studying Erin's genetic pattern for what caused the disease.

"In all my years as a medical doctor, I've never seen a case such as this. There is a possibility that Erin's cancer may be an entirely new type of disease altogether. She could be the key to a new branch of study." Bredesen concluded.

"We'd rather just take her home, Dr. Bredesen," Richard said firmly.

Chapter Thirteen

Jupiter is more beautiful than I ever imagined.

The horizontal cyclonic and anticyclonic winds swirled about the surface of the living planet in strips of white frozen ammonia clouds segmented by red and brown layers of ammonium hydrosulfide, methane, hydrogen, and helium. And there, larger than even his imagination had pictured it, the Great Red Spot, an enormous rotating storm in the southern hemisphere, appeared over the horizon as the planet completed another quick rotation.

The information he had learned in his physics classes in the old days at the UESRC did little to prepare him for the actual sight of the planet that swallowed up the view in the forward observation deck. And now they were passing by Io, the small moon closest to Jupiter. Fiery red owing to the active volcanoes induced by Jupiter's gravity, the moon passed across the face of Jupiter, visible only as a small pea-sized asteroid against the great master of all the planets.

"You should be here, Sheila. What a view... " he thought aloud.

At last, Lieutenant John Snyder, a thirty-year old man who had dreamed of going into space his entire life long, enjoyed a quiet moment as the Pioneer completed its third orbital rotation around the fifth planet; in a moment, he had to head back to the bridge to check up on the navigational computer. The computer should have finished with the calculations necessary for gravity assist, a technique that used Jupiter's gravitational field as a slingshot device, sending them to Pluto without using fuel but faster than they could on engine power alone.

He knew the timed moment approached, but he was still sorry to be saying good-bye to the vibrant quasi-star, when the dark, dormant, and icy dwarf planetoid of Pluto awaited them. And lurking somewhere on the fringes of the solar system—he swallowed. They were out there.

A bright flash of light like a distant star appeared in the viewport while he watched the silent scene. It grew larger and brighter, but still he watched fascinated.

"What is that?" he wondered aloud. A second later, the warning sirens sounded a red alert. The English Lieutenant Bambury's voice rang strong and loud above the noise of the alarm.

"Attention, all hands, report to your stations. A high-energy missile from the Pluto orbit is now approaching us. We will take evasive actions. Please, hurry to your posts."

Lieutenant Snyder stood rooted to his feet. There was no use in leaving. The light was upon them.

Sheila...

* * * * *

The sky was so blue above; only a few thready cirrus clouds lined the distant sky on the horizon, where the edge of Central City met the rural zone to the north. And yet Dr. Cameron cried.

He did not see the intense, powdery blue of the sky. He did not see the starlings flying to the tall, majestic sycamore trees of the botanical gardens that enshrouded the new military base. As if part of a dream, the ghostly faces of the Pioneer crew haunted him, dancing about his tired, itching eyes whether closed or open, smiling absurdly as he constructed them from his memory.

All those brave men and women, the finest on Earth, and he had been the one that sent them out to die.

He cursed himself again, buried his face in his hands, but he could not drive the images away.

Who could have guessed that the enemy had been watching them, had probably only allowed the Pioneer to get close enough to seal its own destruction?

Another vessel would have to be built; the order was probably in the works already. But he could not do it again. But who would oversee the construction of another spacecraft? Well, there were other capable, younger, unwearied scientists and teams of engineers still to be found, some at the UESRC and on other bases.

As he stood on the spot where he had been on the morning of the Pioneer's departure, he knew he was done with battles now.

* * * * *

The alarm siren interrupted Sasha mid-sentence, halfway through her physics lesson.

"I'm sorry, class, I have to go," she said, dropping her book before rushing from the B5 floor on the Dakota East Wing to the upper level fighter bay where her plane waited, already fueled and ready to go. She paused to collect her old Pegasus flight helmet from the hook on the wall where she had stowed it only yesterday.

Make that today, she reflected, remembering how late it had been when the Desert Coyotes Squadron finally returned.

Ever since the destruction of the Pioneer about two months before, the UESRC squadrons had been on patrol off and on, trying to ward off the sudden attacks that the aliens had launched in retaliation to the presence of the Earth cruiser in Jupiter's airspace. Already twelve major cities lay in ruins, including coastline cities such as New Yokohama, Ruhestadt, and Bay City, which had been destroyed only two days after the UESF released the news concerning the destruction of the Pioneer.

After two months of constant patrolling and skirmishes, many of the planet wide squadron units had diminished, and even large bases such as the Ural Base suffered. Only four of the initial fifteen squadrons there remained large enough to compose a full unit, and the remainder had been reallocated to comprise another five units.

Then unexpectedly, as if their intentions had only been to destroy the city, the aliens retreated despite their overwhelming advantage. Already the major minds of the Earth Security Force had come up with a few hypotheses to explain this unusual behavior. "Why did the aliens keep attacking the cities, and then retreating before they were entirely destroyed?" It was almost as though—they were only looking for something...

The pattern the Earth scientists observed showed that the enemy carefully selected only a few coastal cities at a time, at least four thousand kilometers apart from one other. Furthermore, the aliens retreated from each city just short of complete destruction, but without eradicating all possibility for reconstruction.

The Vice Chief of the Security Force Council, Kathryn Hines-Gallo, suggested at a Security Force Council meeting that perhaps their efforts were signs of a kind of gradual hostility designed to wear down resistance with the passage of time and by augmenting humanity's desperation and sense of hopelessness. Thus when the Earth finally surrendered, she would no longer care to resist further.

Though the debates as to the nature of the alien's tactics continued unremittingly, the Security Force showed no hesitation in deciding how best to utilize the few advantages that had been so fortuitously dealt them. While the aliens took their time systematically razing apparently random cities, production began on a new line of Earth cruisers and Falcon space fighters headed by Zhdanov, Knightwood, and Cheung in Central City. Once completed, some of the cruiser parts would be sent to Space Station Gabriel for assembly; though launches from Gabriel were more advantageous in cutting launch fuel costs, the bulk of the ships were planned for safer terrestrial launches.

The engineers had now designed the new prototype vessels for swift long-distance space travel that would one day lead them to Pluto, this time without taking a direct and dangerous course—or the obvious one, employing the economically preferable method of gravity assist, using the gravitational force of a planet as a substitute for fuel. Taking the obvious course had led to the disastrous loss of the Pioneer.

Sasha for one looked forward to the day when the project would be finished, but the last she had heard concerning the estimated completion time had been news that the next launch had been pushed back from the following month to three or four months more.

* * * * *

Dr. Cheung Ho-Win was just finishing tidying his cluttered office when he realized that in his search for order, he had forgotten the time. Above a vase of purple orchids, a small round clock on the wall read 13:47, and so he was more than twenty minutes late to the meeting by the time he reached the operations council room at the other end of the Ural Base.

"Sorry for being late," he apologized briefly to the assembled company as he entered, then found the seat reserved for him and settled down to listen to the debate that was going on.

Knightwood offered him a welcoming smile; only ten or so people sat gathered at the enormous table. To his right and left were Knightwood and Zhdanov, and by their uniforms, he identified half a dozen UESF council members. At the opposite side of the table, he immediately recognized the man in a black officer's uniform from the picture Zhdanov had shown him.

"Yes, I understand the situation fully..." Captain Kansier was saying. He was a tall, wiry man in his late thirties, notorious for his uncompromising nature and known for a keen intelligence. He ran his fingers through his short chestnut hair in masked agitation. Leaning back in his chair, he coughed to clear his throat. Cheung remembered vaguely that this man was reportedly some kind of a tactical genius.

"I give it two weeks before they attack again. That gives us two valuable weeks to prepare," Kansier was saying now.

Arthur Kansier had once been a student at the UESRC, but had transferred to the Greenwich Physics, Biological, and Geophysical Maritime University on the old European continent in order to specialize in a combined degree of nautical physics and geophysics. After attaining his professorship qualification, he had obtained a position at the Okinawa Physics Academy while attending the Okinawa Institute for a degree in spacecraft engineering.

Since then, he had transferred twice to the Oslo Science Academy and then to the Bay City Geophysical Institute before taking his final position at the Ural Base. When the Earth Security Force was formed, they sent Kansier a new assignment as a cadet trainer and future space cruiser captain. Kansier was one of the few worldwide specialists trained to handle situations even remotely military in nature. At the Greenwich University, he had studied naval history and had learned to pilot not only recon planes but larger sea craft.

The most remarkable things said of Kansier, and they were repeated widely and far abroad, was that the man never went back on his word.

Kansier demanded a lot from his cadets, but he respected their potential as future equals and tried to develop that potential wherever it was strongest. Considered one of the world's better emerging leaders, Kansier believed that attaining the good for the many mattered more than seeking his own personal glory.

"The Stargazer isn't ready for flight yet, though, and won't be for some time," Zhdanov updated, interrupting the discussion. Now that Cheung, Knightwood, and Zhdanov had finished work on the newest vessel, the Stargazer, Cheung couldn't help but wonder if the council had finally decided who would command the ship on her maiden flight to Charon. Zhdanov had suggested Captain Kansier, whom he had met years ago while working at the Ural Base. Cheung himself had not yet met the Captain despite living at the Ural Base for the past two months, mostly because his time had been divided between production work and what little sleep he'd been getting since the birth of the new Earth fleet.

However, the Captain's presence at this meeting promised that something significant had been decided.

Cheung's ears perked up when the Council Head turned to address Captain Kansier again.

"Captain, Doctors Zhdanov and Knightwood, among many others, have informed us that you are best qualified to take command of the Stargazer. Accordingly, the Security Council Secretary-President extends to you, Captain Kansier, the position of Ship Captain. Do you find this assignment acceptable?"

"Certainly." Kansier said.

"The Stargazer will be taking its maiden flight seriously—I should say there will be no maiden voyage as you know it. We simply haven't any time for drills or an extensive test flight. Rather, we have planned a defensive stance around Neptune. I'm sure you've read the reports we sent you?" At a nod from the Captain, the council representative continued. "Does anyone have any questions about the nuclear missile project?"

Cheung glanced around the table, having surprised himself that he had been able to put the second project so far out of mind while concentrating on realizing the first objective. However, now that the scientists had achieved the production facilities to create space cruisers, the council had easily shifted their attention to the nuclear missile project, a scheme proposed by the Quebec Council. They had suggested launching a missile from the Neptune airspace towards the large alien flagship that still remained in a stationary orbit on the far side of Charon.

"No questions, Tipler, but I'm still opposed to the idea, as I said before." Captain Kansier spoke calmly, leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.

"May we know why, Captain?" The council representative, Ian Tipler, did not share Kansier's composure, although he did not appear displeased by the objection.

"For the same reason as I gave at the last meeting."

"Tell me, Captain Kansier, how would it be possible for any force to withstand the impact of a nuclear warhead that could just as easily destroy the moon?"

"Well, you're assuming that the missile will detonate against its target." Kansier looked up, his eyes flashing with contained amusement.

"You know the remote possibility of error better than any of us on this council, Captain. Thanks to your team's weapons research, those creatures won't even know what's hit them until it's too late. Now, are you going to sit there and tell me that you don't have any faith in your own R & D team?"

"I have complete faith in them, but as to whether or not I believe in this plan of yours, well, I'll be the first to congratulate the council if it succeeds." Kansier shrugged.

"When we succeed." Tipler corrected him, only slightly irritated by Kansier's behavior. "Frankly, I'm a little concerned about your pessimism, Kansier. So, what do the rest of you specialists think of our new attack strategy?"

Cheung listened while Zhdanov expressed a farce of conservative optimism and Knightwood hesitated to agree. Cheung remained silent, pretending not to take issue with anything anyone had said. Luckily, Tipler ignored him; Cheung knew the man did not consider him the top authority on the topic and thus treated him as an irrelevant participant. Still, he didn't mind. Neither Tipler nor any of the other council representatives were really interested in any point of view outside their own, and at least he had not been forced to give his support to their venture.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to cut this meeting short." Kansier said casually, but he pushed his chair back decisively. "The Stargazer will be departing soon enough, and I have a few things to do before I leave." He went on.

"I'll send the Security Council Chief a progress report once the crew arrives. And I'll have the scheduler in the Cargo Bay set up a meeting time for us to discuss the Stargazer's assets and liabilities, Zhdanov, Knightwood... Professor Cheung. Perhaps then we can meet each other properly and discuss more thoroughly your concerns and contributions to our endeavor, Dr. Cheung. Until then." Kansier made eye contact with each of them in turn, his gaze self-assured but not arrogant.

Glancing at a clock on the wall, Cheung groaned inwardly and fixed his attention on Mr. Tipler. The session had only just begun.
Chapter Fourteen

"I do love the water," Cameron thought again. "But I never thought I would miss Quebec."

Dr. Cameron had been living in the ancient British Columbia region ever since he left the UESRC. He had taken an apartment in New Vancouver there, ample enough in size for him to continue his research work and satisfy his scientific curiosity without any interference from the council. For the past two months he had enjoyed the leisurely pace of life in the urban zone; he took walks by the enclosed riverfront, where he fed bread crumbs to the squirrels that still lived under man's shadow beside the Fraser River, where also swans drifted endlessly over the water. At around two o' clock each day, he would return to his laboratory and begin his work. On an average day, he spent six or seven hours working, then took a light dinner before retiring.

He hadn't expected a visit from anyone, at least not until Christmas, when Zhdanov had promised to stop by with a gift for Cameron's mother. However, one afternoon Cameron returned from his daily routine and discovered Richard Mathieson and Sasha Blair waiting for him with their youngest daughter, Erin, asleep already on the living room sofa.

"How did you get in here?" he asked, coming inside his apartment.

"Don't you remember Doctor?" Mathieson's brows furrowed as his face took on an unsettled expression.

"Enlighten me," Cameron directed absently.

"You gave me your entry code when I helped you move your experiments from the UESRC." Richard answered.

But Mathieson, too, hadn't been in the mood to discuss old times.

"That still doesn't explain why you're here," said Cameron.

Then Sasha and Richard explained Erin's illness to Cameron and told him the diagnosis given by Dr. Bredesen, a man Cameron did not much admire, but he still didn't understand why they had come all this way to see him. There were plenty of good doctors at the UESRC.

"All right, I'll take a look at her," Cameroon reluctantly agreed. I have a lab next door, which is rudimentary, but sufficient for my needs."

"Can you look at her today, Doctor?" asked Richard.

"Today?"

"Yes, we're technically in New Vancouver on official business for the Security Council and have to attend a meeting at the Victoria Base scheduled to begin within the hour."

"All right, then, if that's all the time I have. I suppose I can look at her while you're at the meeting."

"Thank you, Doctor," Sasha and Richard said, relieved looks on their faces.

"We'll be back in a few hours," Richard said, leading little Erin, who stood among them, over to take Dr. Cameron's hand.

Several minutes after Sasha and Richard had gone, Cameron settled down to work on Erin's bloodwork, turning off the computer analyzers and starting fresh with a barrage of simple blood tests and his own microscanner.

What he soon discovered made him shudder.

* * * * *

After taking several blood samples, Cameron had only to conduct a preliminary analysis of the blood sample to realize that something extraordinary was at work; as time passed, he came to dismiss all possibility that the child Erin was suffering from an unknown disease. The answer was both simple and infinitely complicated on its own.

She was not human at all!

"Well I'll be damned!" he laughed out loud. "She isn't human!!!"

At first, he made the discovery that her blood was a new type unlike any other in any circulatory system he had yet encountered, but with certain similar features to the human variety he knew. What Cameron couldn't understand was how the blood screen and genetic grid analyzer had missed the anomalies. However it had happened, when Cameron used old-fashioned, obscure methods of analysis, the red blood cells in the Mathieson child's system appeared to contain small nuclei but lacked hemoglobin, instead containing a substance that appeared to have a comparable affinity to bind with oxygen.

Visually, Cameron could detect no platelets in Erin's blood, and his sample showed an absence of plasma. He would have to repeat that experiment later, he decided. How could the girl's blood clot when she was wounded without plasma or platelets?

His first sample yielded an abnormally low count of the white blood cell lymphocytes, neutrophils, and monocytes, almost equivalent to the number of eosinophils and basophils, the latter of which should have been present in lesser amounts. As it was, the cells were hardly recognizable.

"It's like she has no immune system, or one more advanced than ours," he thought out loud.

Instead of a healthy count of white blood cells, he found gigantic tri-nuclear cells in Erin's blood sample, perfectly spherical in shape, circulating faster than the sluggish erythrocytes. These cells had remained clear despite the stain he had used, and the swirling motions going on in the cell made it virtually impossible to distinguish any cellular organelles. All of this should have been impossible. At first, he was inclined to dismiss what he had seen as hallucination, but the bizarre did not end there.

"Is she a plant, or part plant?" he wondered, finding the same chloroplasts encasing her cell membranes.

In the skin sample he had taken, Cameron soon recognized the same tri-nuclear cells lying dormant between the lower dermal layers and near the capillaries, yet the motions within these cells made his eyes sore as he turned up the power of his electro-bioscan microscope to try to observe them.

"Tri-nucleated cells are impossible! The basic foundation of life exists in a single-nucleated cell! How and why on Earth is this all possible!" he kept wondering to himself.

Once his preparations for his scanning and electron microscopes had been sliced, he waited a few moments while the machines processed a photo and then retrieved them. In both the blood and skin, the tri-nuclear cells remained masked by streaks of motion, yet the composition of the other cellular materials was revealed.

Aside from the cellular organelles he had expected to find, Cameron observed small squarish sacs that appeared similar to chloroplasts again, though at least ten times smaller. At high resolution, each nucleus contained two dark round "buds" branching off from the nucleus yet still encompassed by the nuclear envelope.

He had not been hallucinating this time. They were the same cells he had studied shortly after the girl's arrival to the UESRC. Tri-nuclear cells could not exist! he had told himself to prove that he had been wrong. He held on to his former conviction—only a single nucleus had ever been viable in the life found on Earth. The implication of this could only mean one thing.

And that was making him shake all over.

* * * * *

"Time to conduct genetic tests," Cameron thought, setting up the process for DNA fingerprinting. Isolating the tri-nuclear cells, he discovered with alarm that none of his restriction enzymes could break the circle of DNA composing the cell. In fact, as he inspected the sample again under the electro-bioscan microscope while adding the enzymes a second time, he watched the cells engulf the enzymes, producing a brief flash of detectable energy.

Energy emissions???

He was not so easily thwarted.

This result prompted Cameron to set up a micro-ECG to measure the electrical energy emitted by the bioprocesses in his patient. The nervous system and circulatory system were by far the most energetic, releasing almost ten times as many electrons as those in an ordinary human being.

Further proof that Erin wasn't a human being! He was delirious. However, though Cameron's curiosity immediately encouraged him to jump ahead to observations of the patient's brain, he hadn't yet finished his analysis of the circulatory system.

He set to work again on that. Taking sections of ordinary cell lymphocytes and "cancerous" lymphocytes, Cameron again mixed in the restriction enzymes, and happily found partial success among the "cancerous cells" as well as complete success with the functioning cells. Adding his solution, which contained bromophenol blue as a dye, he waited impatiently a few minutes for Endelmann's Agerose-Electophoresis Device to sift the DNA and speed up the process of digestion.

As the ethidium bromide stage occurred, Cameron hurriedly initialized the sequence on the console to request sample extracts. In a rush, he took these to the microscope, but unfortunately the dye had only affected the cut DNA. The DNA fragments from the "cancerous cells" did not appear to have reacted to the ethidium bromide, a strong DNA mutagen that should have affected them.

As Cameron pondered the significance of his findings in a state of wonder, the EAED finished processing the DNA fingerprint, verbalizing a reedy "Process Completed" that interrupted Cameron's train of thought.

A brief observation of the fingerprints sent a chill down Cameron's spine, and they were deeply disturbing.

* * * * *

"I see, I see now," said Cameron, in a fuddle. But the truth was, he did not, and he was only beginning to fathom any of his data. However, the analysis of the nucleotide sequences was finished for sure.

The simple sequence DNA, which served as structural and protective sequences for a DNA strand and were typically present at the telomeres and centromeres, extended further in the sequence he held than in ordinary human DNA, accounting for about 24% of the genome rather than the usual 10%.

"How odd," he thought. Perhaps having something to do with the aging process?

The intermediate sequence DNA, which were dispersed throughout the arms of the chromatid and which functioned in replication and protein coding such as histones, were also present in a larger percentage of 48% of the genome, rather than 20%.

No explanation—yet.

The remaining 28% of the genome belonged to the slow, single-copy DNA sequences. This normally accounted for 70% of the human genome, such as those responsible for protein coding, and those "leftover" remnant sequences of evolution. Remnant sequences remained forever a non-functioning part of the highly conserved DNA, sometimes even as a "leftover" of long ago evolutionary adaptations.

This intrigued Cameron's imagination.

"Can Erin's DNA rearrange itself? Maybe it can utilize sequences that, although, still likewise present in human genetic coding, are no longer necessary or useful..."

It was almost as if—she could rearrange her own genetic structure!

That could mean—she could become mutate and change her own body in different environments! How amazing!

It was while scrutinizing these sequences and noting a decreased amount of introns gene interraptions that Cameron noticed the random dark patches that appeared in different places on each DNA fingerprint.

These, he soon discovered, were not sequences of paired nucleotides, but rings of nucleotide "radicals" wrapped in a ring around positively charged granules of glycoproteins and histones and a bit of pseudo-nuclear material that was too small for him to identify.

More evidence of genetic flexibility! What could it all mean?

In the cancerous cells, Cameron made a remarkable discovery: these nucleotide rings were situated in between the intermediate and slow sequences. He soon discovered that the slow sequences programmed genetic traits the computer could not analyze.

Cameron's imagination appeared to have been insightful. The slow nucleotide sequences seemed almost to have been altered to form more interactive intermediate sequences. Vice versa, the intermediate sequences were changed into specialized long gene codes by the rings where the old sequences had long since become obsolete in genetic evolution.

How Cameron wished he could show this to Knightwood!

The way these two forms of gene sequences were reacting through the medium of gene circles suggested a complexity of information exchange, though the original mechanism was conserved, and the information appeared virtually unaltered despite its vacillations between sequences.

Thus could one alter one's genetic structure and perhaps return to normal again! Maybe she could change her face and genetic structure to look like anything or anyone!

However, just how these rings of nucleotides managed to alter the base pairs of nucleotides in the sequences was something that eluded his imagination. If he could witness his hypothesis in action, would the changes appear spontaneous, or would the rings take time to break the covalent bonds in the sequence and alter the genetic code? And how did this process manage to continue without destabilizing the genome?

He knew that ordinary human lymphocytes were known to rearrange at the level of DNA, but not by such radical processes of mutation or recombination that would alter the information or destabilize the genome such as had evidently occurred in these unusual fingerprints, not at least without causing the termination of the lifeform in question.

Yet Erin was still alive.

* * * * *

An hour passed as Cameron continued to examine various aspects of the DNA samples. More shocking than anything else, in light of the alien nature of Erin's DNA, was the discovery that Erin's cells contained a virtually identical form of the protein cytochrome that was present in human beings, a signature amino acid sequence that linked human development to the evolution of all life on Earth over hundreds of millions of years. And there were other close similarities in the homeobox, a segment of DNA that regulated genes crucial to pattern formation in Earth creatures.

How, how could Erin—clearly an alien—also have adaptations that belonged to the Earth and its creatures? his heart demanded to know.

That would only mean one thing—that someone had created her race and the human race from some common ancestor or amino acid sequence. And that, like everything else, had to be impossible!

When other strange related anomalies began to appear, Cameron nearly stopped his investigation, too distressed and overwhelmed by the implications. How could such an alien life form seem to be related not only to human beings but to every form of life on Earth?

In order to calm himself, Cameron returned to examine the cell samples he had taken. Between cell divisions of the ordinary cells, Cameron suddenly noticed that the telomeres that capped the gene sequences remained constant where they should have shortened. The number of cell divisions of every living creature he knew had been encoded in its genes with a finite limit. As an organism lived and its cells divided, the telomeres at the ends of its gene sequences diminished, aging the organism on a microscopic as well as macroscopic level. With only a brief span of time to make observations, Cameron had traced no reduction in the telomere function.

All of this meant that Erin's body was not aging.

Yet it had to be!

With great reluctance and disappointment, Cameron felt obliged to dismiss his findings; he had observed the girl grow and develop, subject to the same human clock that defined the stages of life.

Except, he remembered, that Erin Mathieson had not yet lost any baby teeth.

As Cameron worked, he began to recall what he had learned about the genetic experiments carried out upon the "superbeings" throughout the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries of Earth's history.

In those days, scientists had been experimenting with artificial selection, choosing offspring traits and altering the gene alleles to eliminate genetic diseases and weaknesses. Preserving the umbilical cord stem cells when the children were born, the scientists were able to grow new cellular materials in the event that the superbeings' organs failed or if they fell prey to disease.

However, some had not been content with the limitations of ethical science, and an illegal trade of body parts, brain tissues and enzymes, and foetal placentas had developed in the West.

"I just can't remember," Cameron shook his head, wondering if anyone knew when the international law had been passed preventing the importation of human body parts. Some literature from the day still survived on record depicting horrific stories of vagabond children being lured and butchered by human body part traders.

For ethical reasons, genetic alteration had been banned for hundreds of years, but now the council tried to push new experiments to create super-warrior children. Cameron himself was opposed to the idea, but he realized that the matter was out of his hands. His own knowledge of the secret experiments being conducted in New Quebec City had been one of the factors that led to his premature retirement.

"They are still trying to create a superwarrior, as they did in the ancient days." Only a rudimentary knowledge remained of those ancient days on Earth, but Cameron knew about the history of this subject.

Still, Cameron knew the council's experiments could not explain this case of genetic manipulation. As much as he would have liked to believe it, Cameron was under no illusions that the council had used Erin as a genetic experiment. He knew the limits of human knowledge in the field of gene alteration. But he did not entirely dismiss the idea that gene alteration was at work.

"How strange that we found Erin that day when the first alien ship arrived..." There had been no signs of life within it then or since, no reason for the ship to have landed on Earth. In contrast, the aliens at Charon had let the Earth know their intentions from the moment their presence was confirmed.

But on that first day, before the escalation of this new war, they had found Erin sitting quietly at the edge of the tree line, not two hundred meters from the end of the alien spacecraft. The child had spoken no language, but even at that first meeting later in his lab he had noticed her intelligence, how quickly she learned, and how carefully she observed her surroundings.

Then, he had thought her garment to be proof that she had come from the hermit colonies living in the wilds. How she had come to be wearing it, especially in light of this new evidence, remained one of the many mysteries he could not solve.

Yet, it was by no means a stochastic accident that she had been found that day, that much he understood. Erin simply could not be a child of the Earth. He accepted the realization with far less shock than he thought he would, as if he had long suspected something unusual about her, as if something had kept him from recognizing what that was.

Now that blindness had departed, and the truth was plain to see, staring him in the face; he could not imagine how he had overlooked it before.

Erin had arrived that day when the UESRC's fate changed forever, the day her spaceship had been buried beneath the Acadia cliff side and the fragments of the ancient waterfall. And, from the evidence he gathered today, clearly someone or some thing had tried to disguise her origins and had succeeded, at least superficially, in altering her pigmentation and body chemistry to present her as an Earthling.

But to what purpose? Cameron wondered. Erin herself didn't appear to remember her own origin. He couldn't believe that she was any kind of hostile threat, but perhaps his affection for the girl clouded his judgment, he thought. He couldn't deny his gut instinct—Erin appeared harmless, but she had been sent to the Earth for a reason, and that reason could be connected with the mysterious arrival of the second alien vessel.

Who are her people, and what do they want here?!

Perhaps, he thought, the other aliens had no connection with Erin's people at all—they had arrived in a ship by all reports nothing like the first.

Perhaps Erin's kind, too, had been attacked by the hostile creatures and chased to the Earth. There was no way of knowing.

Another conclusion which puzzled and elated Cameron was the mere fact that, although Erin's genetic sequences and biological composition proved her to be of alien origin, she was nevertheless a type of humanoid and remarkably similar genetically and physically to a human being.

Truly remarkable! If only he knew how it was all possible!

"I wonder if Erin's genetic code and DNA was artificially altered by her own people, not just to dissemble her appearance but perhaps to adapt her body for unknown survival conditions?" After all, her skeletal system, though nearly identical, showed slight fluctuations from the human standard in the eye sockets, hands and feet, jaw, and skull, though the differences might not have been noticed unless someone directly looked for them. Maybe somehow an observer could not detect the anomalies, unless Erin wanted them to be discovered. After all, Cameron thought, this was only the first time he had been able to unveil the mirage surrounding her. As though it was another kind of natural mind control.

"She is so amazing!" He laughed again. She had natural mind control abilities!

The initial discovery led to further enlightenment about the aliens aboard that first spaceship, such as Cameron had long prayed for; Erin's structure told him that the gravity of her home world, though close to the Earth's, must have been slightly less. Her chest capacity, likewise similar, was slightly larger to accommodate a lower atmospheric pressure.

But since Erin had grown up for the last few years on Earth, Cameron wondered how her initial physiognomy had been altered by Earth processes. Pulling out a chart he had saved from her first analysis, he compared it to the most recent x-ray image.

In the last three years, Erin's internal structure had altered itself. Where once her internal organs had closely followed the human pattern except for the lack of an appendix, they now had rearranged, pulling slightly away from the exterior and up into the abdominal cavity. Humanity's design had been a leftover remnant from the days when man's ancestors walked on four legs; eons of evolution hadn't yet changed the basic structure.

However, in three years, Erin's internal structure had repositioned itself to better suit an upright posture, to better cushion and protect her internal organs. It was as though her own ancestors had been always bipeds, or that they had been so many more years than humankind.

Testing her bone and muscle density and metabolic rate, Cameron attempted to pinpoint an accurate temperature for her home world, a reasonable sleep cycle half to a third of the length of the planet's rotational orbit, and the distance of the planet to its star. The structure and size of Erin's eyes, just slightly smaller and more elongated than his, indicated that the brightness of her home planet's star exceeded that of the sun, and he plugged his own estimate into the equation.

To his disappointment, however, his results in the equations varied from each region of her physical and chemical structure.

Erin's people could have lived within the range of 30 to 76 degrees Celsius, or from 3 to -77 degrees Celsius. Neither result seemed feasible, he realized in disappointment. Moreover, her sleep cycle showed to be an average of eight hours in duration, but she had been subject to Earthly conditions since childhood, which had doubtless affected his findings.

As a result, and to Cameron's extreme vexation, he was unable to determine the distance of the star to her home planet. But one thing was clear: the star that had supported life on her world was far brighter and hotter than their own. It could not be a type O or type B star, blue or blue-white. They were far too radioactive and short-lived to engender a living biosystem.

It had to have been a type A or F star, he thought, a white or yellow-white star hotter than the sun but old enough to have created a living planetary system.

Cameron shook his head, unsure again of his own calculations. Too many contradicting enzymes could be found in Erin's blood and tissues to accurately depict her origin, and his equations assumed comparability with human measurements and expectations. Perhaps Erin's alien system followed guidelines unknown and unimagined on Earth.

In any case, more questions had been raised than the information could present answers for. But for the time being, Cameron believed he had traced the cause of her irregular illnesses to the mystery of her circulatory system, and his hunch pointed the finger of blame at those odd "cancerous" and tri-nuclear cells. With that information, he hoped to establish a good diagnosis for her future.

And provide him an excuse to make further studies.

"But is it really cancer that she has?" He wondered.

At first, Cameron formed a hypothesis that the tri-nuclear cells turned ordinary cells into cancerous ones, but when he observed the cell nuclei of her "normal" cells, he had discovered those strange "buds" along the edge of the nuclear envelope. Perhaps as Erin grew, all of her cells developed into fully tri-nuclear cells, and the "cancerous" cells were only an intermediate stage of development.

As to the significance of this information, if it were the cause of her altered physical structure, Cameron could not even guess, at least not with the limited amount of time he had to observe Erin before her parents returned.

With less than an hour remaining, Cameron hadn't even progressed yet to study Erin's brainwave patterns, brain structure, or nervous system, which might have afforded some clues as to what traits her genes coded. He began to wonder what psychic abilities Erin possessed that only she knew about, and how these abilities might progress in time.

As he gazed at the girl softly breathing on the lab table, his heart was moved to pity. She must have felt different, isolated from others. But would it be any better if she knew her true origins? Or might she become a public curiosity, a pawn of the government? Would she lose the only family she had ever known? Eventually, Cameron realized, someone was going to find out who she was, especially if she were taken in for more extensive medical treatment.

"I fear the worst—as usual," thought Cameron.

Already Major Mathieson had indicated that Dr. Cepheras—whom Cameron admired personally, but mistrusted in all things work-related—and his team of unfeeling robots had shown an interest in obtaining genetic samples from Erin's lymphocytes. He reminded himself that he needed to deal with them, have the UESF confiscate their samples and send them to him. It was already bad enough that the UESF was paying geneticists to look for strains of "superbeings" to use as donors for test tube children.

What if they tried to use Erin's blood to create an Earth superbeing? The thought made Cameron shudder.

All of a sudden he realized it didn't matter to him why Erin had been sent to the Earth. Cameron knew in his heart that it was best to keep her identity secret, and not just for her sake. What good would it do to hand her over to be dissected by Cepheras' gang? He could predict their course of action. They would blame her for the war—or assume that she was a part of the threat and punish her for the crimes of the Charon aliens. Or destroy her.

But Erin was at least a humanoid, and the aliens at Charon had never been seen before. No one knew a thing about their body chemistry. His own analysis of the metal and crystal fragments taken after the destruction of Statue City suggested that they had been formed on a planet of slightly lesser gravity and greater average temperature than that of Earth. The evidence favored a different point of origin for the Charon aliens.

And knowing what they were capable of convinced him that Erin might already be the war's greatest surviving victim.

But having little evidence to back up his sentiments, he would do his best to protect her. If he had his way, he would see to it that no one ever found out that she was anyone other than Erin Mathieson.

"I won't let them do a damn thing to her," he thought to himself.

* * * * *

When Richard Mathieson and Sasha Blair returned to Cameron's quarters that evening, they found Erin playing a game of hide-and-seek with the doctor. As the couple entered, Erin emerged from behind the forest green sofa and rushed into her parents' arms.

"How did the tests go, Doctor?" Sasha enquired calmly, smoothing Erin's hair back behind her ears. She thought Cameron took his time in answering, and noted his preoccupation with watching the interaction between mother and daughter.

"Ah yes, well... First," Cameron paused, indicating with a gesture that they should come sit beside him as he gave them his prognosis, "I don't believe that her condition is terminal."

Richard and Sasha both let out an audible breath and brightened in spirits.

"Well what is the cause—"

"Why is she—"

"Please, give me a moment." Cameron put up a hand in protest to silence them. "Your civilian doctor wasn't entirely accurate in his assessments. Trust me when I say that Erin's condition will improve, though she will from time to time suffer an occasional relapse. These will probably cause her a great deal of pain, but I want to assure you that they are nothing serious. I'm afraid she has a permanent but viable, rare cardiovascular condition and something similar to cancer.

"Now, I recommend you not bring Erin to any more civilian doctors. If she's in great pain and it's necessary for her to see a physician for any reason, I suggest you bring her here for treatment at any time—"

"Oh but we couldn't impose upon you—" Sasha began to object.

"Sasha, the reason I'm suggesting that Erin remain under my care alone is because her condition is so rare. Those who are unable to treat her unique needs properly may end up doing her more harm than good." Cameron's gaze drifted to the little girl sleeping on her mother's lap.

More harm than you know, he reflected.

"Oh well in that case, Doctor, we'd appreciate your involvement." Sasha agreed gratefully. "It did seem to me that Bredesen wasn't getting any real results."

"All he was interested in was studying Erin like a lab rat." Richard added derisively, his forehead furrowing as he recalled the memory of their last visit. "He didn't care about Erin at all—he wanted a case study to establish her disease."

"I see." Cameron paused thoughtfully. "Well, if you can bring Erin in to me twice a year for checkups for the next ten years, I can give her all the medication she needs and administer her annual in depth-physical for her files—without forcing her to give any blood samples. I believe that, more than anything, is causing her condition to degenerate. The blood tests might be weakening her." And I have no intention of letting them fall into the wrong hands.

"I am going to do something unprecedented, and restrict access to her medical file and case. She will not be allowed to be treated by any medical doctors if I do this, and will have to be brought to me personally for all medical treatment," Cameron insisted. "It's a rare thing to do, but I feel that it is necessary."

"What if she's in training and needs medical attention, doctor? Can't the military specialists give her treatment?" Sasha, Cameron noticed, had already begun to consider Erin's future, despite what Bredesen and the others had told her about Erin's slim chances.

"Not without your consent on the medical forms," Cameron sighed. "I'm going to make up a case file to be put in her records with my suggested treatment, but I urge you not to sign the forms allowing blood or tissue tests. If she receives treatment above what I have prescribed, there may be drug interactions, and the effects could be catastrophic."

"We'll do as you say, for Erin's sake, Doctor." Richard managed, then licked his lips. "We can't thank you enough for your kindness."

"That's enough of that, now," Cameron said, dismissing their gratitude affectionately. "Just take good care of my little friend there and we'll call it even."

Chapter Fifteen

"Home at last," Knightwood said thankfully. Now back at the UESRC, Knightwood was glad to have the chance to rest in her office after four days of meetings at the Aries Council Headquarters in Central City.

"What a mess it is in here," she thought out loud, noticing the disorder she had created just as she left the last time.

Only ten short days ago, two days after the Stargazer left on its maiden flight to Charon, Knightwood had received a code one emergency order to launch the untested defense missiles into space, on a vector that opened only a brief twenty minutes after the orders arrived. The defense missiles had proven to be a successful investment, managing to destroy the three alien ship carriers coming from Pluto that had bypassed the Stargazer and reached the moon's orbit.

Caught off guard by the Earth's change of tactics, they had been too close to the Earth, slowing for entry into the atmosphere when the missiles hit. Reports confirmed that the remnants of the vessels had been caught in an orbit around the planet, and some of the UESRC and Ural base scientists sent out a shuttle to collect the fragments for study.

The success of the defense missiles had contributed to the boost in morale that had been building the past few months with the construction and launch of the Stargazer and the radar invisible nuclear missiles she carried with her.

Although the fragments had been analyzed with a tedious and painstaking collaborative effort among the scientists from all over the world, they had yielded little information about the alien's origins or biochemistry, and in fact, nothing more than had already been known. Still, for the general population, this disappointment did nothing to hinder the celebrations taking place.

However, only a week after the maiden flight of the Stargazer, Captain Kansier relayed a message to Earth which dissipated the celebratory atmosphere:

"Nuclear weapon destroyed by the aliens seventy-six thousand kilometers before striking the target." An image remained in the viewscreen of that defeat, near the surface of Pluto.

Moreover, Kansier had disastrous news to report concerning the repercussions of their failure: the resulting radiation of the nuclear blast had affected several large asteroids in the area and sent them hurtling towards Charon and Pluto. The asteroids had hit with so much force that they had vaporized the surface of both planetoids. Not having foreseen any possibility of failure, much less such a disaster, the council had taken this news hard.

"Chicken shit," Knightwood sighed. The failure had come as no surprise to the scientists at the UESRC, but disappointment permeated the air for another reason. As a result of the nuclear blast, the surface of Pluto, which told the story of its evolution and ancient origin, had been erased forever, to refreeze as a disgustingly smooth enormous icy billiard ball. Even the remnants of the Earth base on Pluto's surface had been melted into the crust of the planet, vanishing forever without a trace.

Knightwood clicked off the view of the smooth ice ball Pluto.

"I can't handle this." She sighed, wondering where Zhdanov might be at this moment.

Days had passed as the crew of the Stargazer waited tensely for signs of further activity from the alien vessel, but no retaliation had ever been launched, and the Stargazer continued to hold its position on the shielded side of the blue giant Neptune.

Knightwood gazed at a status bar—no new messages from Kansier.

Meanwhile, at the UESRC, Knightwood had just presented status reports to the council outlining the deployment of the newest fleet of space cruisers, six vessels slightly smaller than the Stargazer and more expeditiously constructed, though very similar in design and operation. The crews had been already selected and informed, and their departure was scheduled for the next morning from the Ural Base where all but the two from Central City had been constructed.

"Blast it," Knightwood sighed, She found it hard even in the relative safety of her office to clear her mind of the conversation on the last day of the meetings the day before, when she had again been subjected to another moral debate following her own report. Someone on the UESF Council had casually raised the question as to how the Earth might best maintain the defense squadrons in the future, given the present population and the heavy casualties incurred since the aliens had begun to attack the Earth.

Gradually, the Secretary had worked his way towards introducing a solution he felt was justified: at some unspecified point in the near future, the scientific community must begin to create test-tube "super-children", preferably ones "genetically suited" to fulfilling a the singular responsibility—the defense of the Earth.

Knightwood had been relieved to hear objections to this proposal coming from around her and felt reassured that the world hadn't entirely gone insane—yet.

"I hope that bastard doesn't get his way," she thought to herself.

Moral objections aside, Knightwood doubted whether it was even possible to provide the care necessary to nurture thousands of artificially created children. The facilities simply did not exist, at least not to shelter the numbers Secretary Hilbert envisioned. Ectogenesis—essentially, growing children to maturity in the laboratory—though popular currently, was still a closely monitored procedure for which families, single fathers, and single mothers had to apply for. Moreover, only a handful of children had been cloned since the laws of the late twenty-fourth century that banned human cloning on grounds of preservation of Darwin's laws.

Ectogenesis had once been misused before and had caused massive social instability, in that it had created a large, parentless, and isolated class of government pawns. The laws created to ban ectogenesis were considered just.

As useful as it might be to augment the defense force, Knightwood could not condone the suggestion of cloning "superchildren". Many of the UESF Council members present made arguments that reflected Knightwood's private sentiments.

The logic of the socialization of the youth for defense did not escape Knightwood, however, even if she did not agree with Secretary Hilbert's suggestion. In Knightwood's own experience watching the cadets at the UESRC, she knew that the younger pilots were already developing into better soldiers because they were being raised for battle.

"What the hell is this world coming to?"

* * * * *

The planet was named for the ancient Roman god of the sea, and like the sea, it too seemed tranquil on the surface. Yet he had to remind himself that the sea had its share of tempests, and that beneath its sonorous waves, storms to ravage the boldest of mankind also brewed.

"Any change, Lieutenant?" Kansier barked at the pilot now that the bridge was empty except for them alone.

"None, sir. We're cruising at maximum speed, no sign of any of our bogies yet." Said the lieutenant pilot with a grin. "I've got it all under control, sir, nothing to worry about yet."

"Good," said Kansier. "I want you to keep circling the planet until we do attract their attention." Kansier said, "let me know if something changes." And with that, Kansier settled back into his own chair at the rear of the command room.

The gas giant Neptune filled Kansier with a great unease, this horrifically vast, achingly beautiful planet. Weeks passed monotonously while he sat faithfully rooted to his position in his command chair, looking out the forward viewport at the rotation of this voluminous planet the color of the deep blue oceans on Earth, occasionally dotted by thready white cirrus clouds. There was not much to do but wait.

The Earth itself would have been no bigger than an island on the great planet, had there been any islands. Truly, Earth only measured up to the size of the Great Dark Spot, that unceasing storm that swirled mesmerizingly across Neptune's southern hemisphere.

"I could use a good cup of coffee," Kansier thought with a sigh.

He was still gazing out at the view. There were more hospitable regions upon which travelers such as Kansier and his crew might land. Far less like the great planet and more like the naked moon of Earth, the eight rocky moons of Neptune occasionally passed between the Stargazer and a clear view of the gas giant. Tiny dots they seemed from this distance, crossing the face of Neptune in a never-ending race, although one of the participants, the rebellious Triton, circled the planet in the opposite direction.

How haunting the close-up frames of these planetoids had been, Kansier thought; pocked and scarred but infinitely silent and presently static, they certainly contrasted with the constant motion and vitality of the planet they encircled.

Idly, Kansier began to hum an old tune; he had forgotten the words years ago, but the melody pleased him.

A man could die from waiting like this, Kansier thought to himself, and turned his attention once more on the mesmerizing globe in the forward viewport. He thought about reading another book, but had no interest in it at that moment.

Artificial light had been washed into the image through the viewport's clear metal, a transparent substance that had been designed with the capacity of illuminating the image of regions of space such as this, where the far-away sun appeared as only a distant star on Neptune's brighter side.

"It's so peaceful here," Kansier said suddenly.

"Sir?" asked the communications officer.

"Yes, it's hard to believe that we're at war sitting way out here in space."

"It is, sir," agreed the communications officer.

"But we have to stay on our toes. They could attack us any time. Let's hope they do, rather than attacking the Earth."

Kansier did not mind the present state of peace, but he was ever conscious of the fact that only this thin plate of metal, as strong as it might be, separated him from certain suffocation in the hideously crushing cold of outer space. And he did not trust the quiet.

In the three months that the Stargazer waited poised above the eighth planet, the crew had seen no sign of enemy activity. That did not mean that the aliens were not sending out their ship carriers; it was just that the aliens had diverted their course away from the Stargazer and the other Earth space cruisers, easily lacing through their weak defensive blockade. Radar reports confirmed that they had dived beneath the solar system disk when the Earth cruisers announced their presence only to resurface undetected on a new course heading for the Earth.

Which made Kansier feel like an idiot waiting out here at Neptune while alien assault ships bypassed him.

In Kansier's opinion, the failure of the hide-and-strike defense tactics indicated that a new, offensive course of action was necessary if the fleet had any hope of detaining the aliens in their progression towards the Earth. And no one knew how much longer their great flagship would wait out there, circling like a predator ready to strike.

As hopeless as it might be, Kansier realized that this offensive measure might involve a brief direct attack upon the deadly alien ship, exposing the fleet to the enemy, and hoping that they could retreat to the other side of Charon alive after they had taken out the smaller alien cruisers that were being periodically sent towards the Earth; as yet nothing had been able to inflict any damage upon the great alien flagship, though Kansier suspected that the UESF had hopes of assessing weak points in the alien flagship.

"We're a dead target sitting out here, and still they won't attack us," Kansier sighed.

Kansier himself did not relish the idea of making himself a target; in fact it was for this reason that he had initially supported the defensive strikes at Neptune and Saturn, yet in his heart he had doubted they would be very successful. It had sounded plausible at first that a number of alien cruisers could be detained en route to the Earth, but the alien vessels seemed to have sensed their presence and taken another clear path to the Earth, undetected by the fleet at Neptune, Saturn, or Mars.

Kansier still approved of the defense-strike tactic as a means of launching interceptive counter-missiles in the event that the alien mothership targeted the Earth itself, but who knew how long the Earth could manage to withstand the constant fear of sudden attacks?

The missiles they had launched from so far away had been destroyed before they could approach the alien mother ship. Though he was not sure how it might be done, Kansier felt certain that they must find a way to get close to the alien vessel, perhaps a secret way along the lines of the radar-invisible envelope that had surrounded the nuclear missile. One thing was definite: they could not continue to sit back and let the aliens outsmart them.

The Earth is going to have to plan an offensive assault, one that will provide some clues as to the aliens' motives, no matter how long it takes.

Most of the council who had spoken to Kansier via delayed relay transmissions since he had gone to Neptune still seemed optimistic, as though they hadn't quite accepted the failure of the missiles or the mission itself.

But the time had come for a change in policy, and when Kansier returned to the Earth in two months, he would be paying a visit on the UESF council in Central City to make his report. Yes, he vowed silently. even if they didn't like what he had to tell them, they were going to swallow their pride and take their medicine.

Dammit, there are going to be some changes, like it or not!
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb.

—Robert Browning

Chapter Sixteen

"How cold it is out there, I wonder?" Scott Dimitriev pressed his nose against the clear metal window and stared at the activity far below the city, where transport tunnels shuttled passengers, weaving between the tall, unadorned, geometrically shaped apartment buildings. He had been waiting three hours for his father to come home from the Synthetics Building, where his father Aleksander Alekseivich had worked the past fifteen years.

The metal pane began to fog under his warm, moist breath, obscuring the view beneath him; Scott breathed harder, viciously blotting out the continuous traffic of transports.

It's so unfair! he thought. Life had gone on without mom and his sister! At least, he thought, other people's lives had gone on. He had never recovered from the death of his mother and twin sister.

"I hate living up here," he said out loud, with some frustration. Scott pushed himself away abruptly to remove himself from the activity below and sat down on the hard floor, leaning against the corner wall, knees drawn up in front of him. Outside the great window, a sea of static black towers reflected the light back to him, shining under the invisible dome that contained Central City, the city where he had been born, a city located in the heart of the American continent, just south of the Great Lakes.

The dome, Scott thought darkly. The dome was a farce! It hadn't protected them, so what else was it good for, except as a cage to confine them?

I am going to do it, mother. I am going to join up. Just let father try and stop me this time.

Scott sat in a frustrated state of mind, excited that he might have found his chance to go into space—yet his young heart was filled with anger and filled with dread. How could he break the news to his father? His unsettled emotions kept stirring up his thoughts, so much that he felt certain words would fail him when the time came, and how he resented that thought.

Scott already knew his own mind, and yet for some reason, he had never before been able to win an argument with his own father.

The more he thought about this, the angrier, the more frustrated he became. Why could he not choose his own future? Why did he need his father's approval? He was going to try again, anyway.

The anger dissipated when Scott realized he was not really angry at his father, only irritated that his father had thus far kept him from satisfying his need for vengeance. He just had to go! In nearly everything else, Scott agreed with his father, even admired his father's views; all the more reason why he could not understand his father's position on this matter.

Scott jumped up when the automatic door flashed open; all at once he found himself robbed of speech and immobile. Aleksander came in, dropped his belongings inside the foyer of their apartment, almost knocking over the plate ceramic on the entry table, and took a few steps forward into the dining facility center, then spotted his son.

"Good, evening, Scott," he called, and then Aleksander continued whistling a tune he had heard sometime during that day.

Scott could only follow his father's movement with his eyes while Aleksander called Scott's younger sister, Lara, to join them for the evening meal.

Scott finally pointed helplessly to a crumpled piece of printout strip; Aleksander stopped a moment to glance at the words printed into it as Lara skipped into the room, half out of breath.

"Father, I have to go," Scott announced.

"You have to go where? To kiss your sister and tell her she's your sweetheart?" Aleksander could see that resolution in his son's eyes and posture. Aleksander sensed it. Scott was only eleven years old, but his eyes were resolute. Aleksander usually respected his son and his son's opinions. But he was not going to humor him.

"Father, you know what I meant." Scott was extremely intelligent, headstrong but usually sensible (when he did not let his temper or emotions get the better of him). He was resistant to change and slow to make critical judgments of others. Also, Scott hated injustice and was a champion of the weak. Scott had a keen sense of justice and injustice; his nature frequently compelled him to right whatever he thought had gone wrong.

"I know, and I told you already how I feel about it." What could he say to calm the youth this time? The father wondered.

"Father, I have to go! There's been another call for young trainees!"

At first, there was a dreadful silence. Then—

"I won't have you going off into space some day to get yourself killed, and that is the end of it!" Aleksander's voice rose helplessly, coming as close to a shout as his calm disposition allowed. While the son now turned calm, the father found he could not. Lose another child? Lose his only son? No, Aleksander knew what was best. His heart told him what to do. And what he could never allow.

Scott said nothing. Aleksander knew better than to trust Scott's silence. Scott was too much like his mother, stubborn and willful, and yet, Aleksander thought, it was as though he were physically facing his younger self. Aleksander's extended family had lived in Coast Charles for two generations.

Aleksander kept his own ambitions and opinions secret—and the thoughts behind them.

"I can go to the preliminary tests and be back the same day, father." Scott said, viewing Lara with a critical eye, knowing deep down that she would support her older brother if she could, but she was too young to be of any real help. Perhaps sensing this, Lara flashed him a sympathetic look and retreated to the other room.

"And what good would that do if I won't let you join the flight programs?" Aleksander said, regaining composure.

"Please, let me go this time!" Scott persisted, not allowing himself to be chemically calmed by the family robot as he waved the machine away.

"I won't allow it. I am not trying to be cruel, but there's no sense in volunteering to go, or going at all until they draft everyone into service." Aleksander remained firm on this occasion as he had so often before, though he was not insensitive to the integrity beneath his son's request. "What have you been training for all of this time, Scott?! You're going to become a developmental project scientist someday. That is what we decided."

"I never wanted that, father, and you know it."

"Good Lord, son! The military are all dying out there, one after another!" Aleksander shook his head.

"I'm not afraid to die."

"Because you aren't thinking clearly. Do you have any idea how many people have been killed at the Charon front?"

Scott didn't answer, quietly squirming under his father's argument, but Aleksander pressed on.

"Scott, for once try to appreciate how lucky you are. You have the qualifications and ability to become a research scientist and avoid flight service. Stop being so unreasonable."

"I'm being unreasonable, even though you're the one who won't listen."

"There are millions who would be grateful for the opportunities you have. You might even find a position in the research and developmental programs." Aleksander said, putting a glass of wine down on the table.

"Not if I refuse it." Scott rejoined. "Or sabotage myself. They'll put me into flight service, anyway. Untrained."

"No, you won't!" Aleksander shouted.

"No, I won't," Scott agreed. "Not if you let me go."

"Scott, I will not be coerced by my own son!" Aleksander said. "I'm putting my foot down. You will have to learn to accept what's best for you."

"Father, she's gone! She's dead!"

"Scott—"

"Nothing will bring her back, father! And I won't let you keep me here because you want to hold on to memories of a happy family—don't you see I have to go? I'm no coward!" Scott threw at him. His eyes began to burn, but he would not cry.

"But—I promised her I'd keep you here, where it's safe!" Aleksander's voice remained steady, but inside his resolve at last wavered.

"There isn't such a place, father." The boy stated calmly, his expression defiant.

Aleksander Alekseivich looked deep into his son's eyes and recognized the courage there that he had taken for foolishness.

"Who taught you to be so wise, huh?" Aleksander shook his head, weakening.

"Father, I must fight for what I believe in! I have to do it for mother... and for Katya."

Aleksander reacted as though he had been slapped. The name had been unutterable for both Aleksander and his son, as though to speak it might summon back painful visions of the owner. Aleksander did not understand until then that Scott had never let go of his memories of her. For in all of these years since his twin sister Ekaterina's death, Scott had never shown any outward sign of grief.

Aleksander had always thought his own grief ran deeper than his son's. He knew a boy needed his mother, but Aleksander had lost his soul mate, his beloved wife, and a daughter more precious to him than any material thing he possessed. His little girl—yes, he remembered the game they used to play. He would pull on her imagined whiskers with both hands while she made a suitable cat face and purred at him. Then she would step away, curl up, and pretend to pounce on him. He always let her win. And Scott—Scott was always her protector, her defender, who would rescue her from the vile wizard's clutches—

Suddenly Aleksander understood his son. Mary had called Ekaterina "Kat", and so the rest of them did. But "Katya" had been Scott's special name for her when they were small, when they had played the days away together, lost in their own world. They had been closer than any brother and sister could be, indifferent to the world imposed upon them and to all of its rules, of one mind, always in agreement.

Perhaps this would have changed, and they would have begun to go their separate ways, but Katya had been taken before Scott could have imagined a world without her. He had lost his childhood that day, as though he had wrapped it up and put it away in some sacred part of his heart.

"All right, Scott, my son." Aleksander said quietly after a moment. "Do what you must do for them. You are right not to fight your natural feelings." He said, sighing. "Go ahead. You choose your own destiny."

* * * * *

"Erin's annual physical is approaching." Cameron had just settled into his new apartment in the urban zone of Central City when he received the message from the Statue City base. Richard Mathieson had sent the video communiqué to remind him.

Cameron then reminded himself to mark the date of the physical on the calendar, but then he remembered that this year he had planned on traveling to Statue City and visiting the family. He had accepted their long-standing offer, and planned to treat Erin in the medical wing Mathieson had reserved, at Cameron's insistence, for the day of the exam.

"Now bother, what have I done with my electronic book?" he wondered, getting ready to pack his belongings up for the trip.

Cameron always found it interesting to see how the girl adapted to her environment and grew more human; nearing the age of nine, she still had no idea of her true identity. Or did she? Cameron often wondered about that, but if she knew, she didn't let on.

To his disappointment, Cameron had only been able so far to conduct a preliminary examination of Erin's brain with the time constraints pressed on him as her parents waited during the physicals. He pored over the data he had collected for countless hours in the privacy of his apartment. His instruments had picked up increased electromagnetic activity near the examination table. He had made a breakthrough in interpreting her brainwaves by correlating them to the frequencies and cycles of the increased activity near her. The understanding had led him to a more than a few far-fetched conclusions.

First, she was telepathic.

If he was not mistaken, Erin should be able to transmit her thoughts to others at will, something no human had yet learned to do, although he was not sure if the process could be reversed—if she could receive extraneous brainwaves. As soon as he had made the discovery, Cameron had begun to search the evidence for signs of other exotic brain activity, such as telekinesis, but his search ended in failure.

Even if he had known what to look for, his subject had not been conscious at the time of the exam, and the brainwave output seemed to have been reduced by some conservation mechanism within the body.

Yet Cameron did not completely rule out further possibilities of unusual talents surfacing in Erin Mathieson. As he watched her year to year during her brief visits to his quarters, he noticed a kind of self-denial in her daily activities inhibiting the manifestation of her extraordinary abilities.

He began to wonder if Erin knew of the innate extra-sensory abilities he had recorded within her. And perhaps her talents could remain dormant without proper indoctrination in how to use them. After all, he reflected, baby birds are born with wings, but without their parent's care and coaxing, they never learn to fly.

Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.

—St. Augustine

Chapter Seventeen

Only her eyes betrayed her thoughts, and few enough people ever interpreted their expression correctly. She was a very reserved girl, but not willfully secretive, independent, stubborn but fair-minded, and logical to a superlative degree. She could be emotional, but was not often.

She was self-motivated and seldom allowed herself the luxury of momentary pleasures. She liked to play hard, and to win.

She was about Earth fourteen years old in appearance, and felt much older.

She did not know how very much older she was.

* * * * *

"So what are you doing here by yourself? Are you lost?" an adolescent male voice asked, as its owner at last drew near. It seemed likely that the stranger had been watching her from behind for some time as she made her way towards the recreational bulletin board.

She turned sharply to face the intruder, who turned out to be a boy around her age, with thick, dark hair, pale skin, and intelligent, quietly critical eyes. He was tall, muscular, and wiry, with a light stride that defied the Earth to hold him.

As his victim turned on him, Scott Dimtriev instantly forgot why he was grinning, caught up in the bluest eyes of the girl before him.

She was wearing an intent expression, then half-smiled at him. The combination of her mannerisms affected him in the oddest way, and a way that none ever before had affected him, nor would anyone after her affect him in quite the same way, though he didn't have even the faintest suspicion of this at the time.

Scott felt ashamed to have been teasing her and wished he knew how to make her smile; he recovered, rethought his mortification about teasing her and decided he had done no real harm. The tactic always worked in the end. Yes, he decided, he was going to make her smile. His decision made, the only thing which remained was waiting until it came about.

"Lost?" Scott asked, wearing a lop-sided grin.

"No," she said, still staring at him in miscomprehension. "Looking around." Privately, Erin was stewing over the strange contradictions between what she instinctively imagined this boy's stubborn, somewhat noble character to be and the silly manner he had adopted in talking to her. Perhaps she was wrong, but she sensed that he was a highly complex and motivated person, even though his questions were simple enough, and direct.

Perhaps it was the indefinable way he carried himself, or perhaps it was the objectively calculating look in his eyes. Or perhaps because she saw a sharp mind and focused will beneath his quick, deliberate, but effortless movements.

"I'm taking the third year flight exam today," she offered.

The boy's grin melted into a look of surprise. "Oh, so you really do belong here." He laughed. "Sorry about that." He didn't sound very sorry.

"Well, and what are you doing here?" Erin wondered. "Aren't you too old to be taking third year exams?

He smiled indulgently at her. "I'm fifteen," he said, "but then, I had to wait to enter the flight training program. I only began pilot training a year ago, so I've come a long way in a short amount of time. And that isn't an easy thing to do."

"Oh." Erin stuttered.

Scott watched as the girl made an attempt to escape him, and felt it as a challenge not to let her. He took a step closer to remain in her field of vision.

"So, what's your name, kid?" He asked, determined not to let her get away so easily, after all. Erin tensed at his words, hesitating.

"That bad, eh?" he laughed.

"What?" Erin asked, confused and annoyed.

"Well obviously you don't like your name very much, or you'd tell me what it is." He said.

"That's not true."

"You don't want me to know it, then, Gertrude? Maybe I'll just have to start calling you Gertrude—"

"It's Erin Mathieson-Blair." Erin cried at last, unable to take his game any longer.

She watched him anxiously, waiting for a sign of recognition, hoping he wasn't going to adopt the usual "oh so that's how you got here" look. Perhaps Scott would have said something along those lines, but at that moment, the comnet interrupted.

"Aamodt, Gunnar, report to flight exam area nine. Dimitriev, Scott. Five minutes. Ryder, John, ten minute warning..."

"Well, that's me." Scott said, combing a hand quickly through his hair and then again. His reaction to the call was two-tiered. Though he was excited, he was also rather annoyed at being separated from the lovely and opinionated and rather adorable Miss Mathieson-Blair. Who, he realized didn't even know his name yet. Time to remedy that.

"Since you've been so sweet and agreeable, my name's Scott, Scott Dimitriev." He told her. "Strange to say it, but a few minutes ago I couldn't wait to get the first half of this test over with—I've been waiting forever to take it—and now that the moment's finally arrived here I am getting nervous. Makes no sense, does it?" he confided.

"It's understandable, how you feel." She nodded.

"You really think so?" He said, looking at her almost wishfully, then dismissed a random approving thought. She was probably just making polite conversation. "I suppose people always imagine their own situation to be unique, when it really isn't. Have you eaten lunch?"

"No."

"Then meet me in mess hall for lunch if you've got no one else to sit with."

"All right," she agreed.

* * * * *

Erin spent the next hour wandering about the complex, finding herself drawn to the cafeteria almost against her will. She sat at a table for a while fidgeting and watched the table beside her empty and fill up again twice before deciding to leave. As she stood, she recognized Scott entering the room.

At the same time, a young girl rushed over to him and yanked his hair. He wrenched around and made a move for her long, golden-brown hair in retaliation, but she danced away. After a moment they gave up the childish antics and settled into talking; Erin thought to strain her ears towards their conversation, but decided against it. She got up to leave, but just as she was about to reach the door safely, she felt a hand on her arm.

"Where do you think you're going?" Erin half-turned around. Scott was smiling in a smug way. The girl was standing beside him, and she was smiling, too.

"This is my sister, Lara," he said, letting go of her arm. Lara, this is Erin Mathieson-Blair."

Lara wasn't as tactful as her brother.

"You aren't serious?" She blurted.

"Well, anyway, she claims her parents are Mathieson and Blair." Scott said, receiving a brief glowering look from Erin.

"The ones who discovered the first alien ship and defeated the Charon aliens at Statue City?" Lara blustered, her eyes widening, her tongue catching in her throat. She swallowed compulsively, blinked in awe, and thrust a hand out to shake Erin's. Erin took it hesitantly, and let Lara shake it several times before she let go.

"I didn't do something special, though, did I?" Erin said uncomfortably.

Scott laughed in a way that managed to tease his sister. "Hungry? I'll go get us something to eat. Lara was just leaving."

Lara visibly remembered that she was leaving, and shrugged apologetically.

"My flight test starts in half an hour, so I guess I should go to the simulation room." She explained. "Then I'm going to head back to my room and get in some studying for the written test. I'm in the group scheduled to take it tomorrow."

"Good idea, sis, why don't you head back and attack those electric textvolumes." Scott agreed.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Erin." Lara said in a hurry, responding to her brother's desire to hurry her along, though she smiled brightly. "I'll see you later, Scott. Don't bore her too much with all of your stories, okay?" She smirked, then hurried away, returning to her table to pick up her tray.

Scott shook his head, smiling agreeably. Lara seldom ever retaliated so well.

Erin sat down again while Scott went over to collect two lunch trays for them; he returned with both balanced on his palms while she kept their seats free.

For a while as they ate, they talked about the flight tests. This was established protocol; every time cadets met each other, they always talked of training, test flights, and cadet ranks. Erin was tired of protocol.

"Are you from Central City?" she ventured, interrupting something about a silly trick one of his friends had played on their Trainer.

"You read minds, then, Ms. Mathieson-Blair?" Scott laughed in surprise.

"Don't be ridiculous." Erin shook her head.

"Well, how else could you know?" He teased, then shrugged. "There are only ten of us here from Central City taking the tests this year. I'm from the northeast sector. We've lived there since my sister Lara was born. She's younger than you I guess, eleven but only a first year."

"You two are close?"

He nodded. "She tagged along when I finally joined the training program. My dad almost didn't let her go to the school with me—we're fortunate enough to train in the city we come from and live at home."

"Then you must have been there when the aliens attacked the city." Erin said. "I remember the shelters—we were hiding near the commercial center, hoping that they wouldn't collapse the support pillars and crush us. I remember the echo of the passage by us thundering as they collapsed the skyway tunnel."

Scott responded with a distant look. It was the first time she had seen such a dark expression on his face. "My mother and twin sister died during that attack." He said bluntly, his stomach screwing up into knots.

I shouldn't have brought it up, he thought darkly.

"I'm so sorry—I had no idea." Erin said quietly, then stopped suddenly.

Her heart was pounding. It was coming back. She tried to shake it but couldn't. The sensation reached her, filled her, and above the drone of the cafeteria she heard ghostly screams that belonged to another event, years ago, shrill feminine screams of agony as the world collapsed around them.

Erin heard an announcement waking her and knew with horror that they were dead when they didn't answer back when she called to them through the thick, obscuring vapor of smoke and dust and the rubble of a city reduced to nothing but ash and fire and darkness swarming round. She shivered, her eyes stinging with cold tears as she called their names frantically

"Don't worry about it." As Scott said it, Erin's vision faded. "I'm sad that it happened, but I know I have to accept it. Nothing can change it. It's just hard to live on, you know? It changed my perspective on life; I don't expect things to always work out for me anymore." He glanced up but continued to stir his tea. He tried to take tight control over his emotions once more. "Wait a minute—how is it that you were in that attack?" He asked suddenly. "I thought your family lived at the Statue City Base."

"We were living at the UESRC at the time," Erin admitted, "but my parents were on temporary assignment in Central City overseeing the final preparations of our second flagship, the Hyperion."

"But how can you possibly remember it? You couldn't have been very old."

"It made an impression on me." Erin said quietly.

"I suppose so." Scott swallowed a lump in his throat. Detestable lump it was, betraying what he tried so hard not to feel or to show to anyone. "On that day I swore that I would make sure it never happened again," he added decisively, with words like wrought iron; he couldn't seem to stem them or the emotion behind them, no matter how hard he consciously tried. "I know I can't really fulfill that vow, but I have every intention of trying to live up to it."

"That's why you're here?"

He nodded. "I was turned down time and again for the training program because I was too anxious to get to the front line. They knew I wanted to get my revenge on the aliens. They wouldn't take me because they said I was reckless, that I might endanger others; I suppose I deserved that, though. After my mother and sister died, I was much less willing to sit around planning my future. When I realized I could die anytime, no matter what I'd left unresolved or undone, I don't know—taking a risk wasn't so scary anymore."

"And you kept going, despite the setbacks."

"What does giving up ever accomplish?"

"Nothing. But obsession is usually a selfish pursuit."

"Selfish? My sister Lara would disagree." He laughed. "She thinks obsessions are tragically noble."

"Noble? Well now, aren't you being modest!" Erin teased.

"On the contrary, I never said I agreed with her." He shrugged. "Anyway, I'm not certain I can think my situation through rationally, since I'm the one living it. Still, I haven't got that many underlying selfish motives and nothing to gain by appearances. I just want to right an old wrong and settle a debt for my family. Romanticism doesn't mean much to me. Romantic notions of nobility aren't worth much either."

"I suppose, though, that your sister has a point. Obsession could be tragically noble, if others find the obsessed person worth lamenting." Erin smiled at him slyly. "But even then, a man's obsession has got to be something he didn't ask for or ever expect, in other words."

He smiled affectionately. "So, Erin, what were we talking about?"

"You weren't going to give up on becoming a pilot."

"Ah—yes."

"So, what were you doing before you joined the pilots' program?"

"I was training in another field—actually, I just finished my specialization when they finally accepted me in the pilot training program. I was about to take up an internship in the Biochemical Analysis Department at the UE—well, I suppose the 'where' isn't important anymore."

"I'm sure you could have done a lot of good where you were, too." Erin said. "The Biochemical Analysis Division is doing a lot to help us fight this war."

Scott shrugged. "I know that. But it's the duty of everyone on Earth who has the heart to fight to protect our planet, isn't it? And I can't sit idly by talking about beans until I've made sure that what happened to my family won't happen to anyone else."

"I don't like that word." Erin said quietly.

"What—duty?" Scott said, remembering how she had flinched when he said it.

"Duty—or obligation, whatever you call it." Erin nodded. "Just don't make it sound as though we had another choice." She added.

"Don't we though?" He asked, narrowing his eyes. "Some people aren't fighting. The cowards." Didn't she understand duty and honor? If she resented her duty, how could she understand honor? he wondered.

"In my opinion, duty is a terrible thing, even if you choose to fight." Erin said, meeting his gaze with her own, unflinching eyes. "'Someone has to' if we want to survive. Duty is just self-preservation. We have a horrible habit of clouding it with smoke of honor and glory to entice people in, and threats of shame to keep them enlisting. How noble is that? Where's the choice? Some people who refuse to fight are noble, not cowards. Standing on principle because they are not the kind of people who can fight, and maybe they'll die without resistance, but at least with their honor in tact."

"Interesting way of looking at it—and true, in some respects," he admitted. "I guess you are rather opinionated for your age." He laughed, making a joke to hide the fact that he was really laughing at himself.

"Age has nothing to do with it." Erin said, shrugging. "Except maybe that people are easier to control when they're young. All this talk of duty has us all rushing to get ourselves killed. We're too young to be afraid. Each one of us still thinks he'll be the one to survive, somehow—"

"I understand your point, but—"

"You're training for revenge." She interrupted. "So you know exactly what you're getting yourself into."

"I suppose so." He agreed, getting tired of the argument.

They sat in silence a short while, finishing their lunch, watching each other and coming to private conclusions.

"It's been really nice talking to you, kid." Scott said after a while, hesitating. "Tell me, what's it like to have a mother?" He asked suddenly.

Erin looked at him, taken by surprise.

"I hardly remember my mother." He explained, trying to sound non-committal, but it was too late. The subject was like a raw wound he'd been hiding, now left in the open air. "As I said—she was killed in an explosion during the attack on Central City."

"Well, at least you knew her for a time." Erin said quietly, almost consolingly, but she was too young to understand how to console others, or so he thought. So, there was something else hidden in those words, but what?

"What do you mean?" He asked tentatively; her eyes flickered with the vulnerability of exposure. "Are you saying you don't know yours?" he suggested.

"In a way." She admitted. "You reminded me that I never knew my natural mother. She was also killed—in an explosion, you might say."

"You—you're adopted?" he guessed.

"Yes."

"I never even thought—and your sister?" he asked.

"She isn't adopted, if that's what you're implying." She said, shaking her head.

"Come to think of it, you don't look much like the rest of your family—though I can see how people might think you look like Captain Blair. So, what's it like, being adopted?" It was a lame question, he realized after he'd asked it. Probably no different from being born into a family, he chastised himself.

"Well, for one thing, I don't feel much different." She answered after a long pause, as though this was the first time she'd actually thought about it. "You tell yourself that genes don't matter, because love is enough, that that's what a family is about. And Moira—my sister—Moira and I are like two halves of a whole. I miss her so much all the time."

He nodded.

The intercom sounded, interrupting them. "Erin Mathieson-Blair, to the waiting room. First call." Erin shrugged and picked up her tray.

"I have to go."

"Hey, Erin," he said, stopping her.

"Yes?"

"You looked like you knew where you were going the whole time," he said.

"Huh?"

"Earlier. When I asked if you were lost. You looked like you knew where you were going. I thought so, but I had to find out. And I'm glad I did. You're quite a girl." He added. "I'm sorry you've got to go so soon."

"Me, too. I—I hope I see you again," Erin said, rising from the chair. "And thanks for the compliment."

"Maybe we'll meet again next year, at the level four exam," he suggested. "I intend to be there, and I'd be disappointed if you don't make it," he said, with a trace of real sincerity.

"I will. Count on it." Erin promised. For some reason, neither of them saw a point in exchanging addresses or communication frequencies. As if realizing there was no time for conversations and unnecessary ties during the upcoming year. Distractions as compelling as this relationship felt dangerous, somehow.

"Until then." Scott watched her leave, sighed, and drank his last swallow of tea.

* * * * *

The strangest thing was that neither Scott Dimitriev nor Erin Mathieson ever expected to run into each other again, or so soon as the very next day.

"Miss serious, where did you come from?" Scott said, as Erin hurried past him in the hall. She could have been any one of the three thousand students in the hallways, and both of them were quartered in entirely different areas. For no real reason Scott had just decided to take a walk in another area on the other side of the base.

Erin slowed in her tracks, dug in her heels hard, and turned sharply around.

"In a hurry?" he asked slowly, with some amusement. It was indeed Erin Mathieson, and her cheeks were flushed.

"I'm headed to the study halls." She agreed.

"Forget that and play hooky with me."

"What?"

"If you don't know all of the material yet, you're not going to remember it at all cramming it into your head at the last minute."

"I do know the material."

"Then let's go somewhere."

"Like where? You don't know this place any better than I do."

"Well, there is a botanical garden near the west gate."

"And what exactly would we do in the botanical garden?" she pursed her lips; though only fourteen, she already had some inkling that she was supposed to avoid situations like this.

"Nothing." He laughed, judging her hesitation. "You're too young for any guy to want to kiss you, so don't worry. We'll just hang out and look at the scenery, and if you want, I'll even race you to the top of the water tower."

"Now how can I pass that up when I could be studying of all things?" Erin laughed, suddenly skipping over to take his hand.

Scott watched her and was again strangely struck by the fact that she talked more like someone his own age than a kid, and looked older than she really was, too. Imagine, he thought, that we ran into each other again. It was odd but exhilarating. Especially that she had her little hand laced through his arm and holding on to his forearm.

They spent the afternoon in the botanical gardens talking about idle things, playing silly childish games, and terrorizing the birds and the squirrels. And then they went for dinner together, sat and talked until the wee hours of the morning in the recreation center, and fell asleep together like languorous lions on one of the lounge panels. In the morning, they parted company to take their written exams, though Scott's wasn't supposed to be until late afternoon.

And they met up again as planned this time, just after Scott's exam and not an hour before Erin's transport was scheduled to leave.

"So, you're going home today, too?" Erin asked, feeling a strange stone weight in her gut at the thought of leaving the base, where she had met him and had more fun than she ever remembered.

"Uh-huh." Scott responded in the same hollow tone.

The past two days seemed like a dream that had to come to an end; ordinarily Erin mentally sped up such things in her life. But for this particular dream she wanted desperately to make a stand. She didn't want it to end, and felt the worst kind of reluctance to let it happen.

"I guess your sister will be looking for you." Erin said, at a loss for words.

"Maybe, I don't know." He shrugged, and didn't move from the spot. They were both silent a moment.

"Well, you really had better make it to the exams next year." Erin said, trying hard to sound optimistic and cheerful. "I would hate to miss you—" she left the sentence there. Both of them had already sensed the double meaning of the sentence.

"So, good-bye, then, miss serious. I guess I'll see you then." Scott said, and would have done nothing more, but Erin took a step forward, reached out, and hugged him to her tightly. He felt his body go stiff as a board as her slender arms wrapped around him and pulled his chest lose to hers; he despised farewells.

And at the moment, he was strangely afraid to touch her; her back under his fingertips was firm and comforting. Her hair was soft against the side of his cheek, and it smelled like some kind of flower. He was afraid if he touched her, he wouldn't want to let go. And that would be foolish.

She was only fourteen years old, and they had only palled around together for a couple of afternoons, he reminded himself. Could forever be wrapped up in an afternoon? Could a person really change in a day? He found himself wondering strange things as she held him tightly. There's a rare kind of strength in her, he thought suddenly, mentally comparing her to Lara.

"Good-bye, then, Scott." Erin said, suddenly letting him go and thinking of leaving quickly before she betrayed any emotion to him. She smiled as though nothing in all the world was wrong as she turned and left him standing in the hallway, watching her disappear in the crowd.

Oh no. Scott, you are absolutely crazy for this girl. It occurred to him a few moments later. And it's a good bet you'll never see her again.

And so he told himself to pull himself together and to try to forget her.

It was a very long time before he realized that he never would.
Chapter Eighteen

Erin wasn't sleeping. Colleen had awoken again, this time at 4:15, to Erin's noisy banging in the dining room.

"You know it isn't good for you to be up so early," Colleen, her roommate, said one morning. Colleen found it increasingly difficult not to broach the subject of Erin's insomnia, not now that she knew about it.

"You have to get a decent night's sleep one of these days, and not keep waking me up so early!" Colleen said.

"I know."

"Have you talked to Dr. Cameron about it?"

"No."

"He could help you."

"I know, but I don't want to tell him." Erin said, sounding sorry to be so severe. Then, Erin shivered; Colleen might have regarded her skeptically, if she had not seen the accompanying expression of terror in her friend's eyes.

"What's up, really, now? You used to sleep all the time and I couldn't get your ass out of bed in the morning."

"Yes, but that was before all this."

"All what?"

"The ghost I hear when I'm asleep."

Colleen laughed hard, in relief. Erin still looked grave.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No." Nonetheless, Colleen didn't believe this odd assertion, not really, not until two days after Erin was released from the medical wing following Cameron's exam.

* * * * *

That night after Erin returned from her yearly medical exam, Colleen awoke to violent hands shaking her.

With a start, she realized that her assailant was Erin, her fingers gripping Colleen's arms like steel vices, cold and unimaginably strong.

"Where is it?!" Erin cried. At the same time, Erin stared about with wild, expressionless, vacant, eyes, oblivious to the inexplicable tears streaming down her own salty-stiff cheeks.

"Erin, let go!" Colleen screamed.

Colleen struggled to release herself from Erin's grasp, but there was no use in it. She knew instinctively that this was no childish game, even had Erin's nature been given to milder forms of playful deception. Colleen was desperately afraid. This was not the Erin she knew. The Erin she knew would have recognized her and never harmed her. The Erin she knew was not behind the strange, unflinching alien eyes that stared at her—eyes that stared without recognition of anything in the world around them.

Yet somehow Erin hadn't harmed her. After some time, Colleen realized that Erin wasn't as much shaking her as she was holding on to her, as though pleading with some invisible force she imagined in Colleen's place.

Then suddenly, Erin let go. Colleen watched as her friend brought shaking hands up to cover her ears, as Erin's head thrashed left to right as though in stark refusal of some sudden, unbearable realization.

Then all at once, she sank to her knees at the side of Colleen's sleeping panel.

"Leave me alone!" she cried in torment, "let me live—" her voice begged. "I don't have it! I don't even know what it is you want—"

She stilled. Colleen heard desperate sobs as Erin returned to the world around them, then nothing for some time. Mistrusting the silence, Colleen reached down to prod her, then drew back.

Erin's skin felt like ice-cold stone.

* * * * *

"Where am I?" Erin asked, looking around at nothing but formless mist, then down at her feet. She was looking inward, into her own mind. The mist gave way under her, and she saw that she stood on a flat metallic surface, her own reflection peering up at her from the waters of a contained reservoir before her—but all of this was impossible! Where was she and what was all this? The girl's face she beheld in the water was gray. Erin staggered back in horror, refusing to believe what she had seen.

That isn't me, she cried inwardly, terrified. What was going on here?

And who are you? an inner voice asked her, the same voice that had brought comfort and doubt, security and fear throughout her life.

"I'm Er—Erin..." she began, but some instinctive feeling stopped her from answering with confidence as she had intended and strangled her words.

Suddenly, she stood on earth again. She felt the change at her feet and ventured a glance down, and the moist, rocky ground comforted her, the metallic environment she had seen now vanished. She kicked a random pebble with her toe and watched it skid to the edge of a giant pool, its smooth purplish surface sinking beneath the water, sending a current towards the shore that drowned the tossing reeds. Supple young tree branches like birches around her rocked up and down asynchronously, lambasted by the force of the fervid winds, creating a disturbing song that sounded like ocean waves, their silver-golden canopy filtering the intense light.

Despite the heartbreaking beauty of the scene, Erin felt a slow creeping anxiety she was at a loss to explain.

And who are you? the inner voice repeated. Who is Erin Mathieson-Blair?

Slow, heavy steps sounded behind her, drawing closer, getting louder.

What do you fear, Selerael? the inner voice asked, now coming towards her in the form of a shadowy figure she feared almost as strongly as Death himself. Yourself? You are not alive. You are a creature of Time itself. One of the immortals.

"Leave me alone!" Erin screamed in panic. A strong gust of wind caught the vivid green-covered branches and made them dance like the strings of a marionette. "Let me live—" as Erin Mathieson-Blair, she finished inwardly when her voice failed her.

Selerael, the voice called, muffled this time but no less forcefully. You are Selerael, and you must claim your power and take control of this world. There is no one to stop you, no one stopping you but yourself and the illusions you live by. You fight me for the sake of a fantasy, Selerael, and you do anything you can to protect your illusion. But the illusion isn't who you are. You are Selerael, not of this Earth, and you must find the Enorian singularity for me before Sargon captures Selesta. Find the singuarlity, Selerael, look for it. You will go to the East to begin looking.

She protested; she had no idea what to do! Couldn't he see she knew nothing, had nothing to do with him? Still the voice assailed her, but this time with a solemn vein of pity.

Child, we can none of us escape destiny.

Chapter Nineteen

"You like it, eh?" Richard Mathieson suppressed an affectionate smile as Erin stared up admiringly at the new armored hull of the dark space cruiser Palatino, anchored in one of the cargo bays of Statue City's largest astroport, where the final touches and systems checks were being made before the Palatino's August departure. Unlike its predecessors, the Palatino looked like a giant elliptical air-boat; it was not aerodynamic at all.

"Sure do," said Erin.

Richard watched his daughter stroll down the deck in pursuit of her subject and laughed when she bumped into one of the starship technicians. It was a profound regret to him that both of his daughters were growing up, that they would be leaving for the Charon front in just a few short years, against their parents' wishes. Neither he nor Sasha had been happy that their children had chosen the elite pilot training program above the engineer's. He did, however, acknowledge that competition was the stiffest for a place among the developmental engineers and technicians.

"What are they doing over there?" Erin asked, drawing him out of his thoughts.

"Over there?" he returned, looking in the direction in which she was pointing. "Well, the computers are running cold testing over there to see if anything goes wrong."

"Cold testing?"

"Sure." Richard winked. "It's almost absolute zero out at Pluto, so if anything's going to break in that cold, we need to know about it ahead of time."

"I knew that part," Erin remarked, carefully studying the gears running in the heavy machinery in the far corner of the cargo bay. Erin had always been something of a little adult, Richard thought, regarding her, if only because she had never merely accepted any thing or situation around her without serious contemplation; he doubted if she had ever been capable of living in the moment or being swept away entirely by it.

He did not feel her to be without desires or ambitions; these she betrayed enough to convince him that only a hard triumph of will mastered them. To his mind, she seemed to be shouldering a burdensome responsibility with great fortitude; why he saw this more clearly in her bearing than in that of the other young cadets, he did not know.

"Those are the last few components, aren't they?"

Richard nodded. "We'll be finished here soon."

"And on to another one," Erin surmised, in a cheeky tone.

"Yes, my little vixen, and on to another one," Richard agreed, laughing.

"So where is everyone today?" Erin wondered. "Roger's the only one coming in?"

"Grant's around here, too, somewhere."

"What about all of the others?"

"We've already relocated them," Richard explained.

"What? But why? The Palatino isn't finished, is it?"

"No, but the UESF has decided to up its computerized production."

"But they just did that a few years ago," Erin protested, upset by this news. If the UESF cut back on its engineer's program, a lot of specialists were going to find themselves out of a job and facing military conscription.

Richard sighed, suddenly aware that his daughter had every right to be concerned; that knowledge depressed him. Where had his little girl gone? The one that trusted him and depended upon him for protection? He knew he couldn't protect her anymore, and that was something that was constantly eating at his heart these days.

Was she happy? he wondered. News about Erin's poor practices had reached him a while back, but he and Sasha hadn't said anything to her yet. There was a lot of pressure on her, he knew, for her to live up to her parents' reputations, and he didn't feel like adding to that pressure by reproving her. If she failed this year's exam, there was always next year, he told himself, but his resolve not to interfere was weakening.

He knew her potential. He couldn't bear to see her fail!

"We knew it was bound to happen," he continued, glad she had no way of knowing how concerned he was about her welfare at the moment. "They've been cutting down on engineers and spacecraft builders ever since the program's second year. Really, how many specialists do we need to oversee construction?"

"I just don't think it's right, letting the computers do everything," Erin insisted stubbornly. "What if something went wrong, something the computers didn't notice?"

"I see your point, dear," Richard offered. "But construction crews make mistakes, too, and they take a lot longer getting the simple jobs done."

"But—"

"Erin, we aren't getting rid of them, we're just sending them to work on the Esperanza."

"For now."

"There will always be a need for the technicians, Erin. As you pointed out, the computers aren't perfect." He laughed. It was really strange, he thought, that as important as computers were to nearly every function of human lives, Erin didn't seem to like them very much. However, they made his job possible; he wasn't about to criticize any order that had allocated more computer resources to his division.

"Don't laugh at me, Dad," Erin protested. "I just think too many computers dehumanize this place, and I'd rather some R&D department came up with a way to make the computers fight our battles for us."

"That would be a miracle," Richard agreed. "But unfortunately, we haven't figured out a way to do that, and I don't think we're going to any time soon. You'd probably have to give a computer human thoughts and memories to get it to react in hand-to hand combat or to understand what self-preservation is all about—and I doubt it would be any happier about going to the front than any of us, then." Richard laughed, then stopped at the unamused expression on Erin's face.

"Well, I think it's about time for a break," Richard suggested, taking her arm and circling it with his own. "What do you say to a trip into the city? We could go to the wildlife park and look around. I'll buy you an icicle pop with my rations, what do you say?"

"Playing hooky?"

"I'll come back tonight and finish up."

"Well, in that case, Dad," she beamed, "you've got yourself a deal."

* * * * *

With nothing more than a small bag of clothes and toiletries, Erin left her pilot training base for a shuttle that would take her to New Cairo, Egypt. The hypersonic transport lifted off the tarmac at Central City, and four hours later, Erin found herself in New Cairo. From there she took a transport southwest to Giza to look at the Great Sphinx, and to visit the Giza Necropolis with the three pyramids there.

The Sphinx was a long figure hewn out of the sandstone with the body of a lion and the head of a man, temple guardian of the tomb of Khafra. Behind it the Great Pyramid of Khafra towered against the desert sky. It was quite an impressive sight. Imbued with the power of the goddess Sehkmet, the Sphinx was the eternal guardian of the mummified Egyptian King.

After spending some time looking at the Great Sphinx, Erin got another transport to take her closer to the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaura. She toured the largest pyramid of Khufu first, then went on to the pyramid of Khafre. Lastly, she toured the pyramid of Menkaura, significantly smaller than the other two pyramids. She spent the night there in the nearby city.

From there, Erin took a major shuttle transport to Sakkara to visit the Pyramid of Djoser, the Pyramid of Unas, and also the incomplete step pyramid, the buried pyramid of Sehkhehemket among many others. She then journeyed on to the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, many miles south along the Nile River, where the New Kingdom pharoahs including Thutmose, Amenhotep, and Tutankhamen were buried. The first day she arrived late and didn't get to tour. The next day, she visited 12 of the 16 or more pyramids there. She spent another night in Thebes where she also visited the temple of Khonsu, the falcon-headed moon god, at Karnak. That afternoon, after touring Egypt and reading intensively about the hieroglyphics and various translations of the pylons, Erin took a shuttle on to Baghdad.

Erin arrived in Baghdad late the fourth evening of her visit to the Middle East. She visited the nearby ziggurat of Agargouf, then went to the white temple in Uruk. Lastly, she boarded a shuttle to see the Great Ziggurat at Ur and then on to the more modern Khorsabad, the fortress of Sargon II. She went to the local museums and looked at the cuneiform tablets, critically, and got some information as to how the language was spoken. She liked the guardian to the door to the world of the underworld, the horned serpent snake Ningishzida.

The whole excursion changed her life. In the books she read of the death and ressurection of Inanna, or Ishtar, which was awe-inspiring as well as disturbing:

"My lady abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,

To the nether world she descended,

Inanna abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,

To the nether world she descended,

Abandoned lordship, abandoned ladyship,

To the nether world she descended...

Inanna walked toward the nether world,

To her messenger Ninshubur she says:

'Go, Ninshubur,

The word which I have commanded thee'...

Neti, the chief gatekeeper of the nether world,

Asks the pure Inanna:'Who pray art thou?'

'I am the queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises.'

'If thou art the queen of heaven, the place where the sun rises,

Why pray hast thou come to the land of no return?

On the road whose traveller returns not how has thy heart led thee?'...

The Anunnaki, the seven judges, pronounced judgment before her,They fastened their eyes upon her, the eyes of death..."

After this Erin stopped reading.

She took a transport to the city of Nippur to visit Enlil's temple. It was there that she visited the ancient artifacts museum at the Innana temple.

And there that her steps were guided by a force greater than herself. She felt literally guided by some supernatural force making her do what it wanted her to do.

A strange image was suddenly in her mind's eye, of a man with eyes that shone in multi-colors—the face of a man she had never before seen! Then, just as suddenly as he had flashed through her mind, his image was gone.

Erin spent the next several days looking over the city, when at last, in one of the ruined pylons of the temple, was a strange etching that caught her eye. It was that of a small arrow, that looked like cuneiform but was not. She scratched the wall and found that part of the wall was at last crumbling. She got out a laserknife and sliced at it, with no one looking to stop her, and part of the wall crumbled away. Behind it was a strange cavity that contained some ancient artifacts, among them a small box, no larger than a pill box, etched with strange swirling designs that looked like cuneiform but were not.

The designs seemed strangely familiar...

Ignoring the other artifacts in the cavity, Erin picked up the small clay box and opened it.

There was a small seed inside, of something unidentifiable. Erin put in her bag, and left the temple, feeling guilty all the while about defacing an ancient monument.

* * * * *

"So where were you last week?" Colleen asked, as Erin came in with a dusty, scratched-up bag and dropped it on her bed.

"I had to go somewhere," said Erin evasively.

"Huh?

"Nothing. What are you up to?"

"Practicing. Got a new program to work on. They worked on it over ten months at R & D. Some of it is even based on what we know of the battles of ancient cavalries and foot soldiers in the days of land armies—can you believe it? Dad says our squadrons fly in phalanx form just as soldiers have fought in phalanx form for thousands of years—"

"Until all hell breaks loose in battle." Erin interjected.

"Of course, battle does tend to be chaotic," Colleen admitted with a shrug.

"But my Dad says R&D has been brushing up on everything they can learn from surviving records about ancient offensives, since we haven't been successful with our big nuclear guns and our Charon alien friends don't seem to want to bring out their big guns—"

"Yet," said Erin.

"Do you think that's because they really want to colonize our planet?" Colleen wondered, with a shiver.

"I don't know. I wish I knew."

"Blaine Richards says the Charon aliens are just trying to terrorize us and get us to surrender so that they can rule over us and make us all slaves, or worse—"

"Shit, I can't think about it. I mean I'm perfectly happy right now dealing with whatever comes when it comes. I'd rather not speculate."

"Okay, okay." Colleen laughed. "Anyway, the programs were shipped out to the simulation testing centers only five days ago. You can try it if you like."

"Have you?" Erin asked.

"Not yet. I mean I was just about to. But I know they used information from the Charon front line to simulate the exterior. The inside details are just a guess, of course. Here, you try first." Colleen said with a yawn. "My reflexes aren't working yet, but I'd like to see how the program operates before we go to the observatory."

She tossed the helmet over to Erin and slid off the pilot's seat. Erin sat down and adjusted the controls on the simulator's forward panel. Colleen began to explain what she knew of the game as it initialized a new scenario. A three-dimensional virtual reality holofield materialized around them, transporting them at once to the Charon front line.

"I think you're supposed to maneuver in and out of the alien single craft. If you're lucky, you can find a gap in their defense and reach the ship's hanger as they send out more planes."

"You're supposed to infiltrate the enemy ship?" Erin asked, incredulous.

Colleen nodded. "Your object is to siege the enemy and hit him before he knows you're coming. And dodging seems almost more important than fighting because your fighter can only carry five missile salvos and two laser pulse cannons. Once you're in, your scanners should be able to tell you where the main power sources are, so you can really set the place on fire."

"I see—you're trying to blow it up," Erin said, nodding. "Too bad no one's really figured out how to do it."

"I suppose," Colleen shrugged.

Erin looked at her askance, then shook her head. Erin wasn't really given to entertaining idle wishes.

Erin was already busy playing the game. Colleen watched fascinated as her friend moved from level to level. Almost before Colleen had even seen the alien single-craft, Erin had avoided or destroyed them, still going at top speed. Colleen's head began to ache as she watched the corridors speed closer and then turn right, left, up, or down and her friend's zigzagging motions as Erin dodged aliens with insect-like agility.

The game had such a hypnotic effect that Colleen had to blink when Erin's fighter suddenly reached a power conduit leading to the main engines. Erin released a full salvo of missiles and continued firing her cannon at the conduit until it ruptured, then ignited; she quickly turned back in the direction she'd come from to escape before the ship's engines blew.

In the end, she narrowly escaped before the interior of the ship ignited into a fiery blaze; as she flew out of the docking bay, her plane was bombarded by searing hot shrapnel in the explosion set loose by the inferno. A moment later, Erin's plane emerged into space and then redocked on the small space cruiser that had been hovering on the far side of Charon while the simulated battle raged.

The game flashed a random message, and the three-dimensional holofield around them terminated. Colleen shook her head, and rubbed her tired eyes. She felt as if she were experiencing motion sickness. "Time lapse: Two minutes, thirteen seconds." The female computer voice informed them.

"So, this is what your Dad's friends have been spending all of their time on." Erin commented, dropping the helmet. "Did you want to take the sub-shuttle to the arboretum?" she suggested, her thoughts turning to the day ahead. "Or do you still want to go to the observatory?"

"I knew it." Colleen declared in triumph, ignoring her. Her tone, however, suggested that she was slightly annoyed. "Why don't you fly this well in training? Why would you deceive people—deceive me?" She did not like what had she had just witnessed; it made her feel as though Erin had betrayed her somehow.

"Colleen—" Erin said guiltily, sensing Colleen's feelings, then shook her head. "It's not important."

"Don't you care what people think about you?" Colleen persisted, taking offense.

"Actually—no."

"I don't believe you."

"Who wants to alienate everyone by being too good at everything?"

"It doesn't bother me if other people are better at something than I am."

"But you're not the jealous type. Other people are. Then they naturally try to hurt you back."

"So, you do care what other people think," Colleen said, triumphant again. "Only not what they think about you, I suppose." She added, slightly skeptical.

"Erin," Colleen protested, privately marveling again at Erin's strange brand of integrity, "you wouldn't be human if you didn't care about how you're perceived by other people. Everyone has some pride, you know, and that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"All right, maybe I do care—maybe."

"Then why risk being left out of a good position at the end of training?"

"You're as nosy as Dr. Knightwood!" Erin exclaimed, weakening.

"I can't help that. Anyway, didn't we always promise not to keep secrets from each other? Didn't we?"

"All right," Erin acquiesced, responding to this higher appeal. "The truth is I just can't—draw any kind of attention to myself."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just a feeling. I don't even know why I'm doing it," Erin admitted.

* * * * *

Later that day, Erin pulled the seed pod she had found in Sumeria from her bag. Holding it in her palm tightly, she headed straight for the bio-research labs. One of the technicians on staff offered her a questioning gaze as she walked in.

"May I borrow a genetic grid analyzer for a few minutes?" Erin asked him politely.

"Is this for official class purposes?"

"I need to analyze a seed pod I found in Sumeria," Erin said with a shrug.

"Let me see it," said the technician.

Erin produced the seed from her hand and waited as the technician gave it the visual once over.

"That's not a seed like any I know," said the technician. "It's not an angiosperm—um, flowering plant or a conifer that I can tell, and those are our only two options. You sure it's a seed? Maybe it's man-made. No, I guess it can't be. It seems natural. Isn't that a mystery! Well, here's an analyzer, kid. Let me know what you find out."

Erin took the analyzer grid device and went to one of the lab tables to start an analysis. She knew the basics of how to do a genetic analysis with a tissue sample or small swatch. She carefully put the seed into the analyzer whole and waited for the computerized device to come up with a verdict.

"Not of Earth origin."

Erin sucked in her breath sharply, but somehow, she wasn't surprised. "Nothing," she called over to the technician who had looked up with a worried or at least interested glance.

"Thank you," she called as she returned the analyzer. "It's nothing that the analyzer can identify."

"Now isn't that strange." Said the technician. "Wonder what it could be. Well, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you, you got me curious there, girl."

"I'll be going, but thanks again," said Erin. When she returned to her quarters, alone in the dark, she rubbed the seed pod. The dry, old, husky pod that should have been decayed by now cracked in half. Inside she saw a smooth, hard, ball of a seed of some sort, the color of pure silver. It looked more like metal.

What could it be? She wondered. But before she could think of what to do, the seed began to glow within of some pale, strange light.

Almost against her control, Erin picked it up, and swallowed it whole.
Chapter Twenty

The last day of childhood training for Erin Mathieson and Colleen Arnaud inevitably dawned. There was a rainstorm passing over the dome of Statue City, darkening the skies. A distant echo of the shower sounded through the domed city as Erin packed her things, then shut the open window in her room. After the last training run, they were going to depart early that evening by shuttle transport home for a brief leave. They were sixteen now, and had two more years of training until they had to go to the Charon front line.

Erin glanced around her room one last time; with the walls now bare and all of her belongings packed into totebags to be taken to the shuttle, her thoughts now turned to dreams of a better future. In the time following her trip to the Middle East, and her discovery of the strange seed pod, she had noticed a significant change in her life.

After ingesting that alien seed, Erin had become stronger, faster, more intelligent, and more focused in her strange abilities, psychic abilities she could not talk about to anyone.

"Don't bother to hurry, blond bitch," a voice interrupted her from ahead as she turned the corner into the main corridor linking the dorms and docking bay. Erin stopped several meters before one of her peers, cadet Blaine Richards, who stood regarding her with a lopsided grin.

"Why don't you do us all a favor and give up?"

Erin stared into his face, fighting down a reaction. Dark anger crept over her, heightening her thoughts and senses and tempting her body to react, but after a moment, she decided to ignore the insult. Perhaps she valued her dignity too much to sink to his level of name-calling—or perhaps she was just afraid of that dark whispering voice urging her to hurt the one who had hurt her.

"Get out of my way," she said tiredly, her voice barely above a whisper, yet there was a dangerous chill in it.

That Cadet Richards didn't hear. I'm not finished, not by a long shot, he thought. He didn't care that she was pretty; in fact, he hated her for it, as much as he hated her flippant attitude, especially when he had tried to be nice to her the first day she got there. If she couldn't see how she mocked him by copping that superior, oblivious, high and mighty attitude. He had done so many times, but this was his last opportunity, and tormenting Erin gave him a rush unlike any other. Didn't the stupid girl know she was nothing, nothing!?

He spread his arms, grazing both sides of the corridor with his fingertips.

"Oh, and what are you going to do about it?" he challenged. For a moment, nothing happened. He was about to laugh triumphantly into her face as he had so many times before when something did.

He grasped his chest tightly when all at once his heart began to race. He could hear it like a heavy echo hammering away; then he felt an uncomfortable heat rising up his throat to his head and face. Yet his attention was drawn elsewhere, to the strange light that seemed to have illuminated Erin's face.

As he stared at her, it was as though a veil was lifting from her features. The surface of her unflinching sea-blue eyes had begun almost to ripple, like pools of water in a rainstorm, mesmerizing him but filling him with unexplainable fear. Despite the increasing heat in his face, he shivered.

Those eyes were not human, he thought dimly. They were alien eyes. Horrified, he watched her take a step towards him without seeming to hurry, like a predator toying with its prey; he found himself rooted to the spot where he stood.

Erin—was that who she was? That word was alien to her now, as she felt a current of energy crawl over her skin; she felt strangely invigorated. Then, as she waited for the sensation to end, expecting nothing, her senses suddenly flowed away from her, as though her body were melting away, yet she was at the same time conscious of where she stood; it was a terrible, frightening feeling yet delicious, too.

She felt drunk with power. It was a welcome relief she had always expected, as though her helplessness had been but a test of her will or a comforting, benign illusion. For at that moment, weakness was incomprehensible. There was only possibility surrounding her. Her power was not completely conscious, an extension of her will, a power to be manipulated; it was who she was. There was no part of her that didn't know this feeling; she was herself at last.

She heard the vibrating air beckoning to her with its infinite powerful sensations; unconsciously, she let it pull her thoughts beyond her body. At that moment, other, alien thoughts crept into her head fully formed.

damned bitch is giving me the creeps

Her blood raced faster, as though she feared this alien poison might contaminate her mind. She reached for her own identity and used it as a shield, but there was no battle, no resistance.

She felt the other thoughts rush away from her onslaught.

Blaine took a step back.

He stared at her, suddenly the complete pawn of his own emotions—only they were not his emotions at all. He felt the hostility of his fellow cadets like a blunt weapon gouging out his dignity piece by piece until there was nothing left but a shapeless mass of indignant shame, harboring a small, hard kernel of fiery-hot anger, potentially destructive anger. The only thing holding it back was the force of a cool, reasoning mind and an iron will.

Seconds passed, then suddenly the feelings retracted, sending him reeling.

Erin had released his mind from her grip. What had she done? she thought, extinguishing her power in one sharp stroke of will. The power retreated, satiated for now. As it left her, she tried to bury the memory of it. It never happened, she told herself. It never happened! So what if this was a lie—she simply could could not bear the truth and refused to let the horror of it creep upon her.

What creature am I?l

Ah! she protested. The truth would have destroyed her cherished fantasy, the life and identity she wanted for her own, that she now chose to retain, yes, had she known it, a life she had chosen to lead even against her fate.

Meanwhile, Blaine stood shaking off the hallucination; as it passed, he blinked, disoriented, remembering little, but enough that he said no more but instinctively escaped down the corridor.

Erin continued to the training room, her thoughts and emotions still muddled, unhappily vacillating between resentment of others and anger towards herself. Sitting on a velvet-backed chair near to the entrance, she dropped her flight bag in agitation.

Nearby Jeremy Benford suddenly lashed into his best friend with uncharacteristic vehemence. Erin listened, disbelieving. Jeremy had never raised his voice in all the years she had known him. Yet his voice had nearly grown to a shout—only no one else was paying attention. They were all caught up in similar altercations.

"What's going on?" Erin's thoughts rolled out, but it seemed no one had heard her.

You are projecting your thoughts, your emotions, a voice answered her, almost approvingly. Erin gave a start, horrified, and looked around helplessly, as though to find the owner of the voice. With a sickening recognition she sensed that the voice had come from within her. She had once created it, this imaginary entity, to entertain her when she was young. Only now it seemed to have its own mind. No, she thought. It's a part of me, only a part I never wanted to admit was there.

Well then, she thought, maybe now it's about time that I do.

* * * * *

She wasn't entirely sure when she had begun to notice that there was a difference between her and others, but ever since she had learned about it, she had always been careful to keep it her secret.

What made this difficult was that she was constantly reminded just how out of the ordinary she felt. Microseconds before a light switch or appliance activated the electric current of a circuit, she heard a loud crackling sound in her ears, but only animals could hear electricity, she told herself; she could count the dots of ink on the smallest line of the eye charts with eyes sharper than any hawk's.

Was she more like some wild animal than a human being? she often wondered. After all, she had come from the rural zone. Was she then, some example of primitive humankind, like the vanished Neanderthal?

No, she was not. The thought that she was more animal than human always made her dislike herself. It wasn't normal, she knew, to possess the heightened senses that she had, yet who could she tell about them? Who would believe her?

Or was that what the inner voice was, tempting her to use her gifts? she wondered.

Since the time that she had eaten the alien seed pod, her powers had only begun to increase.

What could it have been, how on Earth could she have found it after all those years impossibly lost in a temple, and how could it have been from another world? All of the questions came to the fore when she thought about it, but most of the time, she suppressed them.

It couldn't have happened, was what her mind kept telling her.

* * * * *

"Ready for launch, all systems ready," Scott announced coolly over the net, moments after the last training run began at the UESRC.

Scott eased his plane out smoothly when he was given the go-ahead. His training run had been scheduled two minutes behind John Thomson. Once he had cleared the docking bay by a good twenty meters, he began to look for the markers and targets that composed the new training course. The sensors would detect his weapon fire and immediately relay his progress on accuracy of climbs and turns as well as monitoring his speed and flight time.

At the end of the course, all of the planes in group two would meet for a simulated alien attack. At such time, their positions as team leader or co-leader and advised tactics would be relayed, and their ability to work together as well as maintaining the security of their assigned section would be recorded and evaluated.

Scott turned his plane up to full speed. He was rewarded for his action with a warning across his screen, advising him to cut his speed and calm down. He ignored it, and accelerated. Then the markers appeared.

The course, though short, had been carefully devised, first calling for a high climb and then a left turn. Two sudden targets on his far left required the precise coordination of several elements, not only a difficult climb and turn, but also a high and low target, which meant he had to be prepared to shift his sights rapidly, even with the demanding flight path. He dispatched them with ease.

Next he sped straight ahead, shooting at eight moving targets on either side of him, all of them trying to fly out of his fire range. The narrow strip appeared deceptively easy; in fact it was difficult to turn from side to side to sight them. Next came a short series of sudden turns, up, down, right, left, up and hard right with random targets placed here and there—not too bad. At the right turn ahead, Scott suddenly came close to hitting John Thomson, but he quickly veered left and climbed in a perfect arc around him, though he had to deviate from his flight path to pass him.

Continuing on, a similar pattern of unexpected turns and targets met his as he flew at full speed. He sighed when the markers ended and he saw the others ahead; it had been far too easy. His screen flashed a recorded time of 2 minutes, 6 seconds, and one hundred percent target destruction. He slowed and hovered at minimum speed with them as they waited for instructions and the last four planes.

"Good run, John," one of the pilots hailed him over the comnet. He gave a start when he established a visual linkup and saw Scott's amused expression. "What are you doing here, Scott? I thought John was supposed to start before you."

"He did," Scott answered calmly. Immediately, he heard the others discussing his response over the net. Something had happened to John, they feared.

But he appeared a moment later. John wasn't sure how Scott had passed him, but he had seen someone speed by and assumed he had been monitored by one of the training coaches. Only they could fly outside of the flight path.

Scott ignored the others' speculations and waited for his assigned sector.

Ten minutes later, he was designated co-leader by the computer and the skirmish began. Now the real test began. Outnumbered by a factor of two to one, the goal for the trainees was to take as few hits as possible but still take out as many aliens as they could. With random holograms rushing at them and invisible laserfire simulated just as the enemies used it in the space vacuum, which required constant monitoring of their laserfire sensors, they would not have lasted long had it been a real combat situation. However, in this case, the damage was measured by a light bar on the lower left of their computer consoles.

As co-leader, Scott headed into the denser airspace with John Thomson. Glancing around him as the battle began, he quickly memorized the general areas of free space, ready to dart in and out of them and watching for new gaps to be opened up and old ones to be filled. He kept his hand poised above his trigger and his left hand on his throttle but left the brake pedal alone. The faster he could go, the safer he would be among the quick alien craft, assuming he kept control of his direction.

Ten minutes passed slower than in the reality they were used to. When the simulation finally ended, the team headed to the docking bay where the first group waited for the teams' critique. The third and fourth training runs had been scheduled after lunch, giving the first group and Scott's second group two hours to discuss their last simulation training run.

Major Dyre Henrikson paced back and forth at the head of the room when they arrived, making sharp, clean clicking sounds with his calf-length black boots. He was a man of forty, of average height, in impeccable shape, with a dark beard flecked with grey and flint-hard eyes.

Michael Strong sat near the back and signaled to Scott to come join him. Glancing about the room calmly, the major waited for all of them to be seated on the floor before addressing the assembled company.

"First of all, I want to commend all of you on an excellent run." The way he said it compromised the compliment somewhat. "No one scored less than 75% on the targets, and the longest run did not exceed five minutes." Scott thought he seemed rather disappointed to admit this.

"However," Henrikson went on, glancing around them severely, "there are some areas of improvement we should discuss. I will begin with the first team and then move on to the second." His delivery was crisp, almost monotone; he was a man who would brook no objections.

"After I have made my suggestions according to what you see here on the monitor," he continued, "I will expect you all to head to the assembly room and study the maneuvers on your personal monitors. All right, Vasilias, let's begin," Major Henrikson gave a signal to the operator, who switched on the giant three-dimensional vidigital screen that displayed the relayed recordings.

"The first run, if I recall, ah yes, cadet Chou. Ease up a little on your turns and recover faster." Henrikson said, making each comment more an ultimatum than a suggestion. "You missed a target because you sped too quickly around without giving yourself a chance to respond. Keep one hand on your trigger at all times."

Scott listened absently until she heard his buddy Michael's name called.

"An excellent run." Henrikson admitted. "You only missed one target, though I would like to work on your speed. You fly cautiously where you sometimes need extra speed. Make sure that you get some practice in the acceleration programs." He added, as though Michael would not have thought to do so on his own.

"Next." His voice rose in pitch, like a shrill bugle's call. "Ah, cadet Moseley-Kerr, just the opposite of cadet Strong. You need to improve your target practice. It's good to avoid the enemy, but you do have to help fellow team members," he said, letting a bit of sarcasm through. "Cut your speed a little and practice more on the targets."

"How'd you do?" Michael whispered slyly to Scott when the major turned away from them to look at the monitor.

"Fine, but I had to veer away from the flight path." Scott said, shrugging.

"You wretch!" Michael exclaimed. "I wanted you to fly rings around that Thomson ass and Grant Shore. Wicked of me, isn't it? But they're such smug bastards," he said in an annoyed tone of voice. Suddenly, Mike switched topics. "Know what? I got assigned as leader, can you believe it? Awesome!"

".....cadet Thomson—remarkable." Henrikson's voice redirected their attention. "You missed only two targets, and your time was the second best overall. Your second turn was perhaps a little too wide. Be careful not to anticipate your turns too soon, but good reflexes..."

"The second best time?" Mike said in mock-pity. "Oh shit, he's slipping."

"...cadet Dimitriev—" Major Henrikson's call came so suddenly that Scott jerked to attention, aware him thoughts had wandered. "I want you all to watch Scott's training run very carefully." Henrikson said, betraying a hint of intrigue.

"Mis-ter Dimitriev, you ignored my warning about speed—that explains the plane that passed by cadet Thomson that you all just observed." Henrikson coughed. "You had me worried for the first minute. I didn't think you could handle the speed. Our intermediate trainer planes aren't meant to fly continuously at top speed—they lose maneuverability." Even in the compliment, there was a note of warning.

All eyes turned to Scott. Mike glared at Henrikson. He had been telling everyone to speed up earlier, and now criticized Scott for taking his advice!

"However, you proved to me that you could take the speed. Excellent job, Dmitriev, I am surprised. These are some of the best turns I've ever seen." Henrikson chuckled. What was this? Mike thought. Henrikson was being a human being for a change!

"I was afraid that we were going to have a collision, but you managed to arc around cadet Thomson. You had the fastest flight time, and yet you managed to hit every target. I guess I misjudged you." Major Henrikson gave Scott a brief smile of approval before continuing down the roster.

The entire company stared at him in surprise.
Chapter Twenty-One

Sitting together by the window, Erin and Colleen watched the world in the brief moments between Statue City's last transport terminal and the connecting terminal at Central City. When the bright lights of the diminishing city behind them died, the forests appeared below, vast, beautiful, beckoning to their souls to return to the wild. The clear transport tunnel reflected the dim lights of the transport shuttle inside it, shadowing the view, never giving them a clear sight into that abandoned world of humanity's yesterday.

Neither had seen the beauty during their years of training. Colleen would have called it incarceration, even though she understood that she willingly sacrificed her freedom for that beauty of the Earth—that it might live, not only in memory.

Colleen had been reading, but after a moment put aside her electropad, irresistibly tired, and let fatigue over take her, her eyes falling blissfully shut; her thoughts drifted in the monotonous whine of the shuttle, but she was not quite asleep when an image slowly formed in her mind...

The shining, rustling trees, like birches but not, were silver-gold in the sunlight, together forming a wide, open forest by a clear, whispering brook that flowed like liquid silver; on the banks of a neighboring pool, cool-colored stones, like unpolished amethyst, met the warm, soft brown turf of the neighboring forest floor. All around lilac-colored flowers, smelling like the fresh rain, perfumed the rich air... So bright, so bright it was even under the shade of the silvery-gold trees! This beloved place cried out to be adored, to be remembered, as though it had a life and sentience of its own—and yet it was alone.

But Colleen had seen it now, and when the evening came and turned the sky at dusk into a mild grey-blue, she watched the shaded world in amazement and ecstasy. In the transient sunset, the river quieted and darkened, the pale green coats of the trees now a deeper emerald in the dim light, their whispers gathering force as the wind rushed through them...

Colleen blinked and woke, startled by a message over the intercom.

"Attention, passengers, shuttle now approaching Central City Northeast Sector. Passengers continuing southeast to Coast Charles, please remain on the transport."

Colleen nudged Erin; a peculiar expression had frozen on Erin's face, part fear, part recognition.

"Erin," Colleen said. "Did you hear? We're approaching the northeast sector."

Erin took a moment to respond with an affirmative nod.

"What's wrong?" Colleen wondered.

Erin's mouth dropped open as if she were about to say something, but she shrugged instead.

"Nothing. I was dreaming, but I can't remember what I was dreaming about."

"So was I. Only I was imagining the most beautiful forest I've ever seen. The trees! You should have seen—"

"Did you say the northeast sector?" Erin gave a start.

Colleen nodded.

"Well I'll be glad to get there," Erin said. "I know the aliens don't seem to be interested in attacking the transport tunnels, but I always feel so vulnerable in them."

"I think everyone feels that way, but at least they're quicker than booking a transport shuttle and waiting for a landing window—and the transport tunnels are certainly much safer."

"That's true, but I still get tired of sitting for so long, don't you?"

"Would you rather stand the whole way?"

"Of course not," Erin said.

"It's just your nerves talking." Colleen declared; Erin shrugged. "Well, we'll be there soon. Say Erin, did I tell you what was I dreaming a minute ago?" Colleen asked, a look of irritated confusion knitting her eyebrows together.

"I—don't know."

"Well that's strange." Colleen picked up her electropad once again.

"What's that you're reading?" Erin asked, now curious.

Colleen pressed a button to recall her reading selection.

"It's called 'The Bell Song'," she read. "By Friedrich von Schiller—an ancient writer."

"Oh. Never heard of it." Erin shrugged. "May I look at it?" She asked, taking the electropad where Colleen had left off reading.

"I've got my place marked there," Colleen said, pointing.

"'It's dangerous to wake the lion," Erin read aloud, "And horrible is the tiger's tooth," she went on, "but the most horrible of horrors, that's man in his illusion!'"

"Every time I read it, I think it sounds just exactly like what's happening to the world, though I can't say why. Or that—maybe... maybe nothing's changed at all—at least not human nature."

"I try not to think about it."

"Oh, honestly Erin," Colleen said, throwing up her hands in exasperation, but laughing nonetheless, "Can't you just let yourself be philosophical for once?"

"I wish I could, Colleen," Erin said quietly, thinking about what that boy Dimitriev had once said to her. "But talk doesn't change anything."

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," Colleen said, throwing the head cushion at her.

"Colleen, I have a confession to make."

"Huh?"

"Last time on leave, I took a trip to the ancient Middle East."

"God, Erin, whatever for?" Colleen said in surprise.

"A strange hunch I had. I wanted to see the pyramids in person, the ziggurats..."

"Like I said, whatever for?"

"To see the writing on the walls. I have a strange idea that there may be some connection to the ancient Earth past and our alien invasion."

"You have got to be kidding," laughed Colleen. "What kind of connection? Oh, I've heard of Nostradamus. Tell me, did he predict aliens coming to the world?" She laughed again.

"No, I hadn't heard that." Said Erin. "I think aliens came to the world already."

"Huh?" Colleen turned white.

"I think that aliens created the world somehow. Call it a hunch, but... I think that they've only returned to claim what was theirs."

"Now I know you've gone insane," laughed Colleen.

* * * * *

For five weeks, Cameron had been away from his apartment in British Columbia visiting his mother in Oban, a city across the Atlantic Ocean. He had planned the trip for late May to celebrate her one hundredth birthday, but she had called him home earlier to alleviate her loneliness. Cameron's father had died unexpectedly thirty-nine years ago at the young age of sixty-five in a transport accident; his mother was fond of joking that he had done it just to antagonize her. She lamented that she would probably live another forty years without him, dismissing Cameron's suggestion that she might remarry. Cameron knew that his mother greatly missed his father, despite her feisty facade, and so he didn't press her very hard to change her mind.

As much as he missed the tranquillity of life by the sea, the beauty of the highlands preserved in the rural zone near his old home, Cameron was glad to return to the apartment in British Columbia. He had been interrupted in the middle of his analysis on Erin Mathieson's condition and was anxious to get back to finish his report and send it to her family.

His emptied bags now stowed in the overhead storage canister in the entryway, a cup of hot tea in hand, Cameron returned to the room that had become his domicile laboratory.

The bioscan printouts taken in Statue City lay across the videocom where he had left them. He perused the documents for a moment, trying to recapture what his train of thought had been.

None of the numbers were alarming at first glance—though none of them fit the profile of the average human being. Cameron had come to expect the unexpected—but he didn't notice any immediate aberrations from her last physical. Coughing a little from the slight cold he had picked up in Oban, he moved towards the computer bank and called for a comprehensive file display. Glancing between the screen and the present readout, he carefully compared previous records of Erin's medical history.

Cameron suddenly wheezed, unable to breathe.

A mutation had occurred in Erin's system, documented in the new sample. Sometime in the past year, the strange tri-nuclear cells had multiplied in every area of Erin's tissues. But in the bloodstream, the number had almost doubled.

Cameron hurried towards the dry cold holding canister that contained his plasmid cultures and delicate experiments, searching through them until he found the tube marked "E M-B". He fumbled around, pulling out the microscanner and dropping the tube nervously into it.

An hour passed, and Cameron continued to scrutinize the genetic evidence before him, running computer simulations to check his findings. Finally, he slumped back to the lab stool. For minutes, he listened to the sound of his own breathing, his mind struggling to accept what he observed. He pushed himself away from the table, trying to shake off a rising temptation, a giddiness he felt down to his very toes.

The key to the fountain of youth dangled before him.

Even as he tried to convince himself that he did not desire immortality, he had nonetheless been considering it, he realized. What would it be like, truly, not to fear the future? Then his cautious side reminded him that there was no guarantee that the sample would bring about the same metamorphosis in his own system that seemed to be taking place in the alien child from which it had been obtained.

At the most, her blood might kill him. Or worse, as far as Cameron was concerned, it might kill his own consciousness, and keep his body alive. He knew nothing of how the alien species produced itself, if indeed what he had observed was not two species living in some kind of symbiotic state, the one in the other's circulatory system, or if it was not something else altogether.

Besides, he told himself, Zhdanov would notice any alteration in Cameron's behavior—they had known each other too long. What would Zhdanov think of him them? And what kind of evil might Cameron have unleashed on the Earth? And perhaps this immortal metamorphosis, the slow metamorphosis Erin seemed to be going through, merely held the host organism in stasis for several years, in seeming immortality, before the host's final and sudden eventual death and decay—or perhaps what he had observed was the initial stages of a disease that seemed to grant eternity but destroyed the body of its host. That might explain why Erin's people had all died, leaving only an infant child behind.

For the first time in his life, Cameron had no idea what he was dealing with. He couldn't trace the years of unknown alien history and evolutionary development that would explain what he had.

And he wasn't willing to take a chance. He had seen the radiant power that consumed her, and controlled her...

Quietly, he put the sample back into the canister among the other plasmid cultures and experimental solutions—and reshaped his generation's history.

Unseen, he closed the lid to Pandora's box.
Chapter Twenty-Two

Erik Flynn Ross was lying down in his quarters, stretched out, listening to an audigital recording of Asian windstorms. It was not his usual selection. He did not call up the vidigital screen to create a visual accompaniment; had he wanted to, he might have made the room into a rocky, Asian desert, except for the ceiling and the tell-tale door hanging in mid-air; UESRC doors had no projections or sensors on them.

He was content just to listen. Without sight, his ears became more attuned to the reality of the music only; he sensed more, forced himself to understand his surroundings and how they moved, rather than merely observe them. Today, however, he hardly listened. Listening to music felt routine.

The others probably wouldn't arrive until after the meeting in the UESRC's East Wing Cargo Bay, where the transports came into the base; that was the way of it: returning cadets kept away until the last possible moment. So of course, he was the first of his roommates to arrive back at the UESRC for their second year of training. He was the only one who had nothing to stay home for.

It was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the year looming ahead, but he had come to terms with it. He was not afraid. What was training to an actual battle? There were worse things to fear. No one knew why the Charon aliens had attacked or what they wanted—the world was filled with unknowns. He was infuriated by his weakness when he dwelled on it, so the best thing to do was not to think about it.

All of Earth was acutely aware that the situation could change at any minute, that the aliens might leave Pluto and come to destroy the Earth; the government broadcasts indicated that attempts at communicating with the aliens continued to fail. So, what else was there for him but training? Erik wondered. Training provided him, and many others, with immediate goals, immediate distractions.

Yet he wasn't afraid to die. Death was inevitable, and brought the final answer to all mysteries. However, Erik was afraid to die without having experienced all life had to offer. He did not care if such a wish was futile; he wanted a lifetime of experiences packed into his remaining years before death took him. I'm coming, that far-off day warned him as each day passed, making him plunge headfirst into things before he thought them through. This sense of urgency moved him through the world, as though he had to sink his teeth into as much of it while he still could.

It was strange how war readjusted your opinion about what was important, Erik often thought. More than anything, he did not want to die before he knew the taste of real love.

As for love, well, there was little enough time for it during training, and privacy was a luxury. Of course, he had heard things could be sometimes be arranged among roommates for private time—but no one in his squadron had managed it so far. Anyway, he did not like the idea of sneaking around against orders—or of relationships that had no meaning. He really wanted more than that. Something to bring him to life.

He admitted he had made a few mistakes searching for what he thought he wanted, but he had no time to dwell on any regrets. Life went on—cruelly so. It never paused to let anyone adjust to the present. And now that his second year had begun, he had only two years left before being sent to the Charon front.

Time was running out.

* * * * *

During the month of freedom before the new training year began, Erin had stayed with her family in Statue City, but Colleen had gone to the UESRC early to visit her parents. So on the day of her departure Erin traveled alone on the crowded transport shuttle heading north. People came and went and sat next to her; some attempted small talk, others sat quietly, reading or gazing out at the landscape below.

Many of the other cadets from Statue City had taken the same transport, though she only knew a few of them. They disappeared after the second shuttle arrived at the UESRC, into the bustle of the civilian terminal at the far end of the Cargo Bay, where all of the trainees waited to be met by their new unit supervisors.

"Major Watanabe, Blue Division, second year—they'll be wearing blue stripes," she muttered, looking around for others wearing the same uniform as hers. Each trainee had been issued three flight uniforms, all identical, emblazoned with unit number, insignia, rank, and identification number.

At last she sighted the second year cadets wearing white uniforms with double Blue Stripes down the sides gathering by the corridor that led away to the East barracks. They laughed and greeted one another like old friends as Erin approached. Her feet betrayed her, taking short steps and edging closer, as though their owner hoped to be noticed and spared the first bold introduction.

One of the young men on the periphery of the circle lifted his head to glance around the room only briefly; as he did so, he noticed Erin standing some distance away in her double-striped uniform, her hand tightly clutching her dusty carry bag which held her few belongings. He hopped to his feet and smiled as he approached.

"Hey, where'd you come from? What's the matter, did the old barracuda in the West Section scare you over here?" he laughed, assuming she understood what he was talking about.

"Excuse me?"

"Come on now, which section did you transfer from?" the young man continued. "I heard Major Douglas lost a few cadets this year, the bastard. Whoops, did I say that? Better not let W hear me." He glanced over his shoulder at the smallish Asian women at the center of the crowd. Erin's eyes narrowed; somehow the features of the round-faced, sharp-eyed woman seemed familiar to her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Name's Erik. And you are?" He asked.

"I'm Erin," she answered, dropping her weathered bag to shake his proffered hand.

He was a head taller than she, with short hair, blue-green eyes flecked with gold, and an amused, roguish smirk.

"...we're going to head back to the barracks now to get settled so we can, you know, maybe let a few of the new recruits in the door..." the major was saying.

"Ah gee, W, do we have to?" someone asked.

"Knock it off, Hans..."

The team moved away and down the moving corridor to the East Wing Barracks.

"So, you been here long?"

Why was this Erik being so nice to her? she wondered.

She was reserved and aloof, not the type of hysterical girl who flitted back and forth and laughed in overabundance, nor the type who plodded along insensitive to the needs of the human animal nor to the depths of the human soul.

"You were a gymnast in physical training, huh?"

"Yea." Erin said. "And running."

"I was a long distance runner," said Erik. "And basketball."

"You're tall." She said suddenly in a funny way.

Erik listened, then burst into affectionate laughter.

"I am." He laughed.

"What are you doing here?" asked Erik. "You must be one of this year's cadets, huh?" He slapped himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot they were coming today."

"Me, yeah, I somehow managed to score highest in the continent on the final training test," she said. "So they assigned me to the UESRC for my last two years of senior training."

"Oh." Said Erik.

* * * * *

When they arrived at the barracks, Erin started to remember having lived there before. Finally, Watanabe noticed Erin, as the other recruits dispersed to the rooms of the G15 corridor, leaving Erin alone.

"Seems we've got a new face here," Watanabe said quietly. "They forgot to tell me you were coming today, but we can accommodate. I didn't get but one of the new cadets this quarter," she added, regarding Erin's uniform, "but you seem to be in the right place. Cadets Gehring, Quinn, and Chen are sharing one of the four-person rooms. Why don't you put your things in there for now, and if you decide you want to live with one of the other groups just let me know, cadet..."

"Mathieson-Blair." Erin said. Watanabe's eyes widened, but she recovered quickly.

"Welcome to our unit, Mathieson-Blair." W said quickly, without any outward feeling. "In a few moments, we'll be having our first status meeting. I'll see you there," was all the Major said, curtly, before heading hastily away.

The other cadets were unpacking as Erin entered.

"Hello, I'm Erin Mathieson-Blair. I'll be rooming with you," Erin offered, feeling awkward.

"Oh. Well, I'm Katrin Gehring." A tall, dark blond-haired girl with wide-set, light brown eyes, a round face and a small, pointed chin stopped stowing her bags to extend Erin a friendly smile. "It's nice to meet you, Erin."

"Nathalie Quinn." The small girl beside Katrin flung the words at them, her olive green eyes flickering with interest.

"Where did you come from?" Nathalie demanded, dropping her bag to the floor, then smoothed her dark fine curls behind her ears. She looked up, arms akimbo, a slight smile lighting up her pale, heart-shaped face.

"Be nice, Nathalie." The tall, slender Asian girl in the corner sighed with elaborate patience. "Hi, I'm Ho-ling Chen. And profoundly sorry you're stuck with us. Well, I guess you'll be filling in the space beside me—just press the blue button to slide the bed out so you can put your things down, and I'll help you learn the rest of the instrument panel." Ho-ling folded the last item from her bag and laid it neatly on her bed before coming around to show Erin how to work the sanitizer.

"It's a bit more complicated than you're used to," Ho-ling began explaining. "I transferred to this unit myself during the middle of last year, and it took me nearly a week to re-learn the whole code system. These were the original quarters—before they expanded the UESRC."

"Mathieson-Blair, huh? I've heard of your sister Moira, but I didn't know you were here, too." Continuing her earlier line of thought, Nathalie had finished unloading her things and stood leaning against the wall, her arms folded and her legs crossed. "So what's your story?"

"Nathalie," Katrin interrupted in tones of disapproval. "Don't be so rude." Katrin turned around from where she had been placing her bags in the wall closet to make eye contact with Nathalie.

"Ho-ling, what are you doing push-ups for?" Nathalie demanded.

"It's better than listening to you pick a fight, Quinn," Ho-ling spat between repetitions, then stood, having finished a set.

"Piss off." Nathalie shrugged.

"She's in a bad mood today," Katrin whispered to Erin.

"That's beside the point," Nathalie insisted as though she had heard the comment, giving Katrin a dark expression. "We're supposed to comm-yu-ni-cate."

"What the hell, she hasn't even had the chance to say anything yet. Why are you being so severe on her, Nathalie?" Ho-ling said in a hard way.

"Because she's been reacting like our questions are invading her personal space. We don't have personal space here."

"Oh, give it a rest, Nathalie," Katrin begged. "You are a jackass."

"She can defend herself, Katrin." Nathalie countered, still looking at Erin. "Well, Erin? What have you to say for yourself? Can we depend on you, or are you a quitter? A little spoiled momma's girl?"

Erin watched as Ho-ling sighed but remained silent. Ho-ling returned to her bed, then gathered her bags to put into the closet.

"There's a place to put your uniforms, clothing, and personal items in your wall cupboard over there, Erin," Ho-ling pointed to the outer wall across from bed-side one where Nathalie was watching them with an uninterested expression.

"Whatever I did to offend you, I don't know," Erin coughed to disguise her hesitation as she found her cupboard and activated it, "but since this is my first day here, could you tell me where the nearest washroom is?"

Nathalie barely moved, but her eyes flashed in surprise.

"That's impossible!" Katrin exclaimed. "New cadets are never put with second years."

"All right," Erin said, shrugging. "All the same, I'd still like to know."

Ho-ling gave directions, and a few moments passed in silence. Then several light tones sounded from above their heads, signaling the beginning of the meeting Major Watanabe had warned them about.

"Hurry up, Katrin," Ho-ling almost shouted to the girl standing in her way, dropping her own clothing and heading to the door behind Erin and Nathalie.

* * * * *

After the meeting, Erin was returning to her room when Major Watanabe stopped her and asked to speak with her for a moment privately in her quarters. Erin followed as her commanding officer took them down a transport elevator to the next highest level and down two more hallways before they came to a wide door space that whisked open at Watanabe's handprint.

Once Erin was comfortably seated in a chair across from Watanabe, the Major took only a minute to shuffle the computerized notepads on her desk around before finding an object underneath them and tossing it to her startled new cadet.

"Now that you are a part of the Blue Stripes, you'll be needing one of these," she explained. "It's a mini-communicator. You'll get a real higher grade wristband communicator when you graduate, but until then, get used to wearing that—put it on your uniform somewhere so you can be reached anywhere and at any time.

"Okay, I just wanted to welcome you to the UESRC and to our Sky Hawk Unit." She began, lacing her fingers on her desk. "Since you're new here, we'll give you a while to get used to the place, but I expect you to catch up and prove yourself second year material before the end of this month. If you have any problems, I want to be sure you know that you can always come here and talk to me about them.

"Oh, and, be sure to make some friends you can trust."
Chapter Twenty-Three

The morning dawned crisp and chill beyond the slim window that bordered the aboveground barracks of the UESRC. Dr. Sergei Zhdanov paused in his routine at his desk to watch the dim light that began to filter into his modest two-roomed apartment and to listen to the little sparrows chirping outside the window.

It was going to be a beautiful cool day out there. The summer had been too hot to his liking, even though he had spent the bulk of it indoors. Like most people, he preferred the spring and autumn, seasons that had all but disappeared during the Crisis Years and had come to be regarded as precious on the healed Earth, as well as refreshing.

Many of the UESRC staff including himself dreaded the hot summer days. Moreover, the stifling summer heat only reminded people unconsciously of the nightmare dust bowls and swamps that still held out in regions to the south.

Zhdanov massaged his tired, itchy eyes and glanced at the timepiece on the wall, which read 0600 in bright blue letters that made his eyes grow bleary and begin to tear. He had been up all night reading over the list of new pilot division, research science, and engineering trainees out of some compulsion; he had gained an almost legendary reputation for knowing the complete file of each staff member of the base inside and out, trainee or veteran.

He considered the information necessary. Without the knowledge, he could not give the welcoming speech at the Convocation Ceremony later that afternoon, and it saved time later when the cadets graduated, since he could more accurately assign them to suitable positions. Glancing over the last stack of files, he wasn't even sure why he had been putting it off all week, especially since things had quieted down since the beginning of the year.

He shuffled to the next file, clicked the button-sized holo-projection, and concurrently, a synthesized voice rasped the cadet's name.

"Mathieson-Blair, Erin. Placement: Third Level, year two, Blue Division Sky Hawks, Major Watanabe." An image of Erin in her previous uniform taken at the second year final examinations appeared six inches tall in the mini-holofield.

Zhdanov jerked backwards as if he'd been slapped. This was a ghost from his past. Yes—he could hardly believe it, but he'd quite forgotten about the little girl whom they had rescued the day the first ship arrived. He had shoved all of the events of that day to the back of his thoughts, that day that had changed all of their lives forever, but crystal clear recollections surfaced from time to time, buried somewhere in his mind, as fresh as yesterday despite the count of difficult years that had passed.

He searched his memory further a moment before coming up with the recollection of a day when the recon escort team left the UESRC to join the Statue City Base. It had literally been years since Zhdanov had seen Sasha and Richard in Statue City. They had become friends at the UESRC but had been forced to go their separate ways; the couple had only really maintained their ties with Cameron.

Zhdanov studied the holo-projection. He smiled. Had that much time passed already?

He was remembering the child that had played hide-and-seek in the maze of corridors surrounding the communications center, and who had rearranged all of the surgical instruments in the medical center when he left for a moment to discuss possible methods of treatment with her father.

She had fascinating eyes.

They had all thought that Erin's adoption was temporary then, but despite his efforts, Cameron had never been able to discover who her biological parents had been, and certainly now that would have proven impossible with the civilian deaths totaling almost a hundred million in the last ten years alone, including thousands of people in the rural zones.

So much had happened since Zhdanov had last seen her. Despite Zhdanov's and his colleagues' push to create new underground dwellings across the planet, the division of resources between the military and the civilian programs more often shortchanged the cities. Even with the piecemeal establishment of underground shelters and the fortification of the domes, there were still more aboveground cities than underground ones.

The Tethys Ocean Colonies were the closest thing to complete security; it appeared the enemy hadn't detected them yet, and despite the need for pilots, the aboveground forces did little to contact them or disturb their lives in order to maintain their security.

Strangely, the enemy appeared to continue concentrating its invasion on the sea coasts, leaving most of the cities in the continents' interior alone. The top priority of the new underground construction had been given to the coastal cities; now that they were nearing completion, Zhdanov often obsessed over the idea that the aliens would change their tactics and target the interior urban centers.

But there was only so much he could worry about, and at the moment, he doubted he would finish reviewing the candidates by afternoon.

Zhdanov concurred with the positive report as he reviewed Erin's examination results. She had scored so well, that she had been placed with the second years.

Zhdanov tapped a button on his desk and called the attending officer to make a private video connection to the Colonel's quarters. Zhdanov frowned, waiting for the communications channel to open, as he continued to review the other stack of papers on his desk informing him that materials for the project were late in coming. Their usual supplier had been the plastics plant in New Kiev that had been leveled seven months before, and the New Prague plant could not meet the UESRC demand until New Kiev could be reconstructed.

Perhaps by the time they received a shipment, the new recruits would be ready for their commissions, he observed in irritation.

* * * * *

During the first week back at the UESRC, the older cadets felt obliged to help the newcomers familiarize themselves with the enormous complex—and of course felt gratified by their own, elevated status as second years, so much the wiser. Following the schedule, the Blue Division second years paired up with Major Buscotti-Leonhardt's green stripe first years to visit the Training Rooms, Botanical Gardens, Greenhouse, and Physical Training Center. By the evening of the Convocation Ceremony on Saturday, most of the green cadets bragged that they already their way around the main corridors.

The week had been longer for some than for others. Erik Ross was eager to get back into the swing of things early on, and while this wish excluded the restriction of free hours and gatherings imposed after the first week, it did include a prayer that they could just skip all of the introductions and group tours.

Tuesday afternoon, and they were visiting the Research Center. What a waste of time, Erik Ross' bored expression said as he turned away from the speaker and gave the new recruits a wink. Now there was a much more interesting sight. At a break in the conversation, he quipped a joke and received one of Watanabe's patented frowns with a shrug and a contrite but roguish smile.

Kobaiyashi and his roommates had promised to throw a party that evening. It was a good thing he was standing near the back of the group, or Watanabe would have noticed him inching towards the green squadron to extend invitations. The old stick-in-the-mud didn't approve of parties. She didn't understand that they were a traditional part of the first week festivities, permitted even by Colonel Arnaud, who was against such things in general.

Erik was only a few meters from the nearest green cadet when he saw that girl from yesterday come into view at the other side of the crowd in front of the speaker and stopped in his tracks. He still had yet to get her story, why Watanabe recognized her, her full name and history.

Einar would know, of course. His older sister Mika knew all sorts of information. Erik frowned as he caught a glance of his roommate, Einar, standing behind her; the big blond Viking was chatting away. Just how had he managed to find her in the crowd? He was supposed to stick with his roommates, the traitor.

Erik headed back to the edge of the Blue Squadron Sky Hawks and nudged Nikolai's elbow, indicating across the room to where Einar had disappeared, and mumbled in his roommate's ear something that made Nikolai smile from ear to ear before he checked himself and nodded.

Once they trapped their prey that evening, the interrogation began, with Hans, their fourth roommate, joining in. Their targeted victim, Einar, gave in easily to the united front, with a complacent attitude that said that the only thing he enjoyed more than keeping a secret to himself was the attention it earned him by telling it.

"You mean you don't know?" Einar shook his head in mock disapproval. "Mathieson-Blair. Yes, she's their daughter, not just some random coincidence, in case you were wondering."

Nikolai slapped his head with his palm. "So that's how Watanabe knows her. She was a cadet when Mathieson and Blair taught at the school." Nikolai didn't notice Erik's startled look as he continued. "Can't imagine anything worse than having famous parents." He shrugged; his own parents were agricultural engineers—part-time farmers and relaxers—for one of the agricultural zones by the Don River.

"Mathieson and Blair," Hans repeated. "Well, I'll wager she's a fairly good pilot. And I'll bet she acts like it, too."

"Maybe she does. So what? She can be annoying all she wants."

"I'll say. She's sweet." Hans said.

"Hands off, she's mine," said Erik.

"But there's more. She's not a transfer like we thought," Einar continued.

"No?" Hans' brows drew together.

"She should be a first year, but she placed into our year at the exams this spring." Einar explained. "They say she somehow got the greatest score they ever had. Only sixteen and already a second year."

"Well, boys, you sniffed her out. My congratulations."

"You've got to be careful, Erik. W hates to see any personal relationships develop within squadron groups." Nikolai warned.

"I don't care, I'll do what I want." Said Erik.

* * * * *

Erik fidgeted with the cuff links of his uniform as he stood waiting behind the door. More than three squadrons had already shown up for Kobaiyashi's party by the time he arrived; he could already hear the dull roar of voices outside in the corridor.

Hans went in, but Nikki and Einar pressed in on Erik from behind, and he was carried into the revelry.

For a while, he enjoyed himself, drinking with Nikki, dancing with one of the nearest girls and then another. He did not exactly know how to dance properly, but none of them did. He, like most of the others, tried to modify his movement to fit the particular type of music Akira had selected. There were ancient classics played on elegant instruments, rock n' roll, unearthed from the past or half-remembered down the ages, and cultural songs as old as human civilization itself.

As time went on, Hans left him and went to sit down by a beautiful girl with ebony skin Erik only knew as Jamila. Erik and Einar joined Nikki in another round of beer, and then they all returned to the dance area to pick partners.

Later in the evening, Erik was heading to the beverage facilitator for refreshment after all of the dancing; as he reached the machine, he spied several people in the corner, sitting on the divan panels, talking and playing various illicit card games for time on leave chips.

Erin Mathieson was talking to Akira. Erik had been the first to meet her, to welcome her into the Blue Stripes; he felt suddenly quite irritated by Akira's proximity to her. What could he do about it? he wondered. Meanwhile, Erin continued listening to the energetic, witty Japanese cadet, oblivious to Erik's growing sense of indignation.

How—he asked himself—how could a girl he hardly knew have gotten under his skin so quickly?

* * * * *

He didn't contrive to speak to her until Friday. The group was finally going outside to visit the Botanical Gardens that morning after breakfast. It took him forever to catch up with her and those near the front of the herd. She appeared startled when he tapped her on the shoulder and offered a hello.

"Remember me?" He smiled; it was a well-practiced smile, and he felt certain of its having the desired effect.

"Of course," she said hesitantly, "Nathalie warned me about you."

"Oh really?"

"She says there isn't a woman alive you wouldn't flirt with if you thought it would do you some good to do it—and even if you hadn't a hope of success."

"Charming girl, isn't she?" He laughed in a tone that was nervous and curious at the same time, as though he feared what else Nathalie might have said about him. "Nathalie said that about me, did she? How hypocritical of her. Do I really come off as insincere?" He asked suddenly.

"Do you want the truth?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Then, yes."

"Ouch," he said, wincing. "Anything I can do to change your opinion of me?"

"I don't know. You could try being yourself."

"Oh, I'm always like this." He insisted.

"Really," she said, not believing it.

"You like me, though, don't you?" he asked; the idea pleased him.

"No."

"You don't?" The way he said it made it sound as though she was the first not to say yes. "Why not?"

"I don't know. Well, I suppose some people might find your attention flattering, but I like honesty. And even then, I don't always approve of what I hear. I'm pretty cold-hearted and critical to those who aren't my family and friends."

"Whoever said I wasn't honest?" Erik repeated, scandalized. "It might surprise you to know that I'm not insincere. Actually I like people—but most of them seem more interesting when you first meet them." He admitted. "After a while, you just realize that you have nothing in common, but I highly doubt that applies to you."

"Of course you'd say that—now."

"I can't help it; I like new faces." He shrugged. "But once reality and routines kick in around here, there won't be much to talk about or much time to spend talking about it."

"Fickle." She interjected, nodding.

"Not fickle, practical. It's just they'll keep us pretty busy until our winter holiday break—and it's only three days. I like to enjoy my free hours, so I guess I've developed somewhat of a reputation for wild behavior. But you don't believe all you hear, do you?"

Erin didn't answer. "I think Ho-ling and Nathalie will be looking for me, so if you'll excuse me, I've got to be going." She turned and pressed through the crowd away to the right.

What just happened? Erik said to himself. He was not used to rejection, and normally he told himself to stay away from girls who were immune to his charm, but his own advice came too late in this case. He had to have her; he had to make her want him. There was nothing else to be done about it.

It's time to switch tactics, he thought, smiling with anticipation. No one ever turns me down when I'm at my best. A smile twisted the corners of his mouth. She'll see.
Chapter Twenty-Four

Every morning, as certain as the proverbial sunrise, the wake up call at the UESRC sounded at precisely 0600. The mess hall, with some consideration, served breakfast a good fifteen minutes later.

The squadron unit that pulled breakfast duty arrived five minutes early to prepare breakfast and stayed an extra ten minutes past 0645 to clean up, all in preparation for future details on the small space cruisers they would someday occupy. After breakfast, each unit's schedule varied around time slots geared to maximize use of the facilities at every moment of the day.

The Blue Stripe second years, like the other pilot trainees, received their new year schedules shortly after the Convocation Ceremony ended. Their classes lasted from 0700 to 1100, at which time they took a break for lunch, the largest meal of the day. The Blue Stripes fell into the list of dinner duty cadets rather than lunch time duty cadets because their classes had been scheduled in the morning. For convenience, the staff divided classes into two sections that rotated subjects each of the six class days every week.

Monday and Thursday were Astrophysics and Chemistry, Tuesday and Friday were Biological and Environmental Sciences and Mathematics, and Wednesday and Saturday were History and Language sections. The only class that the pilot cadets attended daily was Military Strategy each morning for half an hour.

The Blue Stripes had free time until 1300, when Watanabe had reserved flight training time for them in the East Wing Astroport. The first years had spent an entire year training in new simulators but had not yet clocked in any actual flight time. This year the second years would begin to train in the actual planes they would fly once they finished training.

The first day proved intimidating for all of the cadets, especially since the complex landing mechanisms were not adjusted for raw recruits, and an additional twenty foot pedals and hand gears had to be taken into account.

After two hours of flight time each day, the unit retired to a simulation room and continued to practice simulated long-distance flying for forty-five minutes, after a fifteen minute energy snack break provided in the flight trainees' lounge.

At 1600, physical training hours commenced in the Physical Training Center. Four cadet squadrons shared the Center during each four hour time slot but rotated each of the four training disciplines daily, which consisted of running, gymnastics, martial arts, and swimming. The last half hour of every session was dedicated to weight training and conditioning exercises.

At 2000, the evening squadron served dinner in the barracks' Mess Hall until 2100. Past that time, the cadets used the remaining hours until lights out at 2330 to study, relax, visit friends, or go to sleep early. Evening assignments were kept light and restricted to mathematical and scientific problems, but academic fundamentals in general were stressed more at the UESRC than the other training bases, mostly because UESRC squadrons were promoted more quickly into the upper echelon of the military hierarchy.

Specialization into the fields was also often delayed until the second level of training and many cadets even switched among piloting, engineering, and the research fields. So many of the pilot cadets had years of high level education prior to attending the Elite School. As a result, the UESRC staff who volunteered professor time at the School assumed their trainees had an excellent base of academic knowledge.

In fact, though second year education decreased in time it increased in quality from the first year, when five hours of revisionary classes were obligatory. The first year was usually the last year that cross-overs between specializations was possible, but some cadets specialized in more than one field. And no one could say what information might prove valuable in future contacts with the Charon aliens, or who would be in the right place at the right time when and if it became crucial to make a good first impression.

Piloting cadets who had difficulties keeping up in any of the subjects could attend tutorial sessions in the evenings or spend time on the library computers, where millions of books were stored in memory. Moreover, the Library was one of the few places where cadets from all years and all over the base met one another and made new friends, and few chose to activate the files from the outside via hand held computer grids.

Erin contrived to meet her friend Colleen at the library often, but they found little common experience to relate; most days Erin read alone or practiced her language skills in the soundproof cubicles. Usually she left ten minutes before lights-out and returned to find her roommates already sleeping in the quiet, darkened room. They did not know that Erin spent most of the night on long, rambling walks past old haunts. She still did not sleep much.

Even here in the UESRC, where her past began, Erin felt herself estranged from the very Earth beneath her feet. Something was wrong, and she didn't know what.

She had long admired Colleen for her sensitivity to the spirit of past generations that lived on in everything natural surrounding them, from simple stone to manmade legacies, ruins, and ancient literature. Colleen attached her adoration to objects, to places, to the tangible. She loved beauty for its own sake and constructed a world of beauty around herself by the way she chose to regard beloved friends and places.

Erin had a regard for natural beauty, but she also saw a dark power in the Earth. The Earth itself was a reality independent of human life, and it tolerated the presumptuous activities of its tenants, the human race. Yet the Earth was cold, lifeless, indifferent. It was the only real eternity.

Erin often tried like Colleen to establish a certainty of her adoration for the planet in her own heart, and thereby gain the secrets the world had to offer those who sought its protection and love, yet she found she could not inherit this secret tellurian knowledge. She did not feel any tender current of affinity reaching out from the planet to aid one of its own. The Earth itself cried out in horror that she was a stranger to it, and perhaps even an enemy.

* * * * *

The light touch of the first snowfall fell over the UESRC in early November. All of the cadets rushed out after dinner into the wintry silence. They gathered on the astroport and the rolling, grassy clearing between the base and the neighboring forest to celebrate the annual snowball-throwing and snow angel tradition. Once covered with wet, clinging snow, the many white figures soon became indiscernible, and the chill air came alive with the flying clods aimed at random and at unrecognizable prey.

By chance, Erin and her friend Colleen met each other at the East Wing Gate and attempted to stay together but found themselves split apart in the mesh of activity going on; each was lost amid the mists curling up from the edge of the forest and the moving streams of human breath. It was snowing hard.

An hour or so passed but the crowds didn't diminish, despite the cold, despite the dark. There were intermittent cries of exhilaration, surprise, and triumph all around. Erin had just packed a hard snowball and was carefully aiming it at a boy cadet. He had just rushed past her and belted her with two snowballs, and she intended to catch him before he got away. Then someone in the astroport tower figured it was time to turn the spotlights on for the cadets gathered on the closed astroport runway.

Light descended upon the land and shimmered on the damp bodies and reflective panels of UESRC uniforms.

As the world around the cadets shunted into the light, a sudden crack of pain jolted through Erin's body like an electric shock. Boom, boom–her head throbbed with a deep thundering pressure that deadened her hearing. The cries of her compatriots wavered and dimmed to a distant howling. She could not even cry out.

Before a few seconds had passed, her vision clouded over, shrinking from the edges to the center and then disappearing into a white fog of nothingness. The searing pain was leaving, but it did not return her to the reality she knew.

Drifting vapors of muddling grey mist streamed before Erin and acted like a curtain, drawn over her by some divine power, until a field of snow solidified in front of her without warning, a tranquillity of pure white beautifully illuminated by intense sunlight, at last bright enough for her eyes to focus and blink normally.

Tumbling white flakes began to fall from the royal blue sky onto the tips of the trees on the horizon; the birch-like leaves sparkled with gold and rainbow colors, and ice clung desperately to thin, spidery branches and to the broad, exquisitely-formed leaves, stubbornly green and strong despite the sharp bite of the wind.

Erin's heart lurched in terror as sinister shadows appeared as blots of encroaching darkness upon the snow, grotesque, dark, and twisted–yet familiar forms, throbbing and shaking with inhuman excitement and anticipation. The objects that cast the shadows remained behind Erin, close as a mere step away, and she found that she could not turn around to face them.

Her movement slowed, and she stood helplessly frozen, staring across the field waiting for the unknown creatures to take her; then her vision sharpened, and the trees appeared closer, closer, until she could see the cells then molecules within them, swirling patterns of energy in a timeless dance of perpetual motion.

There was a feeling of icy venom in her mind–it began slowly to filter through her mind like an evil poison changing her will, her thoughts, her self. She felt it threatening to seize her and take her for its own, to make her as evil as itself...

A moment later she pulled her sight back from the tree. The haunting, delicately suspended leaves now glowed bright silvery-gold and green in the summer sun. The rushing song of a lively brook to her left made her turn. The brook tumbled over stones and fed into a small, rippling pond. Her movement restored, Erin spun in a circle in the shining forest, a beloved den of natural guardians carpeted with a mat of damp dead leaves and soft sponge with beads of dew that reflected the light. The oppressive feeling was gone. In its place was a wonderment of such proportions that she felt as though the entire world was a paradise.

Here, here was where she belonged! Kneeling to scoop up some crystal-clear water into her hands, she gazed at her reflection, a reflection which oscillated in the ripples and distorted her features. A noise from behind made her turn around toward a tall approaching shadow calling in unintelligible music. Such beautiful music! It echoed like clear water.

But without warning, the image of this paradise was swept away, and the sound became muffled by a seething wind that lashed out to erase the memory...

"Erin, can't you hear me?" Erin blinked and realized that she was staring at Erik Ross, who had somehow found her in the throng of revelers. She wanted to cry. He mistook her expression for tenderness.

His handsome features were twisted into a worried frown, and he scratched his left cheek with the tip of his finger in a gesture of self-consciousness in the uncomfortable pause.

"I'm fine. I guess the light bothered my eyes." She turned away from his face to collect her thoughts.

A cacophony of sensations was entering her mind through the very air as trails of human motion sent atoms in different directions, and she was surrounded by external electromagnetic brain impulses that transmitted assorted scraps of images, messages to body limbs, thoughts, feelings, impulses, and connections of short term memory from those all around her. Directly behind her, the feelings came strong—concern, desire, fascination.

She sensed complex patterns, old memories present beneath the surface thoughts...

* * * * *

She was a little boy around five watching his mother singing in the kitchen of a small apartment in the Canadian region of Nova Scotia. He was playing with a velociraptor toy and two foot soldiers. His father had left after breakfast, and they were getting ready to go to the big building where he played with other children, where his mother had a room of important but off-limits things. The other children teased him because he was the smallest and youngest, especially Adrian with the curly hair.

But he would never cry; he fought back, but the others always grouped together against him. He didn't say a word to his mother—if he had she would notice something wrong—so he learned to hide himself behind a smile.

When he turned seven, the older children ganged up on him and broke his arm during play group, but he didn't tell anyone, not even his older brother Justin. The arm hurt so much later that his mother took him to a hospital where the doctor said he had almost left it too late to heal properly; then the old man put it in a light box that burned and froze his skin, gluing white bone pieces together again. Before God he cursed Adrian and Girard. He wanted them to pay.

A few months later, he remembered the day his mother sent him to visit his grandmother. His teacher Ms. Wallace had told her he was uncooperative, but he was glad to get away from the kids at school. So he kept silent and let her send him away. He had packed enough of his things to last the two months he would live with his grandmother.

Then while he was away the aliens came and destroyed his home—every living thing in the urban zone of New Perth. The school had burned, his home had burned, everything had been incinerated by a soft beam of light. He hadn't really wanted Adrian and Girard to die. But God had listened.

And then he felt guilty, and the guilt never went away.

It was a miracle his brother had survived. Justin had left for training in Coast Charles only a few weeks earlier. Now Justin visited them every month. Justin was proud of his little brother's exam results and recommendations—but he did not know what Erik had done. If he had known that Erik had caused their parents' deaths, would Justin understand? Could he still love his little brother?

Erik couldn't take the chance. To drown out the inner devils, he threw himself into work, taking up martial arts, basketball, running, survival training. In time, he grew, realized that alien attacks and other such things were not the fault of one person. He realized that death was random, that he had to make the most of his days.

His new friends cheered him when he was accepted to the prestigious UESRC; the city praised him as a kind of hero, a hope for the future of the world. But what kind of hope could he really be? He didn't want the responsibility. He despised responsibilities that limited freedom of choice.

The UESRC could preach what it might about long-term goals, and he would do his best. But he was also prepared to take each day as it came and try to enjoy his life as best he knew how, no matter what the others thought or said. Ultimately, there might not be any tomorrow.

* * * * *

He established himself as the best pilot on his team and the male candidate from their squadron for complementary research position over at R & D, knowing that every year, Zhdanov and Arnaud selected one male and female assistant from each squadron among the second years for the additional duties of apprentice researchers during their third year and to act as future liaisons between the training divisions.

But when he saw Erin across the field of snow, he could not stop himself from heading towards her. Finding out that she would never care for him would perhaps even be the best thing after all. To come so close to something unattainable was the worst kind of torment.

As he wove through the cadets that mercifully shielded him from her sight until he was beside her, his feet crunching the snow loudly, he almost lost his nerve, until he realized that she was in some kind of trance, standing still among the moving bodies, her sea blue eyes fixed intently upon—nothing but air.

He found himself beside her in moments, shook her shoulder, waited for her to respond, searching for an excuse to touch her face if he could when she suddenly blinked and came to life again.

And the first thing she did was brush him off.

He was deciding to head back to his room when an unfamiliar sensation settled on his head, as if soft, cool fingers were stroking his mind, bringing his thoughts to the surface, completing them when they were half-formed or scattered, heightening his clarity of recollection but soothing his disquieted conscious. A second later, the feeling was gone.

Erin shuddered as she felt the fingers leave her mind. And then it occurred to her that she was Erin and not Erik Ross as his memories took a backstage to her own. She shuddered again as she remembered the alien stroking feeling on her mind, that had really been in his mind.

Erin tried not to think for a moment. Then she felt the familiar wall around her mind comforting and secure. But now there were other memories there, memories she had nothing to do with, and the memory of images, patterns of light and something in her mind urging her to reach out to the energies and control them. She shook off the temptation that began to rise again.

She knew it was there, that other part of her, had told herself in the past that it did not exist. She was herself, alone, but the feelings deep in her mind were begging her to embrace them, telling her that she deceived herself in some way, that they were a part of herself she had once known but left behind and forgotten. They assured her they were the same as she, but she feared them nonetheless. What if she didn't like that part of her once she remembered it? She thrust it away from her, as though it were poison to her.

Then the full realization of who Erik Ross was hit her. This strange, wonderful, compelling person, unique and interesting, had altered her perception of the world. For the first time—through his memories—her mind reassured her that she was as normal as anyone when she hadn't felt quite normal before. She knew what it was to have no doubts about her identity.

And she suddenly wanted to bend down and kiss the Earth she loved.

Yes, now the Earth beneath her was warm to her feet. The Earth beneath her had at last accepted her as one of its own.

All through his eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Erin wasn't afraid to die, but neither was she ready to die yet. Nonetheless, she admitted that death had the very great honor of conquering human vanity—of conquering her own vanity and any desire for glory on the battlefield she might have entertained—for death conquered everything, from high to low alike. The greatest generals were not more immune to its power than the lowliest conscript.

She had nothing to do that Sunday afternoon and decided to head over to her favorite arboretum and sit and feed the birds crumbs of oat bread.

She reached the Echo Park and sat down under an awning purple beech tree. Nearby a grove of sycamore, white ash, and maple trees provided great shade for a mile.

A familiar figure ambled his way up one of the trails. She gasped.

"Well, I must say I am surprised. Scott Dimitriev!" She got up and called to him. He stopped and looked her way. There was an uncomfortable pause in which time it took him to reach her bench.

"What the devil—! Well, well, little miss serious—

The two just stared at each other.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Well, three years. You?"

"Not even six months," she replied. The birds at her feet were fighting for the crumbs with the sparrows and doves.

"Things have changed, but you look well–I mean, good," said Scott carefully.

"You do, too," she said, with more enthusiasm.

"So, what are you doing here now if you've already graduated?"

"I'm on the Stargazer. We're here off duty for a while," he was evasive.

"Then, would you like to meet for dinner?"

"No, I can't fraternize with the cadets, but I'm certain we'll cross paths again."

"So you don't have to leave right away, do you?"

"I'm afraid so. I only came here for a few minutes in the middle of an important conference with Colonel Kansier."

"Oh."

"I'm afraid I have to go soon."

"Well, stay a minute and just enjoy the air with me."

"All right," he said, breaking into a smile. "It is nice to see you."

Her smile was like a small child. "It is."
Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Blue Stripes Sky Hawks Squadron, proceed to sector eight for recon." Zhdanov ordered.

"They hit sector eight pretty hard throughout the attack with their heavy artillery planes. A moment ago, they suddenly vacated the area. The combat planes have broken off their attack to protect the artillery on its way back to the alien space cruiser. We'll send another recon team out to aid you once the fighting is over. Maintain net silence with the base—Zhdanov out."

A sudden attach had mobilized half of the UESRC's senior squadrons. Erin's striped fighter sped over the broad green hills and rush of trees that dotted the forested zone. Nearly half an hour of mesmerizing green patterns passed before their squadron slowed to a landing near the assigned coordinates. A wash of thick steam obscured their view as they carefully banked by a small rise and disembarked at the edge of a deep crater. The small group assembled moments later in front of the cluster of fighters.

"Watch your step—the ground isn't solid." Zhdanov advised over the comnet.

"It's still there?" Erik Ross' voice said, in shock. "They told us it had been destroyed."

The air had slowly begun to clear, and the alien spaceship that had first crashed to the Earth was now visible enough that the metal wall could be seen stretching easily thousands of meters in three directions.

"We've got company." As Watanabe said this, they all strained to hear the distant whine of a recon transport approaching. A moment later, a strong gust of wind preceded the recon vessel's close landing, clearing away the last of the dust and steam. Two men stepped from the landing platform, one an unidentifiable technician and the other Dr. Zhdanov himself, attired in flight gear and compu-helmet.

A moment later, Dr. Knightwood appeared from the very same landing strip similarly attired. Her presence was all the more unexpected, since she had only just arrived from the Ural base days earlier. The two scientists headed towards the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks Squadron and stopped before Major Watanabe.

"Our apologies, Major, for not telling you and your crew what this was all about." Zhdanov gestured to the ship, and cleared his throat. His air of composure had, perhaps for the first time, an artificial quality to it. "You see, in order to prevent our civilian population from panicking any further after the Statue City attack, a select committee of the Security Federation voted to let the word out that the first alien spaceship was demolished after the avalanche.

"I myself was against the decision," he shook his head, "but we had promises to support the Federation to uphold. The truth is that the ship was covered by the avalanche, but the UESF finished the job. None of us who knew were happy about it." The way he said it, they could imagine how difficult it had been for him.

"It's been buried here all this time," he explained, "and we've had no way to study it. The ship engaged an anti-radar cloak the moment it was buried, so at least we haven't had to worry about the enemy aliens finding it. The only good news is that whoever's inside hasn't bothered us up till now."

"I'll say that's good news," Hans whispered to Erik. Erik nodded, wondering for just one brief moment why the Earth bothered to put up any resistance and didn't just succumb to the inevitable death planned for them by their alien foes. He had a feeling he couldn't handle another shock such as this, that there was an alien ship on Earth—couldn't they be incinerated at any moment?

After that moment, Erik summoned courage forcefully and tapped into the vein beneath his own doubts that told him he wasn't just going to surrender without a fight, or let the human race be obliterated without a struggle.

"Then just last month," Zhdanov continued, "we realized that the topsoil had eroded enough so that we were able to pick up traces of radiation at the UESRC. The ship's anti-radar detection couldn't hide that, and I suppose the Charon aliens detected it, too. I think the attack on Coast Charles was merely to divert our forces. We were ready for them this time, but they'll be coming back. They know this ship is out here now, that much is a certainty. But we were waiting to investigate this area until after they cut off their attack." He gestured, indicating himself and Knightwood.

"I see," W nodded, digesting the information.

"Yes, one thing is clear: the aliens at Charon know this ship is out here now." Zhdanov repeated soberly, unable to imagine how this fact would change life on Earth, hoping against hope that it would not bring the end of humanity.

"Yes, they'll most certainly be back." W agreed.

"Well, I'll be interested to see if it's what they're really after." Knightwood said, speaking up. I imagine it probably won't be long now before we learn what this war is about."

W suppressed an urge to say that it might not be long afterward that the human race was entirely obliterated, so what would it matter?

"We can't forget about Arnaud's plan," Zhdanov reminded them. "Our infiltration unit might keep our alien friends occupied for a while. Maybe long enough for us to figure out how to get inside this thing." Zhdanov tried to be detached and analytical again.

"You've been planning a recon of this ship?" W breathed, conscious of her increasingly rapid heartbeats.

"Zhdanov guessed they might do our dirty work for us and clear a clean path to the crater." Knightwood explained and shot him a glance of approbation.

"You mean—us? Now?" W repeated over the net, keeping her comments from the Blue Stripes on a selective officer's channel that only Knightwood and Zhdanov could hear. "We're the recon team?" She asked, in tones of disbelief.

"Why not?" Knightwood said. "Your team is highly trained and heavily armed, isn't it? Anyway, you should consider yourselves lucky. Of all the teams within this area, Arnaud felt that the Blue Sky Hawks were the best squadron for this recon assignment." Knightwood said, waiting tensely for their response. She decided not to let any of them know the deciding factor—that almost any of the squadrons would have done just as well, but Erin's past connection to the ship had been chiefly responsible for Arnaud's choice. Arnaud and the others of the UESRC knew that Erin had been the first living person to see the ship, and one of the only ones who had ever been exposed to the immediate environment of its initial crash. Though there might not have been anything to that, Arnaud and the other commanders had felt an instinctive urge to place the initial participants in the ships' welcoming party back at the scene.

Meanwhile, W seemed anything but grateful for the lucky opportunity. She frowned openly, but nodded, her teeth clenched.

"Erik, gather half the team and follow Zhdanov's instructions to the letter. Erin, gather the rest and follow Knightwood." Watanabe swallowed the lump in her throat and barked orders, her eyes flashing at Knightwood.

"Sure thing, W." Erik acknowledged the order and headed over to call together the group that had wandered, half in a daze, twenty meters along the wall. W glanced around, searching for Erin. She stood rooted to the spot where she been standing when the ship appeared before them.

"Erin?" W called on the main comnet frequency to her helmet. "Erin, are you listening? Erin, Zhdanov and Knightwood are waiting."

The girl said nothing, did not move.

"Do you hear me?" W barked, wondering if her comlink was down.

Erin should have heard her through the helmet, as loudly as W had spoken. Instead, the girl remained motionless, her gaze fixed at a forty-five degree incline, her head slightly tilted back. Erik and his team came back; as he noticed the others gathering around Erin and W, Erik rushed to meet them. Behind Watanabe, Zhdanov and Knightwood exchanged a significant glance, and Knightwood nodded.

Erin stared upward at the ship, unresponsive to her teammates, to her superiors, to anyone, though they tried all methods of shaking, pushing, and shouting to get her attention.

"She's as stiff as a board," Nathalie was saying as Erik approached. "Erin, hey, answer me. It's Nathalie. Erin, what's wrong? Erin, snap out of it!" Nathalie would have slapped her, if the compu-helmets weren't in the way. If Erin, who was usually a rock and never afraid of anything, broke down into panic, would the rest of them start losing it, too? She looked around with an expression that willed them all to keep it together. She had no intention of letting everyone else panic—but Erin? It was unbelievable.

"So what is wrong with her?" Claude interjected from behind, just as shocked by Erin's break-down. Meanwhile, Erik, who had been listening from a distance, managed to get to the other side of the group where he could get a look at Erin's face. The expression sent an involuntary shiver down his spine.

It was the same look he remembered, that trance-like stare she'd given him that night a year and a half ago. Knightwood put a hand on Erin's shoulder and glanced from Erin to Zhdanov to W as if at a loss as to what to do. Apparently they all thought that she was in shock, that she was scared. But he knew better. Without pausing to consider what he would say, he reached forward and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Hey, Erin, it's me, Erik. Whatever it is, you've got to pull yourself together. Remember our mission! Remember why you're here!" he ordered, digging his fingers into her flesh, shaking her.

"My mission," Erin whispered at last. Her eyes refocused; the tension in her muscles relaxed, but there was a strange, hypnotic quality to her eyes.

"All right, that's good." W said, while Zhdanov and Knightwood communicated with silent gestures, as if the episode had confirmed some secret hypothesis they had known all along. "Have you recovered enough to move, Erin?"

"I think so," she rasped, blinking.

"Good, because we're just about to explore the outside of the ship." Knightwood said. "Here, walk by me. All right, everyone, we'll break up here. Zhdanov will lead half of you to the left. Half of you come with me to the right. We're going to look for any signs of activity. If we don't see anything, we're going to have to try to find a way inside."

"Inside?" Erik echoed, incredulous, directing it at Hans. "Why would we even consider entering an alien ship?"

"Because the UESF has decided we must find out why the Charon aliens are interested in this thing." Knightwood replied. "You were one of the closest squadrons in this area when we received news that the ship had been uncovered by the aliens—the UESF felt that you all were up to the assignment, and Arnaud chose you."

Erik listened attentively, his mind working over the situation.

"Okay, I understand," he said. "But if the alien ship has been here all along, we've already been waiting years for some kind of reaction, some kind of activity." Erik shook his head. "So why not forget the wait now? If we're going to have to find a way inside eventually, why don't we just go ahead and try, instead of looking around the outside again and waiting for them to fry us here, before we've seen or learned anything new and vital?"

"No, he has a point." Knightwood nodded, agreeing.

"Should we use our lasers?" Nathalie asked, eager to start something moving. She had already released the safety cap from the nozzle of her gun and held it ready near the side of the alien hull.

"By all means, try." Knightwood shrugged as though certain it wouldn't work, but hard pressed to think of anything else that might. Akira joined Nathalie to synchronize their fire. Knightwood stood back with the others to watch as the two team partners emptied their guns against that beautiful navy hull that she remembered, that had given her countless nightmares.

"It's not working!" Nathalie cried in disgust as her gun extinguished itself.

"All right, break off and look for entrances." Zhdanov motioned for his team to move in, and Akira slung his weapon over his shoulder, moving aside for the others to examine the area of the hull they had been frying. Zhdanov didn't voice his private concern that the team would meet with failure, that the ship remained closed to them.

At that moment, Erin shuddered.

"What's wrong?" Knightwood let only a little of the concern she was feeling affect her voice.

"He's watching me, Dr. I—it's horrible."

"Who's watching you?" Knightwood looked around, but saw no one.

"Forget it," Erin croaked and cleared her throat. "I was probably hallucinating. Anyway, I'm okay now." She added and walked forward to join the others in their search.

Before she blocked it out, she'd had an odd sensation, something she'd picked up in the air as if she could read minds, a sensation of hostile observation now turning to affection and recognition. But she couldn't read minds! She knew that, and yet—

Calm down and think, Erin. She pushed all immaterial thoughts away. Now how do we get in?

As this thought struck her, she began to notice a light, painful pressure growing in her head, like something living in her mind was trying to pull her forehead inward; words suddenly filled her thoughts unbidden. Spoken in her mind they sounded unlike any language she had studied at the UESRC, unfamiliar but vaguely, agonizingly recognizable.

Elas-sa hai-eel lirah... Throw wide the doors at my will... As soon as she understood their meaning, she felt them grow in her mind to an enormous pressure, bursting out in every direction away from her, silent but charged like electricity.

And before her an airlock hissed open with the sound of rushing air.

"Ah!" Several of the others exclaimed, jumping back. Their eyes had turned in Erin's direction at the sound, and the group appeared behind her in moments, mutely regarding the yawning aperture.

"How the hell did that happen?!" Nikolai exclaimed a moment later, voicing their collective wonder.

No one answered, and no one seemed inclined to head into the aperture; they stared at it, shifting feet, fear creeping over them, making their hair stand on end within their compu-helmets. They stared at the darkness as though it were the boundary between life and death, and none of them were ready to jump over into it. Like a knight who had successfully stormed a castle, Erin pushed through the crowd and took a step forward into the beckoning darkness. In a panic, Knightwood stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Hold on, Erin. We have no idea what's in there." Knightwood objected, her voice rising. "Scanners?"

"Nothing living within the next hundred meters," W said.

"Well then, if we're going in, we'll all go together." Knightwood said, calming. "I don't need to tell anyone this trip might be dangerous," Knightwood's cogent tone was not enough to dissuade her, but still Erin hesitated.

Pictures had begun to flash through her mind the moment she stepped towards the aperture. She had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, and she recalled her earliest memories—the day she had been found by her mother and father. She had been sitting outside in an area similar to sector eight, but what had happened before? And why did she find herself remembering that day—a day she had pushed to the back of her mind along with the first few years she had lived with her new family?

Before that—there was only a blank, but now images crossed the obscure barrier in her mind, and she was once again staring across a muddy plain, turning around to look one last time at the shining blue wall behind her, uncertain because she had no idea where she was...

Erin jerked her head suddenly as if she had been shocked by electricity. Her reasoning mind dismissed the alien illusions as a hostile intrusion. She couldn't have been in there before, so where were these memories coming from? She refused to believe anything that interfered with her illusion of belonging to the Earth.

Meanwhile, Knightwood watched Erin, privately certain that something significant was affecting her. Knightwood's mind raced through the scenarios she had pondered over the years. If there were aliens on board this vessel, perhaps as hostile as the first, what could their intentions be? They had never shown any sign of activity, but she knew that didn't necessarily mean that they had been dormant all these years.

She suddenly wondered if it was possible that they were communicating to Erin for some reason—but why? Was it because Erin had been raised by her first, biological mother in this area? Still, if they hadn't contacted her—then perhaps Erin was only reacting because she had been the only one to see the ship crash all those years ago.

Yes, Knightwood reassured herself, that had to be it, not knowing that there was an alien force in her mind compelling her to ignore the most logical explanation to Erin's behavior, not knowing that this hypnotic force had been there, had been operating since the moment Knightwood first saw the girl, long ago.

"Be careful," Knightwood whispered again, motioning for the others to commence exploration procedures. "If anyone's getting off this ride, now would be the right place to do it." She suggested, but to their credit, no one responded. In any case, waiting outside could prove just as dangerous, Knightwood realized, and perhaps more, if the aliens on board had no interior means of defense, if all their defensive weapons were buried just under the exterior of the ship.

Meanwhile, a few clicks of timers on their wriststrap communicators sounded in the dead air as the company began to transmit their personal locations and biosigns to the UESRC.

But Erin wasn't thinking about exploration procedures. While she stood rooted to the ground, she began to feel that overwhelming sense of affection that she had noticed before welcoming her; at first, she felt compelled to be cautious by her years of conditioning in training sessions, but the feelings reaching her were so genuine that her mind was put at ease.

Knightwood noticed Erin's body physically relax, but her gaze was drawn more to the calm smile that had appeared on Erin's face.

"We'll be all right, Knightwood," she said, in an eerie manner, but the others didn't question her; for no reason at all, each felt an instinctive urge to believe her. The hypnotic quality of Erin's eyes intensified as they flared wide; Knightwood just looked at her a moment, her own fears abruptly retreating.

"All right, then, everyone, let's see what we can see." Knightwood said calmly, then stepped forward to Erin's side, and together they entered the unknown.

* * * * *

"Colonel Kansier, we have signals coming in from the Blue Stripe Sky Hawk squadron. They're preparing to enter the vessel with Zhdanov and Knightwood. Should we send a back-up over, sir?" Major Dimitriev called from his temporary position at the communications console on the bridge of the grounded Stargazer.

Preparing to enter the alien vessel? Kansier's thoughts echoed. For a moment he wondered if he had heard Dimitriev correctly.

The two men sat alone amidst the noise of the instruments; most of the crew had been sent out during the fighting and had yet to return, and the bridge crew had been transferred to the Saturn defense fleet, to be replaced by the graduating cadets in exactly two weeks.

"No," Kansier said slowly. "What could we possibly do to help them if there are aliens aboard that ship? Someone's got to take a risk, and Arnaud felt that the Blue Stripes were up for the assignment. All we can do is pray that they come out alive again." Kansier sat with his head bowed low, his face and emotions hidden.

"Sir, we just received a report that the aliens are retreating again, and that Coast Charles survived the attack." Scott sounded only marginally relieved; he was preoccupied with worrying about the Blue Stripes that had just entered the buried spaceship.

God, bring them out again safely.

"Good news for once." Kansier said, interrupting Dimitriev's thoughts; Kansier also hoped that the Blue Stripes would make it out—in his heart of hearts he had begun to favor them above the other three bridge crews that had been training to board the Stargazer. But then again, he thought as he contemplated the visuals being relayed from the site of the Earth-bound alien dreadnought, the time might be up for the entire human race.
Chapter Twenty-Eight

Knightwood picked herself off the floor where she had fallen a couple of feet and looked to her right side to see if Erin had avoided the pitfall. The cadet had activated her helmet lamp and called to the others to watch their step, and now she was turning her head to observe the dimly lit corridor, the human-sized corridor.

Knightwood caught Zhdanov's expression; he was staring at their surroundings in utter disbelief, and she was sure that the same expression was on her own face.

Sleek sea blue metal glittered to either side in the beacon-like light of helmet lamps; the beams grew stronger and bolder as the last few cadets dropped to the floor behind them at Watanabe's urging. Once the entire squadron had assembled, Zhdanov wanted to begin down the dark passage right away, but he took another moment before speaking over the comline to allow the others to collect themselves.

An unbroken silence reigned in the narrow air lock corridor. They were terrified, of course, but that was to be expected, though their curiosity was greater—what was this place?

Once the squadron had finished activating their tracking devices, Erin headed to the end of the short tunnel about ten meters from the inner air lock door, turned to her left, and disappeared into the shadows. Knightwood rushed anxiously to catch up with her, but Erin waited around the corner for the others to join her, who were being led by Zhdanov. Knightwood defied the timeless ambiance with a soft whisper through her external speakers; her scanners reported an oxygenated atmosphere that, even if it proved dissimilar to the Earth's, carried sound waves the same.

"Hold on a minute, Erin." Knightwood said quickly. "Remember we have to stick together. No sense in causing a panic. It doesn't look like there's much going on—yet—but, we've got to keep together in case we're attacked. So what do you think—should we turn left or right?" Knightwood turned to Zhdanov, who had appeared beside them.

"I think the cadet was headed the right way." Zhdanov said. "We entered near the lower stern of the ship, so we would be better able to reach the interior if we head left." Zhdanov tried to scratch his head, but his helmet got in the way for once.

"What's he saying?" Erik asked, standing several paces behind, next to Einar and Nikolai.

"I think Erin's suggesting we head left, and Zhdanov's agreeing." Hans said from just ahead.

"Erin said we should go left?" Einar asked. "How does she know which way to go?"

"I don't think she does," Erik shrugged.

"So why is Zhdanov taking us to the left?" Einar said,

"Are you saying we should we go right instead?" Erik asked.

"If you ask me, it doesn't make any difference." Nikolai interrupted. "But you know, a woman's intuition and all that—"

"Just typical of you to say that." Einar said.

"Actually, in this case, she also makes sense." Nikolai shrugged.

"We're heading left." Knightwood suddenly shouted, signaling with an arm wave at the cadets behind Zhdanov. "Form up with your team partners and keep an eye on each other. We're going down this corridor here. Everyone be prepared to defend yourselves at a moment's notice. Understood? Ross get yourself up back up here with Mathieson-Blair."

Erik broke through the crowded squadron and took his place beside Zhdanov. Like the other cadets, his expression was a blank as he attempted to concentrate on his duty and suppress the current of fear threatening to engulf his thoughts and drive him to self-interested distraction.

Some of the other cadets, Knightwood noticed, already appeared ready to bolt. No one had predicted how they might have been affected—but it looked like some form of acute claustrophobia in the confines of the unknown spaceship had set in. Knightwood too felt something, the sense that they had left the real world behind.

Yet Erin seemed not at all disturbed by their new surroundings. Knightwood thought that especially peculiar considering the girl's odd behavior outside moments ago, but perhaps Erin was masking her fears.

The corridor continued much the same as in the short air lock passage—the walls to either side almost hypnotic as they approached, flashing reflectively in the helmet lamp light and then diminishing. The ground was a hard, dark, metallic alloy, surprisingly easy on their feet yet smooth and slippery to their flight boots.

More than ten minutes passed as they traveled down the passage, uninterrupted by airlocks or intersections of corridors. Then suddenly the walls to either side came to an end and they found themselves at the edge of an enormous cavity so dark that they could only make out vague distant images in the pitch black, bright patches where the helmet lights reflected back to eyes that strained for anything recognizable in the gloom.

Knightwood gave orders for each team to pick a direction in order to measure the confines of the space they were in and perhaps find another corridor leading further into the interior of the ship. Only a few minutes passed before Einar Suffield-Andersen let out a shout; an additional minute went by before the others were able to locate him.

As Knightwood approached the dim circle of faces, her pace quickened in excitement. It was easy to see why Einar had called them over; he had been the first person to collide with one of the obscure objects. He had observed a cluster of the things from the small decline at the edge of the corridor where they had entered.

All of the helmet lamps were cast upon the object. The brilliant marine blue surface of the plane recalled the exterior of the ship; polished and seamless, even the landing wheel mechanism had been constructed using strong metallic fibers woven to resemble organic muscle tissue.

As a biochemist, Knightwood admired the sight, awe-struck. Still, she knew they had a job to do and as quickly as they possibly could, so she began to count the number of those around her. She was about to suggest that they continue when she realized that three people were missing.

In the voluminous space, Erik Ross' voice rang out in rippling echoes.

"We found the far wall," he called, hoping the others could hear him. He, Erin, and Nathalie had continued in their allotted direction when Einar called the group together. Erik was beginning to resent the darkness. Erin had been ignoring his and Nathalie's questions and he couldn't see her face to figure out why.

In truth, ever since Knightwood and Watanabe had left Erin at the chamber's entrance, forgotten memories of her life before she came to live at the UESRC had been close to recollection. But her subconscious fought to keep them buried. She tried to concentrate on other memories: her first visit to the rural zone near the UESRC, her home in Statue City, her sister...

But the darkness frightened her, and the familiarity of the room offered no comfort, reminding her of a nightmare that belonged buried among her dreams. She heard voices from the past like distant shadows, echoes from a former life, but they meant nothing to her. Her eyes ached for the light of day, for life and motion, and she felt desperate to escape from this silent and ageless graveyard.

Again strange words formed in her mind, Ev-daleh, minaia taksina, and she understood their meaning: you brought light back into my world. A memory came with them, a bright-haired woman held her in the soft green light of a forest under the canopy of leaves.

Out of the darkness, Erin felt a presence listening to her heart, moved to pity, seeming to care for her for reasons beyond her understanding, reaching out to grant her wish...

And suddenly, the Great Cargo Bay was illuminated to a blue-white intensity so strong that the startled Earthlings shielded their eyes in pain and sudden blindness, more alarmed and fearful than injured.

Blinking in the brightness, Knightwood peered out through her fingers which she had laced across her helmet's face. Dropping them, she squinted and shook her head until she could see properly. Beside her, Zhdanov sucked in his breath, and Watanabe blanched, while soft whispers broke out among the cadets behind them.

The Cargo Bay Knightwood had visualized was nothing like the reality that greeted her eyes: it extended many times further than she had guessed, and standing at the periphery, they had only just come across the first of a sea of sparkling jets.

Knightwood noted that the size of these was not much larger than their own Earth planes and was even more similar to the alien fighters in size and composition. Even though much had happened in the past thirteen years, the enormity of this discovery was not lost on her. They looked a whole damn lot like the alien fighters.

The analysis team on Earth had rejected the notion that the Charon aliens might be similar to human beings without sufficient evidence, yet they had noticed that the aliens must have been close to human size from the size of their fighters, obtained from video sequences shot during the alien raids.

Knightwood had scrutinized the videos while working with Cameron and Zhdanov on the Earth's first proto-fighter nearly thirteen years ago, and during their sessions she had fingered a metal fragment gathered from the rubble of Statue City which hadn't been used in their experiments. She recalled the silvery-blue alloy, and reached forward to stroke the surface of the fighter plane before her to make a comparison.

Aside from the differences in color, she would have sworn that the two pieces of metal were identical.

That realization brought so many questions to her mind at once, but she couldn't force herself to digest the information completely; the implications were too frightening. Yet her subconscious pushed a train of thought to the fore, breaking off half finished before she could make a decision.

If the inhabitants of the ship were more of the same aliens they had fought at Charon, then why had they left the Earth unmolested? And, though the jets were similar to the Charon alien fighters, they were not exactly identical. Still the possible notion that three species of human-sized aliens had come into close contact randomly instigated objections in her scientific mind that refused to accept such a scenario as statistically feasible. But could it be a simple coincidence?

Suddenly Knightwood heard a scuffling noise and turned to her left to see the three missing cadets coming towards them.

Erik's animated face suggested that he had news.

"If you look from the side," he pointed in the direction they'd come from, "you can see the end of the cargo bay. It looks like there are some corridors leading off down at the end, and there's one wide passage off to the right a few hundred meters ahead."

"Should we get moving, Major?" Nathalie asked.

Watanabe nodded. What else could they do?

Though the team moved rapidly, twenty painfully slow minutes passed before they came across a corridor intersection leading to their right. Ho-ling Chen kept her head half-turned as she watched uncertainly for sudden movement; the others constantly turned their gazes from the left to straight ahead, and a few shot suspicious glances at the right hand wall. Katrin studied the hundred meter high ceiling with awe.

Knightwood marveled that Erin's pace did not waver; she appeared unperturbed by thoughts of attack or indecision. But Knightwood had begun to wonder why there had been no signs of life. That cargo bay held thousands of fighters, yet no one had been around to maintain them. And even she had noticed the abandoned feel to the atmosphere. Unknown to the others, Knightwood had activated her bio-sign sensor. She glanced down briefly as the team walked, but the thing had still to report any other living presence besides theirs. Suddenly, the group heard a rumbling amplified by someone's internal speaker, followed by a quick apology from Erik.

"Sorry, but this anxiety is making me hungry."

The others laughed mechanically. As they reached the intersection that branched right, Erin turned to the right without stopping or hesitating, prompting Knightwood to pull her back. Behind the two of them, the group leaders halted just a few meters short of the dark passageway with the cadets keeping a respectable distance back to allow them conference time.

"Well, what should we do now?" Knightwood directed her question to W and Zhdanov. "Splitting up might not be such a wise idea, but then, if we divide the group we could cover more area."

"Do you think we should try to search the place top to bottom, assuming we even can?" W shrugged. "If we don't intend to search everywhere possible, then I don't think it's necessary to separate anyone."

"And if we risk small groups we may be exposing ourselves and weaken our chances of making it back out alive." Zhdanov argued.

"Well all right." Knightwood threw up her hands in defeat. "We'll stay together. But how about this corridor? The cadet said there were some more large passageways further ahead. Maybe we ought to continue heading down this way until we reach them?"

"No," a voice interjected. "We should turn here." Erin Mathieson-Blair stepped between Knightwood and Zhdanov and then past them into the shadowed edges of the narrow corridor and disappeared.

Dammit, there she goes again, Zhdanov thought but outwardly only shrugged.

"Erin, where are you going?" Erik called out in alarm. Knightwood watched helplessly as he made his way from the group of cadets clustered behind them to the corridor and out of sight. Though Erik and the others had been waiting patiently during the group leaders' conversation, they had noticed Erin leaving their company a moment before and had watched her head recklessly into the passageway.

W threw her hands up at Erin's hasty action and took charge quickly.

"All right, I guess we're taking a right here, people. Turn on your uniform reflectors and body lights, please. It looks like we won't have to decide, after all," she smiled at Knightwood and Zhdanov, and the three of them headed towards the narrow opening on their right.

Meanwhile Erik had found Erin about twenty meters down the passage. He tried to stop her by snaking his arms across her neck, but she took another step and broke free.

She's stronger than I thought, Erik reflected, shocked. He had tried to pull her back with every ounce of energy that fear and adrenaline had given him. Could it be some alien force was empowering her? he thought, and stepped back slightly.

Suddenly Erin stopped of her own volition but remained silent and perfectly still. Erik edged up beside her and watched her face in the dim light of his helmet lamp and uniform reflectors as though seeing it for the first time. Erin's unblinking eyes had fixed in concentration forward, and she took no notice of him, almost as if she didn't even realize that he was there.

"What's the matter, Erin? Why on Earth did you go charging off like that? This place is dangerous!" Erik tried to sound more collected than he felt. He had a bizarre and alarming feeling that Erin would manage just fine by herself.

"Don't you hear it? Listen," Erin whispered a minute later without answering him.

"Hear what?" Erik stood still in imitation of Erin's stance, straining his ears for signs of movement.

"I don't hear anything," he concluded, disappointed—then he did hear something, the sound of footsteps behind him as the group approached and joined them.

"Cadet Mathieson-Blair, is there some reason we've called a halt here?" W queried nonchalantly, hoping to break Erin's trance and get moving.

"Did you check to see if the hallway was clear or if it had breaks?" Erik turned his head to W and the others.

"Yes. No intersections or doorways." W coughed significantly. "Well what are we waiting for? Let's continue, people."

"Hey, there's some kind of line there in the wall, W," Hans interrupted from the left side of the corridor near the wall, his eyes peering closely at its surface. "I think you better come over and have a look."

"Well, whatever you do, Hans, don't touch anything yet." W replied, already moving towards him.

"Whoops, too late," Hans shrugged, and they heard the quick whoosh of sliding metal.

The crack slid apart in seconds into a perfect rectangular doorway.

W stepped across the entrance to the chamber, and the room she encountered was suddenly illuminated by a bright blue-white ceiling. W stood two meters inside the door, temporarily blinded while the others squeezed past her, shielding their eyes until they adjusted.

When Erik finally looked up, he noticed Erin staring around the room with the same unblinking gaze she'd given him, oblivious to the glare from above. As the minutes passed, the others gradually dared to squint into the light while Erin continued to stare. Then suddenly she blinked normally as though she'd finally come back to them.

Metal plates segmented into tall thin rectangular compartments lined all four walls of the room; a helmet that appeared to be of human size and shape lay strewn across the floor a foot from Knightwood, who had nearly tripped over it when she entered the room.

At a touch from Zhdanov, one of the lockers opened, the metal snapping back like shutter doors. Inside a bright blue piece of clothing hung suspended, another helmet identical to the one on the floor beside it, and at the bottom of the locker a pair of what looked like human-sized boots lay on a shelf composed of a clear, blue-tinted material.

Zhdanov hesitated before lifting the clothing and pressing it to his body; the article was most clearly some kind of uniform, silver blue with triangular metal panels and ornaments, undeniably of human size and shape, with long legs sealed at the foot and shorter sleeves that ended in five digit gloves.

In her heart, Knightwood wasn't surprised, but she wasn't sure why.

Yet the cadets gasped—a few remained silent, paralyzed by shock.

"Those triangles look like cuneiform." She commented. Others began to look around as if to deny that what had happened was possible. Several had trouble catching their breath.

Erin found she could not tear her eyes away from the triangular ornaments on the shoulders of the uniform. She imagined a young woman, who might have worn one similar to it, with long hair and gray skin.

Then Erin remembered sitting at a table—tapping the clear blue material with her cup. The same woman held her and continued to smile as she greedily reached for another piece of cake then stopped to speak words to a man and woman that brought more dishes to the table.

Erin blinked at once, trying to recapture her last thought; she had the unsettling feeling of one recently wakened, just as a dream is fading.

"We should have one of the cadets carry these things back for study," Knightwood suggested. "We need to keep moving, though."

Passing the helmet to Erik and the boots to Hans, W was bringing the uniform to Ho-ling when Erin rushed over to take it.

"Let me carry it please, W." Glancing at Erin's urgent face, W reluctantly let go of the clothing, confused by Erin's behavior but unable to stop and consider what it meant.

Erin clutched the uniform tightly. Fingering one of the ornaments, she felt raised lettering and bent her head to look over the alien script.

The harder she studied it, the more an unfamiliar region in her mind throbbed painfully, as it had the moment before the outer air lock opened for them. Now the company was leaving the room with Erin at the rear. She passed under the last of the light beyond the doorway just as the letters became intelligible.

"Fielikor... Kiel," her tongue fumbled over the name, and her dry throat ached. How many years had that name gone unspoken? she wondered.

"Don't tell me you can read it!" laughed Erik.

"Knightwood's right. It does look like hieroglyphics on the name plate there, and cuneiform triangles on the lapel," Erin said. "Isn't that odd?"

"What kind of language though," said Knightwood. "Lord God, it can't be hieroglyphics!" she said suddenly, and came over to see. "By Jove it does, you know!" She said. "That's a falcon, I'm sure. The others are different though. Don't tell me there's a connection.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"I'm not an expert, but I know someone who is," said Knightwood as they left the first cloak room. After leaving the first cloak room, the recon team came across many doorways to either side of the corridor. Some were sealed and would not budge no matter what methods they tried to open them, but they were able to explore roughly a third of the compartments.

Clear crystalloid cases filled the second room, containing vegetation unlike any they had ever seen; indigo and yellow plants with blue buds and fasciated blue-green leaves appeared to have been preserved in the cases, at the base of which a panel of lights blinked on and off in a continuous pulsating rhythm.

In the third room, dead, animal-like creatures, like bats, had been preserved in similar display cases. Knightwood wished she could somehow have removed them to bring back for study at the UESRC, but it was enough that they had brought micro-vidigital recorders to document their historic tour.

Of particular interest were the small mammal-like furry creatures like big mice, though she was also fascinated by the large, half reptilian, half bird-like creature that looked so much like a small microraptor with a heron's smooth head, black avian eyes, and white leathery skin.

When they finally came to an intersection of the passages, their sensors indicated that they had traveled almost two hundred meters from the outer air lock where they had entered. W waited for some suggestions but Knightwood and Zhdanov were discussing how they would make their report to the UESRC, and the cadets appeared content quietly gazing down the new passageways. In the end, only Erin Mathieson spoke up softly, but W was standing near enough to hear her words.

"I think we should—turn left here—find a way to the next level up," Erin spoke in short phrases, straining her ears, as if talking too loudly would drown out whatever she had been listening to.

W thought about her suggestion, remembering that W had written a memo to her regarding Erin's acuteness of hearing during hand-to-hand training.

W decided that they would go left but still wondered exactly what Erin had heard.

"Why left?" she asked placidly as Knightwood and Zhdanov's conversation came to an end, and the two scientists stopped to listen to Erin's explanation.

Erin shook her head. "I don't know," she said, looking confused. "It just came to me a minute ago." She shrugged.

"Did you hear something, Erin?"

"Huh? Not a thing. Why, did I miss something?" W and Knightwood began to scrutinize Erin's face. Clearly, she had forgotten what she had heard. Knightwood wondered suspiciously if Erin's suggestion hadn't been planted into her head by some other source—if it wasn't meant to ensnare them.

"Just stay close to us. Here, take my arm," W proffered her hand, which Erin took and clasped tightly.

Five minutes from the doorway the team came to a corridor that opened at W's touch into an elevation device. W reflected on the timing of the discovery, so soon after Erin had suggested that they try to find a way to the upper levels.

Once the team had entered, the doors slid together without warning, and the device began to whisk them upward. A minute of anxious silence passed in which no one moved.

Then abruptly the doors swished open again into another corridor. The corridor was dotted by doorways with faint rectangular light strip panels at even intervals. The panels marked each door and illuminated an identifying plaque of alien letters affixed to the wall on the right of every door. Checking his compass, Zhdanov announced that they were now 992 meters above ground level.

"Again, more hieroglyphics!" cried Knightwood.

The first doorway on the left opened into a cluster of rooms not so alien to their eyes.

As before, the ceiling of the room brightened with a merciless intensity of blue-white light. Before them a flat plane jutted from the wall covered by a thick transparent blue covering that had been pushed aside, and at the head a long raised strip of opaque blue appeared rumpled with a depression in the middle.

Strange furniture and chairs decorated the small room and a wall closet door had been left ajar with uniforms similar to those they had found near the cargo bay visible, hanging from shoulder hoops.

"Look there!" Nathalie Quinn pointed to a picture that graced the desk-like structure which was situated against the right wall of the room near another doorway. Knightwood went to retrieve the holopicture and held it up so that all of the disbelieving faces of the assembled company could view it.

The man in the holophoto appeared almost human—if it were possible for a human to have gray skin, pointy ears, and a strangely more bird-like head. Leaning propped against a tree, he stood before a cluster of distant, tall white buildings on the periphery of the image, but what exactly had brought the joy that illuminated his eyes and his healthy, broad smile remained a mystery never to be told.

"Holy shit," said Erik. "He's almost human!"

"Yeah but who knows what he is on the inside," said Zhdanov.

In a state of shock and excitement, Knightwood carefully removed the holophoto from the picture frame, noting how dissimilar the paper was from their own photographs or video printouts, for it was not printed on paper or synthetic fibers at all but on a thin, rubbery square that afforded clearer definition and a better three-dimensional illusion than even Knightwood's video printout monitors back at the UESRC.

No one commented yet upon the significance of the holophoto which showed the almost human that had likely inhabited the room. The shock was too great to examine at the moment; it had not really even set in yet.

Meanwhile, Erik, Hans, and Zhdanov explored the adjacent washroom on the left side of the room while the others headed into the small sitting room that completed the quarters just beyond the inner doorway on the right. Moments later, Zhdanov reported that the washroom was remarkably similar to the finest the UESRC had to offer, though he had not dared to press any of the many brightly lit buttons of variegated colors that lined the wall, sink, and sanitizing station.

In contrast none of the lights or instrumentation in the sitting room appeared to be working, and the close end of the room was only dimly lit by the light that cascaded in from the bedchamber through the open door.

Knightwood picked up what looked like a kind of book that was lying on the floor, though the orientation of the plants and trees which decorated the text indicated the book was read top to bottom, like an Earth computerized calendar panel facsimile. The pages in the book, though as thin as paper, were more like the photo Nathalie had found, pliable yet stiff.

Knightwood thought the print inside rather beautiful. She had no idea if the characters were phonetic or pictographic or some form of writing completely unlike any on the Earth, but the script itself was formed of intricate swirling curves and a few straight lines as well as half moon ovals and many triangles of varying sizes, like a different, alien kind of cuneiform, though, she noted.

Glancing at the pages as Knightwood passed the book to W, who passed it a minute later to Akira to hold, Erin felt that she should be able to read the words there, as illogical as the idea seemed to her conscious mind. Her thoughts sank a little into the subconscious depths where she felt more secure in imagining that the few words she had glimpsed could be sounded out and spoken: "elah-neh ee-sah noh sylenaia solynai..."

Yet even in her subconscious, Erin could not understand what the words meant, and she was wary of submerging still further into memory. She had fought her entire life to keep that part of her mind under control, but here in the alien ship she found its power growing.

Though the others appeared to consider the possibility that the ship had been abandoned, Erin knew they were wrong. She had felt his presence, the creature that must have placed these false memories in her mind, that had manipulated her for its own purposes since the day the alien ship crashed, destroying her family and her life.

For over an hour the squadron came across similar chambers to either side of the corridor, some apartments of several rooms and others small single room quarters, though more than half of the rooms were barred from them by locked doors.

In those rooms which had been left open, they encountered still more pictures, books, and wall icons, and a curious disheveled atmosphere created by overturned chairs and drawers and doors left half open, as if the previous occupants had all left in a hurry.

Finally the corridor widened, and gradually all of the doors were locked, though their bioscanners detected no traces of life within. Another hundred meters further down the passageway ended in a set of wide shutter-like doors that slid back as they approached.

There was no doubt that the cavernous space they entered was the bridge and command center of the vessel. The great room was at first pitch black, and the team lost sight of each other once they were inside, but as the door behind them swished closed, a sea of instrument panels across the room lit up various colors of blue, green, red, yellow, and white.

At a guess Knightwood would have said that the command center was at least twice the size of the central communications center at the UESRC, which had measured 52 by 32 meters.

"There should be a way to shed some light in here," Zhdanov suddenly spoke, musing his thoughts aloud.

"Good idea," W moved aside so that the cadets in the back could get a better look around. "We should spread out and look for something obvious, maybe a picture label, but if you find anything that seems likely, don't touch it until we've made a group decision as to what to do."

Erin felt the cadets behind her fan out in all directions, but her attention was focused on a small blue-green flashing button at the very front of the room on the long instrument panel that stretched from the left side of the room all the way to the far right wall. It was just one button of the thousands located on the closest end of the panel in front of the first crew chair at the forward viewport.

Slowly she advanced towards it, accompanied by a presence which had found residence in her mind and urged her forward.

Knightwood turned around from the bit of the back wall that she had been inspecting near the commander's chair to survey the room. She saw Zhdanov admiring the forward view window which they had perceived once their eyes had become accustomed to the newest shade of darkness they had encountered.

The viewport before and above the long forward instrument panel was shielded beyond by a layer of metal and still further insulated by a network of fibrous metal circuitry that gripped the metal plating. Knightwood was sure that the circuitry was designed to somehow expose the viewport to space beyond for a clear view of the stars in addition to the obvious protective role it played.

Erik, Nathalie, and some of the others cadets she recognized had followed W's lead to the other end of the room and were presently clustered around a wall switch one of them had found, debating whether or not one of them should touch it.

Then Knightwood noticed Erin by herself, not far from where they had entered.

And then the room was filled with light.

Knightwood blinked and squinted, searching the four corners to see if they had been surprised by their hosts, but there were only cadets burying their faces in their arms or in the wall, with W looking up under her hand like Knightwood to see what had happened, and Erin Mathieson staring up at the viewport as if nothing at all had occurred. Knightwood watched as W motioned the group together and headed to the center of the room.

"Katrin, could you set up a bioscan device for all traces of organic materials? "What do you think?" W turned her head to Zhdanov and Knightwood.

"Good idea." The Ukrainian scientist nodded, preoccupied by his own investigations.

A minute later, the bioscan let out a faint, high-pitched droning whine, and the display flashed the position from which the scanning reflector beacon had detected organic traces.

The team moved slowly to the right of the forward instrument panel near one of the crew chairs. Leaning down to the ground, Katrin took a moment in retrieving the trace material, picking it up and holding it so that the others could see what it was.

The hair fragment was fine and white but strong; it was about six centimeters long. Katrin put it in her sample canister on the flight utility belt at her waist once they had all seen it, sealing the canister until the hair could be taken back to the UESRC for study.

Knightwood couldn't help but wonder again where the aliens had gone. The fact that the bridge itself had been deserted seemed the most compelling evidence that the crew was gone. But to where? And though so far the alien vessel had appeared to have been deserted, finding the trace of hair put any assumptions into question. The whole situation didn't make any sense to her, unless more information could be determined from the piece of hair. Certainly they would at least be able to find out how old it was at the UESRC.

And what kind of creature it had come from.

Suddenly Knightwood felt in a hurry to get back and begin analyzing the artifacts which the team had gathered. Looking down at her video wrist communicator, she realized that they had long since passed their initial fall back time.

"We've been in here almost six hours now," Knightwood announced, her eyebrows raised marginally in surprise. "Don't you think Arnaud and Kansier will wonder what's happened to us?" Her gaze turned to Zhdanov, whose forehead furrowed in concentration.

"We're going to have to call in the recon teams." Zhdanov shook his head. "This place is just too big to continue exploring with a cadet squadron, and since it seems there's no one home, we don't have to hurry anymore. We need to make a full and more thorough investigation of the entire ship—and determine if it is truly uninhabited. I don't think we should risk sticking around. We still might be attacked, and then we won't be able to bring back the information we've learned to Headquarters—"

"I agree," Knightwood nodded. "Let's turn around and head back the way we came."

"Fine by me," W looked from one of them to the other, inwardly relieved. "We don't want to push our luck. And besides, the other recon teams should be waiting for us outside by now, and these guys have a graduation ceremony to attend."

Some of the cadets smiled and shook their heads, hardly able to believe that they had forgotten about tomorrow's graduation ceremony.

As the team headed back to the corridor which had brought them to the bridge, Knightwood watched Erin curiously but kept her mouth shut about what she had witnessed before the lights came on.

Without stopping among the crew quarters, they found the elevation shaft in under twenty minutes. Knightwood half expected to be attacked as they were heading back, but they managed to make it to the cargo bay unmolested.

At the forward air lock, Zhdanov checked his chronometer. The fluorescent letters read 22:29, nearly seven hours having passed since they initially entered the alien ship.

* * * * *

"Something's going on in sector eight, sir," Major Dimitriev said. Kansier had dozed a little in the Captain's chair on the bridge of the Stargazer, where he and Dimitriev waited to pick up the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks' tracking signals. The signals had faded as soon as the Blue Stripes entered the alien ship. Then, schematics had suddenly begun to animate the display screens and instruments.

In a rush Scott had leaned forward to determine what had caused the burst of activity; seeing that the commotion had originated from sector eight, he had come to new life, now hypersensitive to the boom of his heartbeats and the butterflies beating his stomach from the inside.

Could they still, beyond all hope, be alive?

The relayed information created graphs of gravitational waves and showed atmospheric fluctuations; a moment later, Scott realized that the alien ship was rising.

He felt a wave of panic settle on his shoulders and suppressed the urge to do something as foolish as hailing the alien vessel. There really was nothing anyone could do to help the Blue Stripes and the UESRC team, he reminded himself, and everyone involved had understood the risks of the operation.

The Blue Stripes wouldn't be able to make it out. And Scott had never really let that possibility sink in until now.

She was lost now—

As Scott pushed away thoughts about the cadet team's chances of escape, he noticed the stream of information flashing across all of the bridge monitors slowing down. The scientific portion of his mind that was still functioning translated the information for him: the alien ship had stopped ascending after only a minute or so. Her present position was reported dead even to ground level despite the depression she had left in the rock bed.

* * * * *

Inside, the cadets had made it to the air lock corridor when they felt faint vibrations beneath their feet and heard an accompanying sound of grinding before they realized that the ship was slowly rising. Some of the cadets ran down the corridor in wild fear while others remained rooted to the spot. Knightwood, W, and Zhdanov did not move either but waited a moment to see if anything else happened.

When the ship stabilized, the group quickly traversed the narrow space between them and the outer air lock chamber where some of the cadets were gathered. Knightwood wondered if the ship had risen off the ground more than they guessed and was a little worried about opening the air lock. None of their wrist communicator compasses could determine just how far above the surface they were.

And then the ship decided for them. The air lock doors pulled open heavily but smoothly before them, affording an even ground level view of sector eight and the second recon team positioned not far away.

Knightwood thought she saw Erin Mathieson-Blair saying something out loud just before the air lock door opened, but she could not be sure. Yet with the view of the dark starlit night before them, she observed Erin's face unmistakably light into a very strange smile.
Chapter Thirty

The team returned to the East B cargo bay at 22:44. The others headed off to get some sleep before the graduation ceremonies the next day, too tired to notice or care that Erin had been called back by Saira Knightwood.

Knightwood and Zhdanov invited cadet Mathieson to their lab that evening. Erin had worked as an assistant in Zhdanov's old laboratory a couple of times during her third training year and knew the location and function of every piece of equipment. Knightwood had suggested she might be of immediate help programming the microscanners and retrieving the chemicals they would use to test the compositions of the materials and hair that they had brought from the alien vessel.

When Erin arrived after a brief visit to her quarters, Zhdanov had left for a progress update link to Cameron in the communications center. When he returned an hour and a half later, he found Erin and Knightwood absorbed over a microscope, the lights in the lab dimmed.

"Any luck with that material?" He asked to announce his presence.

"The alien uniform?" Knightwood looked up from the scope and wiped her brow, removing the goggles from her eyes. "Illuminate," she announced in an even tone to activate the overhead lighting.

"It's immutable—we still can't extract a swatch." She continued, trying to contain her excitement. "It's not what we thought—but some kind of dense, microscopic weave of non-organic metallic and crystalloid fibers—a hundred percent impermeability. Makes our carbon-sixty fibersuits and diamond fibersuits look like tinfoil! I'm not sure, but it looks like it's been treated with another substance—some synthetic carbonic crystal with traces of silicates and ceramic compounds.

Zhdanov took the news stoically, waiting until she had finished.

"Anyway," Knightwood continued with no small hint of excitement, "it resists organic acids, radiation, corrosives—everything we've got. It took an hour for the computer to decode a sequence of reagents to denature and dissolve the coating before we could look at anything other than the visible structure of the fibers. But they're stronger. I can't even maintain a reaction—"

"Did you run any performance tests?" Zhdanov asked.

Knightwood nodded. "It withstands and distributes extreme pressures, from .062 atmospheres up to 17 atmospheres. At 17 atmospheres, the suit itself seems to be exerting some kind of negative pressure from within its microstructure—but we can't resolve the layers beneath the surface lattice—the scanning microscope can't retrieve an image," Knightwood concluded.

"Have you tried another method—"

"Like I said—it's radiation resistant. It looks metallic, but I can't prove the composition of the alloys if we can't observe the structure—if we can't get the thing to react—and I don't want to destroy the suit in the process. However, we ran a few simple tests to verify radiation resistance. The suit reflects gamma rays, x-rays..."

"What about a lepton stream?"

Knightwood swallowed. "We don't understand how it's doing it, but—the suit repels neutrinos. And electrons. We can't get anything to pass through it. Except heat—infrared, actually. The suit appears to maintain a constant temperature—we dropped the atmospheric conditions in the holding canister and cut the light, but it never dropped below 22 degrees Celsius in the interior. Then Erin suggested we introduce a stream of infrared waves away from it—and the suit attracted the energy, changed the direction of the waves. We think it absorbed an initial amount of heat energy to maintain a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius in the interior—and then shut off."

Zhdanov only stared, trying to absorb the information.

"And listen to this: whatever deflects the radiation also reflects high-intensity energy."

"Laser energy?"

Knightwood nodded. "Makes our laser cannons and pistols useless."

Zhdanov remained silent another moment, his eyes thoughtful. "What about the helmet?" he finally managed.

"Almost the same results as the uniform—only it isn't resilient." Knightwood said. "Again—the same microstructure, similar alloys, polymers, and crystal components but with more crystal and ceramic compounds giving it a rigid structure—and just as resistant to corrosion, pressures, and radiation. I tried it on," Knightwood laughed, gleeful as a child. "The thing has one-way vision—you can't see the interior, but I could see out—and there were two reflectors in my peripheral vision that gave me a limited view behind me—a limited 360 degree line of sight, if you will.

"But you may need to sit down." Knightwood's eyes sparkled with a strange mixture of excited fascination and instinctive anxiety, dealing with realms of scientific advancement far exceeding her own understanding—centuries, if not millennia, beyond their own level of technology. Once Zhdanov was seated, she continued.

"The particle scan can only correlate a similarity between the helmet's superficial composition and the same unknown high-density electrically charged alloy we retrieved from Statue City years ago—the same fragments littering the Charon orbit. We can't be sure, and there's no telling what's underneath the helmet's exterior—but the scope found minimal variation between its surface and the fragments taken out at Charon, which are slightly inferior."

"Are you saying—?" The look on Zhdanov's face was indescribable.

"The aliens may be one and the same!" Knightwood announced triumphantly.

Erin had watched silently throughout the interchange. At Knightwood's final remark, she shuddered, suddenly uneasy. At that moment, Knightwood remembered her presence again and turned to study Erin's face. Now if only she could figure out how Erin had been able to guide them in the ship, what presence had contacted her, why the aliens on board hadn't appeared, Knightwood thought. But she had no immediate ideas, only that some intangible forces were at work. And her scientific training needed physical and tangible proof.

"What about the video conference with the Council—did Cameron activate his link-up?" Knightwood finally thought to ask about the progress meeting.

"The Council's scientists arrive tomorrow, after the graduation ceremony." Zhdanov responded, putting the disquieting test results out of his mind temporarily. "They agreed to wait a day since they've already waited thirteen years, and yes, Cameron did respond to the signal. He'll be here late tonight."

"Good." Knightwood interjected.

"And we'll have thousands of scientists from the bases coming in and out over the next few months." Zhdanov continued. "But the UESF council has agreed to keep all of the evidence here near the source. No doubt with all of the ins and outs that will be going through that ship, they'll need an entire cargo hold to store it all—and we have all of the necessary equipment for analysis.

"We'll have teams of specialists coming in that we'll have to quarter in the North Wing." Zhdanov smiled. "Cryptographers, evolutionists, bio-engineers—everyone wants to get in on this as soon as possible. Hendricks and Liu will be here in an hour to help once they've finished reviewing the video report from the ship. Leonhardt, Klaar, and Urdeep will relieve us at 0100.

"What about the boots?" Zhdanov asked, composing himself. "Any aberrations? I assume they're the same," he added.

"They're composed of the same material as the uniform—a mesh of thin fibers that gives the boots flexibility, protection, and structure, coated on the exterior with a thin film." Knightwood swallowed. "But the interior structure resembles the helmet—a sponge-like inorganic material provides shock absorption for the feet and covers up layers of intricate microcircuitry—still, I'm no electronics genius." She shrugged. "The computer analysis only suggests a few possibilities for the simpler stabilizers and electromagnets."

As Knightwood spoke, Zhdanov read over the analysis sheet.

"An anti-gravity magnet?" he suggested.

"Seems to be." Knightwood nodded. "They could fly! Wearing these boots, they could definitely fly in our atmosphere. But who knows if we're reading it right. I think we should move on, though. That hair sample may solve the mystery of who we're dealing with. We can't prove our two aliens are the same, but at least we might explain how the alien in that picture looked human."

* * * * *

She could hardly believe it, even though she held the evidence in her hands. The man in the picture Knightwood had found looked human, with only slight differences of form and skin coloring, but she knew he had no connection to the Earth. But if the color was a distortion created by the photo's material—Knightwood stopped. She could not allow herself to make such tempting suppositions.

At the same time she knew that the hair fragment, although of a different color and texture, resembled human hair more closely than any other terrestrial primate or mammal.

They had assumed their alien belonged to the same race as had produced the hair specimen—they had no reason to question that he did. For one thing, the two articles had been found on the same ship. No evidence had surfaced to suggest that yet another, third humanoid species had been present. The simplest explanation was the only one. They had no reason to complicate things any further.

Knightwood and Zhdanov dated the hair piece at somewhere between two and three thousand years old. The DNA sequences took an hour to be determined by the lab super computer which they had initiated before Zhdanov left for the progress meeting. When the process had been completed, they asked for a display on the right wall, which diagrammed and listed the amino acid and the nucleotide sequences.

Knightwood was disquieted by the many gaps in the sequences, and the explanation which the computer offered suggested radiation, chemical, and heat damage to the hair follicle or to the hair itself. But all was not lost, she soon realized. A great deal of the vital information was still available.

Knightwood had asked the computer to identify certain gene alleles to try to substantiate her hypothesis, and the computer had identified several highly conserved sequences for histone proteins; at the gaps in the amino acid sequences, it had provided suggestions for the lost information and had contrasted the genetic information with that of a human being, just as Knightwood had requested.

To Knightwood, the results were beyond the bounds of plausibility, and yet she had them in her hand. Despite the gaps and minor variations of certain nucleotides in alleles, the genetic codes of the hair fragment were similar to that of a human being. And yet they were nothing alike. Wherever two alternative acids could have formed a similar structure, the alien gene and the human differed; some of the alien amino acids bore no resemblance to any kind found in Earth's evolutionary family.

The computer searched its data but finally pronounced the tentative suggestion: of human origin. Knightwood sighed and sent the genetic code to the gene sequence interpreter, which would hopefully be able to create a visual representation of the creature in question.

As they finished with the testing, a light tone sounded on Zhdanov's wrist communicator. Tapping the signal to shut it off, he headed over to the intercommunications network outlet and manually punched in the videocom receiver. As Knightwood and Erin set about preserving the hair sample, they could hear Zhdanov conversing over the net to Arnaud and to a few other researchers at the UESRC.

He managed to quell the excitement in his voice long enough to relay simple answers and schedule some more intensive meetings after the graduation of this year's cadets. Then turning back to them, he helped to re-set the equipment.

"It's just as well that we quit now and start to prepare for the graduation ceremony," he observed. "I think we need some time to digest this information. Hendricks and Liu are on their way over. They'll need to discuss what we've done for a few minutes but have agreed to continue until the next shift so we can get some rest. Arnaud says the Security Council will want to hear our report as soon as possible but that it can wait until we release the graduates.

"I don't know, he says they may even want to hear the Blue Stripes' observations, everyone who was exposed to the ship and its environs." Zhdanov shrugged. "I also suggested to Arnaud that we set up a small research team here to organize and guide the visiting scientists, and so he contacted all the specialized department heads."

"And?"

"They were eager to cooperate. Anyway, we have the green light." Zhdanov said, folding his arms across his chest. "Arnaud says someone needs to try to coordinate the whole mess before it gets even more out of control."

"Did you tell them that the evidence is indicating infiltration by a humanoid species? They'll have to see the picture we brought back," Knightwood added in an undertone, gazing at the photo lying on the instrument table now preserved in a thin, clear film. Overlooked, the picture still waited to be examined. What a strange creature, Knightwood thought to herself. I wonder who he was.

"No. They're in for a big surprise there." Zhdanov answered the previous question, his eyes sparkling with amusement while his voice remained calm and professional. "Major Watanabe was in a debriefing session with Arnaud when I called. She gave him an account of the interior structure of the ship but didn't go into any conjectures as to the aliens' origin or biochemistry. She also told him that her cadets were instructed to maintain security silence regarding the matter unless he needed them to relay information to our scientific heads at other bases.

"They may be delayed from assuming their post another week or so, but then the Stargazer isn't set to leave for Charon for another two weeks. Arnaud seemed a little preoccupied worrying about the recon team over there while we spoke, but he'll send them to us he said as soon as they come out."

"Well, I suppose I should go," Erin shrugged, interrupting their exchange to excuse herself. "I've got a long day ahead—"

"Of course." Knightwood nodded. "You go ahead and get some sleep." Erin regarded them a moment hesitantly, then turned away.

Knightwood remembered that she had a few things to relate to Zhdanov once the cadet had gone.

Chapter Thirty-One

A message sounded on the videocom in the main laboratory at the Genetics Research Institute in Sydney. Professor Faulkner, the Head of Genetics Research, continued to work on an analysis of recent alien remains in an attempt to prove his own evolutionary hypothesis on the aliens' origins. His assistant, Dr. Ian Riordan Kelly, pulled away and headed jauntily to the receiver to acknowledge the signal.

"What is it, Ian?" Faulkner asked without looking up, his head still bent at the microscanner.

"It's an invitation to come to the UESRC." Dr. Kelly said calmly and sighed in profound surprise. "You're not going to believe this but—the first alien ship was never destroyed. And listen to this—someone went in."

"Who?" Kelly had suddenly gained Faulkner's complete attention.

"Knightwood and Zhdanov took in a team of cadets from the UESRC."

"Knightwood, hmmm?" Faulkner smiled, turning away, arms folded across his chest.

"Scientists from all over the world are leaving today to go analyze the data." Kelly added, scrutinizing Faulkner's face to see if he was still listening.

"Tell me, Ian," Faulkner drew in a deep breath and sighed, "why is it we're always the last to hear about anything?"

* * * * *

Professor Faulkner had taken the first available hypersonic transport shuttle to the UESRC upon receiving word of the alien ship's artifacts—and of its very existence. Five hours later, he had found himself lost in a sea of incoming specialists waiting for their chance to observe the alien objects. Clearance for the guided tour wouldn't come through until the recon teams established the safety of entering the alien vessel, though most of the anxious scientists appeared willing to risk the danger.

Knightwood had already seen it, Faulkner thought, as a cadet escorted him to the temporary quarters he had been assigned. He hated her. I'll bet she knew the ship was still there all along.

Whatever obsession it was that drove him, and knowing that the secretive UESRC had hidden more than had yet to come to light—from the day of the first alien vessel's arrival, he had thought of little other than the events of April 7, 3069AD (722AR) and the first recon team that had investigated the Earthbound dreadnought. Knightwood had known all along that some link existed between the first and second alien space ships, or she could not have dismissed his theory of alien evolution so easily—he just had to discover what that link was.

Blast you, Knightwood! Now she was claiming she was the one who had proven that the two groups of aliens were related!

After investigating the reports made on April 8, Faulkner had found nothing that pointed to any unusual activity. At the UESRC for the first time, he accessed classified files stored on films not in any computerized format. Faulkner had pored over the finest details, watched videocom transmissions to the Council time and again, but heard nothing of interest.

Then he discovered that the recon team itself had made no written report in the time period following the unprecedented detail. He thought to interview them, but one member of the recon unit had been killed, and he decided to leave the married couple Mathieson and Blair alone—for the time being.

At a dead end, Faulkner began to look for any activities that had fallen on the same day. The computer bank in the UESRC cadet library contained every civil report and timetable for the base since it had been established. The information included accounts of daily routines, rosters and duty rotation timetables—a person had to be dedicated to sift through the unending trivia.

Then Faulkner hit the jackpot. On April 8, the day after the alien ship arrived, Cameron's aide had made a civil report mentioning an infant girl found in the rural zone of sector eight. A follow-up report made later during the week showed that the girl had been adopted by a Richard A. Mathieson and Sasha E. Ivankov-Blair.

The entire scenario reeked of a cover up. The husband-wife pair in the recon team that had investigated the impact sight, who had become close personal friends of Dr. Cameron and his friends Knightwood and Zhdanov, had adopted a child found, coincidentally, at the same site and on the same day as the alien vessel's arrival.

Faulkner searched through the information file on a cadet Erin Mathieson-Blair, and found an exceptional record, with one anomaly—the girl had been diagnosed with a type b disease, a rare cancer of some kind—and yet had managed to undergo cadet training. The UESRC record showed she had just graduated, that she had been assigned as a first lieutenant bridge navigator on the Stargazer. But the Stargazer had left only two days ago and was not scheduled to return from Charon for six months.

What most intrigued him, though, was that her medical file had been marked "classified"—searching further, he discovered that each of the girl's annual physicals had been given by Cameron himself.

What are you up to, old man? He thought, certain now that it was the old scientist, and not Knightwood, who had instigated the cover-up, whatever its nature was.

* * * * *

Had any other doctor ever treated her? Faulkner wondered. The information should be on record somewhere—but it wasn't until he sifted through the time period prior to Erin's five yearly medical exams that another name surfaced: a civilian cancer treatment specialist in Coast Charles called Bredesen had administered several procedures to treat the Mathieson girl's unique form of cancer, all without success.

Bredesen's prognosis included a suggestion that the child be taken to another specialist, a Dr. Cepheras in Central City, and a printout note that they could contact him to obtain the results of the culture tests Cepheras had conducted.

Faulkner searched for this Dr. Cepheras' current whereabouts but found the man had relocated to New Portland, too far away for a visit. But taking down his present videocom code, he headed for the nearest transmission terminal.

The man who finally answered blinked unconcernedly at the image before him.

"Yes?" he managed. A signal from the UESRC obviously didn't impress him.

"Dr. Cepheras? My name is Faulkner, and I'm calling to verify that you once obtained blood samples of a lieutenant Mathieson-Blair—"

"Are you from the UESF Genetics Department?" Cepheras asked, his eyes narrowing in irritation. Faulkner chose not to respond, hoping to draw out more information from the doctor. Cepheras obligingly continued, his voice vitriolic.

"Can't you bastards do your homework? For the last time let me repeat—you have all of the samples. It's not my problem if you guys lost the paperwork. Somebody came in here over ten years ago with a UESF identification card and confiscated all of my samples and analysis graphs. You have no idea how sorry I am that I ever saw that stuff..." he began to mumble, and Faulkner cleared his throat to interrupt him.

"Yes, here it is." Faulkner said, feigning understanding, and pretended to find a file on the electro-book. "We do have a report that your laboratory was searched—sorry to have bothered you—"

"Well, it's about time you guys owned up to it." Cepheras wheezed. "I'm getting tired of you people calling me about it—"

Faulkner terminated the signal. A slow smile spread across his face as he returned to the library. So, the genetic evidence had been confiscated—but the UESF didn't seem to know anything about it. Faulkner would bet anything the samples had been retrieved at Cameron's order. Now there was only one more source to try—the library files reported a Dr. Bredesen still practicing in Coast Charles.

A day trip was in order.

* * * * *

Bredesen disappeared into the storage room.

In the adjoining area, Faulkner leaned against the doctor's examination table, arms akimbo, drumming his fingers against his ribs. He glanced down at the UESRC Research identification card he had used to gain access into Bredesen's facility, tucked back into the left coat pocket of his white UESRC labcoat. The charade had gotten Cepheras to talk to him, and Faulkner figured it might work again. Civilian doctors out of touch with the recent developments in the alien war had no reason to question his motivations.

"Find anything?" he called out.

Bredesen had assured him that he had sent all of the samples to Cepheras—that the UESRC had already sent someone to pick up the medical file he had compiled, years ago. But Faulkner insisted he search again for some scrap of information connected with the case, claiming the UESRC had found some of the data to be missing. Bredesen regarded him uncertainly, then shrugged. Moments later, he led them to an unused examination room where he had preserved his oldest blood and tissue samples, antitoxins, and experimental drugs.

"I'm pretty sure they got it all," he had explained, "but there might be something in here." He motioned to the storage room. "I like to keep a record of my clients—maybe I still have something. Wait a minute, and I'll check."

Music to his ears.

"Well, you're in luck," Bredesen finally emerged from the darkened cold storage compartment and wiped an arm across his brow. "Can't believe I still had that—'thought I gave them everything, but—here you are. Right there it says Erin Mathieson-Blair—I guess I took that on her last visit—never did see another case like it. Well, I guess I don't need it now, but it shouldn't do you any good. 'The sample was in cryofreeze, but it may be too old." Bredesen eyed the UESRC identification card that peeked over the rim of Faulkner's front left pocket and slowly extended the test tube towards him.

* * * * *

The Stargazer had three scheduled stops at Mars' Elysium Outpost, the Ceres Base, and at the Titan Base for refueling, supplies, and to rendezvous with the other cruisers heading to Charon.

Erin was leaving the deck when Colonel Kansier got inside the elevator with her.

"So how do you like the Stargazer, lieutenant?" he asked her

"Hmm?" Erin blinked.

"Relax, lieutenant." Kansier laughed lightly. "The Stargazer isn't like some of the other ships in the fleet you may have heard about. When we aren't on red alert, the crew is free to speak their minds—after all, isn't that what all that training was for—to get you to think for yourselves?" He smiled. "And I like to know my officers. I find that the crew is more reliable this way."

"Oh—well it's an incredible ship, sir." Erin admitted cheerfully. "The navigational instruments are quite complex, even more precise than the practice simulators we have at the UESRC."

"Every kid's dream, isn't it?" Kansier chuckled, his hazel eyes bright.

"Yes, sir, it sure is, sir." She agreed.

The elevator doors swished open on the level of the crew's quarters. .

* * * * *

"Don't you understand the implication of it, Ian?" Professor Faulkner persisted, nearing a frenzy. The image on the videocom in Sydney had been relayed via satellite from his new temporary quarters at the UESRC.

Dr. Kelly massaged his eyes then yawned. He suppressed an urge to terminate the signal. Not even the decency to call at a reasonable hour, he thought darkly.

"'What proof do we have?' you might ask. Let's review the evidence," Faulkner began again methodically, as if he were already speaking to an assembly of scientists.

"Aidan—"

"A—we have evidence that a child was found near the alien ship on the day it arrived." Faulkner progressed, refusing to be interrupted. "Could be a coincidence, yes. But—B, we have a possible culture taken from her which proves she is not human but in fact an alien being if you compare it with C—the alien gene structure taken from the hair aboard the ship and D—the Charon aliens' organic cultures obtained since Statue City—"

"Now wait a minute—you say you have proof—that her blood and tissue samples contain alien DNA? That could have easily been tampered with." Kelly shook his head, dismissing it. "And can you prove that the sample dates from the time in question— before we obtained the Statue City cultures? That it even came from this child? How could you have an active culture if you say it was taken eleven years ago? Do you expect the Scientific Review Committee to believe that?"

"You're saying I took it from recent alien remains and formed a culture—to pass off an ordinary child as an alien?" Faulkner wrinkled his brow, incredulous, but sharp enough to sense Kelly's hidden accusation.

"If you wanted to prove a point that Knightwood and Cameron had orchestrated some kind of cover-up then—yes, I believe you would."

"I thank you for the confidence in my abilities," Faulkner said sardonically, "but you give me too much credit—even I could not possibly manage to fabricate such a fantasy."

"Look, Aidan," Kelly sighed. "All I can say is the girl looked pretty normal to me. Now, I can understand your need to prove that Knightwood withheld information about the first alien ship for her own purposes, but until recently you rejected the idea that the two alien ships were even connected at all, much less to propose that the daughter of two famous war heroes is actually an alien—"

"Fine, Ian." Faulkner waved his hand dismissively. "It looks like I made a mistake trying to bring you in on this. But you'll see—when Erin Mathieson-Blair returns from space, I'll have her brought in for a medical exam—and we'll see who's chasing an illusion."

Ian shook his head. "Good night, Faulkner." Crazy bastard. Kelly thought as he terminated the signal, leaving Faulkner staring mutely at a blank videoscreen.

"You just turned down one hell of a chance." Faulkner glared at the screen, his voice a hiss.

Moving back to the protracted sleeper panel, Faulkner carefully lifted the syringe lying across it. "Here's to me," he gazed at the purple-red emulsion, and jabbed himself in the arm.

* * * * *

"It's incredible isn't it?" Scott Dimitriev made his way beside her and leaned against the railing, resting an elbow and joining her in star-gazing.

Scott caught the gesture, and his head cocked sideways. "Not in the mood for a conversation?" He choked off a laugh, and then his tone turned serious. "Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a successful mission. I have to leave now—I'm on duty on the bridge. I just wanted you to know that I hope you get back safely. Good-bye, Erin."

Scott pushed himself away and strode briskly to the deck entrance. Erin continued to stare out at the view, feeling much more agitated than she appeared. After Scott left, she wondered how many people had left things unsaid, things undone when they came out here to the end of the solar system—and she almost went after him.

Then, after a moment, she did.
Chapter Thirty-Four

"Scott!" Erin called, catching him by the doorway. He stopped reluctantly and turned around.

"You have something to say, lieutenant?" He asked calmly, with a look and manner of cold civility; she felt a sudden distance between them as surely as if he had spoken through a wall.

"Why did you come all this way to talk to me?" Erin asked, scrutinizing him, but his steady gaze betrayed nothing.

"I was on my way to the bridge."

"Yes, but you came out of your way to talk to me—to wish me luck?" She pressed.

"Yes, didn't I say I hoped you'd come back safely? What more did you expect?" There was no affection in his voice now. She began to wonder if his heartfelt parting words had been in her imagination.

"I could have sworn that you came to make a confession." She admitted.

"A confession? What could I possibly have to say to you, lieutenant?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know because you're always eager to see the world the way you want it to be, rather than see what it for what it really is." His tone was harsh.

"What makes you say that?" She said, still not quite understanding his vicious behavior. In the past few months, she thought they had at least begun to get along well; she suddenly realized she didn't know where she stood in his opinion.

"Why don't you just tell me what you thought."

"You're trying to make me feel foolish now." She declared, hardly able to believe it possible; she searched his gaze for a denial, but the moment had stretched too long. "I see," she concluded. "I thought you came because perhaps, even given your present situation and our respective duties—I thought perhaps you might be in love with me."

"And what gave you that idea?" He said, laughing as though at something ridiculous.

"What gave me that idea?" She threw back defensively. "The way you've been acting. You avoid speaking to me directly. You always seem so surprised to see me whenever our paths cross outside of duty. And then, then you also hang around and listen to my conversations with others on the bridge, as though you think I won't notice. If this behavior wasn't enough to suspect—what I suspected, I would certainly be able to call you a gossip—but I don't think you are." As she spoke, his careful composure began to irritate her.

He laughed. "You don't imagine any one has deceived you—or rather, that any one can deceive you, then?" he said, denying nothing, admitting nothing.

"No, I don't. I don't give those who would deceive me any consideration in my affections in the first place. I know that you're incapable of deceit." She said, staring at him, beyond him.

"Do you? But perhaps you're wrong." He said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Anyway, what could you mean to me? We don't know each other well, and what time I've spent around you has been because I've had to. Duty compels me to spend time near you. You, on the other hand," he laughed, "seem to be harboring a silly girlish fancy—like a lapdog following and hanging on where it isn't wanted. I only came to say good-bye to you out of pity, if you want to know the truth."

"Well, it takes more bravery to admit your feelings than to hide them." Erin said staunchly, yet it was the first time she had ever admitted anything of the kind.

He sighed in disagreement. "Not always."

"Maybe not, but you risk more when you expose your feelings to others, don't you?" She insisted.

"And you, I suppose, would take that risk?" He suggested, his tone derisive.

"I would. I would expect nothing less of myself. But I would still hope to gain something lasting by it."

"Women are all so unreasoning, always dwelling on this idea of gaining complete security or love for themselves." He said, with a dismissive manner that was an insult. "Nothing is guaranteed, Erin. And by that logic no emotion can mean much outside the moment which incites it. Nothing lasts, either."

"I disagree," she said evenly, refusing to be daunted. "Anything worth value for only a moment is cheaply bought. I don't know what you consider love to be, but anything I love—anyone I love—I will love forever."

"My, my. What about Erik?" He threw out, studied her expression.

"Oh, I understand that it took him courage to keep his feelings for me without any guarantee of my returning them," Erin admitted, "but I believe his sentiment was lust or obsession, not love. From the first moment he saw me, he created a fantasy out of me."

"Isn't your affection for me the same? Your love is really love of love, and love of yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"That often when we imagine ourselves to be in love, the person whom we choose to love reflects some aspect of ourselves, or else something we wish we were. What you fancy is a heroic image that doesn't exist."

"You're wrong." Was he right? she thought to herself. No! She had been around him long enough to know that their minds worked in a similar way, long enough to have developed a sense of who he was at unguarded moments, as when he was around others. And she knew that she loved him entirely, unconditionally.

"If you want pleasure, you can get it so easily. There's no point in anything else except survival. Love is just an emotion that you don't need to survive."

"You're hard."

"Give me up then, as a friend. You will, when you start to conclude that I don't care. Yes, go ahead and believe that. It will make it easier to give me up. Learn to hate me."

"I didn't know you could be cruel."

"I'm not, merely rational. I don't love you, but I want you to be well and safe." His eyes observed her coldly.

"Well, I suppose I don't care what you say now and what you tell me to do or not to do." She shook her head. "But all the same, for whatever it's worth, and that may not be much in your book, I do understand that the course of your life has brought you to this, bitterly arguing against what you used to believe, and bartering cruelty for that light-hearted sense of humor you used to have."

He made a vague scoffing sound.

"Melodramatic." He said, but he let her continue, his eyes carefully reserved. He almost seemed to want to hear more.

"Life has made you change I see." She went on, ignoring his criticism. "I know because I remember what you were when you were closer to being yourself, when you still knew yourself better than anyone else and still spoke your own mind.

"I remember you well, Scott Dimitriev, then and now. And I know you. I've had years to reflect upon what you said long ago, and what it revealed to me about you. And I've had months to watch you now. I know you, and if it is foolish to love you, then let me be a fool."

"You are such a fool, presuming to know me."

"Didn't I already admit that? I'm not going to deny that it hurts me to know your opinion of me, but I'll still love you."

"No, of course not. You're too proud, or—perhaps tragically noble?" He smiled, smiled artificially.

"I won't give up my love because it isn't something easily given, and unfortunately no easier to withdraw. But don't think that I'm 'obsessed' with you. Don't insult me that way."

"You should cut your losses now."

Why did he keep arguing? she wondered. Why was he being so cruel when he could have just ignored her or walked away?

"If it were that simple, I would." She said.

"It would be if you were at all sensible."

"Maybe. But my I choose to remain loyal. I can't seem to do anything to change that, no matter how much I want to sometimes."

"Nonsense. Everyone betrays one another. Everyone deceives someone—if not himself."

"When I do it isn't intentional. I wouldn't deliberately betray anyone's faith or trust in me."

"If that's true, then I suppose it would be a privilege to be loved by someone like you."

"But not by me?"

"You comprehend me perfectly."

"Why are you trying to torture me?" Her outward expression refused to submit to the injury, nonetheless.

"Because you seem to believe that noble sentiment should govern the human race. You need someone to teach you a lesson. Higher feelings don't amount to much."

"You're wrong." She said staunchly. "I only regret that they can't. I never said that I believed it possible. I wish for it, yes!"

"In the end, we're all just selfish creatures. And as you know, I'm only here on the Stargazer for revenge. That's the only long-term goal I have time for. So any consideration I give to you would be merely in hopes of what you might have to offer me today." He paused. "But they have pleasure centers for that, thankfully."

"I didn't think you were like them." She sounded profoundly disappointed.

"Like who?"

"I thought more highly of your character."

Dimitriev just stared at her and said nothing. After a moment, she turned and walked away.

* * * * *

Colonel Kansier cocked an eye up at the sound of the door swishing open. Major Dimitriev came in without saying a word and found his position in the second command chair in a distracted, agitated way. Kansier did not want to say it, but Dimitriev had the look of the damned. He kept moving about in his chair, rubbing his eyes, exhaling loudly. He moved about with an anxiety unusual to him and looked up with a lost gaze; when he composed himself and regained his powers of discernment, the manner in which he surveyed his surroundings bore the mark of an entirely dissatisfied mind.

Damn her.

Kansier decided not to question Dimitriev about it, and got up to leave the bridge, when a sudden high-pitched whine interrupted the order of the scene.

"It's from Saturn," the communications operator, lieutenant Cho informed them flatly. "I'm patching us through, sir."

Colonel Dawe's stern, round-faced image materialized on the video screen.

"Calling cargo ship Observer. Mining supplies being sent back to Earth. Expect you to join them at 0730 7/12. Jettison present cargo the standard two hours prior to engaging engines. Over and out."

At last, the long awaited message had been received.

"Put us on red alert, Lieutenant Baker. Naseem, set our course for Charon, maximum speed." Kansier ordered.

With the red warning tones sounding and the relay screens coming alive with reports all around him, Scott Dimitriev found himself thinking about the unfortunate timing of his confrontation with Erin. He had convinced himself she had forced him to say what must be said.

Now he could imagine Erin rushing towards the cargo bay where the infiltration team would assemble and review their plans until the deployment time arrived.

He remembered the crestfallen expression in her eyes, an expression that betrayed a vulnerability he would have moved mountains to defend.

What if she should die now, without knowing the truth?

The truth was that he did love her. She was the one person he loved left alive on Earth, the one woman he had ever loved and the only one he ever would truly love.

And now she had every reason to hate him.

He just couldn't let his love get in the way of his need for revenge.

* * * * *

At 0530 the next morning, the specially created infiltration team took off in a small shuttle while the Stargazer maintained its position behind Charon. Once the team was securely away, the Stargazer engaged its engines and relocated just inside Charon's dark side. The shuttle's initial velocity had been calculated to propel it close to the alien ship, and then the thrusters would be deactivated in order that their approach was silent and hopefully undetected by radar.

It had to look like discarded cargo, simple space junk like the fragments of ruined ships and supply shuttles caught in Pluto's orbit, until the fleet could provide a distraction. Then, if they could, they planned to inflitrate the alien ship.

* * * * *

What have I done? was the prevalent thought in his mind when it returned to him.

The visions that had taken over were growing day by day. Only brief moments of Faulkner surfaced between hallucinations. Now he understood the term "losing his mind"—but he wasn't crazy.

He hoped he was dying.

When he wasn't absorbed by images from another time and existence, conjured by the alien poison he had foolishly welcomed, his body writhed in pain. He felt as though someone had ignited his pain sensors from within, as though his inner being slowly burned away.

Faulkner blinked. The grotesque computer terminal in his dream melted away to be replaced by an innocuous metallic plane, a ship that obliterated the view in front of him. The world had been cut in two—the nature surrounding him, opposing the zenith of alien technology dead ahead.

How had he made it all the way out here? he wondered.

Far to the left, cargo operators were loading supplies into an air lock for some purpose. He hadn't heard any news about outfitting the alien ship—but then he had been out of it for some time.

Faulkner stumbled in the dirt, drawing instinctively towards the activity. He felt the approach of another blackout and groaned spasmodically, flailing his arms, somehow managing to put off the illusions that had begun to take form in the air around him.

Faulkner never heard the call of the cargo operator. The man only shrugged and scratched his head, supposing the figure clad in a white UESRC labcoat to be one of the scientists from Knightwood's group. They paraded in and out at all hours, disrupting the cargo operators. Now they weren't even bothering to show their entry passes!

Faulkner wandered, but he had lost all concept of time and feeling. A strange, synthesized voice called to him in unintelligible gibberish, and no matter where he moved, the vision of a small panel of illuminated sensors—some kind of computer terminal—appeared before his eyes.

Faulkner heard a doorway open ahead and entered a cold, dark corridor with an unusual taste in the air.

I cannot let you return, he finally understood the meaning of that voice. You are part of us now.

Faulkner looked up when the light appeared. The force holding him finally loosed its grip, and he sank to his knees, his arms falling limp to the ground. His vision gradually returned, and a remnant of Faulkner looked about, pulling himself up on one elbow, squinting through his fingers as he peered into the brightness.

The canopy of silvery-gold leaves sighed, rustled by the breeze.

And Faulkner collapsed, dreaming of hell.

We have you now. For all eternity.

* * * * *

Just inside the outer hull of the alien dreadnought, the twelve fighters of Arnaud's infiltration unit rushed towards the narrow aperture, a breach in the second hull skin that was their entrance into the alien ship. All about them the mass of living wires and cables that rearranged the hull plates of the outer hull were now pulling together to seal the hull's interior and repair the damage incurred when the electromagnetic field was temporarily disrupted.

It's like flying through the nervous system, lieutenant Jason Donnelley thought, astounded by what he observed. At the head of the group, Erik Ross passed through a jagged breach in the inner rock-like hull and made a sharp right turn down the corridor, then glanced at his radar to see if everyone had made it.

This is not what I expected, Erik realized at once. It's not like the other alien ship.

Their special, small fighters had been built to fly within the narrow corridors of the other alien ship, under the assumption that the same engineering design prevailed, taking the estimated size of the aliens into consideration. There's almost enough room here for the others to pass me, he thought, or for the aliens to surround us. With that thought, he shuddered.

But who knows—with this thing, Arnaud's outdone himself, he thought appreciatively.

Their new infiltration fighters were more maneuverable than even the newest of the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks' fighters, infinitely more than the planes used only a generation before them. The small fighters' thrusters were so powerful that the planes literally lifted into the air, atmosphere or no. Their agility in turning was unmatched, even at the low speeds necessary to navigate safely within a space vessel. In fact, the reduced speed meant the planes could stop on a dime, though Erik's stomach still hadn't gotten used to that.

A few minutes down the passage, an air lock appeared on their right, near-space side. Behind it an enormous cargo bay yawned before them, but it looked empty. As if of one mind, the team instinctively turned into the larger space and headed to the far left side, then traveled down a dim corridor leading into the interior of the ship.

As they curved around the passage, a dead end wall appeared up ahead. Erik felt his stomach lurch. He knew it was too late. Before he had time to react or slow his engines, the wall suddenly retracted from a perfect vertical fissure down the center, and the team was shunted into an alien world flooded with artificial starlight.

The environment the Earthlings beheld reconstructed the surface of an unknown planet, a surface with features unlike any found on a planet or moon in the So system. In the distance, a few low-lying, orange-red hills soared into the night, creating a circular enclave around the city below. Short, rectangular, purple-colored buildings spaced evenly apart filled the space directly beneath them; to their left, a near-barren rock plain supported a scattered collection of bizarre, scraggly trees with gnarled, thorny branches.

Above, an artificial sky glittered with thousands of twinkling lights of every color, the density of the stars greater than that of the view on Earth, whose star system lay on the fringes of the Milky Way.

The brightness of a sky like that could only be possible near the heart of a galaxy—or in a solar system inside a galaxy supercluster, lieutenant Kramer thought in calculation. It looks like our alien friends have come quite a long way.

Meanwhile, Erik's instruments scanned the area for energy output readings and for metallic infrastructure. He detected the greatest material density beneath them, now that they had risen above the city, about 500 meters near the roof of the cavernous area. Then he detected a similar corridor to the one they had entered at the far end of the area. Perpendicular to their position and lengthwise relative to the ship, he discovered several smaller corridors leading towards the more energetic regions near the engine room, but the greatest corridor was not wide enough even for their specialized close-range ships.

Seconds passed before Erik noticed an egress. Then, to the left and up into the holographic projection of artificial sky, he swore he saw a hidden atmosphere duct, wide enough for their ships that looked like it might lead to the central systems.

* * * * *

Erik headed down the duct instinctively, and the others followed without pausing to question him. A few seconds passed as they sped down the narrow passage. Erik hoped they wouldn't come across any sharp turns—there simply wasn't enough room to maneuver around them.

But the passageway opened into a large space, a kind of botanical hydrogarden. The teams' instruments told them that they had come out somewhere near the main engines, now a few floors beneath them. As they exited the gardens down another wide corridor leading away in the opposite direction, an alarm sounded. Erik figured that they must have been detected by the citizens of the city as the team flew overhead.

Moments later the team had come to an open, city-sized area full of buildings of assorted sizes. The Earth team didn't recognize the blue sign of the medical center and research area of the Orian elite hierarchy. But the central area, decorated with fountains and pools of water, reminded Erik of an ancient Earth garden.

As the team sped among the maze of small buildings, a group of enemy fighters appeared perpendicular to their position and cut off the last two Earth fighters. One of the planes managed to break through their line, but the other plane, razed by the enemy enfilade, plummeted to the pathway below.

The team had been distracted by the unbelievable sight of bipedal figures beneath them; each one of them could have sworn that the beings they had caught a glimpse of were humanoid.

* * * * *

Erika Zirnenka had received word of Iriken's return soon after waking. Recently, she had been unable to keep early childhood memories from entering her conscious thoughts. It was uselessly sentimental, she knew, that she could not stop distracting herself with nostalgic thoughts and center her whole concentration, her unconscious mind as well, upon her work.

Some of her dreams, she knew, would never come true. A capacity for enjoying amorous love and the procreative instinct itself had supposedly been deleted from the chemical make-up of the elite children produced by ectogenesis; yet Erika knew, and had known since her chidhood, that by some miracle she did possess them. And from the moment she made her discovery that the rest of the world around her had been denied these human possessions, she had been compelled to begin living a lie.

She loved Iriken, loved him more deeply than he could possibly love her. Loved him more than anything or anyone. And he would never know, never feel it, could not appreciate her regard for him. Worst of all, she couldn't even blame him.

And so, her life grew shorter day by day, without real joy and without real pain, knowing only a horrible kind of feeling that ricocheted between the two. She often felt she was going to die without having much to regret losing. Did even that matter anymore? She wondered. She had no control over her life at all. She did her duty and received food rations. She survived, and learned to enjoy the moments talking with Iriken. They did share a true filial affection that meant more to her than anything else in the world. Yes, she supposed, there was a reason to go on living.

Erika had gone to the labs to check her experiments and found five of her brothers and sisters who had also been selected for Bio-research already busy analyzing the new video reports from Kiel3. This was the group's first view since receiving their permanent positions, and they had been assigned analysis of a coastal plant's vascular tissues using only a few snatched samples with accompanying seconds of rolling images taken by one of the pilots to show its native environment.

The Great Leader Sargon, who had been ill for fifteen years and had gone missing, had not been able to order any kind of full attack on the planet Earth, and so the Orian people had been left to obey his last orders: organizing and instigating little assaults against the planet Earth to terrorize its inhabitants. Recovered once more, Sargon now had plans to assault the planet Earth and take it over for the Orian people.

Erika and some of the others had ideas of incorporating some of the vegetation of the third planet into the Orian diet and as possible source of unknown medicines, but only after the samples' nutritive qualities had been fully analyzed and assessed for possible toxins.

As the others began to analyze the chemicals in pigmentation and check the measurements of sun luminosity, Erika hesitated a moment, unable to keep herself from appreciating the beauty of the stilled frame.

"Anything disturbing you, Erika?" Yurgen stopped to ask her, but unquestionably he had meant 'what have you found regarding the picture?'.

"No, Yurgen." She responded automatically, with little genuine feeling. "I was merely considering the saline content of the biome and its long-term effects upon the water-gathering systems." Erika had supplied the perfect, politically correct answer; she now turned away to examine her data.

A few hours had passed, in which the team finished its analysis and sent it away to the head Bio-analysis division in the Imperial block around the Great Leader's quarters. Because Great Leader Sargon had been afflicted for the last fifteen years with another rare mental and physical lapse, that he alone understood, the Garen had been in charge and had continued to attack the Earth.

For Erika, it had been time to report in at one of the main command rooms. Then she hurried to attend a discussion in the nearby medical wing lounge with six other representatives of the elite children groups who had been selected for specialization in medical treatment and system function.

When the infiltration alert had sounded, the representatives just stood their ground, disoriented. They had not been trained to react in emergencies and had all but conditioned away their instinctual response to flee. Yet where could they go?

Erika waited for the elder officials to speak, but they too had been affected. Like the others, they waited for Enlil's inner security pilot teams to dispatch a unit in order to protect the command room and stymie the aliens' escape. With each primary corridor and command room cut off, the intruders would easily be captured.

But Erika felt a new feeling of fear intruding into her faith as the seconds passed. She had begun to wonder why none of them had even been aware that an attack was in progress outside Enlil.

Why do they trust so few of the elite with such news? she wondered. Shouldn't they have instructed the people to shelter themselves?

Several minutes had passed since the alert had sounded when she noticed that one of the elder elite was moving to the fore of the representatives, as if about to return to the discussion.

Suddenly a number of fighters passed over the group of medical specialists, but Erika didn't recognize them. At once, the Enlil's defense squadrons appeared in the intersection ahead, no doubt sent to cut off the Kiel3 fighters' escape. In the small skirmish, one of the Kiel3 fighters was hit and crashed to the ground while the others sped away.

* * * * *

There was nothing they could do for Jason. Erik had to force away images of him, as horrifying as it was to dismiss him. Dimly, he knew that such distractions could prove fatal. That did not make it any easier to forget.

At the same time, Erin was finding it difficult to concentrate upon the corridor ahead. Her thoughts drifted away from their group and back to the first city they had encountered. Something about the dusty red soil and gnarled trees or the intensity of the dense, speckled sky had struck a chord in her memory, from whose deepest regions Gnostic visions and perceptions haunted her.

A shadowy male figure Erin Mathieson-Blair had never known appeared in her thoughts, surprising her by the force of the feelings she unconsciously associated to him. How could she deny this creature, whom she had once clearly adored? Together as they stood in a cavernous, metallic grey room, he had projected false images around her, conjuring a similar city out of four bare walls. Instinctively, she felt that her own life and history had something to do with the desolate place he had recreated, even as her rational mind dismissed the possibility.

Erin tried to focus her attention on the fuel gage, but still heard him whisper the name of that world as the vision faded, a planet once called—Orian?

* * * * *

Erika watched the enemy ships escape down the medical center highway, pursued by three or four of their defense ships. Glancing over at the burned wreckage of the downed ship, she could not tear her eyes away from the broken wing that had struck the ground first.

All at once, she thought she heard a feeble, muffled voice calling out in an unknown language. A moment later something stirred amidst the wreckage, emerging through a crumpled pile of metal and glass shards that fell aside with an audible tinkling. Then, as if overwhelmed by the effort, the creature collapsed, still partially buried.

Erika motioned to her colleagues but only two responded. Pointing to the wreck, she muttered something about investigating and stepped tentatively towards the crash site. The others followed her, picking their way up the incline of sharp, hot metal shards to the injured pilot. At the front, Erika steadied herself, preventing her bare hands from reaching out and clasping the red-hot surface for balance.

But as she reached the pile of rubble, her team automatically moved ahead, forming a circle about the alien pilot, then they reached for the creature's arms that had broken free. A smooth green material that had been ripped in places sheathed his skin, and his head was protected by a metallic dome that had probably preserved his existence in the crash.

A moment later they had pulled the alien from the wreckage and were dragging him back down the remains of his ship. Erika wasn't sure what she had been expecting to see.

The sight of his humanoid form shocked her. She almost screamed.

At a safe distance from the plane, Helcosar instructed the others to drop him, and they began their examination. Under the rips in the uniform he wore, Erika's disbelieving eyes beheld a creature of strangely mottled pink skin tones though in body form nearly identical to their race.

She jerked back as the pilot's hands reached up to pull off the helmet over his head; then, her curiosity renewed, she knelt beside him and helped him with her strong arms. Unconcerned, she noticed the others retreat after a moment to collect some equipment.

He breathes like us, Erika thought in awe, dropping the dome that had covered his head.

The creature they observed might have been an Orian except for the bizarre coloring of his skin and the dark exotic reddish-brown coloring of his hair. His eyes fluttering open were blue—not unlike her own. Yet they were full of anguish and agony.

Glancing down at his chest, she realized in growing alarm that his skin had been punctured.

She drew a finger lightly over the wound, amazed and distressed by the dark red stream gushing from the lacerations in his skin. She looked to his eyes again to read the significance of her observations and was held by his gaze, the unsettling plea she found there.

While she hesitated, her comrades had retrieved a transport table, and returning to the alien, pushed her aside, running the smooth planar surface beneath him and lifting him up for transport to the Great Leader and his top examination team.

Numbly Erika followed them, still seeing the pilot in her mind's eye, entranced by the emotion that controlled his handsome face. Minutes passed as they reached the Great Leader's Command Room and waited for him to appear; then a short discussion ensued, but Erika heard none of it.

"May we observe?" Erika heard Helcosar enquire, and the team was permitted to observe from a distance.

They knew the Great Leader could interrogate the alien pilot without words, using only his great mental abilities, but it was still something of wonder to them.

Suddenly the alien began to scream.

Erika could not understand his cries, but some irrational part deep in her mind began to regret his torment. Sticking sharp probes into his body to retrieve samples of tissues and fluids, the scientists ignored his screams, giving him no palliatives. As if the subject were nothing to them and already a corpse for study and dissection, they made no attempt to halt the flow of the dark red streams pouring from his chest. A bioscan was called for and the officers moved back for a moment to let the machine run.

As the scanner departed, Erika got an unobstructed look at the alien's face. She would not have been unable to describe the emotion that appeared there but reacted to it nonetheless. She drew closer to the dying man. The examination was over.

When she had advanced within a few feet from him, the alien pilot recognized her and with his dwindling energy raised his arm and hand out to her, a look of desperation on his face. Taking her limp hand, his eyes softened. His breathing became erratic, first as he managed a short exhalation, then, as the minute slowly ticked away, he began to gasp spasmodically, still clutching her hand though his grip grew weaker.

A second later the man's body stilled. His arm fell down heavily to rest at his side. Erika turned away from his face and gazed down at his motionless fingers, the uneven cut of his nails, familiar half-moons, and the blue vessels just under the skin.

Stepping back, Erika allowed the officers to cover the body before taking it away for dissection. Silently she watched them go, and it was not until the medical team had disappeared down another corridor that she realized her own team had returned to their laboratory without her.

Standing alone, she lifted her fingers involuntarily to rub her eyes and was amazed to find them clouded with moisture, leaving glistening drops on her fingertips when she brought her hands down.

Fearfully Erika wiped her hand on the material of her legs and rushed down the Medical Highway to catch up to the others.

* * * * *

As the Earth infiltration unit sped down the wide corridor, Erin glanced at her rear monitor uneasily. She sensed a dominating presence far behind them, a being capable of discovering her, of forcing her to understand herself. Panic struck her like she had only known once before, when she had been inside the alien ship on Earth.

The short distance between them offered no protection from the force of the creature's mind, but thankfully the presence had thus far no knowledge of her proximity. All of its energies were focused upon someone else at that moment. Though she had gained some distance from the source, the feelings were so intense that she was able to concentrate and perceive the questioner's subject.

Erin shuddered, certain that Jason Donnelley was still alive, for the time being. Then she became aware of another woman, the image prevalent in Jason's mind, a beautiful girl with gray skin. Erin sought out her mind and glimpsed into its surface thoughts, searching to interpret the spark of pity in that alien soul.

"We're in over our heads. I say we've got to get out of here," Erik's voice over the comlink broke off the unusual communication channeled to Erin's mind. "We should find an air lock and abort the mission."

"Why?" Lieutenant Ricna demanded.

"We can't reach the engines and power source if they're surrounded by those narrow corridors." Erik explained. "We'd have to ditch the planes, and I don't think our chances of getting out would be that good. We've learned enough. Anyone object to getting out of here with the information we've got?"

"No objections here. Let's move it." Lieutenant Jaegger agreed enthusiastically.

"Aren't we supposed to take this place out from the inside?" Kramer reminded them.

"Maybe," Erik admitted, "but look at the walls in here. I don't know about you, but they look reflective to me—so if you don't mind risking killing us all—"

"I see your point." Kramer admitted.

Seconds later, Lieutenant Susumu Kusao of the UESRC's indigo squadron, the team's informal navigator, interrupted their progress down the large highway.

"We need to turn around and take that last left—and then uh, turn right on the third passage," he said.

"Okey-dokey." At the end of the team, Aila Delagrange cut her engines and turned around, speeding up to allow the others room to backtrack.

"We'll need to go left again when we get to a large space," Kusao went on as the team backtracked and headed down the next intersection, glancing down at his navigational monitor while the others threaded their way around him. "My computer has processed all possible exits and this is the closest one." As Kusao's voice faded, he began to notice the strange absence of enemy planes around them.

The team passed door after door in dark abandoned-looking corridors, whose blue-grey walls shimmered, with reflections drifting hypnotically, in the coruscated beams issuing from the fighters' forward beacons.

Erik Ross' scanners alerted him when they approached the large space Susumu Kusao had located, but just before turning left and into the area, he heard the unmistakable sizzle of laserfire and the loud crash of an explosion.

They had flown into one of the enemy's fighter docking bays. Most of the aliens had been dispatched to combat the Earth ships in the battle in space, but a few remaining ships had been activated and waited in the dark for the infiltration team to arrive.

The first two planes of their team were piles of smoking rubble and scattered metal fragments by the time Erik's last fighter slewed into the area. The three enemy planes had just strafed the second pair of their team when Erin Mathieson-Blair's plane broke from the middle of their formation with inhuman speed, dodging the enemy enfilade redirected towards her and loosing three precise energy beams as she rushed towards them. The other humans watched transfixed as her thrusters ground to a halt.

A second later her fighter disappeared in the explosion of the three larger alien fighters. Erik's gut clenched, and the comnet was silent.

Then a scratched-up plane emerged from amidst the eddies of smoke.

"Let's go," Erik found his voice again, observing that the others had come to a halt; he took the lead again, and the team once again headed down the fighter bay.

They met no resistance. Two minutes and twelve seconds had passed when they detected the air lock. The team slowed, none of them certain how to activate the escape exit.

If the laser volleys reflect back on us... Erik thought.

Then, as if by magic, the thick air lock door whisked open and the team was able to pass into the wide corridor of the air lock that connected the inner and outer hull.

Lieutenant Kusao wondered briefly if they had been lured between the two layers of hull, if they had fallen into a trap. For up ahead, the second hull plate held fast.

But, as they neared the second hull, they heard a loud sound of grating metal as the giant hull plate guarding freedom pulled aside. Before them lay a window of familiar stars and the transient explosions of a space battle.

As the team emerged from the alien ship, Erik glanced down at his scanner. Erin Mathieson-Blair had fallen behind to the tail of their formation; behind her, the hull plate suddenly retracted with enormous force, though the void of space swallowed the sound.

* * * * *

Erik exhaled in anxious relief as the team sped away from the blackish hull of the alien ship. Pulling his gaze away from it helped him to quell thoughts of his older brother that were threatening his concentration. Automatically, he switched on his first reserve oxygen supply and watched the meters rise with relief. Then his radio communicator flashed, and like the others, he patched into the signal.

"This is Kansier, over. Repeat, this is Kansier. Welcome back, infiltration team. Follow vector seventy-three to our current position, Charon -2.7, 3.9, 1.6. We're pulling out in ten minutes."

Arnaud's infiltration team reset their course, looping around most of the fighting and passing through an area that had been well prepared for their escape. But the enemy was not easily fooled. The infiltration team had made it nearly half way to the Stargazer when a squadron of alien ships appeared on their radar, having broken away from the main battle area.

"Stick to your wingmen," lieutenant Kusao shouted over the net. The Stargazer's Crimson Stripe Squadron moved in to engage the new arrivals, dodging in and out while jockeying for a lucky shot. After a few moments, it became clear to those caught up in the manic fight that only Arnaud's team had been targeted for elimination, which was strange, if the aliens had intended to let them go. They had even opened up their own air lock to let them out, Erik thought. None of it made any sense, but he wasn't about to quibble.

The crimson team struggled to engage the faster enemy fighters, picking off its ships one by one, meeting no resistance; it took more than three minutes for the combined efforts of both squadrons to destroy the last enemy fighter. Then once again Arnaud's team formed up for retreat.

Erik watched through his viewport as the Stargazer appeared visually, rapidly growing until he could discern the small lit window of the open cargo bay. As they skirted the edge of the Stargazer and then flew into its narrow docking bay, Erik counted the number of fighters remaining on his screen; there were only fifteen. Six more team members had been lost since they cleared the alien ship.

A great wave of light gushed forward out of the Stargazer's forward laser cannons, engulfing the alien ship in a great wash of light.

The infiltration unit remained in their cockpits, waiting for the squadrons to return now that Arnaud could send the retreat signal, all of them thinking about their losses, each one hesitant to unload and confront those who remained. All at once, great hordes of fighters appeared, speeding into the cargo bay like wasps returning to the hive and hurrying aside for others to land.

When the last plane had docked, the infiltration team felt a great vibration thrum beneath them as the Stargazer's main engines flared and accelerated; moments passed, and the team was thrown right and left by rapid course adjustments, where the Stargazer successfully jinked laser volleys as it fled to the safety of Neptune's near side.

Behind them, the alien ship was wrapped in light, with explosions silently going off one by one as the outer hull of the Orian flagship disintegrated.

A cheer was heard in the fighter bay of the Stargazer.

The alien ship disappeared in a wash of light.

