

ALPHA SEVEN

A novel

by

Toby Clark

### This novel is dedicated to the NASA shuttle crews, especially those of the shuttles Challenger and Columbia

**Alpha Seven**

By Toby Clark

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Toby Clark

**************************************************

**Smashwords Edition, License Notes**

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Prof Fiennes, Grandfather to Leonora. Timeline.

Chair of psychiatry at CEC at age 37 designing crew profiles for the Alpha Project. Experimentally hibernated at age 41 for 10 years and revived before Alpha One launch, then experimentally rehibernated at age 45 for 10 years to test the effect of repeated rehibernation, revived before Alpha Seven launch (actually witnessed Alpha Six launch).

Rehibernated for a third time for 50 years at his own request so that he could witness the outcome of the project.

He knew Leonora from 1 - 5, 15 – 18 & his son from birth – 16 then 26 – 31 then 41 – 43 when they launched with Alpha Seven

Alpha One launched at - 88 years then one ship approximately every two years up to Alpha Ten, the end of the series.
Chapter 1

"What is your name?"

A familiar, soothing voice, albeit without any discernable inflexion.

"My name? My name? Why it's Adam! Adam Smith" Then, because it somehow mattered " M2"

"What is your age?"

"My age? How old am I? Why, I'm 18 years and 2 months. At launch."

"Good!" The soothing voice continued. Adam, calculate the cube root of 27"

"At launch? Why did I say that? Launch – what launch? Oh, yes, the ship's launch, of course! Cube what? Cube root 27. That's easy. 3" he replied "

"Correct! What is the boiling point of LOX?"

Com1, the ship's computer. Asking all these stupid questions. His mind suddenly saw a picture of the training manual open at the page headed 'Cryogenic Storage'. "98 degrees Kelvin" he answered.

"Compute the percentage power reduction with No2 drive running at 35% power output"

"I need to be able to run a procedure to do that"

"Open your eyes."

He was lying naked on his hibernation couch, the lid was up but the restraints still holding him in place. His cabin was encouragingly normal. Everything was in it's place. His computer console was live and displaying the universal screen saver, a picture of the ship hanging in space against a background of stars with the Earth and Moon visible in the distance. He unclipped the belts and sat up, muscles feeling sluggish and stiff. He felt deeply cold inside. He was shivering, spasms in long unaccustomed muscles interfering with his keyboarding as he typed in commands with clumsy fingers. He brought up a subroutine, entered some figures and read the result aloud to Com1's speakers. "18.61%"

"OK Adam, you have full cognitive function. However, I must warn you strongly that you will be emotionally unstable until you have adapted fully to revival. This is highly likely to make you over-react to situations, nonetheless, in the absence of L1 or L2, you may take command. I advise you to drink hot isotonic solution and eat a light meal, then perform a standard exercise routine."

"Com1, why have you revived me?" Adam sucked at the warm, sweet-tasting liquid euphemistically described on it's bottle as 'strawberry isotonic milk', pressed a number at random into the meal service console and activated the microwave oven.

"The ship has sustained damage exceeding automatic servicing capability. In the absence of any 'L' designated personnel I am required to initiate revival of F1 and M2 in accordance with standing orders."

"What sort of damage? Display the details."

"The ship passed through an undetected meteorite shower"

'Holy shit!' Adam breathed to himself as a seemingly endless list of damage details began to scroll down the screen. "How many items Com1?"

'Seven hundred and ninety one malfunctions detected." Com1 returned this detail with just the same unemotional inflection as he would have done if Adam had made him answer the one about why the chicken crossed the road.

He was shocked into full alert, his heart beating loudly in his chest. "List me those that are mission critical."

With rising horror he read the items as they scrolled down.

1 All drives on emergency shutdown pending full maintenance and status check

2 Course deviation 27.3% from standard coordinates

3 Main power outage, local emergency backups operating only

4 Loss of pressure units A2, B1, B2, B3, B4, D3, D6, D7, D8, D9

5 Total loss of fuel from tanks Fl3, Fl5, Fl6

6 Total loss of LOX from tank Lox2

7 Shuttles S1, S3 inoperable pending full maintenance and status check

8 Structural damage to units A2, B1, B4, D7, D8, D9

9 Loss of telemetry to F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, M5, M6, L1, L2

10 Specification deviation F3

11 Temperature Con.....

"Stop there!" Adam was on his feet, suddenly suffused with horror, alternately sweating and feeling chill and nauseated as the shock overwhelmed his newly awakened mind and his body suffered the resulting trauma. It was clear that the ship had taken devastating multiple damage. If the drives had not automatically been shut down by the computer, he realised, he wouldn't be reading this.

But it was the dreadful implication of structural damage A2, the accommodation block. Between him and M5 were the cabins containing the unawakened M3 and M4. Then what lay beyond? Loss of telemetry could mean anything or nothing, at least for a while – the hibernation units were integrally operated and would continue to run on automatic until their fuel cells were exhausted. But the main corridor had lost pressure so that he was sealed in his room behind the airlocked door. He would have to suit up and evacuate his own air before he could go to investigate.

"M2. Adam. Are you there?" A female voice via the computer's speakers. Terrified.

"F1!" Leonora Fiennes, he recalled. "Leonora? Are you OK?"

"Adam! What's happened. Why have we been awakened? My door is airlocked. I can't open it."

"Leonora, the computer's got a status report. We've been hit by a meteorite shower, there's a lot of damage. The accommodation has been holed, we've lost atmosphere, that's why we are sealed in our rooms. Listen, Leonora. We might have casualties, there's loss of telemetry to most of the other cabins. We should suit up and investigate at once. Let me know when you are ready and we'll come out together. Call me on your suit radio, yes?"

He slipped into his underclothes. Their training had been thorough and he had no difficulty donning the fleece undersuit and then the complex and cumbersome space suit. He had even been trained to put it on in zero gravity, a fiendishly difficult thing to do but the ship's artificial gravity here made it much easier, he reflected and also gave him some assurance that the main structure of the ship was still intact and they were still rotating as they should be at the end of the spoke which carried the accommodation block. He pressurised the suit, checked it's systems and then operated the door lock. There was a brief hiss of escaping air, then the silence of vacuum as the pressure zeroed and he would be able to open his door.

Bizarrely, the microwave door dropped open with a steaming meal on it's tray. It was bangers and mash.

"Adam. I'm ready. I'm just venting my atmosphere."

"OK Leonora. I'm going out."

His room light illuminated part of the wall opposite, beyond was total blackness. He turned on his torch and stepped into the corridor in time to see Leonora's door opening. A suited figure, face almost invisible behind the visor, identifiable only by the legend 'F1' stencilled on the suit over what could have been the curve of her left breast. She also had a torch and had additionally switched on the suit's helmet lamp, prompting him to do the same. He took her arm, noting that he could feel her trembling even through the fabric of the suit and they turned to look up the corridor to the far end.

Identical doors, labelled M3, M4, on the left, F2, F3, F4, F5 on the right then almost nothing recognisable beyond, a tangled chaos of the smashed and twisted cabins and their contents, blasted by the mindless explosive impact of one or more lumps of space debris hitting the accommodation block with enormous velocity. Shattered and partially molten metal had splattered everywhere, driven from the impact F side through the closed doors on the M side and in places all the way through the cabins and the outer shell so that here and there stars were visible through gaps in the structure. What might have been a human body was palely visible caught up amongst a tangle of wires and tortured metal and plastic further back in the wreckage. It was a scene of utter devastation.

They stood side by side, unable to move, or even speak, faced with the enormity of the destruction and the realisation that most of their fellow crew members were gone. It seemed a miracle that the accommodation block had not disintegrated completely and been blasted away into space, by such minor threads of fortune hung their own lives.

"I think I'm going to be sick!"

"Not in your suit. You could choke. Leonora..."

The figure beside him had gone limp and started to slump to the floor. He let go his torch and grabbed her, held her against him and pulled her back into his room. He shut the door against the unbelievable spectacle beyond and used the emergency air supply to re-pressurise, thinking to himself that he wouldn't have enough air to be able to do this again. He removed his helmet, then hers. She had fainted with the shock of what they had just witnessed but she was coming round again. 'So much, so soon after reawakening' he thought.

He sat her on his couch, suddenly aware, in spite of the awfulness which had surrounded his awakening that she was extremely pretty. He remembered that he had been particularly fascinated by her when they were all introduced to each other, shortly before hibernation. But basically, they were strangers. 'Perhaps just as well' he thought 'because most of the others are now dead.'

He held her against himself, clumsy in the bulk of the suit, let her head rest on his chest, put an arm around her shoulders, rocked her against himself, comforting them both.

"I'm sorry" she whimpered. "Such a terrible thing to happen. It might have been us. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. I can't think straight. It was too dreadful."

Leonora sat up. Her face was very pale but she was gaining control of her emotions. The small room felt safe and comfortable, helped her to think. "We must ask the computer."

"Com1, what is your assessment of the ship's status?"

The computer's voice sounded reassuring but it's words were not. "Mission is fatally compromised!" it said calmly.

"Why?"

"Insufficient remaining fuel to complete deceleration. The ship will overshoot it's destination."

Adam shook his head in despair and changed tack. "Uh, huh. OK. Com1, will you awaken all available crew members as soon as possible. Instruct them to remain where they are and patch them all through to me, here, when all are ready. And display their status on screen."

"Affirmative. Confirm that I have advised you to take a light meal and perform a standard exercise routine."

Suddenly he could smell the food which the microwave had dispensed and despite everything, suddenly felt ravenously hungry – a normal reaction to coming out of hibernation. He picked up the tray and offered his fork to Leonora. "We have to eat. That's why you fainted."

She nodded and they shared the meal and the fork to eat it with, clumsily gripping it in unaccustomed, gloved hands while they watched the on-screen status reports for their surviving companions. There had been a total of 22, comprising 10 males and 10 females, all about 18 years of age plus two much older ones of 'Leader' status, a married couple, though they had been hibernated in separate cabins. Awakening was proceeding normally in cabins M1, M3, M4, M7, M8, M9, F2 and F4. F3 and F5 were shown as 'unable to initiate awakening routine.'

"Some are OK on the other side of the impact but there must have been another one took out F10, L1 and L2. Computer doesn't say anything about M10."

"Adam, that means that 7 of the males have survived and only 3, maybe 5 females. And we've lost our leaders."

"But we still have Com1 which is a bit of a miracle. Com1 what is the status of M10?"

"Telemetry indicates hibernation normal but awakening is denied."

"Do you know why?"

"Revival parameters outside specification."

'Damn computer speak!' he muttered to himself.

"Com1, how far are we into mission"

"74 standard years and 281 standard days."

"And how long to reach the destination?"

"Unknown. Mission coordinates are disrupted."

"How long before we were scheduled to arrive."

"Four standard years and 38 standard days."

"Adam, do we have enough food to last that sort of time? Now that we are awakening everybody?"

"That's the sort of question we would be asking our leaders, Leonora. I have no idea. But we can ask Com1, can't we."

"Com1, if there are just eleven of us now, how long will our food supplies last for?"

"Insufficient data available", Com1's voice remained impeturbable.

"What more information do you need, for heaven's sake?"

"Adam, don't get cross with him!"

"Cross! He's only a damn computer. He isn't a 'he', 'he' is an 'it'"

"Com1, please respond"

"Insufficient data pending status report on stores damage and status report on hydroponics."

Adam switched Com1 on to standby. "Have you any idea how long it takes to bring somebody out of hibernation?"

Leonora frowned. "From what I remember it can be about eight hours, but why don't you ask him?". She gestured at the console.

"Because I'm beginning to hate the sound of his voice. And besides, he always brings bad news! Anyway, I suggest we make ourselves as comfortable as we can while we wait and I'm going to start by taking this suit off." So saying Adam began the awkward process of disrobing. He had one arm out and the shoulder stuck. He looked at Leonora watching him. "Won't you give me a hand, then?" She smiled, and with that, they helped each other out, like two butterflies emerging from their chrysalises until they were standing in their standard issue fleeces. It was warm in the cabin and the combination of eating and wriggling out of the suits had made them feel hot and sweaty. Adam unzipped himself and peeled off down to his boxer shorts. Leonora looked him up and down, shrugged, held his eyes with hers, reached a hand to her throat and pulled the zipper down over her breasts, abdomen and down to the crutch, peeled it back over her shoulders, down to her waist and then again, down over her thighs until she could pull it off her feet. She straightened up, wearing only a frothy set of bra and panties. She was wearing personal gear, not the shapeless official issue which they were supposed to wear on embarkation. He gazed at her in awe. "You are just so beautiful F1!" the words coming out in little more than a whisper.

Leonora blushed girlishly. "I didn't want to find myself one day undressing in front of a man wearing those awful things they supplied us with. The men's underwear doesn't look so bad, though," she added. "Not on you, anyway!"

He smiled in response, then changed the subject as the reality of their situation crowded back in on him. "We need to work out what we're going to do. Try to create a plan."

"Adam, the air in here feels like its beginning to go stale, and the circulation isn't running."

He nodded. "I hadn't noticed, but you're right, it is. The damage must have wrecked the life support system for the whole block which means that we can't stay here very long unless we can get it going again. Or Com1 can" he corrected himself. "If not, we have to find another part of the ship. Somewhere that is still OK. Maybe Com1 can tell us."

"But we have to stay until the others have revived so that we can tell them what is happening. Maybe we should go over to my cabin because I still have some emergency air. But let's wait until we've had what we can from here. Adam, how long does the suit air last?"

"4 hours at resting rate but it drops rapidly if you are working. We have to think what to do. If com1 can't restore the supply, we will need to get to part of the ship with a functioning atmosphere." He turned on the console again. "Com1, why isn't the air conditioning running?"

"Power outage has extended to include emergency power backups in all accommodation units. My sensors indicate that pressure to all pipelines from the main LOX tanks has been lost."

"Is there nothing you can do to help us?"

"Negative." Com1's voice was it's usual dismissively dispassionate self.

Adam felt a catch in his throat, of anger, tinged with fear. "Com1, report on atmosphere status all sectors. Display on screen, not vocal" he added sharply.

Once more a long list began to scroll down. A whole series of identical status reports: 'pressure zero', then readings for the cabins.

Cabin F1 zero

Cabin F2 .50bar in spec.

Cabin F3 .50bar in spec.

Cabin F4 .51bar in spec.

Cabin F5 loss of telemetry

Cabin F6 loss of telemetry

Cabin F7 loss of telemetry

Cabin F8 loss of telemetry

Cabin F9 loss of telemetry

Cabin F10 loss of telemetry

Cabin M1 .50bar in spec.

Cabin M2 .52bar O2 17.3% CO2 4.1%

Cabin M3 .50bar in spec.

Cabin M4 .52bar in spec.

Cabin M5 loss of telemetry

Cabin M6 loss of telemetry

Cabin M7 .47bar in spec.

Cabin M8 .50bar in spec.

Cabin M9 .51bar in spec.

Cabin M10 .37bar in spec.

Cabin L1 loss of telemetry

Cabin L2 loss of telemetry

He paused the screen. Pointed to M2. "Our air's getting critically bad. We can't stay here much longer."

Leonora's finger traced the M10 line. "Low pressure. Maybe that's why the computer won't revive him?"

"I'm not sure what we can survive in hibernation but M10 would be in trouble if he was revived into low pressure. His cabin must be damaged. But there's nothing we can do about him for the time being. We've got enough troubles of our own!"

He restarted the screen, a depressing row of zeroes, then:

Hydroponicum C1 .55bar O2 20.6% CO2 2.45%

Hydroponicum C2 .50bar O2 20.7% CO2 2.28%

Hydroponicum C3 .52bar O2 20.6% CO2 2.31%

Hydroponicum C4 .54bar O2 20.3% CO2 2.47%

"Wow! Look at that! If we can get there, we've got atmosphere!"

"What about all that CO2? Will that be safe for us to breathe?"

"Com1 may be able to tell us. Com1, why is the CO2 level so high and is it dangerous for us to breathe?"

Com1's voice, suave as usual. "Plant growth is optimised at elevated CO2 levels. Humans can breathe it safely up to approx. 6%. It should never reach such a level in normal operation."

"Leonora, when we have to leave here, I'm going to try to get over there and check it out. I will have to go up to the hub, across and down to C block on the opposite side. Let's see how I can get there. Com1, display the best route to the hydroponica."

An outline map of the ship appeared on screen with a red line passing from the accommodation, up it's spoke to the central hub, through the core of the hub itself then directly opposite down the spoke to C block. B and D blocks, housing the observatory and medical centre were reached by their respective spokes at right angles to A and C. During the voyage most places in the ship were left shut down and under vacuum but could be pressurised on demand by the awakened crew, not an option now given that the ship was evidently riven full of holes. It looked as though C block, luckily, had been shadowed from impact by the mass of the hub. The hub itself housed the four main drives and two auxiliaries which served the ship's systems, all currently shut down and possibly damaged, maybe leaking radiation. The fuel and atmosphere tanks, along with the bulk of the stores were also housed there. At the front, the shuttle launch bay and 4 shuttles completed the layout.

He zoomed in on the accommodation. The entry door to the spoke was at the far end, beyond cabins L1 and L2 in a small lobby, with access to a communal rest and dining area on the other side. He noted that the video library and conference room completed the symmetry of the layout via an identical lobby at the near end, just beyond M1 and F1 only that in place of access to the hub, there was simply an airlock for EVA purposes."

"You won't be able to reach the door." Leonora traced her finger along the corridor. "There's no chance of you climbing through all the debris without puncturing your suit and anyway, we have no way of knowing whether the door can be opened, it could very likely have been damaged. Com1 should be able to tell us that, though. No, we should wait for the males on the other side to awaken and send somebody from there."

He nodded. "You're right, of course, only time isn't on our side. We haven't got a lot of air duration and even as we sit here, we're using it up. And whatever the others may be able to do, that leaves us stuck where we are. Our only option is to go EVA through the airlock."

"Adam, none of us are EVA trained. Our standing orders forbid it!"

"Our orders never anticipated this, though. Did they?"

"I suppose not. Com1, can we use the accommodation airlock to go EVA?"

"Access denied. You are not authorised for EVA."

"Bloody computer, this is an emergency, in case your shrivelled little siliconised brain hasn't registered the fact." Adam's voice was somewhere between a snarl and a screech, as though his fear afflicted voice was breaking back into puberty. "I'm going to need a quick primer on the procedures for going EVA and then a route to get into the hub. Run me the training manual for EVA."

"Request denied. Only L classified personnel are authorised."

"Please, Com1!" He swallowed and forced the words out of his mouth." L1 and L2 are dead. You gave me control, remember?"

"Limited status only M2 until all L classified personnel are either revived or else certified disabled or dead. Current status L1 is loss of telemetry. Current status L2 is loss of telemetry."

"For Christ's sake Com1, the accommodation has been smashed to bits by a meteorite. What more do you want?"

"Request denied. M2, my sensors indicate you are suffering abnormal emotional activity. May I remind you that you haven't yet performed a standard exercise routine since you have been revived. I also recommend another isotonic liquid intake." The computer screen went blank and a bottle of lime flavoured isotonic milk fell out of the meal service console. Adam picked it up and would have hurled it at the screen had not Leonora grabbed his arm.

"No, Adam! Please! That won't do any good and the last thing we want is milk all over everything."

"So what now! I swear that bloody thing is alive. 'Request denied' is it. We'll see about that Com1 and you can stuff your isotonic drink up your battery pack, you....."

She gripped his arm, both terrified and somehow amused at the same time. "That poor computer is only following its programming."

"And we might all die because of it. Leonora, there is no choice. Some of us are going to have to go EVA whether we or the computer likes it or not. Tell me what you know about EVA."

"Only that its dangerous."

"Why? Why is it dangerous?"

"Because you can drift off into space and not be able to get back. If you let go of things, they will be lost. It is very difficult to judge things. Distance, how fast you move relative to the ship."

"OK, I understand all that. So what precautions should I take?"

"You've got to hold on at all times. Should be tethered to the ship. Really need a reaction motor to propel you around. Mustn't look at the sun. Things like that."

"Well, there isn't a sun to look at. As far as I know we haven't got a rope or a line, haven't got a reaction motor and I wouldn't know how to use one anyway."

"Adam, I agree with the computer. All you have to do is let go and there's nothing anybody can do to save you. Please don't try!" Her eyes were blurred with impending tears. She was desperately overwrought.

"Leonora! Please don't. Doing nothing is not an option for us. We will just run out of air and die anyway. Very soon we have to suit up and leave here. There isn't enough air to let us go to your cabin and then come out again. I have to go for it very soon, the air in here is getting bad. Com1, where is there an airlock into the hub?"

The screen showed the ship once more. Four red circles, close by each of the places where the spokes joined the hub flashed on the display. "Com1, can they be opened from outside?"

"Negative"

"Can you open them?"

"Affirmative."

"Com1, don't give me any of your shit about authorisation. Open them now."

"Request denied."

"Why?"

"You do not have clearance."

"Listen to me Com1. I can open airlocks from the inside manually and I am going EVA whatever you say. If you don't open the airlocks on the hub, you will be responsible if I die. So what do you say to that, chipbrain?"

"Request denied. You do not have clearance."

"Leonora. I'm going anyway and I'm going to try to smash my way in or whatever I can think of. We have a fire axe in the emergency kit." He looked into her frightened eyes. "If I can't break in, at least I will have tried. I'll come back."

How are you going to get there? It's uphill from here.

"Uphill?"

"We are in a gravity well, aren't we! The artificial 'g' is caused by the ship's rotation. It's uphill to the hub and downhill from the hub to any of the other spokes. We have 0.75 'g' relative to Earth – I remember this from my training. You will have to climb up the outside of the spoke with the weight of your suit and anything else you carry."

"Oh, God! I hadn't seen it like that. Com1, is there an external ladder on the spoke?"

"Negative, M2."

"Is there anything on the outside to grip on to?"

"There are grip bars at 10m intervals level with the internal landings."

"How can I get up the outside of the spoke?"

"You are not authorised for EVA, M2. The question is therefore irrelevant."

"Look, Com1. Don't be so, so...devious. How does anyone who is EVA authorised move about the ship?"

"All suits have electromagnets in the soles of their boots. EVA suits also have both permanent and electromagnetic magnets supplied with tape slings as detachable anchors."

"So I can use the boot magnets to get a grip?"

"Affirmative. The boot electromagnets are driven by the suit's internal batteries and can be switched on and off at will using switches in the palms of the suit gloves thus, with practice, enabling a walking action. The switches will need to be activated from the suit's main console which you will find linked by a data cable to the umbilical connection" he volunteered with uncharacteristic helpfulness."

"Thank you Com1. It's time to suit up!" He nodded towards Leonora and commenced pulling on his discarded fleece, followed by the suit, which she helped him into. Adam found the console in it's external suit pocket and turned it on. He had to page through it's menu to 'boot magnets' and clicked on 'switching enable'.

He pressed the palm switches and found himself magnetically locked on to the cabin floor. "OK, Leonora. I'm enabled. I can do it."

"So what then, Adam? Assuming that you succeed, what will you do?"

"I'll go check out the hydroponica and then come back. Com1 can give me a stores location for ropes and lines and I will rig a safety line down here to make it easy for everybody to reach the hub."

"You make it sound so easy."

"Leonora, I'm scared as hell. But time and air are short so let me help you into your suit and we'd better get on with it."

She helped him to open the big oval airlock door, lifting it inwards until it latched against the wall. He climbed up the vertical ladder and out on to the roof of the accommodation, switching on the magnets to lock him safely where he stood. She climbed up after him and passed out the axe, which he tucked into a loop in the belt on one side of the suit. He looked up at the vast vaulting beauty of the starfilled sky above him, the breathtaking veil of the Milky Way. He pointed up a salute to Orion, to the left of the black negative image of the spoke reaching into the distance above him towards the invisible hub of the ship far beyond.

"Leonora! It's so beautiful!" He operated the right hand palm switch and took a step towards the spoke, released it as his foot landed, repeated with the left and he had taken two steps forward. In the suit light he could see that the metal below him was pitted with small dents and a hole which had penetrated through the plating. In a few steps he found that the walking action was almost automatic. He had to detour round a large void where the explosively violent impact of something that must have been big had torn into the accommodation below him. He could see down into the macerated remains of the cabins below and found himself staring at the dismembered naked torso of a human body. He repressed an involuntary heave from his stomach and looked away, suppressed the words he was about to blurt to Leonora via the suit radio and concentrated on reaching the spoke.

He put one foot up, locked it on the spoke wall and released the other, lifting it up a foot's length above the first and locking it on. His body weight was now suspended from his feet, only tightly flexed muscles from calf to neck held him in a standing position, about to sag backwards. He drew in a deep breath, released his right foot and forced it higher up, locking it on. It was grossly uncomfortable and he had progressed only about a metre upwards all told. He realised that it was going to be impossible to walk up it in the same way as he had walked along. He pulled himself into a forward-folded posture, bent from the waist and gripping his calves with his hands which eased the strain on his back, at least. He could get four fingers into a convenient fold and use his thumb to operate the switch, lift and pull the boot higher and lock on. Somehow he was able to move higher in this hunched posture but then his strength failed and he slithered back down on to the accommodation roof.

"I can't do it. It's impossible."

"Can't you use the axe?"

He nodded to himself, drew out the axe and swung it against the spoke, surprised to find that the point penetrated easily through the thin metal. It never occurred to him to smash a body-sized hole in it, in fact the strengthening ribs would have thwarted such an endeavour. He was able to pull himself up but that was all. "Have we got another axe?"

"I think so. Wait there. I'll bring it."

He lowered himself down again and looked up at the forbidding wall above him. If he slipped, he would either fall to his death on the roof of the accommodation or else bounce off it and be lost in space. But he had no choice, it was do or die, he decided. Then she was beside him with another axe to which she had attached a long length of line that she had also found in the emergency box just by the airlock. "You can belay yourself on so you've got some protection" she explained. "And loop the axes round your wrists so you don't lose them." She tugged on the handle strap of the axe he was holding. He nodded to her through the suit visor, did what she had said and swung it up again into the same hole, began the climb.

This time it worked. A combination of axe climbing and the magnetic boots soon had him up to the first grip bar where he passed through the line to it's mid point, pulled the free end through a convenient belt loop, over his shoulder and back through it before tying the doubled end to his belt, hoping that it would give him a bit of safety and also the 10m he needed to get up to the next one. It was much easier than it looked and now he had the confidence of the safety line, he relaxed and concentrated on climbing steadily, getting there with line to spare. He untied it, pulled it through, rerigged it and repeated the climb. And repeated it. After the fifth pitch, he lost count. He had acquired an efficient rhythm and was making excellent progress. It seemed to be getting easier, he was almost flying up from pitch to pitch now and it occurred to him that the 'g' pulling him down was reducing all the time. After a while he stopped bothering with the clumsy business of constantly having to re-rig the safety line and went on without it.

To his sudden dismay, the boot magnets simultaneously stopped working as the main suit battery failed. His suit light was also running dimmer but brightened up again as soon as he switched the magnets off. He carried on without them, jabbing in the axes and pulling forward almost effortlessly. He was now so light that he was having to be careful not to overpull himself.

She had been listening with desperate attentiveness to him giving her a running commentary of his progress and now began to relax along with the inflexion in his voice as it had gone from a crackling intensity that would have made her bite her nails (had they not been encased inside the suit gloves) to a euphoric confidence and excitement as he progressed.

He had reached yet another grip bar and decided to try an easier method. He could see the hub above him and he could just about make out the outline of the refuge. It looked deceptively close. He was effectively weightless and decided to jump the rest of the way to save effort and time, mindful that his suit air was of limited duration.

It was a gross error of inexperienced misjudgment. He pushed off with both feet thrusting against the bar and was floating in free space. What he hadn't expected was the rotation. There was nothing he could do to stop it. With dawning horror he realised that he was tumbling gradually head over heels as well as rotating so that he became hopelessly and sickeningly disorientated. He called out in alarm to Leonora as the spoke, hub and starry void turned around him. Only a few metres away from the spoke, he had already lost his sense of perspective and distance. His stomach clenched with nausea-inducing fear and he suddenly understood with horrifying clarity why Com1 had been so adamant about his EVA status.

He was almost level with the hub now but he was going to miss it by a few metres. In despair, he threw the axe from his right hand as hard as he could away from the hub and it was enough to change his direction of movement. He came up to the curved surface, bounced off it and began to drift upwards again. He was right above the airlock door but moving away from it. He threw the other axe away into space, did it badly and began to rotate rapidly. Unable to focus on anything, he was further disorientated by landing backwards on the hub and beginning to roll along the side of it. His arm randomly caught up against something and he grabbed at it with his other hand. It was a handle. He held tight and came to rest, his visor touching against the airlock door itself.

"Leonora, I made it! I'm outside the door!"

He forced his jangling nerves back under control, took several deep breaths and let them out slowly, consciously willed his pounding pulse to quieten down. "All I have to do now is work out how to get in."

He pushed away to arm's length and studied the door. A smooth surface labelled in large letters AIRLOCK 2 and above it a small panel with a square press button and the legend. "Press to open. Emergency use only." Gratefully, he pushed it but joy turned instantly to despair as nothing happened despite repeated jabbings with his thumb.

"Leonora. Can you hear me? I can't make it open. The emergency switch doesn't work. Leonora! Leonora? Are you there?"

Dreadful silence engulfed him with dreadful loneliness. There was no way back. No way he could reach any of the other airlocks without the magnetic boots and even if he did, they probably wouldn't open either. He remembered that there was a major power outage and who knew what other systems damage the meteorite impacts may have done. He called again and again but Leonora did not answer. His suit air was down to one third, at best he had an hour left to live and there was nothing else he could do except wait for the end.

He called her once more. "Leonora, don't leave me. Don't let me die alone. Where are you?" But there was no reply, only the sound of his own laboured breathing inside the suit and the digits relentlessly running down towards zero as his air gradually ran out. He was crying, he could feel the wetness of tears on his face. 'I'm too young to die.' The thought, like a mantra beat repeatedly at the inside of his mind.

"I'm too young to die!"
Chapter 2

Leonora heard his sudden distress calls. Her heart shrivelled with horror at his predicament, triumph turned into sudden and dreadful disaster. She tried to say something to comfort him, realised instead that she was sobbing into her radio and turned it off. She didn't want him to hear her. Despite her distress part of her mind continued to marvel at the staggering beauty of the starry backdrop, the inky blackness punctuated by numberless pin-sharp points of unwinking starlight, each unique in brightness and colour, the magnificent veil of the Milky Way, this incredible firmament slowly rotating with the motion of the ship.

There was nothing more to do. She couldn't see him any more. Couldn't hear his cries of despair because now she had turned the radio off and forgotten to turn it on again. She made her way back into the corridor and the appalling tangle of destruction that faced her. Entered her cabin and closed the door, operated the emergency air, then took off her helmet. 'What now, F1? What am I to do?'

"Com1, help me!"

"Confirm, F1. My sensors indicate you are suffering abnormal emotional activity. May I remind you that you haven't yet performed a standard exercise routine since you have been revived. I also recommend another isotonic liquid intake." A bottle of orange flavoured isotonic milk dropped unheeded out of her meal service console"

"Com1, please listen to me! Adam has gone EVA and he is up by the hub. Can you talk to him, find out what is happening to him."

"Negative. I cannot access his suit radio."

"No damn it, but I can. She switched her set on and called him. "Adam. Adam, are you OK?"

"Com1," she was beginning to cry with despair. "Why doesn't he answer me?"

"The radio is screened by the metalwork of the ship and also is out of range without a suitable antenna. You will need to indent for one from central stores. Location Bay27, bin No 221" he added helpfully "but you will need an 'L' level authorisation."

She bit her lip in frustration, tried another tack. "Com1, you said you could open the hub airlocks."

"Affirmative."

"I command you to open them, now."

"Command denied. You do not have authorisation."

"Com1, this is an emergency. Adam is EVA and needs to re-enter via the hub."

"M2 has exceeded his authority. My systems now have a paradox. Only 'L' authorised personnel can override my programming."

"What do you mean?"

"M2 is not authorised for EVA. He is outside the ship. That causes a conflict in my procedures."

"Com1, what do I have to do to convince you that L1 and L2 are – unable to respond" she swallowed against the painful lump in her throat, "- and I can authorise you?"

"I have to access the personal status monitors of L1 and L2."

"How could you do that?"

"All personal monitors are implanted under the right clavicle of the individual."

She touched her shoulder, just under the collar bone, could feel a small lump under her skin. Knew what she had to try to do. "Damn you, Com1. If that's what it takes." Leonora refitted her helmet. Depressurised the cabin and opened the door. There was no going back, the emergency air was all but exhausted, now only her suit air was left. Less than two-thirds full.

She steeled herself to approach the wreckage. A length of metal doorframe was almost completely off F6's doorway and she wrenched it free, hoping that it wouldn't cut into her gloves and puncture the suit. Using it as a club, she beat aside twisted metal, broke plastic fittings apart, tore out tangled wires and forced her way up the corridor. She was almost sick as she came to the torn and broken anonymous naked corpse but somehow she found a way past and reached the end of the corridor opposite L1 and L2's cabins. The doors were patently unopenable. Something big had exploded inside L1, bursting out the centre of the door, gone across and through the front of L2. She could see something of the destruction inside both cabins, including parts of what must have been L1's body and this almost caused her to vomit again, potentially fatally, inside the suit. It was probably merciful that the wrecked doors were so distorted that they were impossible to wedge open. She didn't even try.

Her suit air was less than half now and going down quickly so that she suspected that it was leaking, probably torn against one of the many shards of wreckage she had had to force her way past. She had the safe option of going into one of the undamaged cabins with her reviving companions and sitting it out until they awoke but that would have meant leaving Adam to his fate. She closed her eyes and could see his face, eyes silently imploring her. The vision made up her mind. Even if she died in the attempt to rescue him it would be better than the accusation of those eyes, every time she closed her own, for the rest of her life.

The main door into the spoke led directly to the elevator. She tried the controls, going through the motions, hoping it might still be functioning. There was no power, nothing happened. To one side was the airlocked service door into the spoke which lifted easily and latched open. The inner door operated equally easily and without a second's hesitation she started up the ladder which ran up one side of the lift shaft along with numerous service cables. She ascended steadily, muscles trembling with weakness until she reached the first landing at 10 metres, paused briefly and went on up to the next. She thought that she was never going to make it before she ran out of air, only that the more ladders she climbed, the less the force of gravity pulling her down. Eventually, she found that she was able to make a controlled jump, leaping from one landing towards the next, catching the ladder halfway and pushing off against a rung with her feet to reach the top. She was progressing rapidly now. Towards the end, in the virtual absence of any artificial gravity she was able to push herself off all the way to the next landing, repeating this up the seemingly endless series of ladderways until at last she came to another airlock door. She had reached the hub.

There was no discernable gravity at all now. She opened the door and latched it, pulled herself through and floated along a corridor of the same length as the accommodation far below her. She had no need to look at her air pressure gauge, the low pressure warning whistle had started to sound. Only the inertia of her mission kept her going. The door was labelled AIRLOCK 2. She pulled the handle, let it swing open, climbed through and relatched it. No pressure to equalise, she unlatched the outer door, dropped it down and Adam's helmet filled the space, diving down on top of her until they collided and she was pushed back, crashing against the opposite wall and rebounding against him, a tangle of clumsy, space-suited limbs. They were faceplate to faceplate. In the suit light she could see he was saying something, went to switch on her forgotten suit radio, only her hand wouldn't work and she was sliding into unconsciousness, the whistle filling her ears, telling her that the air was all gone........

********************************************

A roaring in the ears, sensation of nausea, gasping for air, bright lights before closed eyes and then..... Leonora opened her eyes, blinking against a sick headache. Her helmet had been removed and she was floating, still suited up, in an empty room not much bigger than her cabin. Adam was holding on to her.

"Adam?"

"It's OK. We're safe. You passed out. You had used up all your air."

"where are we?"

"In a refuge."

"Refuge? What kind of refuge?"

"An emergency shelter. Not too far from the airlock. We are near to the shuttle bays, I remembered there was one here from our basic training. Just as well because we were both pretty far gone and you were completely unconscious by the time I got your helmet off."

His eyes held hers. "I don't know how you did it, but you saved my life. I had given up hope, was just waiting for my air to run out, I don't ever want to know fear like that again, it will haunt me for the rest of my days. It was horrendous! Anyway, how on earth did you manage to get inside the hub?"

"I went the way we should have gone in the first place. Broke my way through the wreckage in the corridor and climbed the ladder in the spoke. Once I got far enough, it was as easy as falling down a hole!"

She was feeling better. Clean, cold air. She drew in deep breaths until her body felt normal again, tissues flushed with oxygen. Her anoxia induced headache cleared completely. She smiled, held him, suddenly on impulse kissed him on the lips. "You're mine now, Adam, I saved your life!"

There was no need for words, the adoring look in his eyes said everything. He kissed her back. His lips tasted sweet!

"And I saved yours, F1, don't forget, so you're mine too!"

"Are you proposing to me, Adam Smith?"

"I surely am, Leonora Fiennes. To have and to hold from this day on..."

She sighed, he sighed, gazing into each others' eyes.

"My sensors detect abnormal emotional activity F1, M2. I should remind you again that neither of you have yet performed a standard exercise routine since you have been revived."

"Com1, where the hell are you?"

"I am distributed throughout the ship but my main CPU is located in the central control room in the hub."

They turned to look at a small computer screen on the wall of the refuge. It was displaying the standard screen saver.

"Com1, advise us on the best route from here to the hydroponica."

The screen obligingly displayed a map of the hub, with a red line leading out of the refuge, across the shuttle bays, into another corridor and out to the opposite spoke. "Com1, can you turn on some emergency lights?"

"Affirmative."

"Only the ones in the direction we are supposed to be going. And leave them on. What is the status of the reviving crew members?" Com1 obediently caused a list of status reports to scroll down the screen. All seemed to be proceeding normally. "How long will it take?"

"3 to 4 standard hours, according to individual metabolism, age and gender."

"OK Com1, we're going for the hydroponica now, as soon as we have recharged our suit air cylinders."

Adam connected Leonora's cylinder to a short length of hose, pressurised it, then did his own. "Helmet on. Don't forget your suit radio this time!" When she was ready, she nodded. He operated the air vent and they were out into the hub. The shuttle bay was an enormous hangar with the four vehicles arranged in a square configuration at the corners of it, accessed by a network of scaffolding, some of it now bent and distorted. Peculiarly, there were very few stairs or footways anywhere, only vertical ladders at intervals because the hub operated permanently in low gravity, they would have been irrelevant. But now there was no gravity at all so they pulled themselves along hand over hand by means of the scaffolding, past the shuttles. One, at least, they could see had been wrecked and was twisted out of position with a wing almost completely broken off and the hull torn open for most of its length, it's innards protruding in an untidy mess of cables and broken equipment.

The emergency lights were a godsend. They could see that there had been considerable damage within the hub and bits of wreckage were loose and floating dangerously about everywhere. At the far end, the bay was partially open to the stars where it must have been struck by the meteorite which wrecked the shuttle. They reached the other side, found the door and entered the corridor without difficulty. Now they were at the airlock into the spoke, opened and latched it, guided by a string of lights descending towards the distant hydroponica. Leonora led the way, pushing off and floating down to the first landing, Adam close behind her. The further they went, the more the gravity well of the hydroponica was drawing them down into itself, until they had to grab on to the ladder half way down lest they land too hard, then two or three checks, then had to use a proper climbing down action. It was much easier going down than it had been climbing up, only to Leonora, the ladder and landings seemed to be endless, fatigue eating into her muscles, already tired from her earlier frantic climb up from the accommodation.

She stopped to rest on a landing and Adam came alongside her. He pointed to a white-painted number on the wall. 12.

"I've been counting them. I think we have another twelve sections to go. Another 120 metres. Take your time, Leonora. We can't afford an accident."

"My air's low again!" She looked with sudden horror at her pressure gauge. It was almost empty. "My suit must be leaking. Adam, I can't make it. There isn't enough left.!"

"You've got to, Leonora. Come on, I'll give you a hand." He unhooked a short lanyard on the suit, attached it to hers and climbed above her. "Go on down, I'll support your weight" he commanded. They reached the next landing. He was breathing heavily, his breath rasping in her ears through the suit radio. They descended to the next landing. And the next. She could see that her air was dangerously low and the terror began to rise inside her, anguished memory of her recent near-death experience now about to repeat itself. She didn't know how rapidly his own air was being consumed by his frantic efforts.

She counted 3 against the landing, her low pressure whistle beginning to sound in both their ears. They went on down again, he was supporting almost all her weight, she was dangling below him, her hands and feet just going through the motions. Landing 2. She could still breathe, but there was almost nothing left now. His whistle was adding to her sibilant warning of her own. He was literally carrying her now, she dangling below him, unable to help herself. Then they were there! Down a short corridor and a door in front of them, opening into an airlock. They were swaying against each other, he with utter exhaustion, she with lack of air.

Atmosphere rushing in to equalise and their visors suddenly completely fogged over, the door opening inwards and she tore off the helmet, desperately gulping in an almost unbreathable, hot, moisture saturated soup. But it was air. Choking, coughing, retching, fallen to her knees and Adam the same beside and still connected to her by the buddy line.

He rolled over on to his back, breathing coming gradually under control, eyes shut, caving in to utter exhaustion and she leaned over him, still gasping, trying to say something.

"We made it Adam. We're safe now. It's going to be alright!"

His eyes opened, he gave the ghost of a smile, "Saved your life twice, F1. You're mine twice over now!" and went to sleep. She fell over against him, still breathing heavily, head spinning, only dimly aware of their surroundings until she too must have succumbed.

********************************************

She was hot, covered in sweat in the uncomfortable recesses of the suit and this had awakened her. They were still lying slumped on the floor, Adam, too was coming awake. It was light, a luxuriant, natural daylight, fluorescent ambience. All around them was green, a tropical forest reaching up high above. An undercurrent of humming machinery, water sprays and, distantly, birdsong. An insect that looked as though it might be a bee buzzed close by.

"Adam! Is this the Garden of Eden? Am I dreaming?"

He sat up, looked slowly around. "What a beautiful place. I hadn't expected anything like this – it's a rainforest! I thought it would be just neat rows of plants. This is incredible. Explains why it is so hot and humid. I've got to get out of this suit, I'm stewing. What about you?"

She nodded and they helped each other out of the sweaty, bedraggled spacesuits and fleeces, now wearing only their underwear, hers unapproved. "Wow, that's better!" He took in Leonora's scantily clad body with approving eyes. "If this is the Garden of Eden, then you must be my Eve."

She smiled, lay back on the grassy sward. "I'm so drowsy!"

"After what we've been through, I'm not surprised".

"How beautiful it is!" she gazed up at the luxuriant greenery, watched a small flock of green birds chattering together in the amongst the foliage.

"Are you thirsty?"

She nodded "And ravenous! Adam, is there a meal service console, here?"

"I was thinking the same – and look there" he pointed to a wall panel with a computer console and a standard service console beside it. A metal ladder led up to a doorway above. "Garden of Eden and all mod. cons! What can I get you, my lady Eve?"

They had eaten and drunk from the ship's standard microwaved fare. They felt warm and cosily full up with food and isotonic drink. The traumatic events of their awakening had achieved a dreamlike unreality against their present environment and the distance in time of sleeping. Suddenly only the present mattered. On an unbidden impulse, Adam put his arm around her warm, naked shoulders. He tingled at the touch of her body. She leaned against him, he caught the heady scent of her, his senses reeled.

"Can I kiss you?" She lowered her eyes, nodded. He took her gently in his arms and kissed her on the mouth, feeling only the kind of surge of passion that a young person is capable of. As the heat of the encounter went to his loins, he felt the rising pressure of lust against the inside of his shorts. He folded his arms around her, felt her equal response, her breasts pressing against him. They weren't acting rationally, somehow the spur of urgency in the drama of their situation exaggerated every emotion. Leonora was pulling his shorts down over his hips and he found his hands inside the elastic of her knickers doing the same so that suddenly his erect manhood was pressed against the opening between her thighs.

"I'm a virgin" she gasped. "So am I." His response came unbidden to his lips. She lay back on the grass, pulled him down on top of her, her legs parted. She reached down to him. She had never felt a man's penis before, but she knew instinctively what to do. She gripped and guided him between her parted labia. "Press hard" she murmured into his ear. Now she had her hands around his muscular young buttocks and was pulling him into her, helping him to overcome the resistance of her hymen. She felt the sudden parting and felt him starting to move in between her vulva, go deeper. She was unaware of any pain but she was slippery with blood and vaginal fluid, he was entering her. He had closed his eyes, his heart was pounding, his breath coming in gasps and then, suddenly he sensed a horrible inward unease, a tension in his stomach, feeling of nausea, threatening to make him retch. He drew back, his erection rapidly collapsing, slipped out of her and then leaned over sideways, holding his abdomen, bending until he was almost double, starting to gag.

"Adam, what's the matter! What's wrong. Are you ill?"

He nodded dumbly. The sensation was beginning to subside almost as quickly as it had arisen. "I'm sorry. I'll be alright in a minute. Don't know what came over me. I expect it's the shock of everything."

She sat up beside him, stroked his hair, comforted him. His malaise turned to embarrassment, humiliation and then self loathing. He had so wanted her. It had all been so quick, so immediate. He felt sick in his mind, lost. They sat silently like that for some time and by and by he felt better. "I'm really sorry, Leonora! What must you think of me. I don't know what happened."

"It's alright, Adam! This wasn't the time. But the time will come. It felt really nice." She kissed him gently on his cheek. "It isn't the time, darling. We've got other things to think about right now."

Chapter 3

He entered the lobby of CEC's command and control centre ten minutes before the combined conference and news briefing was due to begin. He was there by invitation. The receptionist smiled up at him, gave him his badge and a copy of the agenda. "Coffee and petit fours over there, Professor." She waved him towards a side chamber, already filled with a noisy crowd, but nobody he recognised. 'Not surprising', he mused 'since I haven't had any involvement in the project since the launch of the tenth ship – how long ago? It must be about sixtyeight years now, even if it was only actually twenty to him. Such a long time in a busy life. Of course, he had been kept informed of the progress of the various expeditions but actually, relatively little had happened so far, other than the successful landfall of the first one a few years ago. That had given rise to huge interest at the time. The landing and setting up of base camp had been a textbook project. They had found an earthlike planet, teeming with primitive life and their reports had brought back a fascinating wealth of data from what proved to be a Garden of Eden, a paradise. The colony had developed as it was supposed to do. Land was settled and farming begun, making use of the species from within the ship's hydroponica as well as incorporating native ones. The first baby to be born produced a worldwide sigh of mutual contentment and satisfaction and there remained much interest about the growing population there.

Alpha One, eighteen light years away remained as a beacon to the ambitions of the human race and a live dream for Earth's crowded six billion population. A statement that almost become a mantra said. "There are no guns on Alpha One."

Today, the subject was Alpha Seven. CEC had received an uncovenanted call from the ship that had set alarm bells ringing through the project. Seven was in trouble and he was desperately worried, hungry for news.

He took his coffee to a side table and examined the agenda.

Colonisation Expeditions Centre

0930 Welcome and coffee

0945 Introduction by CEC President Elect

1000 Historical Outline of the Project

1100 Morning Coffee

1115 Report from Alpha Seven

1230 Lunch

1330 Questions and discussion forum

1430 Afternoon Tea

1445 Conference Roundup - Seeking a Way Forward

1600 Finish

He hadn't needed to attend the historical outline, he knew it better than most of those who would be attending, but maybe he could help in explaining some points of detail. He could even have been on the podium but he had declined on the grounds of the long time since he had had any active involvement. There were others, more important than he who should be leading the conference.

There must have been about 350 delegates and they were all ushered into their seats in time to receive the opening presidential address. She stood up to the lectern at exactly 0945 and the audience fell quiet. It was clear from her demeanour that she was troubled.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, first let me thank you for taking time out to come here today, or for joining in one of the worldwide conference links which have been set up. CEC welcomes your involvement and any contribution you may be able to make. For the first time since its inception one hundred and twentyfive years ago, we have run into serious trouble within the project. One of our fleet, Alpha Seven has passed through a meteorite field and sustained damage which threatens its survivability. The purpose of this conference is to appraise you all of the situation and thus focus the combined wisdom of mankind on the problem and hopefully arrive at the best resolution possible that we may be able to achieve." She gestured to the big wall display behind her which carried the CEC symbol, a ship set against a starry backdrop with the sun and moon in the background.

"We are proud of the endeavours which generations of engineers and scientists have put into designing the project. We are proud of the backing and support which has been given by governments worldwide in the face of competing and often very pressing demands for resources, and we are proud of our achievements in enabling colonisation of nearby star systems; we are proud to be a standard bearer for the hopes and dreams of mankind. We hold up the success of Alpha One to you as that beacon for all mankind's hopes." The display changed to a picture of farmland, with distant hills. A young man and woman smiling in the foreground, she holding a baby in her arms, probably the most famous image ever shown.

"Many of you will know intimately the details of the project and the history of CEC but we intend this first session to sketch that history and bring you all up to date with progress so that we are properly informed to consider the situation which currently prevails for Alpha Seven. I am going to ask CEC's official historian to step up now and make the presentation."

The display changed to an engineering drawing of what was obviously a motor of some sort. "Fellow delegates, I begin this presentation with a diagram of the first practical fusion motor. Without fusion power, CEC could not have existed. It would have been impossible to send out the ships to any meaningful destination much beyond our own solar system and, as we all know, exploration of even our back yard, so to speak, was tediously slow, relying on short-burn chemical engines."

The picture changed to a row of several small rocketships hanging in space alongside a standard space station which itself closely resembled CEC's logo.

"CEC came into being, initially to begin mapping the stars in near space, notionally within a sphere of around 50 light years. A series of high-speed unmanned probes were built and launched. They carried enough hydrogen fuel in the form of water to enable them to accelerate to about 70% of the speed of light, then coast to their destinations, sending back enough information to enable a shortlist of potential earthlike planets to be drawn up. The probes were programmed for multiple destinations using the slingshot method to take them on and some of them are still completing their missions, still sending back data. This phase of the project is deemed to have been highly successful, we only lost one of the probes which went off air and has never reported again. Some 27 potentially colonisable planets were identified and a priority list of ten of them drawn up.

Alpha One was made from an existing orbital space station, a design so successful that the other nine were later made to the same template. Four large fusion motors were built into its hub along with two auxiliary units to drive the ships on-board systems, large water tanks installed along with LOX and a stores inventory supplied appropriate to the needs of the colonists. Each ship was equipped with four standard orbital shuttles with fast-acting, high performance fusion motors which also run off water and therefore will have virtually limitless flight capacity. They also have the capability to return all the way home on their own, if necessary"

A series of short video clips depicted the modifications to the space station taking place, culminating in short test burns of the fusion motors.

"The standard hydroponics complex was upgraded to give a good range of plant species but retaining the important aspect of sustainability." The scene changed to luxuriant rain forest. "Besides plant life there is quite a varied fauna, including literally the birds and the bees but also frogs, the odd lizard, snakes etc. None of them dangerous to human life, I must assure you. And the entire system looks after itself. Decaying matter produces methane which is burnt in fuel cells to produce electrical energy to power the lighting and heating systems. Oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and in fact all the hydroponic systems are maintained by a local computer in each of the units, so that everything is highly redundant. Service robots take care of mundane composting and so on. When the crew are revived, the hydroponica can supply all of their fresh fruit and vegetable needs."

The view changed to a zoom in on to the accommodation block. "This is where the crew hibernation quarters are located. There are two rows of eleven identical cabins serviced by a central corridor. At the rear end is a common area containing recreational and messing facilities and at the other end of the corridor, a computer and archive facility which can serve as a crew conference room. It also gives access to the hub via an elevator in the spoke. The accommodation block is all maintained at atmospheric pressure and has an independent auxiliary power and service supply as well as main connection to the hub, via the spoke. All other areas of the ship are left under vacuum but all except the biggest voids such as the shuttle bays and the fusion drive housings can be given atmosphere if required by the crew.

Each cabin is also independently serviced by local fuel cells, and the hibernation units themselves have all controls dualised. They are additionally overlooked by the on-board main computer which can override the unit console automatically in the unlikely event of a malfunction." The screen showed a cabin door opening and the interior displayed, focusing on a hibernation unit with a recumbent naked body lying asleep on it. "The probability of system failure is effectively zero, the crew members are very safe. The cabins remain the crew quarters all the time they are on board, hibernating or revived and contain each crew member's personal gear and space suit."

He cleared his throat, looked over the lectern at the audience. "The ships and their systems were designed to maximise redundancy wherever possible. They are extremely robustly specified and are as safe and reliable as anything we are capable of constructing."

He stood aside on the platform and continued to speak using a hand microphone. "That completes a basic description of the Alpha ships, but I am sure there are questions among the audience." The display went back to screen saver mode.

"Tell us about the disposition of the crew members."

He nodded. "A basic Alpha crew comprises ten males and ten females, each of around 18 years of age. They were all carefully selected for health, mental stability, sociability, genetic make up, racial mix etc. and trained over a period of years for their role, each individual actually chosen from a much larger pool of volunteers. There are also two older persons of 'Leader' status, usually, but not always, partners. Their role is, as you might expect, to be mentors. Leaders are all deemed to be highly intelligent, widely educated and were carefully trained for their role. All leaders are professional psychologists. Their importance to the project cannot be overstated."

"What is the spec. for the main computer?"

"The basic unit is a 'Com1'. Later units had minor upgrades but they are basically all the same. They have a main processor with a complete backup and restore program which can be initiated by the leaders if need be. Com1 has wireless links to almost every part of the ship and maintains status through a network of infrared sender units. It can communicate via screens which are located in all the cabins and at strategic locations throughout the ship, including a dialogue facility with the on-board local computers in the shuttles."

"What happens if the ship arrives and finds the destination planet to be unfit for colonisation?"

"Each mission was planned with a secondary objective. There is sufficient fuel reserve to take it there. The crew rehibernate, albeit that is not medically a perfect solution but Professor Fiennes in the audience here can verify that it is survivable. In fact he has done it three times." Heads turned within the room and he briefly waved a hand in acknowledgement.

"Ultimately" he continued, "it can return home from any destination. There is enough water within the hydroponica to supply the fuel to do that and the crew will come back after a round time of up to two centuries. The crews are all appraised of that possible scenario and they can be given supportive counselling if it ever comes to it."

The president came back on to the podium. "We now want to show you a short educational video presentation which CEC uses to promote the project. It is highly likely that you will have seen it at some time in your life, it must have been shown in just about every school in the world. It'll do no harm for us all to refresh our memories after which we will have a short coffee break before commencing the briefing session on Alpha Seven's problems."

The professor absently watched the video because there was nothing else left to do, then waited impatiently in his seat for the Alpha Seven briefing to commence. 'People at conferences the world over seem to take endless time over social chit-chat accompanied by endless coffee and finger food' he mused grumpily, his anxiety gnawing away at him.

One of the CEC President's aides came over to him, breaking into his thoughts. "Professor Fiennes? Mme President asked me to speak with you. She wanted to come over herself but she is caught up by some media people and can't get away." He sat beside him, cleared his throat. "Professor, the news isn't good. There has been a serious accident. Early indications suggest that your son may not have survived. We cannot be certain as yet, the situation is very confused."

He looked up with despair in his eyes. "Accident?"

"The accommodation block was evidently struck by a meteorite. We have confirmation that a few crewmembers are alive, but nothing about the leaders. I'm really very sorry. We all hope that we are wrong."

He stared back into the aide's eyes. "Thank you. Is there any news of F1?"

"Crewmember F1 is alive and functioning normally, though she has not been heard from for some hours now."

"So at least all is not lost to me."

"Can I get you anything, Professor?"

He shook his head. They were reassembling, a different spokesman now. The air was expectant. The display showed a simplified course trajectory, a blinking light depicted Alpha Seven's position in space.

"Alpha Seven is a little more than four years away from it's destination, an oxygen-rich planet with a blue-green albedo, 'g' ratio about .94 times Earth. It has been travelling for more than 74.5 years, until now without event. Two days ago we had an unexpected transmission from the main computer giving us the alarming news that the ship had evidently passed through a meteorite shower and taken some serious damage. As a result, Com1 shut down all four main drives and the auxiliaries according to its standard procedures, leaving the ship to operate on emergency backups. It then successfully revived crew members F1 and M2 and handed limited operational control over to them once it had established that they were functioning normally.

There is now a course deviation of 27.3% which implies very powerful impacts from a number of sources - one single meteorite of such mass would have inevitably destroyed the ship altogether. We are running some simulations based on what we know but we don't have anything meaningful yet to tell you.

The damage list is very long, there have been many impact points but much of it is of a minor nature. Happily, the hydroponica seem to have survived intact, probably a credit to the canopy design which is self-sealing against all but major rents in the fabric. The hydroponic computer reports normal function on all four units. Maybe also it fell into the shadow of the hub and gained some protection that way.

Of most profound concern is the report coming back about the accommodation block. F1 and M2 reported that the central corridor was open to space and was full of wreckage. It seems that the cabins of crew members F6, F7, F8, F9 and F10 were breached by one or more impacts on that side, of such severity that cabins M5 and M6 were secondarily involved. Destruction of cabins L1 and L2 were later reported by F1.

M2 requested that Com1 immediately commence to revive all available crew and this was reported to be proceeding normally in cabins M1, M3, M4, M7, M8, M9, F2 and F4. F3, F5 and M10 telemetry was functioning but revival could not be initiated."

He paused, then said heavily "Which means that only 7 males and 3 females are known to have survived and there is some hope that another 2 females and one male may also be alive. The leaders must both be presumed to have died, along with the unaccounted crewmembers."

A voice from the audience. "So what's happening out there?"

"They were still going through the revival procedure when Com1 reported, then still some hours from completion. There was an instruction from M2 to Com1 to patch all crew members through to his cabin once they were revived but then he abandoned it. F1 and M2 were reported to be heading towards the hydroponica but it is not known if they arrived or what they intended to do once they got there."

"Can you tell us a bit more about the crew disposition? Ten young men and ten young women – rather reminds me of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' the Hollywood movie!" There was a muffled laugh, breaking the tension of the meeting a little.

The professor suddenly felt impelled to stand up, cleared his throat and gestured for the hand mike. "Ladies and Gentlemen, what the project's executive probably wouldn't want to tell you is that the crew members were genetically matched to give maximum biodiversity in the early stages of establishing a colony. What even the participants don't know is that they are all bespoke. M1 to F1 and so on. The males are programmed by selective aversion therapy to choose the mate intended for them. The 'Stepford Husbands' might be a better analogy."

He sat down amid uproar from the delegates. The Chair eventually managed to bring the meeting back to order, a woman delegate took the mike.

"Are you telling us that this whole setup is some sort of factory baby farm. That these young colonists aren't being afforded the basic right to pair up with the partner of their choice. That love doesn't come into it? That they are like battery chickens?"

Amid more uproar the Chair appealed for calm. "Please, it isn't like that. The previous delegate has for his own reasons, no doubt, given you a certain 'spin' on the situation. It isn't as if there is an imbalance in numbers. They will naturally form up into ten couples and yes, fertility is important. These young people would be marrying and having babies if they were here, on Earth. Just that it's a bit more organised and necessarily so, given the nature of interplanetary colonisation."

The woman delegate was still holding the mike. "Only now there's only three women for certain and seven men. Moreover, F1 has gone off with M2. Isn't this a recipe for disaster?"

"Madam delegate. Everybody! Of course we have a problem. That's why we are here. F1 and M2 were revived first precisely because they are not a couple. Personal considerations would not be involved and their minds would be clear to concentrate on the pressing issues they have to face. And please bear in mind that they were only revived because L1 and L2 could not be."

The professor stood up again. His insides had tightened into a knot of anguish. He took the microphone, waited for the buzz of conversation to quieten before he spoke. "Madam President! '...issues they _had_ to face!' All this happened ten years ago. We are watching history as it unfolds! What on Earth have we done?" He sat down. He was weeping.

********************************************

The delegates were gathering for the afternoon session. The professor had gone out slightly before the meeting broke for lunch and had gone for a walk. He was amongst the last to sit down. He had no memory at all of where he had been.

Another different speaker. He didn't bother with preamble, simply cleared his throat, adjusted the lectern microphone and spoke. "There has been a further status report from Alpha Seven."

A rustle from the delegates, an air of tense expectancy. "Com1 reports that the six revived male and two female crew members have gathered in the archive and conference room. The position is that there are no airlocks within the accommodation block so that each person had to suit up, evacuate their cabin and enter the conference room at the same time before pressurising it. They are safe there for the time being, dependant on how much emergency air is available and they can only leave at the same time in a group. So they have to work out a survival plan.

Com1 has relayed to us a complete transcript of the conversation taking place there, which was still continuing as we reconvened. Anyone wanting a copy is welcome, we will be putting all this up on the CEC Website. We are analysing what is going on and can report to you at least an overview of what they are thinking of doing.

M1 appears to have emerged as a natural leader, which is actually in keeping with his personal profile. His name is David Cartwright. It seems that he revived first and came to the decision that they all needed to assemble in the conference room. He organised and planned what they had to do and he is now leading the discussion. Clearly there is a lot of shock and distress amongst these young people and they are particularly upset by the loss of their two leaders whom they all knew and were fond of. We are also aware that following revival from hibernation, they may be emotionally rather unstable and may act irrationally at times. Their training included a certain amount of imprinting on L1 and L2. Which is perhaps why they have so readily accepted David's leadership as a substitute.

Some sort of game plan is beginning to emerge. They have decided that priority is to reach the fusion motors and see if any can be safely operated, especially the auxiliaries without which the ship has no power and almost all of its systems are down. They also think it is crucial to check out the shuttles and the fuel and LOX tanks.

At the moment they are working out the details of what they have to do to get safely to the hub. They know that there is at least one functioning refuge from which they can access suit air top-ups – apparently F1 and M2 used it before requesting Com1 to operate the emergency lights along the route to the hydroponica – so that they can stay in the hub for as long as they need.

Which is about as far as they have got."

"Are they going to do anything about the three unrevived ones?"

"There was some discussion but they have decided to leave them as they are for the time being. The problem is access to their cabins. If they vent the air they are afraid it might cause them injury or even kill them. Com1 isn't being very helpful about that because they don't have 'L' status."

"Is there any further news about F1 and M2?"

"Com1 hasn't reported anything."

"Does CEC have any ideas about how this might go? Might have gone?"

"Currently we are still short of information. Our hope is that they will have decided that the mission is untenable and that they should direct their efforts to restarting one or more of the drives and setting a return course for home. If that happens then we can expect them back in a minimum of about seventy years, though probably more like a hundred allowing for a bit of relativistic timewarp. They would need to carry out repairs on the accommodation or else they could use the medical centre if that is in better shape. They have a good toolkit on board and Com1 can deliver skills training if need be.

"And if the ship can't be repaired?" A voice from the rear of the hall.

"At a pinch they can get back in the shuttles, assuming that they are operable. Even damaged, they don't need re-entry capability. The crew would have to move and reinstall the hibernation couches, rig up extra fuel tanks and so on, but that isn't beyond their capability"

The professor stood up again, waved for the mike. The president looked up warily from her seat on the podium, stood up. "Professor Fiennes. I hope you've got something constructive to say this time!"

He looked around the audience. Every eye was on him. The silence in the room was deafening.

"Constructive! My son was leader of the expedition. I have just been told that he is dead. But constructive comment I can give you. As long as F1 is alive and well, there's no possibility in my mind that the mission will have been abandoned if there is the slightest chance that it might succeed. Shortly before Alpha Seven was launched, crew member F1 had a vehicle accident. Leonora Fiennes, my granddaughter was substituted in her stead. She is a remarkably strong willed young woman and she has an illustrious ancestry. She owes it to her family and her father as well as herself not to come home with her tail between her legs long after everybody in this room has grown old and died. I stake my reputation, my father's reputation and the reputation of my ancestors on it."

He handed over the mike, walked out of the conference room. The door closing behind him was the only sound to be heard.
Chapter 4

David Cartwright looked round at his crew of five men and two women. They were still suited up, but with helmets off, only their crew numbers on their suits distinguished them one from another and their faces were undistinguishable to him. The faces of the males, that is. He had already decided that he fancied both of the women. F4 was of Afro-Caribbean extraction, a powerful and attractive face, tight curly hair and F2 was an oriental, petite, pretty and already sending him subliminal signals of approval, he imagined.

"We're pretty much agreed, then? So it's just a case of deciding who does what. Listen! Until we get to know each other better it makes sense to call ourselves by number. That way we know who's who, especially as the numbers are printed on our suits for all to see. Yeah?"

In the absence of much more than a nod from one or two of them, he continued. "M3, M4, M7, the most important thing is to make an assessment of the fusion drives and start up any that we think we can safely get going."

The three made eye contact with each other, nodded. "If that's OK with you guys, I'll lead the way" said M3. There was a murmur of 'OK's. "Alright, chief? Team M3 is ready and willing to go!"

"Call me David!" He smiled at M3. "I think you should be chief of your team. Agreed, M4, M7?"

Again a murmur of assent. "M8 and M9" He read their numerals directly from their suits. "Will you go have a look at the shuttles? We need to know what sort of state they're in. Whether they can be used or not, if they can't whether they can be repaired. But I wouldn't try to run up the fusion motors, you might find yourselves flying off into space! And will you take F4 along with you"

"Which leaves me, Captain David." F2 smiled engagingly. "Why don't I go along with F4 – Melissa, is it? And M8 and M9."

"Evelio! Call me Evelio!" M9 smiled.

"And I'm Anatoly" chipped in M8. "I'm related to the Tzar of all Russia. Or so my parents told me when I was little!"

There was laughter, cut off immediately by David, whose countenance showed that he was not especially amused. "I need you to come along with me. I think that we should take a look at the fuel and LOX tanks and also, when we've done that we may find time to check out any other refuges we can find. That could become pretty important to us as time goes on."

Again, he looked around at his crew. "I will follow behind with F2 and close things down here. I've got a little job to do. Are we all agreed? All ready? Helmets on, then!" He waited until everybody signed to him that they were ready and then operated the handle to vent the conference room. M3 operated the door latch, opened it into the corridor and led his crew out with only their suit lights and hand torches to guide them, easing themselves carefully past the dangerous wreckage and the mangled corpse, heading off to follow Leonora's route up that desperate climb inside the spoke. Following them, M8 turned to his buddy, M9, gave the 'thumbs up' sign, tapped Melissa on the arm and they followed as soon as the way was clear past the carnage in the corridor, leaving only David, M1 and the petite oriental girl, F2.

"I bet you've got a pretty name. Pretty girl like you!"

"I'm called Mina, Captain David. So what now?"

"Mina! OK Mina, if you follow on and wait at the other end, I just want to brief Com1 about one or two details. He smiled from within his suit, his face only dimly visible behind the suit light. She nodded. "Don't be too long, this place is beginning to frighten me!"

When she was on her way, he turned to Com1's local screen. "Com1, can I tune to a private channel?"

"Confirmed, M1. Every crewmember has his or her own channel. Yours is M1. The switch is on your suit console."

"So it is! OK Com1. How do I get Leader status?"

"My standing orders mandate me to award it to one, and only one, crew member on request from a two-thirds majority of fully functioning crew only in the event that L1 and L2 are confirmed dead."

"Their bodies are presumed to be in the wreckage of their cabins. We have seen that L1 has been partly dismembered and is obviously dead. L2's cabin is an airless wreck also. What more do you need?"

"I am programmed only to accept positive telemetry readings from their personal monitors."

"Why can't you read them already?"

"There is no signal from their cabin monitors."

"OK, Com1, presuming that their monitors were knocked out by the impact, I'm going to take my cabin monitor and hold it through the holes in L1 and L2's cabin doors until you _can_ read it. Is that satisfactory?"

"Affirmative, M1"

It was the work of a few seconds to locate and detach his cabin monitor. It was already operating on battery backup. He worked his way up the corridor, carefully avoiding several sharply projecting bits of twisted metal but noting that it was already easier since the others had pushed past, clearing aside some of the mess as they went. He held the monitor through the dreadful gash in L1's cabin door. "Do you get a reading Com1?"

"Affirmative, M1. L1 is confirmed as deceased."

David repeated the operation through L2's door and Com1 acknowledged her decease also. "Right Com1, so now you know the score!" He moved back down the passage, grimaced as he paused by the body. It seemed somehow a lot worse that it had been a young woman. "Com1, can you note this one, as well"

"I have already recorded that F6 has deceased."

'So at least she had an identity." He made himself take hold of her legs and pulled her out of the wreckage. She was still leaking fluids even though she had substantially stiffened up. He pulled her along the floor and took her into the lobby where the airlock had been left open from Adam's foolhardy spacewalk. He tied the end of his personal suit line around her ankles and climbed the ladder up on to the roof, from where he was able to haul her up beside him.

"Best I can do, F6! Com1, what was her name?"

"Alexandra Grimm." Com1's voice was somehow appropriate, like a priest intoning the rites. He untied her feet, said into his suit radio "I'm your only mourner, Alexandra. Farewell. Godspeed!" He pushed her as reverently as was possible in the circumstances out over the edge and watched as she abruptly disappeared into the blackness outside. He climbed back into the safety of the airlock and closed the outer door, saw smears on the handle, looked at his gloved hands. There was blood on them. He felt sick.

"David? When are you coming back? I don't like it here!" Mina's voice, tremulous. He smiled inwardly. "That's OK, little Mina. I've done what I had to do. I'm on my way now. Go up to the first landing in the spoke and I'll be with you in a minute."

He made his way for the last time past the mess in the corridor, noting F3 and F5's undamaged cabin doors, wondering what he might do about them later on. Then he was by M10. His hand went almost of its own volition to the ventilation handle, turned it and watched the gauge drop rapidly to zero. 'Pleasant dreams M10!' he whispered to himself, then stepped into the lobby and through the open airlock into the spoke and the company of Mina.

Even with the emergency lights on, the spoke presented a daunting aspect. The vertical fixed metal ladder ascended away up to the dimly visible first landing with a hint of continuation beyond.

"David, I'm scared. I've been frightened ever since I was awakened and once I saw that terrible dead body I'm all locked up inside. She could have been me, just as easily, couldn't she?"

"Or any of us, Mina! She's gone now, I sent her body out into space. We have to concentrate on the living. Now that we've lost our leaders, it's up to us to take charge of our own destinies. You've got to be strong, Mina. Trust me."

"David? Be my leader. Help me to do what I have to do. I'm only eighteen and I feel very young and very helpless."

"Mina, I'm only eighteen, same as you! Here, let me help you." He clipped their lanyards together. "Now we are buddied up, nothing can go wrong. Let's concentrate on getting safely up to the hub. I will go first so that if you slip, I will be able to save you."

"Yes, please do. David, you are so confident, so strong!"

"And Mina!"

"David?"

"I can be very passionate, too!"

********************************************

With Mina still attached to him, David emerged into the weightless hub. The various storage tanks were in the centre, behind the shuttle bay but forward of the fusion drives. By now his suit air was low so he made his way directly to the refuge that F1 and M2 had originally used, pushing against the walls, towing her along behind him on the buddy line. He drew her into the airlock with him and pressurised it. They floated inside and he closed the inner lock behind them. Took off his helmet, signed to her to do the same.

"We're safe here Mina and also there's a console so that we can communicate with Com1 and the others so I can direct operations from here." He smiled. "In which case, I'm going to get out of this sweaty suit and I suggest you do the same. We will be much more comfortable, the air temperature is fine. Are you going to give me a hand, nothing seems to work very easily when you're weightless!"

It was remarkably difficult to achieve in the restricted space of the refuge and by the time they had both wriggled and wrestled together and finally escaped into the freedom of their underwear, the two suits tangled awkwardly into a heap to one side, the previous mood of anxiety and tension had evaporated and Mina had a delightful laugh when she got going. She also had a beautiful little body underneath the regulation issue underwear and David suddenly found himself with an erection bulging powerfully out of the front of his pants. Their eyes met and hers were suddenly as hungry for him as he knew that his must be for her. He reached down and took them off, pulled his vest over his head. He had a strong, athletic body and now also a big, hot penis jutting proudly up between his legs.

Mina smiled again, not laughing any more. She pulled her halter top over her head, revealing small but shapely breasts with pink little nipples that were beginning to pucker up already with desire for him. She slipped her regulation knickers off, showing a mat of fine black curly hair covering a surprisingly prominent mound. And their bodies drifted into delicious contact with each other, undergarments floating randomly around them along with the empty suits, irrepressible in the weightlessness of the hub. David could feel his pulse in his ears. His previous sexual experience had been limited to snogging sessions at teenage parties which had left him frustrated but eager for more. This was the more he had always known would be there. His arms went around her naked, hot little body and hers around his. Their lips came eagerly, open-mouthed, together and the head of his surging manhood was nuzzling in between her thighs, just beneath that wonderful mound of venus with its dark covering.

The sickness came. He tried to ignore it, then tried to fight it off but it grew worse the more he wrestled with it. Somewhere inside his abdomen, nausea began to rise within him until he felt as though he would begin retching. Mina had taken his shaft in one hand and was rubbing his glans against her clitoris, making little whimpering sounds with the joy of it. She felt him suddenly begin to slacken, tried to pull him further inside her and then he went down almost completely under her fingers. She grasped him with her other hand, too but she couldn't get him back. She knew that something was wrong, that the moment was lost, pulled her mouth away from his, looked into his bolting eyes.

"David, what is it?"

"Don't know. Feel sick. Nausea." He was gasping the words. "Came on suddenly, very strong, thought I was going to throw up. Mustn't vomit in here. Let me breathe!" He pulled away from her, taking deep breaths, almost hyper-ventilating. She could see sweat shining on his face, could only watch him with alarm, couldn't do anything to help.

"It's passing off. Hope I'll be alright in a minute. Maybe it's weightlessness or something. Possibly reaction to being revived, I don't know"

"David, we have some drugs for weightlessness." She seized her suit, wrestled with it and came out with a small pack labelled 'MEDICAL', found a blister pack of travel sickness pills and passed it to him. He nodded his appreciation, broke open and swallowed two. "Feeling better already. Mina, I'm terribly sorry." Suddenly he was embarrassed, felt his face flushing.

"It wasn't your fault, David. You'll be fine again, soon enough." She looked directly into his eyes. "I'm ready for you as soon as you feel better. I want you to give me a baby. That's what we came here for, wasn't it?"

He nodded, almost shocked by her forwardness because he didn't understand the hunger and the urgency inside her. Everybody they had ever known in their lives had passed on while they lay asleep on their hibernation couches and they were many years away from any other human beings. It was a deep and profound loneliness that she felt, even if she didn't consciously understand it herself. The need to have something of her own to love and care for.

The voice made them jump. "M1, F2. My sensors indicate you are both suffering abnormal emotional activity. I recommend that you consult an 'L' rated, authorised personnel member for counselling as soon as convenient. I also recommend another isotonic liquid intake." Two bottles of flavoured isotonic milk, one mango and the other banana, dropped out of an un-noticed meal service console in the refuge wall and floated towards them. David laughed, grabbed one while Mina caught the other.

"Euch, banana! What have you got?"

"How nice! Mango flavour."

"I hate banana, why don't we swap!"

Mina giggled and pulled her hand away as he reached for it, causing their bodies to collide again. He seized her around the hips with one arm and grabbed the bottle with the other hand. She laughed, let him have it, caught the bottle of banana drink which he had let float loose, pulled the cap with her teeth and sucked down the tasty fluid. David did the same with the mango drink until she grabbed the half-drained bottle from his lips. "Half and half, David. That's only fair!"

He laughed again, they swapped bottles and drained them. "Banana or not I feel fine again now" he said. Mina put her arms around his shoulders. She was still feeling roused from their first encounter. They kissed as before. Her hand reached between his thighs and closed on his newly-risen erection, pulled him to her, pressed the head of his penis between her open labia, wrapped her legs around him and pulled him deep inside her by now well-lubricated vagina in one swift, powerful movement, causing him to gasp with the shock of it.

"I love you, Captain David!" Her voice was husky with desire, her thighs squeezing him tightly inside her, her vagina clamping down on to his erect member in a joyful celebration of pure sex. For a few seconds, the sheer overwhelming ecstasy of her lovely little body held him in thrall. He gripped her as tightly as she was holding him, floating together weightless in the intimate little cabin and then it came again. He fought to ignore it, willed it to go away, focused all his conscious mind on loving her, on his swollen penis buried deep inside her, this first, most beautiful lovemaking.....but he couldn't. She felt the anguish of disappointment as he slackened inside her, there was nothing more she could do, nothing more he could do. His face was puckered up with sickness, he was still gripping on to her, and she to him. He was beginning to gasp again, suddenly pulled away from her embrace, pushed her away, his limp penis slipping out of her, rolling into a foetal ball trying now just to stop himself from vomiting.

Mina had gripped hold of the spacesuits and was crying into the fabric, frustrated, hurt, angry and uncomprehending. His internal turmoil was fading away as quickly as it had come upon him. "Com1, what's the matter with me!" he cried out, despair in his voice. "Why do I feel sick every time I touch Mina?"

"Information denied. You do not have authorisation." Com1 replied unemotionally. "M1, F2. My sensors indicate you are suffering abnormal emotional activity."

"Don't tell me to get counselling from a leader because we haven't got one." David snarled at the console on the wall as if it was the face of Com1 itself.

"I recommend that you take the approved medication from your suit pack and rest for a short while until you feel able to perform a standard exercise routine," continued Com1 impeturbably.

"Com1, why can't you tell me why I get sick?"

"You do not have authorisation. Only 'L' authorised personnel are allowed access to the individual crew profiles."

David floated over to the console and switched it off. Mina was still weeping. He went to take her in his arms and comfort her but she pushed him away. Her face was wet and streaked with tears, a mixture of frustration and anger in her eyes. "I'm sorry Mina! There's something wrong. I don't know what it is but something won't let me make love to you. I get this sickness each time. Please don't cry! It isn't that I don't want you. I'm quite desperate for you. Please!"

She nodded dumbly, reached for her floating underclothes and started to put them back on. He watched miserably and then found himself doing the same. Frustration, despair, embarrassment flooded over him, finally to be displaced by anger.

When he had calmed down, he switched the computer back on. "Com1, can you connect everybody up together on open channel."

"Affirmative. You are connected."

'Just like that!' he thought. "This is David. Can you respond by number if you can hear me."

A jumble of overlapping replies. "We've got to have some radio discipline, please! M3, how's your team getting on?"

His voice via the console filled the refuge. "Hi, David. We've got a fair bit of damage over here. Everything's been knocked about a bit, but a lot from what seems to be secondary damage. Something pretty big hit No2 main engine and wrecked it completely. It's a wonder it didn't explode. A lot of the scattered debris from it hit No3 and I doubt if we'll ever be able to repair it. The two auxiliaries are in a bit of a mess too. They may both be mendable but it will take a lot of work. No1 and No4 main drives though could probably be put back into action immediately. Only there's another problem!"

"Another problem?"

"We ran all the usual startup checks on No1 and then asked Com1 to give it a go. Only he wouldn't. Keeps coming back with a message that we don't have authorisation. Don't matter how much you argue with him, that's it. He won't give."

"Oh won't he now!" David needed something to take his anger out on. "This damn computer's been getting too big for his boots lately. Can you hear me, Com1? What's to stop me shutting you down completely and running this ship on manual?"

"That is possible" Com1's voice was it's usual unruffled self. "But I would not advise it. Your crew numbers are below manifest. This would result in all crew members having to work more hours than standard orders permit in order to deliver my normal maintenance functions."

"Smartass!" David spat in disgust, which was not a good thing to do in the weightless confines of the refuge. He watched as the frothy globule struck the wall and spread out over it in an unappealing manner.

"Mina. Clean it up, can you?"

She looked as though she was about to make an acerbic reply but the barely-suppressed rage in his eyes made her change her mind, instead she found a paper swab and, with an angry gesture blotted it up and put the tissue into his hand.

"Com1, you told me that if the other crew members agreed then I could be voted up to 'L' status. Is that correct?"

"Affirmative."

"In which case, I can authorise you to start up the drives?"

"Affirmative."

"OK everybody. You heard him. If each of you agrees, then we can get started. How do they do that, Com1?"

"They must each reply affirmative'"

"Yea or nay, crew!"

There was a brief chorus of 'Affirmatives."

David looked at Mina. "And you?"

"Affirmative!" It was the first word she had said since. Her eyes were still wet from crying.

"OK Com1. Do you confirm me as leader?"

"I confirm that you have 'L' status M1."

"Then start up No1 main drive."

"I do not recommend that without further engineering checks."

"What checks?"

"Non-destructive examination of the combustion chambers."

"How will we do that and how long will it take?"

"You do not have technically qualified radiologists. You will need to designate crew members for training."

"For goodness sake, Com1. How long is that going to take?"

"The standard training package takes 3 training days plus a practical assignment to prove competence. The checks will take another 50 hours, including developing and interpreting the radiographs."

"Look Com1. Just start the blasted thing. 50% power."

"I do not recommend startup M1"

"Recommendation overruled. Do it!" He turned the computer off with a flourish. Looked at Mina with a triumphant, if humourless, grin. The refuge lurched around them. The suits fell down as one wall became the floor, they found themselves standing in low, but reassuring gravity. He took her arm to steady her, smiled into her face. "I'm leader now, Mina. I'll soon have this lot sorted out, you can be sure!"

As if in answer to his words, a dull, heavy 'boom' echoed around them, causing the refuge to shake as though it was in the middle of an earthquake, followed by several bangs and crashing sounds. He switched the computer on again in alarm and into a cacophony of shouts and screams erupting into the refuge. The fusion drive had started up without trouble, creating a forward thrust which had caused anything loose in the hub to fall backwards. The great mass of the damaged shuttle had torn clear from the scaffolding around it and fallen against the rear wall of the shuttle bay, not far from the refuge. M8 and M9, secured together by buddy line had been in the process of examining it to see if anything was salvageable, while Melissa was in the cabin of another of the shuttles, running functional checks. They were dragged down with it, disorientated and unable to react quickly enough to escape. Anatoly, relative of the Tzar of all Russia died instantly, crushed horribly beneath the fuselage. Evelio, M9 was trapped between the broken stub end of the shuttle's wing and the fuselage, one arm pinned under the mass of the vehicle, both feet caught up under the wing and his buddy line passing taughtly underneath. M3's team found themselves flying until they fetched up against something solid or else caught hold of some fixture of the ship, causing a crop of minor bumps, sprains and bruises and on top of this were then hastily forced to evacuate the engine bay as radiation alarms began to flash everywhere.

A babble of voices.

"Help me! Somebody! Please!"

"I'm coming!"

"Where are you?" M3's voice

"I'm under it. I'm bad hurt! Help"

Melissa's voice. "It's too heavy. I can't move it. Please help."

David cut into the chaos. "M3, get your crew to the shuttle bay. Now!" His voice screeching the last command. Then, "Com1. Shut down the drive. Emergency – no" he corrected himself, "normal procedure. Com1, how long will that take?"

"From 50% power, 327 standard seconds. Approximately."

"What's that in minutes?"

"5.450 standard minutes. Approximately."

"OK, Com1. Do it!"

Chapter 5

They had been sitting quietly for some time, just taking in the scene before them. The grass beneath was fairly short, as though it had been recently mown, the ground moist and soft. It smelt good. This green sward extended for only a short distance, like an apron and beyond it the riot of greenery sprouted above. Some small birds were flitting about, twittering to each other and a number of varieties of insects droned around. From somewhere within was a promise of tinkling water.

The airlock had admitted them to a circular structure with a vaulting plastic sheet roof, white from the reflected banks of lights and forming the daytime sky beyond which it was impossible to see. The walls curved away on either side, encompassing a space maybe 600m in diameter. There were no obvious paths into the rainforest but it looked as though it would be easy enough to push a way in between the plant stems and explore. Eventually, Leonora stood up.

"Come on, Adam. I want to go in." She took his hand, helped him to his feet. He was still wobbly from the exertion of that frenzied climb down the spoke, though his sickness had now gone completely. She led him into the forest. He was surprised by her self-assured manner, pressing fearlessly among fronds and stems and stepping barefoot into the undergrowth. The ground was soft and even, covered in a layer of litter mixed with compost, there were no spiky bits or roots to trip over. It had the appearance of having recently been turned over and cleared and almost as he thought about it they came upon the reason. A small machine, little more than a domestic rotivator was slowly progressing around, grinding up whatever came its way and delivering it at it's rear end. It made little noise above the chomping down of organic matter though it had to have an engine of some sort. They watched it, amazed, for a few minutes, then Leonora pulled him deeper into the forest.

A few steps beyond and they came to the bananas. She picked one from the tree and held it out to him. "Adam! Not an apple, but surely even better!" She laughed. "I bet that if bananas had been around in the Garden of Eden, Eve wouldn't have wasted her time on Golden Delicious!"

"My Eve!" He sighed. "I rename you 'Eve' from this moment on!" He took the proffered fruit, bowed to his waist and kissed her hand. She laughed again and took another for herself. He looked around, holding the empty skin, wondering what to do with it until she took it from him and threw it into the undergrowth. "Biodegradable!" she said. They ate several more, then she drew him on again amongst a bewildering range of bushes, trees and small plants which grew in amongst them. He noticed several different varieties of fungi, including domestic mushrooms. He bent, picked one up and ate it raw. It tasted good.

Suddenly they stepped into an open space and they were beside a circular pond, on a grassy bank. They stood side by side, holding hands. It was spellbindingly beautiful. Covering about a third of the surface was water lilies. There were bubbles as of fish rising in the water. Something hopped off a lily pad with a splash and they watched the ripple spread over the surface until it reached the sloping bank.

"Adam, this is wonderful beyond words. I'm going for a swim!" She stood before him and slowly removed her bra, dropping it into the grass. He gazed speechless at her, eyes round with wonder. "Do you like my breasts?" She smiled coyly, slipped her knickers down with a little pirouette and stood magnificently naked before him. "Aren't you coming too?" He knew that he had gone bright red with embarrassment with a shyness borne of inexperience.

"If I'm your partner, I need to know what you look like too, Adam!" He looked down at himself, his boxer shorts were beginning to bulge at the front. With a shrug, he dropped them off and stood before her. She giggled. "I think it would take more than a fig leaf to keep you covered! Come, kiss me!"

He stepped closer, touched her arms, ran his hands over her shoulders, gazed into her eyes, their faces so close that he could feel her breath on him. He had come fully erect now, her hand closed on his penis and was pressing the tip of it against herself. "I want you!" she whispered. "Why don't we lie down?"

The grassy bank was soft under their bodies, she rolled herself under him, found his erection and led him inside her labia, whispered "come inside me." He pressed down with his hips and felt her beginning deliciously to yield to him and then, at this most special moment in their young lives, the sickness came. It was impossible to ignore, or suppress. It unmanned him, his erection collapsed, his dignity was destroyed. He rolled off sideways, curled up into a ball of pain, nausea and embarrassment. She had her arms round his shoulders, "Adam! Adam, darling, it's alright!" She held him to herself, like a mother comforting her child, rocked him, crooned to him, stroked his hair and gradually he relaxed as the malaise subsided.

"Come into the water with me." She stood up, reached down for his hand and pulled him into a sitting position. He was avoiding her eyes, his face was flushed, he was both embarrassed and angry but he helped her pull him to his feet and they stepped hand in hand into the pond. Warm water rose to waist depth and she knelt into it. He watched as her breasts dipped in and then she submerged completely and came up again, pulled him over until he, too fell in over his head and came up spluttering. She was laughing and he laughed too, he splashed water over her face and she back at him. He stood up and she launched herself at him, knocked him over and they rolled about together, churning the water into spray and making the lily pads rock furiously in the wavelets they produced.

She clambered out, pulling him after her and they sat down on the bank, side by side until the water drained off them and they began to dry.

"Adam. There's something wrong, isn't there?"

He nodded, looked down. Said nothing.

"Adam, whatever it is, it isn't your fault."

"I get so sick. It happens as soon as I touch you. I can't stop it! Then goes off again. It's gone away now."

"Darling, look at me!" She touched his face, ran her hand along his cheek, gently turned his face until he could not look away from her. "You said you loved me."

"I do. You know I do. Eve, you are so beautiful! I could die." Tears were welling into his eyes and she held his head against her breast, rocked him until he was calmer.

"It's something that's been done to you, Adam. We've got to find out what it is, how it happens. We love each other, we've got to work together to beat this thing, whatever it is."

He lifted his head, returned her gaze.

"Kiss me!" she commanded. He hesitated, she brought her lips to his, ran her tongue over the inside of his mouth, touched the end of his tongue. Then pulled back. "Was that OK?" He nodded. "Kiss my breasts!" He hesitated. "Kiss them Adam. Are they not beautiful?" He nodded, let his mouth close over her nipple, felt it coming taut between his lips, felt the heat of his rising want between his legs. She gently lifted his head away from her. "Is it still alright?

He nodded. Her hand was on his penis, stroked it until he was fully firm, then just kept on going. Nothing happened except he began to get red in the face and breathe heavily. "Touch me." She took his hand in her other hand, pressed his fingers inside her labia. "Stroke me, play with me!" His fingers were rubbing inside her, stroking her clitoris, pushing into her vagina. He could feel the wetness of her, feel her fingers caressing his erection until both of them were panting heavily. She pushed him over on to his back, swung her leg across his abdomen, held his hot penis in to her and pressed down over him, feeling him slide easily and delightfully into her vagina, all the way until their bellies pressed together. He ejaculated immediately, hot spurts pulsing inside her and then collapsed. Adam was choking, retching, his face a mask of distress, pushing her off him so that he could roll on to his side. As he pulled out of her, a streak of semen made a wet line across her thigh.

She let him rest, just stroking his hair until the sickness would pass. She was fiercely, triumphantly exultant, cuddling his juices inside her.

He sat up. His eyes were troubled, uncertain. She kissed him, firmly on the mouth. "Whatever it was, we beat it! I made a man of you, Adam. You made a woman of me. I could have your baby!"

He smiled, relieved, relaxed. He knew their problems were far from over and, he realised, so did she. But together, they had beaten it and now they could lie peacefully in each others' arms until they fell asleep together. Until next time.
Chapter 6

Leonora was lying relaxed in Adam's arms on the soft grassy bank of the pond, she had been asleep only a few minutes. She gently disengaged herself without waking him and sat up. Now she had, for the first time an opportunity to properly study his body and this she did with loving approval. He was so beautiful! His olive skin and black, curly hair suggested an Italian origin but his nose was straight and he had blue eyes, perhaps he was the product of an Italian mother and an English father, and he seemed to have acquired the best features of both nationalities. Even so he had yet to fill out into his manly prime, he was well muscled and strongly built, luckily for her, she realised, because a lesser man would not have been able to support her those last two or three sets of ladders. His chest was gently rising and falling with his breathing and she could see a small vein in his temple throbbing rhythmically in time with his pulse. As she watched, a tiny muscle twitched from time to time at the corner of his mouth, suggesting a dreaming smile. He was at peace with himself, at least for the moment.

She felt warmly happy. Her hand strayed in between her legs and felt the stickiness there. She lifted her fingers to her nose and savoured the scent of his semen, now gradually beginning to trickle out of her vagina. By this one act of love she could now have become pregnant by him and she sat thoughtfully for some time wondering what their baby might look like. Boy or girl, she wouldn't mind which, they would have started the first new colonist! The thought gave her deep and immense satisfaction and at the same time she began to feel herself getting sexually roused, she could imagine herself twining her limbs around him and drawing his manhood inside herself, making abandoned love to him in this idyllic place. Her eyes were drawn to his penis, generous in proportions even in repose and it was all she could do to stop herself reaching out her hand to him.

Because they had a problem and she was feeling increasingly frustrated as she sat there gazing at him. Their first physical encounter had done no more than awake want in her and she felt that she was literally beginning to ache inside with the need for sexual satisfaction. 'Whatever was causing his sickness must have been in some way contrived in their programming, perhaps while they lay in hibernation', she thought, with the tiny beginnings of anger forming in her heart. 'Well, whatever it is, I'm going to find out how to defeat it. Our future happiness depends on it', she thought, 'and I'm going to start by interrogating Com1 at the first opportunity!'

Once she had come to this conclusion, she relaxed and let her mind freewheel, still feasting her eyes on her lover's wonderful body. Her memory of her life before hibernation was somehow distant, the events leading up to her selection at the last moment in place of another crewmember were clear but had that faraway, almost dreamlike quality of separation in time and space. 'As well it might,' she mused. 'I am more than ten light years from home – Earth that is, my former home. I have no home now, only this wreck of a spaceship and this hydroponic forest.'

She had been the product of a divided family. When her parents finally split after years of acrimony, her much younger brother went with her mother and she stayed with her father, on whom she doted and who, in his way, doted on her, clinging to each other for the affection their mother had been unable to give to either of them. He was a systems engineer on the Alpha project and Alpha Seven in particular ( _had been_ , she realised with a wrench of sudden grief, because, like everyone else in her former life, he was long dead now, they had been 74 years on their epic journey).

She remembered him hastily helping to prepare her for crew member capability, organising training sessions, getting her into the space fitness lab and through the tests there, using pure bombast to get the medics to run all their myriad health and genetic checks in time and then, at last telling her that she had been successful and all she had to do was sign the acceptance and disclaimer forms. She thus became crewmember F1 of Alpha Seven.

The last thing she remembered was his sad, concerned, yet loving face as he sat by her hibernation cubicle until she fell asleep. And awoke 74 years later to the chaos they now found themselves in.

Adam slept on. Leonora looked down at her own body. She was sturdily built for a female, but she was not fat and her muscles were in good trim. Her breasts were well rounded but not over-large and her figure generally was well proportioned and she knew that she was highly attractive to men. She smiled inwardly. Besides Adam there were no more than another seven eligible males that she was ever likely to meet in her life but even then they outnumbered the female survivors. 'That might cause problems before very long', she mused. 'If the others formed up into couples as she and Adam had already done, then the males left over, before long were going to become dangerously jealous and frantic with frustration – they were fine, carefully chosen specimens, all 18 years old and, no doubt, all highly sexed. If only our leaders had lived, we could have asked for their wise counsel in this impending crisis. As it was, testosterone was likely to be the driving force of this ill-fated expedition'. She suddenly felt a premonitory shudder pass through her. Peril lay ahead. For her, for all of them.

She was watching a frog sitting on a lily pad in the pond when the level of water on the far side began to drop, exposing the bank to view. At the same time, the water beside her rose and began to pour over the edge and the grass they were lying on, bringing Adam, startled, awake as the shallow flood washed around him before soaking away into the soil. The frog jumped into the water with a brief splash and she absently continued to watch as the ripples spread out until they dispersed.

"Leonora? Eve? What's going on?"

"I don't know. I felt movement and the water's running over. Look at the far bank. I don't understand!"

He stood up, unsteady at first, limbs still confused by sleep. Took her hand and pulled her upright. "We need to know what's going on. Come on, we need to find one of Com1's terminals." His mind was beginning to race ahead. "The others should be awakened by now, we need to let them know what we have found out." He drew her after him, past the banana tree and the servicing robot which was still methodically tilling the soil, back to where they had first entered by the airlock and where their discarded suits still lay like crumpled, empty dummies where they had left them. "We need to get them up here, as far as we know it is the only safe place on the ship."

Above the airlock was a roof hatch into a room above and beside it a vertical metal ladder leading up. "That goes into the hydroponics control room. Com1 will have a terminal there." He climbed swiftly up, pushed open the door and looked in. "Come on up – Eve!" and he went through. She followed him, ignoring the discomfort to her naked feet on the round metal steps and found herself standing in a large square room with four identical sets of workstations, one for each of the hydroponic chambers and a central service pillar which turned out to contain the elevator control gear and access points to pipes from the bulk storage tanks down in the hub. Each of the workstations were equipped with storage cupboards, microscopes, analysis machines and the paraphernalia of a laboratory and each had an ergonomically designed chair in front of a computer console and a second chair alongside.

They sat down at the nearest one. Adam looked briefly into her eyes and she smiled encouragingly in return. He turned to address the console. "Com1, are you in there somewhere?"

"Affirmative, M2" Com1's voice. Calm and reassuring as always.

"What news of the other crewmembers? Are they awakened yet?"

"I am displaying crew status parameters on screen" his voice continued calmly as a list of details scrolled down.

Title--status----condition-----------------location

M1 revived Leader Status Refuge 2

M2 revived normal Hydroponics control room

M3 revived radiation exposed Shuttle bay

M4 revived radiation exposed Shuttle bay

M7 revived radiation exposed Shuttle bay

M8 dead ---accident in shuttle bay Shuttle bay

M9 injured accident in shuttle bay Shuttle bay

M10 hibernated critical – equipment failure Accommodation Block Room M10

F1 revived normal Hydroponics control room

F2 revived emotionally disturbed Refuge 2

F3 hibernated unable to revive Accommodation Block Room F3

F4 revived emotionally disturbed Shuttle bay

F5 hibernated unable to revive Accommodation Block Room F5

"Adam, what is going on? What on earth is happening?"

"Com1, what accident?"

"M1 ordered restart at 50% power of Main Drive No.1. This dislodged Shuttle No.1 which had been damaged in the meteorite shower which fell on top of M8 and M9. M3, M4, M7, F4 are trying to free M9 who is trapped and recover M8 who is dead."

"Why did M3, 4 and 7 get radiation exposure?"

"They were close to the drive when it was switched on."

"How serious is it?"

"All are expected to suffer acute radiation sickness within a few hours. Levels are unlikely to be fatal or cause long-term harm provided that medical prophylaxis is given."

"M10? What's the problem? Why critical?"

"Cabin air pressure was vented. Repressurisation is required soon if M10 is not to die or suffer injury."

"Soon? How soon?"

"As soon as possible. Certainly within one standard day."

Adam and Leonora looked at each other, bemused. "Adam, we have to do something. We have to get them all up here, then send somebody to assist M10 and have a look at the other two unrevived ones."

"Let's talk to the others. They probably don't know that we are here or that this is a safe place for us to be."

"Com1, give me open channel to all crewmembers"

"Affirmative." A babble of voices came over the sound system. There seemed to be no radio discipline. Somebody was moaning, others were calling for help in trying to move the shuttle, it sounded uncoordinated and frantic."

Adam broke in. "This is F1 and M2 calling. Please stop for a moment and listen!"

"Where are you two?" David's voice.

"We are safely in the hydroponics control room. We made our way here before you revived but we were exhausted and have been resting. This is probably the only safe place left on the ship. Com1 has run status checks which show loss of atmosphere to just about everywhere else. We suggest that you move down here as soon as you can."

"Before you start climbing down the spoke" Leonora broke in, "make sure you top up your suit air or you may not make it. Climbing down is nearly as hard work as climbing up."

"We hear you F1. We can't do anything until we've released Evelio. The shuttle is too heavy for us to raise and we can't get to him. David, have you ordered the drive shutdown yet?"

"Com1 is running it down now. It will take a few minutes. You should be able to lift it clear quite soon."

"You hear that, Evelio? We'll have you free shortly."

Evelio's reply was incoherent. He was clearly in great pain and barely conscious.

"How are we going to get him down the spoke?"

"David, you're the leader. What do you say?"

"His leadership got us in this mess in the first place!"

"David!" The voice was angry. "What do you say?"

"We need to get him to the medical centre, not the hydroponica."

"That's no good," Leonora broke in. "There's no air pressure, which must mean damage. The centre must be deemed to be inaccessible and probably no use if we did get him there."

"Alright, we'll bring him to you. Is the elevator working OK"

"I don't know but I can check easily enough. Wait." He opened up the elevator motor room, found the master switch and turned it on but nothing happened. The electrical panel was dead. "It's no good, there isn't any power."

"Can we lower him down the shaft using the buddy lines?"

"Adam did that when I ran out of air on the way down here. You can do it OK but it will take a lot of time and effort."

"David, I can do better. There's a hand winding facility in the control room here. I don't know how long it will take but it should be easier and better for the injured man.

"OK, but let's test it while they are still trying to release him. Get somebody into the elevator and I'll give it a go."

"I will send Mina. Then I will go and help with the...accident. Give us five minutes."

"Adam, I think I should fix my suit. If I have to go out and help, I don't want to go through that suffocation routine again!"

"OK, let's do it. If you fix the suit, meantime, I'll check out the first aid provision up here. Mina, call me when you're ready."

Leonora had already started down to get her suit. She fixed on the helmet and connected it to the top-up air supply bayonet fitting beside the airlock and inflated it. The empty suit expanded out until it was a taught, grotesque, bloated dummy and she turned it around, quickly finding a short tear in the fabric just below the shoulder at the back where she would not have been able to see, let alone fix it while she had the suit on. But now it was an easy matter to get out a patch kit from it's pocket and seal it over. She disconnected the supply and paused long enough to check that the pressure in the suit was holding before shouting up to Adam that she was ready for anything. 'As easy as fixing a puncture on my bike!' she thought. She recharged the air cylinder and climbed back up into the control room to find that Adam had opened up the first aid kit and was checking out its contents. The kit was fairly comprehensive and he thought that he ought to be able to deal with a simple fracture or two, pain management with morphine ampoules and limited control of bleeding. He hoped it wouldn't be more than that.

Another babble of voices over the system. The shuttle was starting to lift as the acceleration from the drive steadily reduced. "He's coming free!"

"Don't pull me!" Evelio's voice risen to a shriek of agony. "The buddy line. Cut the buddy line!"

"I'm going to lean over you. It won't take a moment. OK, he's free. Lift it, all together now. Evelio, I'm going to drag you out. Go!"

Another scream, then he must have fainted. "OK let's go for the elevator"

Down at the shuttle bay, they had only been able to roll the vehicle enough to free Evelio so they left Anatoly's crushed body under it and moved him towards the hydroponics spoke. David and Mina had finally emerged from the shelter and made their way over to the elevator. Mina went inside and closed the door.

"OK, M2. Give it a try!"

Adam released the brake and began turning the levers. After an initial jerky start everything operated smoothly and easily. The more he wound, the easier it became until the levers started to take on a life of their own and he found himself increasingly trying to hold them back. His hand slipped, the lever swung round and smashed against the back of his wrist, causing him to cry out with pain. "Eve! Help!" She ran over to him to be faced with the levers running faster and faster, beginning to blur as the gravity well began to pull Mina down into itself, with only the other empty elevator car as a counterbalance. She seized the friction brake and hauled on it as hard as she could and Adam, despite his hurt wrist, held it down with her. For long, tense moments that felt like forever, nothing seemed to be happening but eventually the levers began to slow, there was a hot, burning smell and wisps of smoke coming out of the brake unit. They held on grimly until it came to a jerky stop.

"Lock it off!" commanded Leonora. He nodded, clamped the lever. "You can let go now. It's OK.

"What's going on.?" David at the top had seen the elevator cable alarmingly beginning to accelerate out of control, then slow again and come to an abrupt stop with the counterbalance car nowhere in sight.

"We nearly lost it. We've got to bring her the rest of the way now. Is there anything you can do up there to help brake the cable?"

"Nothing at all. There's no control gear at this end. You're going to have to do it on your own or else wait for me to get down to you."

"No, we'll get on with it! I was taken by surprise, that's all"

Leonora held the levers until Adam released the brake again and this time they both worked to slow the action, bringing the cable to its end stop shortly afterwards. They heard Mina emerge below them, the airlock operated and she emerged at last into the hydroponicum.

Adam found himself face to face with a small, space-suited figure carrying her helmet which was still covered in condensation. Their eyes met, they approved of each other. "Thanks for the ride!" She smiled. He liked her smile and smiled in return. "I'm F2 but you can call me Mina!"

"I'm sorry if we frightened you. I lost control of the winding levers. He held up his hand which was already showing a purplish weal. She reached out a gloved hand and touched his. "I wasn't scared at all. I'm sorry if you got injured on my behalf."

"Let me help you out of the suit. It's very warm in the hydroponica." He looked down at his naked torso, suddenly self conscious. She looked him up and down, met his eyes again and blushed a little.

Leonora had suddenly appeared beside them. "You must be F2!" she said with an inflection in her voice which was quite unintentional but which told all three of them exactly how they stood. "Mina." She added.

Mina nodded. "Let's help you out of the suit before you start overheating. It's a bit like that down here" continued Adam. She nodded again. She had picked up the slight change in his tone that implied a little more caution, ever so slightly more distance between them. With Leonora at her other arm, it was the work of a minute to winkle her out of the suit so that she was standing in her fleece. She looked from one to the other, startled that Leonora was wearing only her undies and unzipped her own fleece, dropping it beside the suit.

"Welcome to the hydroponicum!" said Leonora, still with an element of sharpness in her tone, as she went back into the control room.

********************************************

Working together, the rest of the expedition members had soon brought the injured man to the elevator and had used the air supply bayonet to top up everybody's suit air.

"M3, M4, M7 you should start on down now" ordered David. "The rest of us will follow when we've got M9 sorted out. F1, M2, we are clear and ready this end."

"OK, M1. Leonora's going into the elevator as soon as she's suited up, to act as a counterbalance. I'm going to start winding. And I'm going to need help when I get him down here. If you three climbing can come down as quickly as possible and the rest of you follow behind too, except somebody should stay to accompany F1 when she gets down."

"I'll stay with her." Melissa interjected. "I think we have more work to do. We should go back to the accommodation block and try to revive the others still left down there, if we can."

"Melissa, you won't be able to do anything much without adequate air supplies. You will either have to carry some down with you or else fix the installed supply line down the spoke. Getting back up takes a lot of energy and a lot of air."

"OK, we will start working on that straight away"

"In that case, I'm going to try to get down to the medical centre, see if I can either get things functional or else bring stuff back with me." David's voice.

"You shouldn't go on your own. We ought to stay at least in pairs for safety's sake."

"Yes, I agree but there isn't anyone else and besides, I am responsible for what has happened and there isn't anything much else for me to do at the moment. We may be able to get the medical centre's computer up and relay diagnostics through Com1."

"OK David. But take care, ensure that you have enough air supply to get down and back with. Good luck!"

********************************************

They were starting to work as a coordinated team. By the time Adam had hand wound the elevators through their cycle, M3's team had climbed the spoke and were there available to help get the unconscious Evelio out and into the hydroponics control room. There they carefully extracted him from his suit and laid him out on a foam mattress which someone had located from somewhere so that they could begin to assess his injuries and give first aid. It looked as though he was much less hurt than they had all feared judging by the situation and his accompanying screams and cries of pain, much of which they now attributed to the shock of the accident. He had some crushing injury to the muscle tissue of his upper arm and shoulder and there were minor contusions to his ankles where he had been trapped, much of it probably caused by his own frantic struggles to free himself. They strapped the arm, cleaned and plastered the worst cuts and grazes and sedated him with a shot of morphine before moving him out into the benign environment of H2 to rest on a mattress with a glucose drip to prevent dehydration and a portable terminal and instructions to Com1 to monitor his progress and report if his condition changed.

Meanwhile, Melissa and Leonora had got themselves together, found spare air cylinders, recharged their suit air supplies and begun the laborious descent back to the so-recently abandoned accommodation block.

David, alone and in somber frame of mind had begun to climb down the spoke towards the medical centre.

Melissa and Leonora had buddied up and were climbing first, towing the four large air cylinders which they had located in the damaged shuttle with Com1's help. As before, the early part of the descent was more a matter of controlled jumps in low-gravity conditions until it became necessary with increasing weight to climb properly down the ladders. They were beginning to learn by experience to work slowly and steadily to minimize the amount of air used and in a surprisingly short time had safely reached the airlock leading into the devastated accommodation block.

They went to M10 first. Leonora tried the door, absently noting the position of the vent handle, which she reset, and it opened easily into the vacuum within. M10, ('I don't even remember your name') she thought, lay nakedly impassive to the events surrounding him, his air pressure barely registering on the gauge. She knew that their hibernating metabolism was not zero, albeit very slow and that he would not have lived for very long once the pressure had fallen completely to the profound vacuum of space. 'How could the cabin air have been vented'? she wondered. It was difficult to see how it could have happened by accident, it was carefully recessed behind a plastic protective screen. 'That's a mystery I don't like' she mused. 'I wonder what Adam might make of it? I'll ask him next time we are on our own.'

They made their way once more past the wreckage in the corridor to try their other two sleeping companions. Com1 confirmed that all three were alive, stable and uninjured but could not be revived because their hibernation units were either out of specification or the controls were physically damaged. All that could be done was to directly connect cylinders up to the three hibernation units, double check all seals and connections for leaks and get Com1 to re-check their hibernation status.

This left them with the fourth cylinder as a reserve which they would have to carry back up with them to give top-ups in the event that they began to run short of air during the ascent. Leonora double-checked that the service air supply point by the elevator was not working before they set off again, thinking to herself that she was getting paranoid about it but that if she had to be paranoid about anything, air supplies made a lot of common sense.

Back at the hub they met up with David. He had turned back, defeated by the damage from a meteorite impact which had torn a ragged-edged rent through the spoke, severing all the servicing pipes and the elevator cables and ripping out a section of the ladder, making it impossible to reach the next landing without making what he described as 'a seriously dangerous climb' down to the next landing.

So together, the remaining members of the Alpha Seven expedition made their way, wearily now, back to the safe haven of the hydroponics complex.
Chapter 7

David was last in through the airlock. By the time he had extricated himself from the suit in the warm humid air of the hydroponicum, he was sweating freely and breathing heavily in the CO2 rich atmosphere. He climbed up the ladder into the control room and was greeted by the sight of his companions, wearing only their grimy underwear sprawled about over the floor or slumped on chairs. Adam was in the act of handing out pre-packaged meals and drinks cartons from a meal service console and there was a smell of microwaved food that made him suddenly realise that he was ravenously hungry, bringing a flood of saliva into his mouth.

He sank down into a corner, hot, drained and weary, nodded his appreciation as food and drink were pressed into his hands. At the moment nobody was saying anything much and he had time to look around at his haggard and motley crew. ' _His crew'_ , he mused, because, like it or not and for better or worse, whatever his catastrophic record of achievement, he was still their Com1 acknowledged leader. 'And that's all that matters' he thought with a flash of defiant aggression.

There they all were, what was left of them, scattered about like exhausted troops on a battlefield, nursing their wounds. Adam, M2, messing with the meal service console. M3, M4 and M7, still grouped together as a team, slumped against the wall, uniform in their regulation underwear, perhaps already beginning to feel unwell from their radiation exposure. F1 and F4 were sitting at a workstation and F2 was leaning against the wall beside them. 'Alpha Seven's bunch of lovelies' he thought. 'The only eligible women in the universe, discounting the two still hibernating in the accommodation block. And I could fancy all three of them! Especially F1, Leonora, in her frilly non-regulation undies!'

He hadn't realised that he was staring at them over his carton of steaming, microwaved anonymity until his gaze intercepted Mina's eyes. Her face flushed with what he took to be angry, frustrated memory and she lowered her eyes. He looked away, taking in Leonora's body with sudden, lustful approval. 'I mean to have you, F1!' Mina could go do her own thing, at least until he had sorted out his biological aversion to her, he decided and thereafter, if need be there was F4. Enough at least for the time being to keep him occupied. He wondered exactly how far the powers of leadership actually extended.

Which thought seemed to coincide with an immediate and hostile challenge. M7 looked up from his meal, directly at David. Without preamble, he said "You killed Anatoly. We all heard you because the radio was on open channel. You had an argument with the damned computer and you lost your temper with it. What sort of leadership is that? I voted for you", he continued angrily. Everyone's eyes were alternately leaping between M7 and David, the atmosphere suddenly crackling with animosity as he continued. "I'm going to propose here and now that we rescind our decision. I vote no confidence in you. I want you deposed!"

Before he could even clear his throat to respond, M3, David's appointed team leader added his voice. "Your first and only decision has killed one, injured another and exposed three of us to radiation to the point where we might get sickness. I vote the same. M4 simply nodded. Mina didn't have to say anything, just raised her eyes to stare balefully at him. Leonora said nothing. Adam studied the meal service console with fierce concentration and everyone froze into a fraught tableau for long seconds until Melissa spoke to Com1's display screen, now in screensaver mode.

"You heard what was said, Com1. Revoke his leader status."

"Revocation Denied!" The shocking words came in Com1's usual measured and imperturbable voice.

"Why not?"

"Standing orders require a new leader be given sufficient opportunity to prove competence and cannot have leader status revoked for 25 standard days unless incapacitated. My sensors indicate severe emotional disturbance in all functioning crewmembers. I recommend a rest period followed by a standard exercise routine, drink and counselling with a person of leader status."

A drink carton thumped against the console, bursting and spreading its contents over the workstation. M7 clambered to his feet. Stood over David, rigid with menace.

"Get out of my sight before I kill you!"

David dropped his half-eaten meal on the floor, scrambled away and fled with a sob of fear and anger into the far corner, dropped down out of sight and disappeared into hydroponicum H4. M7 stamped across, dropped the hatch with a bang and turned the locking handle. He came back and sank back to his former sitting position on the floor. He was trembling and his face had gone white. Nobody said anything for a long time. Somehow it had all got beyond the power of words to express.

********************************************

David hit the ground running, feet stinging from the impact of the three metre drop. He dived into a tall jungle of pampas grass, thence in amongst shrubs and finally trees, only stopping when he came to the edge of a round pond. He sank down slowly on to his knees on the bank and rinsed his face and trunk with water, listening in case he was still being pursued, then rested until his breathing returned to normal. He was no coward but for a moment he had been dreadfully afraid that M7 was going to lead a lynch mob against him. The swine had tried to make out that he was a murderer and poisoned the minds of all the others. 'It was an accident' he repeated to himself. 'An accident! How was he to predict that the shuttle would break loose in such a devastating manner? And Com1 should have warned him about the radiation pulse. Wretched computer supposed to know everything? Well it certainly let him down and he would let him know it.

Only there didn't seem to be a terminal inside the hydroponicum and he was trapped there. For an instant, he panicked. 'Suppose they whipped themselves up again and came to get him? There was nowhere to run and no way to defend himself!' He cast around until he espied a sapling that looked about right, whence it was a matter of a minute's effort to snap it off at the roots, then lever the other end off in the forked trunk of a bigger tree, leaving him with a stout stave slightly shorter than himself. He held it in both hands, experimentally slashed off the crowns of a couple of nearby bushes and felt better. They might think better of it if they found himself able to strike back. He would show them what leadership was really about, even if they did have the nerve to lock him in.

He explored the circular hydroponicum carefully. Came across two gardening robots and a banana tree which afforded him some sort of continuation of the meal he had been forced to leave scattered across the control room floor. The only communication device he could find was a primitive local control computer which had a screen and keyboard but with some experimentation he was able to get it to patch through to Com1.

'@@@L1, Com1, read'

'@@@Com1, L1, copy'

'status all crew ?'

The crew status list obediently scrolled down. M3, M4 and M7 had moved down into Hydroponicum 2 along with the injured M8 and were condition listed as 'acute radiation sickness' rather than the previous designation 'radiation exposed' and F4 had evidently joined them, probably to render medical assistance, such as she could with the limited prophylactics available. Only M1 and F2 remained in the control room. He considered going back and hammering on the door until they opened it, then thought otherwise. It would be showing weakness, he decided and the last thing he wanted to be seen to be doing was to beg for help, to go crawling back to this pathetic collection of incompetents.

'No! Leader I am and leader I shall be. Let them see who was in charge of this recovery operation! But, first some personal issues to address.'

'Com1, explain aversion M1, F2'

'Preset program, aversion M(n) : F(n) = negative IF M(n) = F(n) : EndIF'

David stared at the message with surprise then dawning comprehension. So simple! The crew were all pre-programmed so that only males and females of the same numeral designation would be allowed to mate, doubtless because some kind of genetic pre-planning had dictated that this was the most beneficial arrangement for the offspring from the new colonists. And ensured monogamy so that there would be no outbreaks of jealousy and fighting over partners. All to the benefit of the offspring, the colony and ultimately, the Alpha Project.

Pre-programmed love at first sight. And his partner was F1, Leonora! He smiled hugely as he felt a surge of heat between his thighs, rising immediately into a big, hard erection, seeing in his mind's eye her scantily clad and beautifully curvaceous body. He held himself, stroking his penis, feeling the surge of pleasurable sensation grow. And Adam could have Mina! Luscious little Mina. For an instant he felt a pang of jealously. His body craved hers, too only now he understood why he couldn't touch her. Likewise, Melissa would be unavailable to him but then she would be unavailable to anybody else and M4 was going into radiation sickness and wasn't going to be in the picture for some time to come. Leaving some anomalies – unrevived F3 to M3 might eventually get around to it but M5 was dead so F5 was free but useless and the injured M8, the odious M7 and M10 if he was ever awakened would be out in the cold altogether!

His hand was hot and wet as ejaculate flowed over his fingers. He felt strong, powerful. He had the whole setup in his hands. 'Literally', he thought, wiping his fingers on a tissue.

'Com1, procedure (aversion change) = ?'

'Personnel records procedure (aversion change) IF (L1 + L2) = positive: EndIF

"Damn you, stupid computer" he swore aloud at the screen. L2 is dead. There's only me! Does that mean I can't change anything?"

Unexpectedly, the single word "Affirmative" scrolled down the screen.

He changed tack. "Com1 : Normal power up, Main Drive 1. To full power."

"I do not recommend startup L1"

"Com1, we've had this conversation before. Recommendation overruled."

"Startup sequence accepted. Startup sequence initiated. Time to full power = 30 standard minutes."

"Good! now repeat with Main drive 4

"I do not recommend startup L1"

"Recommendation overruled. I'm the leader, Com1 and I will run this ship or blow it up in the attempt. Do it, Com1, let's see how this wreck can actually perform when all the chips are down." He turned away from the screen, raised his arms to the sky of the hydroponicum and shouted at the top of his voice:

"Go, baby, Go! The time is now! The place is now! I command you, Alpha Seven. I am your leader. Me, David! L1. Go to the stars, we're coming with you!"
Chapter 8

A message began scrolling down the screen.

"@@@H4, Com1, M2, read.

Hi, Adam

I have initiated restart programmes for main drives 1 & 4 which will complete in a few minutes from now. You should feel lateral acceleration to about 0.2g.

Now we have some power I need to begin running trajectory programs to investigate what options are available to our mission. I have limited capability via this terminal, maybe you would open up the control room so that I can go ahead with this.

L1, David"

"Hey, look at this Eve!"

"I wondered why I was beginning to move about like a drunk. Shouldn't he have consulted the crew before doing such a thing?"

"He's trying to tell us something!"

"Trying to save face, you mean. So he doesn't have to beg us to let him back in."

"I didn't lock him out. I don't have any problems about it."

"Well I do! I think he deserved it for what he did."

"Isn't that a bit hard on him? How might you and I have performed in the same situation? I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say I wouldn't get cranky with Com1. And we've just recently had another example of the same thing, haven't we!" He wiped a smear of juice off the console and held up his finger. Com1 gets to just about everybody sooner or later"

"Adam", she looked at him with a bleak expression. "He killed Anatoly, injured Evelio and irradiated three more crewmembers. If he goes on at this rate, he's going to finish us all off! He's just done a full engine startup without so much as a bye-your-leave. He's so arrogant and insensitive that he hasn't learnt anything. I'm for leaving him there in the hope that he can't cause any more mischief. When he gets hungry enough, maybe we can force him to resign his leader status and do us all a favour!"

"But he's got a point, hasn't he? We need to start considering what happens now. We couldn't even begin to do that if we didn't know the status of the fusion drives. Sooner or later, we would have had to run them up and the risk of an explosion would have been there whenever we tried. Luckily for all of us they seem to be working OK so he's saved us the stress of worrying about it. I say give him a chance. Remember that he is the only one that Com1 will obey about some critical operations. I would rather we were interacting with him so that we can be a moderating influence than make him angry and anti and cause him to make further mistakes. Because" he stared meaningfully at her, "he has been given what amounts to absolute power over the more critical aspects of running the ship. We either have to disable him or else go along with him. Which do you suggest, Leonora?"

She stared back at him with alarm in her eyes. Paused, studying his face then reached forward and took both his hands. She was trembling with a sudden foreboding of dangers to come. "Let him back!" she whispered.

"But we shouldn't let him guess what we are thinking." Adam responded in a low voice, almost as if he was afraid of being overheard. "We don't want him to feel that we are all against him!"

He spoke into the console. "Com1, send a message back to say that I have unlatched the hatch into H4," stood up, walked unsteadily over and banged open the latch. "Why don't you go to see how the others are getting on," he said. "I'll sit here and meet him. It's time I confronted him, though I don't know what I'm going to say."

She nodded. "I don't like this at all. Suddenly I've got very frightened of him. Be careful!" She pulled him to her, kissed him and hugged him. "I love you Adam!"

He held her at arm's length. Smiled. "I love you too, Eve!"

********************************************

David climbed through the hatch and walked over to Adam, sat on a spare chair. "Thanks!" he said with a faintly rueful grin. "We haven't really spoken about things. How do you see it all, Adam?"

"To be truthful, I haven't really had time to think about it much. I've either been asleep or involved in crises of one sort or another. I nearly killed myself going EVA and then Eve nearly died because she ran out of air. Twice. We live in a dangerous place – as you know only too well."

"Eve?"

"Leonora. F1. I call her Eve. She likes it. Something to do with the Garden of Eden!"

David nodded. "I made a bad mistake and others paid for it. That doesn't make me feel very good. But I am appointed leader so I intend to act like it, whatever the others think. So are you on my side? You didn't vote against me. The only one. I'm grateful."

"Everybody's traumatised one way or another. You are easy to blame for all the ills that have befallen us. But I, for one, don't blame you for what happened. What do you think we should do now?"

"All the others are going to be occupied in dealing with their own illness or injuries or else acting as nurses so that leaves just us to try to plan ahead. I was going to get Com1 to run some scenarios for us. Check what our options are. What say you?"

Adam nodded. "So what are our options likely to be?"

"It all depends on the power outputs. Com1 has put us back on course from the deviation that followed the meteorite impacts, so at least we are going the right way. If I understand correctly, the fusion drives are in the slowing down phase of the journey. We are about another four years from arrival but if we can't brake hard enough we will shoot past too fast to be able to get into orbit around our planet, or even the sun. So the first calculations will be to assess that based on only two out of four drives. It doesn't exactly sound good, does it?"

"OK, so what are we waiting for! Com1, we need a procedure to calculate our revised power capability."

A subroutine conveniently presented itself on screen and the arithmetic was duly fed in and processed. The conclusion was as expected, they would overshoot dramatically and would take another four years just to stop. Further calculations would be needed to resolve how long it would then take to get back to their destination.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Adam's anxious eyes met David's. "We look like taking well over a decade just to make parking orbit. We weren't intended to waste our lives away flying the ship!"

"So we have to do better than that. We have two functioning shuttles. Maybe we can add their power output."

"Well – they're much smaller engines but we can do the sums, at least."

Another round of keyboard inputs came up with the conclusion that with two shuttles adding their power, they would be able to make parking orbit in a bit less than eleven years.

"David, how about if we jettison unwanted mass? We have two wrecked shuttles and the two destroyed fusion drives which are pretty massive. We could maybe dump some stores as well."

This time the arithmetic took longer. The time to reach parking orbit was reduced down to about eight years once all surplus plant and equipment was dumped.

"Still too long! Is there anything else we can do?"

"How about cutting away the spokes with the accommodation and medical facility?"

"I don't think it would be on. We would have to stop the rotation first and that requires the auxiliaries to provide the power. M3's team said they were both badly damaged – in fact, they were by no means certain that they could be repaired. And that would assume that the rotation control gear was functional."

"How about if we simultaneously cut away opposite spokes without slowing down the rotation?"

"I suspect the ship might tear itself to bits as the 'G' forces redistribute."

"But we can do the calculations?"

"Easily enough. Com1, let's have that procedure again." More inputs and more calculations. The answer came to 6.45 standard years.

"Still a very long time."

"What stops us rehibernating?"

"Nothing, except that I don't think you can go on freezing and thawing us too many times. Com1, what is the recommended limit for the number of rehibernations?"

"Rehibernation more than once is not recommended except as a last resort. Crewmembers will need extra supporting therapy which is not available on board. In the event of an aborted mission, rehibernation is the only option for the return of the crew and is allowable as such."

"So we sit around for the next few years to get a parking orbit or abort and rehibernate."

"How about if we left the ship and went back in the shuttles?"

"That's what we are supposed to do if we abort. Get the hibernation units down into the shuttles and abandon ship. That way we get back quicker, less time passes relative to Earth."

"Not that that will make much difference to us. We won't know anybody who was alive, or even anybody who knew anybody by the time we get back!"

"How about if we take to the shuttles now and fly on to our destination?" The voice coming from the console made them both jump. Eve had been listening in via her suit radio which she had had Com1 patch through.

"You've been listening to everything?" David made it sound like an accusation.

"We all have, via my suit radio. It's our lives and wishes you are discussing. I repeat, what if we take to the shuttles and abandon this wreck?"

"Well, several things, F1. First, we wouldn't have any of the backup support the ship provides, such as these hydroponica or indeed Com1. Secondly, we are not advised to rehibernate so we would have to cram into two shuttles for the next however, maybe four years, and thirdly, what happens if the destination proves to be untenable?"

"There must be some compromise we can work out," she continued. "Maybe we can stay on the ship until much later and then take to the shuttles. We can live happily here in the meantime, we have all the support systems we need."

"Maybe we can. But actually, I'm coming to the conclusion anyway, that we should abort. We have lost so many crew that we are probably too small in numbers to be a viable colony, even if things are perfect when we arrive. And we have lost our leaders and their wisdom which is so needed in the early years. I begin to think that aborting is the best option. We can always join a later expedition, even as follow-up colonists to an established planet. If that's what people wanted, that is."

"I don't agree with you!" Eve's voice sounded steely even via the suit radio. "Aborting is not an option for me. I didn't come all this way, give my life to this project, just to pack up at the first trouble and go home to an Earth that maybe isn't even there when we return. We don't know if the Alpha programme or anything to follow it will be kept going. We could get back into a parking orbit around Earth and simply be left there forever to rot because there's either nobody left who cares or else the technology to recover us has been lost. No, aborting is not an option for me!"

"Why don't we put it to a vote, then?" David stood up. "I want to come down to join you so long as I'm not threatened again. Let's go over it properly as a group and then put it to a vote. At least we will know what everybody thinks."

********************************************

"Has everybody had their say, then?" David looked around at the ragged band of survivors. 'Survivors of a space wreck rather than a band of future colonists' he thought.

"Let's vote!" he continued. "I vote we abort. F1?"

Leonora glared at him. "I don't think this is the right way to decide nor that this is the right time. How can you get an objective view from Evelio?" She gestured towards the figure lying on the mattress. "He's on morphine. He's not fit. And you three", waving an arm to M3's ailing crew "beginning to go in for radiation sickness. How can you be objective about this?"

"OK Leonora, we've heard your views enough. I take it you're opposed?"

He nodded towards Mina. "F2?"

"I don't know, David. I need time to think?'

"I take it that means you abstain?"

Mina lowered her eyes and nodded

"F4?"

Melissa looked him square in the face. "With you as leader, I have a lot of worries. I think we should go home."

"M2, Adam?"

Adam looked into Leonora's eyes. "For better or for worse, Eve! I vote with F1"

"M3?"

"Best chance we have is to abort. This mission is too damaged to be viable or I would give it a go. If I must vote then I vote to go home."

"M4?"

"That's me! Has anybody actually asked me what my name is? I'm M4, a number. I want to go home and try again. Maybe I get a better crew!"

"M7?"

"The same! God, I feel sick!" He turned away, curled up unhappily on his mattress.

"M8?"

Evelio's eyes were glazed and his voice slightly slurred and faraway. "I want to go home" he murmured sleepily.

"So that's it then." David looked around once more. "Five in favour, two against and one abstains. We plan to abort and go back home!"

Leonora stood up angrily. "You've no right at all to make this decision. There are three more people on this mission who would have a view if only we revived them and Evelio isn't rational enough to count. That would make it four against two with Mina not able to make her mind up and three others who could vote either way. I don't accept the result."

"You don't have much choice, F1. It was a democratic vote of those present. If you don't like it, you can stay on the ship when we abandon it." He stood up, climbed the ladder back into the control room and sat before one of the control consoles.

"Com1, I want to run some simulations."
Chapter 9

Leonora looked around angrily at them as they sat, lay or slouched on their mattresses or on the grass. Only Adam was standing up.

"Is that what you really want?" she demanded.

Adam looked directly at her and was about to speak when Melissa broke in. "If that's what most people think then we have to go that way whether we like it or not. You see, even if we were to press ahead, who amongst these here" she waved an arm around her "will have their heart in it. We would be lost before we began."

Leonora fixed her eyes on Melissa. "You said you wanted to go back because he" gesturing towards the control room hatch through which David had just departed "is leader. How would you feel if he was replaced?"

Melissa looked back at her, startled by the animosity in her face. "Replaced by who?"

"You, me, Adam? Maybe we don't need a leader at all. Why not run things democratically?"

"Or all do our own thing and end up with anarchy!" interjected Adam. "Somebody has to make decisions. And, besides, Com1 will only do certain things on the orders of an appointed leader. As we know only too well." He sent a glance in the direction of the departed David.

Leonora turned her attention to M3's sick team. "We haven't had a chance to say 'hello' yet, things have been happening so quickly."

Melissa went over to M4, put a hand to his shoulder and smiled. "I think it was our beloved leader decided that you would be called by numbers. I'm Melissa!"

"Call me Matthew. Or Matt for short." M4 smiled through his radiation induced malaise. I think I like you, Melissa!" He turned towards Leonora. "And if you were the leader, I would feel a lot better about everything. But I still think he is basically correct, there are so few of us left that we aren't going to be able to start up a viable colony, our best bet is to go back home and try again. I expect they'd let us stay together if we wanted to." He smiled meaningfully at Melissa who found herself smiling back.

"I still feel that that's taking on a big 'maybe'. I don't want to put myself at the mercy of a future CEC that might not exist any more. I can't change your vote, then?"

Matthew shook his head but smiled palely. "I might feel different if I didn't feel so ill!" With a sudden rally and flash of humour he added "Meet my team leader. M3, the lady in the frilly knickers is called F1, or Leonora for short!"

"But you can call me Eve, if you like!"

"That's a nice name! I'm Soloman but I prefer to be called Solly. I'm half Jewish though people tell me that I don't look it – my mother was German and I get a lot from her side of the family. Tell me, miss Eve – if I read things aright and you and Adam seem to be an item, Mina there seems to have eyes for David, whatever anybody else might think about him, and now Melissa is smiling upon my friend M4, Matt, that is – then who is there left on this expedition for me to chat up once I start to feel a bit better. And that goes for my friend here, too." He touched the arm of M7 who seemed to be worst affected by the burst of gamma rays they had been subjected to and was lying hunched up, shivering as of a fever despite the analgesics he had been given.

"Ahmed." He croaked. "I feel like I'm dying. Need more medicine." He pulled himself more tightly into a foetal ball and started coughing.

Melissa dug some pills out of the first aid kit and went to him, gave him a water bottle. "Ahmed, you shouldn't have any more drugs but here's two more. I really can't give you anything else for the next few hours." He nodded, swallowed the proffered tablets with a mouthful of water and curled up again, muttering his thanks.

"Solly, you know that we went back to the accommodation and checked out the unrevived ones. There are two more females and Com1 says they are OK and can be awakened whenever."

"And M10? Maybe we should leave him to dream for a few years until we can find him a partner? But that still leaves one of us men as surplus, doesn't it. Evelio will be back on his feet in a while, he hasn't actually broken anything. One day soon, this is going to matter, isn't it?"

"Maybe it is, friends and we need to think about it. But it isn't a problem yet and we have got more immediate matters to deal with." Adam pointed towards the control room again. "David is running more programs through Com1. Basically so that we know when or whether to leave the ship and take to the shuttles. Whatever we do in the end, you need to get over your sickness and Evelio his injuries and we have got some fairly serious maintenance to do that is probably going to take a few weeks to complete."

********************************************

David climbed back through the hatch again. He was carrying a video projector with him. "Gather round, everybody" he commanded. "I've run a project with Com1. Thought you'd want to see the results." He parked the projector on the floor, switched it on and projected a screen on to the wall.

"Here's the critical path analysis" he continued. "Phase 1, very time critical is lightening the ship. Cutting away or otherwise dumping anything surplus to our needs. Most important are the two irreparable fusion drives and the two inoperative shuttles. Whatever we afterwards decide upon, we've got to get on with that one and it's going to take a lot of detailed and, I think, dangerous work. We are short of manpower and we are going to have to train up on using cutting and welding gear. We allowed two months for it."

Nobody spoke, but every eye other than those of Ahmed and Evelio were rivetted upon David and suddenly he felt more confident, strong. Like him or not, they seemed to be accepting his leadership and he liked the sense of power it brought him.

"Phase 2 is centred on preparing the two shuttles. We will have had to cut away the shuttle bay doors already in disposing of the wreck and the other one that is too damaged to bother with. We will have to manoeuvre them both outside and tether them to the accommodation block. Be a good opportunity to run up their drives and do a full functional test in case anything needs repairing. Then we transfer F3, F5, M10 and the other hibernation cubicles through the airlocks. We will need to set up six in each shuttle.

"Phase 3 can be done in parallel but I don't think we have the manpower or expertise to attempt it so I pushed it back in the program. We will have to fabricate or otherwise adapt fuel and lox tanks and attach them externally to the shuttles as drop tanks. Then we will need to transfer product from the existing main tanks – that will involve rigging running lines all over the place and refilling the main water tanks from the hydroponics ponds. And we will have to put some patches on the main tanks, some have been holed, causing loss of fuel.

"Phase 4 involves using Com1 to set up the shuttles so that they can take automatic control and will involve lots of calculation checking and simulation runs. Once we think he's competent, we transfer his main CPU and hook him up to one of the shuttle computers and link the other as a slave. Then we can begin hibernation.

All told, it should take about five months. The next thing after that, barring accidents, will be waking up in Earth orbit in maybe 70 to 82 years depending on how it all goes. Com1 will separate the shuttles at the optimum time. If things go really well, we can get a slingshot orbit around our destination sun and come home in the minimum time. But it shouldn't take more than 82 even if all the negative factors stack up against us."

David looked round at his subdued crew. Nobody seemed to have any questions, not even F1. 'I must remember to call you Eve' he thought.

She leaned over to Adam and murmured something to him. He nodded in reply.

"Are you happy with that Adam? Eve?"

Leonora spoke for them both. "As far as it goes, it's a coherent plan of action. Let's begin as soon as we can but meanwhile we need to set ourselves up properly. Sort out things like food and drink, showering, toilet arrangements, medical support plans for our casualties, training needs analysis for all the technical things we are going to have to be able to do."

"I think we should get some tents and sleeping gear out of the stores so that we each have a place to call home" said Melissa.

"A bit of privacy? I like that!" interjected Mina.

M3, Solly, looked up at David. "Maybe I was a bit judgemental about you. But the meeting's over now. I'd rather you went somewhere else"

David returned his look with a directness that was almost a stare, nodded, switched off the projector and climbed back into the control room.

Chapter 10

Having a plan and a timescale somehow gave them a future, something to work towards. Very soon and they had begun transferring materials from the stores down to the control centre using the elevator hand winding arrangement that had worked so well in bringing Evelio down. They had soon assembled an impressive pile of stores, including various tents, sleeping bags and associated camping paraphernalia.

Adam and Eve went off to H3 on their own and put up their tent beside the pond in the centre on a grassy bank, David and Mina did the same in H1 and Melissa disappeared with Matt into H4, not returning for the next two days.

The little convalescent centre in H2 acquired more of a permanent feel to it with tents put up for Solly, Ahmed and Evelio. Within a day or two, Solly seemed to be recovering well. All the casualties had been given broad-spectrum antibiotics, Evelio to prevent infection of his severely bruised arm and shoulder and as a support to the compromised immune systems of the three who had been irradiated. Once the effects of the initial dose of morphine had worn off, he had put himself on ibuprofen and was beginning to hobble about, clearly on the mend.

Not so Ahmed, who seemed to have been most effected by the radiation. He had been closest to the main drive when David had ordered Com1 to turn it on and his condition was deteriorating before their eyes. By the next day, most of his hair had fallen out and his skin was breaking out in ominous-looking purplish wheals due to internal capillary bleeding. He had begun to go into bloody diarrhoea and had to be constantly kept on a drip to prevent dehydration, he was unable to take more than a few sips of water by mouth without fear of vomiting.

It looked as though his immune system was badly effected so that by the third day he developed what they thought was shingles, a painful rash across his chest and abdomen. He presented a pathetic picture and they had tried to ease his suffering with diamorphine. By the fourth day, he was finding difficulty in breathing and they suspected pneumonia. Mina rigged him up with an oxygen mask and gave him diuretics, thinking to reduce the fluid in his lungs.

By the fifth day, it looked as though he was dying. They crowded anxiously around him, unable to do more than offer kindness. David went up to the stores and located a backup supply of frozen blood even though most of it would have been in the wrecked and inaccessible medical centre. They gave him two units and he felt and looked considerably improved. On the sixth day they started him on 30mg of prednisolone to try and support his immune response and he brightened further. After a week he was beginning to take food, it was looking as though he would make a recovery.

While this drama was playing itself out, they had sorted out most of their day-to-day living arrangements, devising proper and adequate diets with advice from Com1, washing clothes and their bodies in the various pools, but not using soaps or detergents and making up earth closets in the hydroponica. This last had become a problem because the low-volume high-velocity aircraft-style toilets had been driven from the auxiliary power supplies and had backed up immediately they were used. While there were only the nine of them spread over the four hydroponica, they had a sustainable system, nature was able to take up the manure they produced without noticeably degrading the ecosystems.

David and Adam started planning the difficult task of cutting away the two wrecked main drives. These massive units had originally been flown into space on dedicated shuttles and the ship had more or less been constructed around them. They would have to carefully cut through various supporting members, starting from the bottom upwards and at the same time, fixing extra supports to the two functioning drives. They had decided to keep these running until the last moment. The plan was to cut through the last supports of both once the drives had been run down and then slowly running them up again, allowing the separated units to drop astern, literally driving the ship away from them.

As a procedure, it was fraught with peril. The running drives emitted an incandescent plasma behind them which would only be visible from the rear of the ship. Anybody actually seeing it would have been instantly immolated – it was imperative that nobody got anywhere near them. While the cutting and refabrication proceeded, there was the constant risk of falling at an acceleration of about 0.2g, slow but deadly. Large objects could fall from above, bringing the same fate as that of the luckless Anatoly or the partly cutaway drive could move, crushing anybody caught between its huge mass and any fixed part of the superstructure. There was also the risk of simply falling, to bounce off whatever they caught against, then dropping astern, most likely to die in the brief plasma inferno of a wake behind the ship or more dreadfully, lost in space, watching the ship disappear into the profound blackness without any hope of recovery.

The welding and cutting equipment and operation added its own dimension. Surrounded by hot metal and close to a high-temperature cutting flame, there was always the chance that the suit fabric could be burnt through or holed by molten spatter, or even become torn against ragged metal from the work or from the original devastation of impact which had created innumerable sharp surfaces everywhere. They had decided that they should always be connected by buddy lines and always have a spare emergency breathing apparatus to hand, even though it was doubtful whether they could deploy it in time in an emergency. It was risky even to practice this as a drill.

While Ahmed fought for his life in H2, David and Adam made the first preliminary assessment of the enormous task which lay ahead of them.

By default it fell to David and Adam to start on the fearsome process of cutting free the damaged drives, nobody else was either fit enough or strong enough to undertake the work. Under Com1's guidance they ascended into the hub and located the welding sets in the stores. There were two of them, happily undamaged. Two cylinders, one for lox, the other for liquid hydrogen were mounted on a wheeled trolley unit with a standard welding flame jet and hoses. Beneath each cylinder was a small hydrogen-powered fuel cell who's purpose was to preheat the fuels and boil off the cryogenic liquids inside them at a controlled rate.

The first task was to take the unit to the lox and liquid hydrogen bulk storage tanks for filling and these in turn had to be preheated by their own fuel cells in order to liquefy sufficient to dispense into the unit. A battery pack preheated the hydrogen in order to get it boiling so that it could service the fuel cells – the whole operation being carried out at temperatures not much above absolute zero. They decided to fill up both welding sets while they were at it and this took up most of their first shift. Leaving the checked and fully charged units at the entry into the engine bay, they returned wearily back down the endless ladders, dragging their spare air tanks with them.

They had been gone about six hours altogether and had consumed most of two tanks' worth of air each. They were both exhausted by the mental and physical rigours of the tasks they had completed and rested for the next half day before they felt able to set out again, but then quickly reaching the awaiting welding equipment and the engine bay within. Adam pulled open the door and went in for his first look at what they had set themselves to undertake. The four massively constructed main drives were each about 10 metres long and almost 3 metres in diameter, their mass he could only guess at, but he thought they must weigh easily 250 tonnes each by Earth gravity standards and 25 to 50 tonnes even here, depending on the acceleration being generated by the two functioning drives. The two smaller, much lighter auxiliaries were positioned in between them and a series of fixed ladders gave access down both sides. The spaces between them were claustrophobically small and the whole scene made worse by the extensive damage which had been inflicted on one side of the ship by what looked like three main impacts. The emergency lighting system glowered over this grim scene, throwing disorientating shadows over twisted and distorted structural members, making it confusing as to what was a real object and what was some kind of optical illusion.

They carefully maneuvered themselves down into the bay, taking one of the welding sets with them, going down on the undamaged side, close to the functioning drives. Adam touched his hand against the side of No1 and felt, rather than heard, the reassuring vibration of the power generated inside it. "Feel this" he signed to David, who touched his hand, then helmet against the smooth metal. He gave the 'thumbs up' signal and then pointed on downwards. The drives were connected up by a positive maze of electrical, hydraulic and fuel lines. On the impact side of the ship, one of the drives had suffered gross damage, had suffered a split along almost half it's length and was misaligned at the top end, coming into contact with it's sister drive and also pressing against the sides of the two auxiliaries. Broken connections, pipes, cables and distorted metal trusses and crossbeams made that side into a nightmare just to venture into.

They arrived at the bottom to find themselves standing on the metal floor of the ship, which was substantially intact. The drives now towered menacingly above them.

"We've got to start cutting away the floor first." David jumped up and down experimentally on it. "We need to secure ourselves, once we've opened it up there's the danger that we might fall out!"

Adam shuddered at the memory of his not so distant, terrifying and nearly fatal EVA and clipped his lanyard to a section of the ladder. They had already discovered that it wasn't practical to keep buddied together in the tortuous labyrinth of the engine bay. David also clipped himself on, stood the set against the bell end of No1 drive, hooked its restraining straps over a convenient fitting, took up the nozzle and turned on the gases. The catalytic igniter immediately struck the almost invisible, but intensely hot flame into life and he directed it against the edge of the floor plating. The metal instantly glowed bright red, then burst through in a white plasma, showering incandescent sparks dangerously close to their suit fabric. Both stood hastily back while he continued to cut. The flame passed through the metal plating amazingly quickly and within a few seconds he had cut a rough square in the floor which abruptly dropped out into space below them and they could see stars through the suddenly created hole.

David turned off the flame, looked up at Adam's helmeted visage and raised his hand. "Ho, brother. We have begun! Your go!"

Adam took the torch and cut easily through the next section of floor plate until it, too disappeared into the void. They took it in turns then until they had cut everything away that they could reach and now had to reposition the set. Suddenly everything had become incredibly perilous. Anything dropped would simply fall away into the awful floorless void below them. They continued to cut, becoming bolder despite the situation. They had to secure and re-secure the welding set by its restraining straps each time they moved and they had to remember to reclip on to something solid each time they themselves took a new stance. The flame itself was terrifyingly dangerous. Almost invisible unless it was actually cutting, a moment's carelessness would have the most appalling consequences – a holed suit and bone-severing burns as the 35000C flame cut instantly through anything that got in it's way.

Nonetheless, a steady rain of bits dropped away below them as they cut through spars, pipes and lines, the debris occasionally lighting up with a bright flash if it got in the way of the otherwise invisible plasmas from the two functioning drives. So absorbed were they in what they were doing that they completely lost track of time and it was an anxious Leonora's voice in their suit radios that made them aware that they were low in air and would soon have to stop.

It was a jubilant pair that emerged through the airlock into the hydroponics control room. They had seen that it could be done, fraught with danger as it was. With success and developing skill, so came confidence.

Next time they went in from the top on the damaged side and cut themselves a clear passageway downwards. In places they had to make temporary repairs to various sections of the ladder or other supporting parts of the gantries and this they did with rope lashings taken from the stores. They also laid in a rope to act as handline, secured against the entry hatch and going all the way to the bottom.

It occupied most of the next two shifts before they could safely reach the bottom where they had initially commenced cutting away so that now the serious structural work could begin. The main spars securing the bell ends of the motors looked to be very strongly built but they yielded easily to the intensity of the flame cutter and David made the final cut that permitted most of the frame to drop out and away in one piece. They watched it fall into the abrupt blackness until it suddenly appeared again, illuminated cherry red, then orange and finally white as the main drive plasmas ate it up, melting it into a bizarre travesty of its former rectangular rigidity until it disappeared once more and was gone into the vastness of space.

David turned to Adam and their hands clapped together in a gesture of triumph. They hauled the welding set up on a rope which they had now added to increase its maneuverability and tied it off against a section of the ladder. Both climbed up level with it so that they could work down below themselves and continue cutting away more of the supporting members without risk of either being burnt or cut by sharp edges. They now had a big, if narrow, void below themselves crossed by a main girder section and Adam cut into this with a will, severing it close to the two auxiliaries, then close against the junction point at the centre of the two main drives. It didn't fall away as he anticipated so he kicked down hard with his foot, moving it out of line but not freeing it. He gave it several more stamps until one end slipped clear and it dropped below.

There was no warning. The great mass of the misaligned drive moved and toppled further against the auxiliaries, severing sections of ladder and staging which had already been ravaged by the initial impacts and further weakened by their earlier cutting operations. Metal rained down, apparently in slow motion which made it all the more terrifying, tearing away the ladder to which both Adam and the welding set were attached, falling in a tangled chaos until it jammed sideways across the gap, lodging against the bell end of the drive and the stump left by the cutting away of a girder. The welding set was swinging some distance below and Adam ended up actually atop the ladder. David, safely secured to a stanchion could only gape in horror as the whole mess teetered in rhythm with the swinging of the heavy welding set dangling on its rope below.

Adam wrestled frantically with his lanyard which had gone under one end of the ladder and was jammed by the weight of everything pressing on it. Even in this low gravity it took some time for him to wriggle it out while the ladder was wrenched perilously from side to side by the swinging mass of the suspended welding set, threatening to break away and take him to black death in the awful void below, or else throw him off so that he would join it penduluming from side to side. At last, he managed to unclip himself from the ladder and attach his lanyard to a protruding broken fixture, find a foothold and climb up on to a beam end. He clipped on higher above himself and climbed again, now he was halfway back to David, clipped to a higher belay point still and then one end of the ladder dropped clear below, the other caught somehow, causing the set to swing into the main drive plasma. Horrified they both watched as it swung in and out, begin to glow red hot, then suddenly fall astern in the full path of the plasma as the securing rope melted through. It glowed bright red like the box section that had fallen before it and then exploded with a great silent blinding ball of flame.

David felt two sharp, simultaneous blows, one to his left thigh and the other to his right upper arm at the same instant as Adam, still below him, screamed in agony into his suit radio. In the same instant he felt the enormous mass of the fusion drive shudder against his back causing him to look up in time to see a large object break free and fall down towards him as the upper end of the drive unit ground against the side of the ship dislodging everything in its path. He watched helpless as whatever it was plunged towards him, put out his arms and deflected it against the opposite wall where it rebounded, missing Adam and dropping into the void. Several more chunks of metal and a section of railing followed it, ominous indication that the entire unit was about to break away. The thought flashed into his mind that if it did, that was the end for both of them.

"Com1, shut down the main drives. Not emergency! Don't do anything sudden. Normal shutdown. Acknowledge!"

"Acknowledged. Normal shutdown, Main fusion drives 1 & 4" Com1's voice, measured, impeturbable as always. Even in this most desperate moment, somehow reassuring, like the comforting words of a priest"

His suit was losing air. He had been hit by shrapnel from the exploding welding bottles. They had practiced against the possibility of a suit tear and now it paid off. He felt into the pouch where his patches were and pulled one out, peeled off the backing and clapped it to the rent on his thigh. The injury to his arm was more difficult but with his clumsy left hand he was able to patch over the hole, grimacing at the sharp pain of the metal shard stuck into his flesh.

Adam was still screaming "Help me! I'm hurt in the guts. Someone, please!" By some miracle, the handline was still dangling from above, he seized hold of it, cast off his lanyard and slid down to where Adam was writhing on the end of his safety line. He stopped beside him, clipped into Adam's own line, hauled up a length of the rope and tied a foot loop in it. Now he could stand beside him. Adam was clutching his abdomen, David gripped his hands and pulled them away, trying not to think what he might see or what might lie beneath. There was a long rent in the suit which Adam had held together, despite his shock and pain and that had stopped him losing all his air and dying instantly. David scrabbled into his suit for the largest patch he had, peeled the backing half off, moved Adam's hand aside and stuck it along one side, then pulled it across and tore the backing free. By some miracle it was a good seal but he knew that they were both anyway low on air and that their backup tanks had both been lost in the trauma.

Leonora's voice, hysterical. "What's happening. What can we do?"

"Get here!" cried David. "Quick as you can! Bring the full medical kit. And blood. 4 units and the kit to go with it. I'll try to get us to refuge No.2."

More pieces of wreckage dropped from above. Looking below David could distinctly see in the remaining emergency lights the bell end of the drive moving against the hull of the ship. It could go at any moment. For an instant, he had an impulse to break and flee. For safety they had to get over to the other side of the auxiliaries and on to the undamaged ladderway. Alone, even with his own unquantified injuries it would be the work of a moment, assisting the shocked, bleeding and agonised Adam was going to be slow and extremely difficult and even then he might die, there was no way that David could assess the extent of his injury.

In that terrifying moment of truth he was in a state of panic. His mind had seized up, he was utterly unable to act when Com1's voice broke in on his personal frequency. "L1, my sensors detect that you are in an abnormal emotional state. I recommend that you carry out a standard exercise routine before assisting M2 to evacuate the Drive Bay".

This piece of inane garbage from the computer shocked him into action. He was the leader. It was for him to salvage this mission and he couldn't afford to lose another crewmember. He pulled up the rope and tied several more footloops in it. Next he unclipped himself from Adam's belay point and reclipped into the top footloop, moved Adam's lanyard across in the same way and then lowered himself to the next. Thankfully, Adam had fainted and now was just an inert body on the line. David worked his way down, loop by loop until they could get through above the bell ends of the drives. At last protected from being crushed or impacted by falling debris, he had only to haul them both up the ladder, physically easy in 0.2g, but his air was getting dangerously low now, he had to move efficiently without wasting any. Their training had included ways to conserve breathing air and now he forced himself to work as he had been taught. 'Move slowly, breathe evenly, take your time. Plan each move. Steady does it.' The words of the training programme echoed in his mind. Slowly, carefully, ensuring that Adam's inert body didn't get caught up, he climbed to the hatchway. As he passed through, his low pressure warning whistle began to sound and at the same moment, Leonora's voice came on line. "David, we're almost up the spoke now. We've got everything you asked for. Are you OK?"

"F1, hear my whistle. I'm through the hatch. Not far now. I'll call you when we are inside Refuge 2."

His arm and leg had begun to hurt now, the arm feeling a sharp stabbing pain every time he moved it, he was feeling weak, exhausted and his air was beginning to fail but he had reached the hatchway and the bold lettering 'REFUGE 2." He pressed the airlock 'OPEN' button and the outer door swung in. He pulled himself inside, Adam's body had caught against something. He tugged frantically on the lanyard but it wouldn't come free. David turned around in the constricted space. There was a roaring in his ears. Adam's lanyard had caught on something just out of sight and he suddenly realised that it was too late, he was sliding into unconsciousness. He remembered calling out in despair "Leonora, help us. My air's all gone....."

Warm, wet lips on his, damp breath inside his mouth. Then again, breathing into him. Again. He opened his eyes to Mina's face, her eyes filled with alarm. She kissed him again, blew her breath between his lips. He coughed, breathed out, felt suffocated, tried to push her away, dragged in a big, shuddering breath, then another. Bright lights spiralled before his eyes and his head ached horribly. He felt sick, hot then cold, started coughing again, closed his eyes against the light and the pain in his head. Somewhere a voice said "He's breathing!" It was Mina. "David!" Hands running over his face, touching his eyes, mouth. He opened his eyes again, his head was beginning to clear, full consciousness returning and with it a kaleidoscopic memory of his desperate struggle to rescue Adam, then running out of air before he could get them both into the airlock. Blacking out.

The pain had come back to his arm and his leg, he was still fighting to control his ragged breathing, he still felt sick but the headache was rapidly receding. "Mina" he gasped. "Kiss of life! You brought me back!"

"You had stopped breathing. I thought you were dead. Oh, David! David!" she was crying with a mixture of relief, shock and fright.

"I'm alright. I'm fine now." He tried to smile and coughed instead. His throat felt clogged with phlegm and saliva and breathing was still painful and harsh, he was still dragging air down as fast as his straining lungs would allow to assuage his oxygen starved tissues, but he had survived. He had made it.

Adam and Leonora were beside him. She had taken off his helmet and found him unconscious but still breathing shallowly. She had stuck a monitor to his neck which recorded a weak, high pulse and low blood pressure. She knew enough to realise that he was in shock and had probably lost a lot of blood. As David recovered enough to ask how he was, she had managed to get a blood needle into a vein on his neck and was carefully squeezing the bag to begin the difficult matter of giving a transfusion in the low gravity environment. The ingenious reheating system which ensured that the frozen product was available quickly, mixed properly, checked and was at the right temperature had worked perfectly, it was now just a matter of carefully maintaining enough pressure to run it in safely.

"We have to get them back home as soon as we can. I don't think we should even try to do anything about their wounds in here" said Leonora authoritatively. "We can get Adam at least into H2 in about ten minutes if we get organised." She spoke into her suit radio on open channel. "We've got a medical emergency here. We need to get Adam down in the elevator as soon as possible. Melissa and Matt, can you man the hand winding equipment. Solly, will you suit up and ride the elevator.? We will start moving him across right away. Evelio, please prepare what you can in H2, we are going to have to operate on him, I think."

For a few seconds there was silence then the usual babble of voices, but basically all agreeing at the same time as voicing concern. Melissa's voice "All you want me to do is to wind a handle? You're going to need a lot more help than that!"

"Yes, I am. He's bound to need anaesthetic and at the least extensive wound stitching. Can you find out as much as you can from Com1. Solly. You, too. When you are up in the hub I'm going to need you to get any surgical kit there may be in the stores, find it and get it here as quickly as you can manage...."

Leonora's voice was interrupted by a sudden, awful prolonged screech emanating through the fabric of the ship, coming at them from all around in the confines of the refuge. The walls began to shake as if in an earthquake, there were several huge hammer like blows, a further cacophany as of metal being tortured, a final dull thud, then nothing. She stared wild-eyed at David, suddenly frozen into terrified immobility.

"It must be the drive broken free. Nothing else could make a sound like that. When we exit from here, I'll go back and see what happened."

She didn't even argue with him that he was a casualty too. They were all very shocked by the trauma surrounding them. But they had to get on with it and again Leonora took the lead.

"I'll finish giving him this blood then we go. Yes?" Then a puzzle crossed her mind. "David, I heard you tell Com1 to shut down the drives. So why are they still going? Why aren't we weightless?"

"Normal shutdown takes about quarter of an hour. They're still running down."

"If you'd told Com1 to do an emergency stop the drive wouldn't have broken away"

"Leonora, I'm the leader now. I have to think ahead. Emergency shutdowns are bad for the engines. If we crack the combustion chamber of even one of them this expedition is finished, we will fly on forever into space and never be able to get back. We are that much on a knife edge anyway! Anything serious going wrong and we won't survive. But we needed it to drop free. Maybe not quite like it did, though!" he added.

She stared into his eyes and saw something there she hadn't understood before. He was right, he was their leader and he was beginning to think like one. His awful mistake that had killed Anatoly and now made Ahmed so ill had done something to him. She nodded. "Help me and Mina get him to the elevator then I'll come with you."

They recharged their air tanks and helmeted up, David and Mina went through the airlock first, then Leonora and the unconscious Adam. The short journey past the wrecked shuttle with Anatoly's body still under it was a nightmare. David could do very little to assist as they maneuvered him past, trying not to bend his body and maybe make his bleeding worse. Somehow they got him into the elevator. "Matt, Melissa, Solly. Bring him down as quick as you can."

As soon as the door was closed and the cable started to move, Leonora tapped Mina's helmet. "Go on down. They're going to need you. We will follow in a minute. I'm going with David to see what happened in the engine bay."

The hatch above the drives was still open and they found themselves staring down into a huge void left by the departed drive. In spite of the appalling shaking and screeching of tortured metal which had heralded its breaking loose, it looked as though it had fallen away almost according to their original plan. "The other one should be dead easy. Look how much space we've got to get around it. You can see what we've got to cut away." David pointed to various spars and crossmembers, "that won't take long and it will be much safer if we push it free before we restart the drives."

"I thought you said that we would have to fix some new supports for the two working ones?"

"I expect we will but that shouldn't be a major job. While that's going on we can start cutting away the shuttle bay doors. If any of us are fit enough!" he added with grimness in his voice. "Leonora, I need to get back downstairs. You're going to have to help me, I'm feeling shattered suddenly. I think it's the reaction and I could have lost a bit of blood."

Suddenly alarmed, she took charge of him. She clipped their lanyards together and guided them back to the spoke. Noting with relief how the elevator cables were running freely, she led him down by the ladders, easy at first as she knew it would be, then requiring more effort, now climbing steadily and more slowly against their increasing body weight. She found herself taking more of his weight, forced herself to keep the pace down, counting off the endless landing numbers. Stopping at each one to check how he felt. He was weak and she could see that he was pale inside his helmet but she managed to get him down stage by stage until they emerged at last into the short corridor and the airlock into H2 with plenty of air to spare and David was safely home.

Chapter 11

As David removed his helmet, Solly came through on open channel from up in the hub. "I have all the medical and surgical kit you asked for and I've loaded it into the elevator. You're going to need to get it down there as quickly as you can and warm it all up."

"Ok, Solly, that's good" he replied. I'm coming up to balance the load. I'll get Matt to operate the levers again."

"David, you can't go up again!" Leonora's voice sounded alarmed. "You need medical attention for your wounds."

"There isn't anybody else." He was looking at them as they crowded around Adam's inert figure lying on a mattress. Leonora, Mina and Melissa were all clustered around him, Evelio was busy rigging a local terminal for Com1 and Matt had just brought along a gas and air, entonox set.

"You've got your hands full here and you need the surgical stuff urgently. Solly can give me some help on the way back if I need it."

Leonora nodded. "Take care of yourself, David. We need you!" She looked down at Adam, still suited up apart from his helmet, a blood drip rigged to the vein in his neck and hanging from an upstand and now a network of monitoring electrodes rigged up to take his pulse, blood pressure and blood gases.

"Don't let him die, we need him too. I'm counting on you all."

With that, David topped up his suit air, went back through the airlock and into the elevator. He slid the door shut, sighed wearily and sat on the floor of the metal cylinder with his knees folded up under his chin. "OK Matt, let her go!" He closed his eyes, for a few moments he could rest. He was feeling weak and tired. Underneath his suit he could feel that he had been and probably still was bleeding from both wounds. The fleece furry suit they all wore felt wet and sticky and he was becoming increasingly aware of the pain each time that he moved.

He had dozed off, rocked by the irregular action of the winding and awoke with a start as the door was pulled open to show Solly's face, anxious behind his visor.

"David, are you fit to climb back down again?"

"I am, just about. But you may need to help me when we get near the bottom in case I fall."

"Come, then. I'll get you there!"

"Solly, have you topped up your air?"

"Shit, no! I forgot!"

"Solly. Please! We can't afford to make any mistakes. Air is life, never forget it. You need a full tank for the climb and I need you, too. I'm feeling very tired, very weary."

Solly nodded contritely inside his helmet, plugged in to the air supply and refilled, disconnected when the pressure gauge registered 'full' and touched David's arm. "Ready now?"

"OK, let's climb."

********************************************

They couldn't cut through the fabric of his suit. The material was incredibly tough multi-layered Kevlar, originally specified for chainsaw protective coveralls and nothing they had would touch it. They couldn't take the suit off him because it had become caught up in whatever had hit him and to pull it free was almost certain to cause him to bleed to death. In despair they tried the device like a soldering iron whose function was to cauterise minor arteries and veins during surgery and they were instead able slowly to melt away the material, exposing the area of his injury. As the suit fabric was gradually peeled back it revealed the grizly extent of the bleeding and the awful wound he had sustained. At last, they began to carefully cut away the blood saturated material of the fleece undergarment and reveal the massive shard of metal which had embedded into him.

The meal service console had been reprogrammed to provide warm, sterile saline water and this they used in copious quantities to swab around the wound until it was horribly revealed. A section of the trolley frame from the welding set maybe 18cm long had struck him sideways horizontally almost exactly across his navel, the left hand end, evidently part of the curved section at the top had penetrated his abdominal wall and an unknown length and depth was buried inside him.

Leonora wiped away a continuing weep of blood. She was wearing a surgical gown and mask, as were they all. "It looks like it cauterized itself" she said. "It looks as though it was very hot and burnt the skin underneath and around it so it bled a lot less than it might have done."

"Can you work it free?" Melissa spoke as she was still burning away the suit fabric, trying not to inhale the fumes which wreathed up from the cauterising iron.

"I dare not. It feels as though it is caught fast." Leonora carefully moved the metal section and his flesh moved with it. We have to cut into his abdomen."

Melissa and Leonora's eyes met above their masked faces. Leonora looked down at the scalpel she was holding. They both looked down at her hands. They were shaking.

Leonora's eyes were shiningly wet with tears. "I can't do it. Forgive me Adam, I can't do it!" She crumbled over him, sobbing hysterically, her strength suddenly exhausted, her reserves spent."

"Give it to me!" Mina, little Mina touched her arm, held out her hand and took the scalpel from Leonora's trembling fingers. "Take the cauterizing implement!" she commanded. "Wipe it clean. Help me."

She cut through Adam's abdominal wall, a quick, straight 5cm slice across the line of the embedded shard of metal. There was almost no bleeding. She cut again, then was holding it up for all of them to see, dropped it beside him on the mattress. "I have to probe inside" she said calmly. "Give me a retractor."

Evelio held out the retractor from the surgical kit and Mina took it, praying inwardly that it was reasonably sterile. She held open the wound and inspected it carefully using a hand lens. "I don't see any damage to his ileum. Or anything else. I think he got away with it. But there's internal clotted blood and we have to wash it out. Melissa, I'm going to have to irrigate with warm saline. Lots of it."

Between them, they flushed his opened abdominal cavity with the tepid solution until the dark gouts of blood stopped. Mina then injected antibiotic solution and the laborious business of stitching the wound began, including the insertion of a drain tube which Com1's instruction set had demanded.

At long last, Mina laid a gauze pad across the area of the injury and taped it securely in place. She looked up at their frightened, ashen faces, not knowing or sensing that her own was just the same. "I think it will be alright" she said.

Once the anaesthetic had been discontinued and they could take the mask off, they could cautiously remove his ruined suit, then undergarments. His body lay naked and pale on the soaked and stained mattress. Com1's monitors continued to record a weak, shallow and rapid pulse, low blood pressure and low core temperature but now it was just a matter of making him warm and comfortable and nursing him. They moved him into a tent and sleeping bag, refilled the drip with glucose and let him sleep. Mina moved in to lie beside him and keep watch, soon she too was asleep, physically and emotionally exhausted.

They helped David out of his suit and bloodstained fleece. The ragged shard of metal which had embedded into his arm was still visibly protruding from it. The surrounding flesh had an unhealthy purplish hue and some slight bleeding had started up again. The leg injury presented as just a swelling around a small, ragged cut on his thigh muscle. Nothing was visible.

Leonora bid him lie down on a mattress and knelt beside him. "I'm going to pull that out of your arm first" she said matter of factly. "It isn't really worth giving you an anaesthetic." She looked squarely into his eyes "I think it will bleed quite a lot. That's good, it will help to flush it clean. Alright?"

He nodded. She gripped it with a pair of surgical tweezers and pulled smartly. It came out easily, he hardly winced. She let it bleed for a few seconds and then pressed a lined cottonwool pad over it, holding it firmly in place. "Well, that wasn't difficult, was it?" She looked down at her hands, noticing almost analytically that they were no longer trembling. "I'm going to have to stitch it, David. I'll try not to hurt you."

Their eyes met. She could see that he was at the end of his tether, sensed that he was beyond speech. He nodded his head again. She signed to Evelio for the needle and thread, lifted the pad off and quickly put four stitches across the cut. It was then only a matter of cleaning it with a sterile wipe and taping it over.

"The other one is going to be more difficult. I think we ought to leave it until you've had a rest. You've lost some blood and I think you are a bit in shock. You need to sleep and recover."

David's eyes had been closed but now he opened them again. His voice was faint with exhaustion but he stared back into Leonora's face and simply said, "do it now. Then I will sleep."

She was going to argue with him, changed her mind. "I'm going to give you gas and air while I have a look. OK?" The entonox set was still close by so she put the mask over his mouth and nose, signed to Evelio to hold it there and watched until David began to go under.

She found the fragment just under the skin, but going straight in. She probed with the tweezers, got a grip and was able to pull it out without too much difficulty. It was then much the same as his other wound and in a few minutes it was stitched and dressed. She took hold of Evelio's hand and lifted the mask away. "We need to get him into a tent, into a sleeping bag. Someone should sit by him but he'll be alright now, I hope." Evelio nodded his agreement and between them they contrived to make him comfortable. She crawled into the tent alongside him, squeezed up alongside his body on the mattress and immediately fell asleep, emotionally and physically shattered.

Evelio found his own tent, pulled himself into his sleeping bag. Melissa and Matt had gone off together, he was on his own, intensely weary. He closed his eyes, relaxed and drifted into slumber. And so the expedition slept as Alpha Seven drifted on its lonely journey through space.
Chapter 12

He was aware of feeling uncomfortable. He was too hot, sweating inside the sleeping bag and also his bladder was very full. He opened his eyes to find Leonora, still asleep, lying beside him in the tent. She had half cast off the surgical gown and was naked underneath it, revealing most of her upper body but most particularly her left breast. He gazed entranced at the round pink nipple with the darker aureole surrounding it. His eyes roved over her young, well shaped body and he felt a spontaneous surge of heat rising between his legs.

He must have moved slightly because she suddenly opened her eyes to find herself looking into his. She pushed herself up on her right arm, pulled the gown over to cover herself and reddened, looked away avoiding his stare.

"Hello Leonora" he murmured quietly. "You're a real beauty, that's for sure!" 'And you're all mine, my sweet darling!' he thought to himself.

"Mind what you say to me" she responded, angry at being caught off her guard. She flushed at the thought of him staring at her as she slept.

"I'm getting out of this bag, I'm too hot"

"You should lie still and rest. You've been injured and you need time to recover."

He tried to sit up, suddenly feeling pain in his arm and thigh and aware of aches and stiffness just about everywhere else. He let her push him back down. Smiled. "But you wouldn't want me to wet my bed, would you?"

She flushed again, took her hand away and nodded. She unzipped the bag halfway down and let him lift his body up on his good arm, wriggle out and crawl naked from the tent. He stood up, almost overbalanced, regained his footing and tottered the few paces into the latrine area of the forest to relieve himself. Once he had done, he couldn't get back to the tent quickly enough, dropped to his knees on the grass in front of the entrance and half fell forwards into it. Leonora was lying on her side, her trunk lifted on her elbow. She hadn't moved since he got out and now she helped him to turn around and climb back into the sleeping bag. She went to zip it back up but he put his hand over hers to stop her.

"Don't! I'm too hot." He held on to her hand until she pulled it away. He reached up and pulled the gown off her shoulder, exposing her breasts to his hungry gaze. She felt as though she couldn't move, she was transfixed by his stare. His eyes locked hungrily on to hers. "You're mine, Leonora. You were meant for me. You know it, too, don't you?"

In spite of herself, she felt a sudden, hot surge of sexual desire, brought on by the recent close contact with his naked body. With one hand he was pulling the zip of the sleeping bag further down, she could see his penis rising between the unfolding fabric, his other hand had grasped her wrist and he started to draw her towards him. For an instant she felt herself yielding to him until, suddenly she had a flash vision of Adam lying on the mattress with that dreadful piece of metal protruding from his abdomen. She pulled back abruptly, tore her wrist away from his grip and slapped him across the cheek, then dragged herself free of him and out of the tent. She stood up and ran into the forest, suddenly sobbing with a jumbled emotional mix of anger, frustration and shame. She reached the pond, tore off her gown and threw herself into the water, there to lie in the warm, greenish soup until her racing pulse slowed and her breathing came under control. She lay in the shallow water near the edge while the recent scene replayed itself in her mind until she could begin to analyse her emotions.

She was angry at him for making such a crude pass at her. She was ashamed and angry with herself because she knew that she had wanted him too, that he knew it and that she had been within an instant of abandoning herself to him. She was ashamed that she had been, mentally at least, disloyal to Adam. Poor, desperately hurt Adam who would need her to care for him while he was recovering.

Only he didn't need her! She sat up abruptly in the water. Mina was in his tent right now, lying beside him, just as she had been with David. Mina was taking care of him. Little Mina! Mina who had had the courage to make the cuts into his abdomen that were needed if they were to save his life. Mina who had done what had to be done while she, Leonora, had dissolved into hysteria when he needed her most. She saw again her shaking hands. Saw again Mina taking the scalpel from her. Mina's steady, calm little hand.

Leonora sat in the warm, green water and sobbed helplessly, emotionally frantic. She was literally wringing her hands, in some kind of inner panic that left her helpless, unable to think what to do next, unable to move.

A frog hopped into the water just in front of her and disappeared with a splash, diving down between her legs. She stared at the spreading ripple and put a startled hand down to cover her vagina. And then she laughed. Laughed at her instinctive protective reaction. Stood up, water cascading from her shining body and laughed again. Suddenly she knew what to do! She was going to yank that minx Mina out of her betrothed's tent and take her place. She was going to nurse her man back to health and when he was ready, she was going to make love to him again. 'And David can go toss himself off!' she thought contemptuously.

Leonora may have fled weeping into the forest but it was Eve who made her way purposefully out of it again. And it was woe betide anyone who got in her way!

********************************************

Mina was still lying alongside Adam so she gently shook her awake, put a finger to her lips and signed for her to come out. "I'll look after him from now on" she said quietly but once more with an emphasis that left Mina in no doubt as to what she meant. "David is awake now, maybe you should see if he needs anything."

She lay close alongside him in the small tent. Mina had disconnected the drip and taken the shunt from his wrist and now he lay on his side, breathing quietly. His colour had begun to return and he felt warm. She lay beside him and drowsed for a while, still tired from the traumatic events through which they had struggled. After some while he stirred and then his eyes opened. He recognized her, smiled and went back to sleep. She touched his face and stroked his cheek. His breathing was quiet and regular. She could feel his pulse in the neck and it was steady, regular and encouragingly strong. He stirred again and woke up properly.

"Eve?"

"You're alright now Adam!"

"What happened? Where am I?"

"David saved your life. There was an explosion and the drive motor broke free. You were injured. We brought you back. You have an injury, you will need to rest and recover."

"Injury? What sort of injury?"

"You had a bad cut in the abdomen. We stitched it up. Mina stitched it up. You've had a blood transfusion. You need to rest."

Under the sleeping bag he carefully felt around with his hand. He could feel tenderness over a wide area, underneath the dressings. He moved carefully on to his back, there was deep seated discomfort inside his abdomen, in fact the more he thought about it the more aware he was of pain accompanying the slightest movement.

"How serious is it, Eve?"

"You're going to be alright. Just got to take it very carefully for a while."

He nodded. "Eve!" he took her hand. "Are you going to stay and look after me?"

"I'm going to sleep in the tent here with you. I'm going to look after you. But you'll be up and doing things in a day or two. You're gong to be fine."

********************************************

Mina snuggled in alongside David. He opened the sleeping bag up fully and she lay close up against him, her arm over his waist and his bad arm over hers. He buried his face in her hair and thus they drowsed for a while.

He woke her up with a kiss. "If my arm was working properly, I would undress you, Mina!" She nodded and unclipped her bra, then slipped off her knickers. She rolled back against him, her dainty little breasts nudging against his chest. She took his hand and guided it in between her legs. "Stroke me, Darling" she whispered. Her hand found his rising penis and massaged it into stiffness. He slipped two fingers inside her hot little vagina and massaged her until she began to whimper. Her hand stroked the sensitive tip of his erection until they were both squirming with pleasure as they helped each other to reach a climax. They lay back, panting with release and slept again, his fingers still inside her moist labia and her hand wet and slippery with his ejaculate.

Chapter 13

Adam and David both relapsed after about two standard days. Both developed high fevers accompanied by pain in their wounds. Com1 was called in for his diagnostic powers and concluded that they both had septicaemia from wound infections and put them on to a drip-fed course of antibiotics directly into the bloodstream. Mina and Leonora both had their hands full nursing their respective partners through raging fever followed by shivering chills, at times they became delirious. They sponged down their sweat-soaked bodies, made them drink tepid isotonic drinks during their cogent moments and managed bed pans when they had to.

Melissa assisted them as best she could but she was also trying to care for Ahmed who seemed to be gradually slipping away as one infection after another drained his damaged immune system and ate away at his physique.

Matt, Solly and Evelio hung around in the background for a while, not able to do very much to help and eventually decided to occupy themselves by restarting the engineering works. Evelio was just about fully recovered now and was keen to prove himself fit so they suited up and made their way up to the hub. Their first objective was the harrowing task of recovering Anatoly's body and sending him out into space.

The broken wreck of the shuttle hadn't moved since they had last seen it but now it was weightless. The combined efforts of all three of them managed to lift it so that it drifted very slowly clear of the floor revealing the crushed corpse amid a tangle of bits of wreckage. His helmet had been shattered but his face showed no other sign of injury so that they at least could touch him with a gloved hand in a gesture of farewell. They took him into airlock 2, where Adam had been rescued by Leonora, opened the outer door and gently pushed him into the infinity beyond. His body floated away, vanishing abruptly into the blackness and they waited there for a short time, each lost in his own thoughts.

"We should go now" said Evelio. "Good luck and goodbye my friend!"

Their second excursion had the objective of continuing to cut away the second drive using the remaining welding set. It was a learning experience for all three of them, they hadn't used the welder before. As they were now three and the ship was not accelerating the job was much safer to undertake and they could work flexibly, taking turns to cut the drive free while the others did supporting work. They soon organised refilling their air supplies so that they could stay at the job longer. With Com1's advice, they found alloy sections in the stores and bolted them across the weakened structure, creating a strengthening web of girders buttressing the two functional units solidly against the walls of the ship.

By the third session, Matt finally declared the drive motor to be free and floating inside the engine bay. They rigged a pulley system using a length of wire cable and a shackle, lashed themselves against various fixed points and all three pulled together. Gradually, the huge mass began to drift out of the rear of the ship. As it went, it rubbed, bumped and scraped against various projections until it finally came free and they watched with great satisfaction as it completely cleared the ship and became simply a piece of space debris, drifting away into the darkness.

They returned down the inevitable, exhausting descent to the hydroponica that had become their home, weary but in a mood to celebrate. David was there to greet them, his fever abated and his strength rapidly returning, though Adam was still more or less bedridden. They were weeks ahead of the original schedule which David had calculated. Everyone was delighted, even Ahmed managed to smile and congratulate everybody. It was undoubtedly a high moment – they had become a team and they had achieved their first objective.

It was the work of another shift to cut away the damaged and completely inoperable shuttle bay doors and the surrounding superstructure and a second session beyond that to clear various obstructing displaced sections of the access scaffolding and ladders before they could push the two wrecked shuttles out and clear of the ship.

All three of them climbed into shuttle No.2 and pressurised the cabin so that they were able to take their helmets off. They crowded excitedly into the cockpit, Matt took the controls and ran it through its preflight launch checks. Melissa had already done most of these before the accident but they repeated them all anyway. Everything was working as it should. He pulled the release lever and ran up the steam drive, the shuttle accelerated smoothly clear of Alpha Seven. Solly had the radar screen up, anxious that they didn't collide with the two drifting wrecks which were still quite close by. Once they had reached the safe distance of 5 kilometres, Matt switched over to fusion drive and the shuttle surged free, he slid the accelerator forward to full power, pushing them back, Solly in the co-pilot seat and Evelio hanging on behind them. In a matter of a few minutes they were a thousand kilometres away.

He shut off the power and let the shuttle drift, a delighted smile on his face. "I name this ship ....."

"Anatoly!" said Evelio. "He would have liked that."

"Yes! Anatoly it shall be. We will find some paint and write his name on the hull. Let's go back now."

He manoeuvered the shuttle around through 180 degrees using the steam jets then ignited the fusion drive at low power, making a slow return.

"Can you get her up on radar?" enquired Solly.

Matt wrote in a few more commands and the radar screen showed a blip just off the centre of the screen and he adjusted it until it was foccussed in the cross-hairs of the graticule. "We ought to be able to patch into Com1, too" he mused, typing in more code. A few seconds later, Com1's familiar smooth tones responded.

"S2 this is Com1. How may I assist?" The reassuring voice sounded cheering in the small cockpit of the shuttle.

"Why, Com1! How long before we have the ship on visual?"

"Using your vision screen that will be in about fifteen standard minutes from now if you continue on the current power settings. Can I suggest in the meantime that you drink an isotonic solution and eat a light meal, then perform a standard exercise routine. You will find a meal service console on the right hand side of the pilot's seat." As he finished speaking, three bottles dropped out, Matt contrived to catch all three and offered them around.

"Banana and mango, my favourite!" exclaimed Solly with a smile. "Swap you? Mine's..." Evelio scanned the label. "Oh, never mind, mine's the same and I just love bananas!"

Matt punched up a microwave meal for all three of them and soon the air smelled deliciously of meat and veg. as it heated through. They sat for a while, eating in companionable silence, watching the blip on the screen grow gradually larger until eventually Matt was able to go over to manual and pick her out as a tiny black blob moving amongst the background of stars, causing them to wink out and reappear as Alpha Seven eclipsed them.

"Put on the floodlights. Lets see if we can illuminate her" suggested Evelio. Matt obligingly cut in the main beams and the distant object became a tiny and rather dim disc, more like a planet than a star, moving slowly through the background constellations.

"Com1, can you patch me through to David?"

"Do you mean L1?" Com1's enquiry was expressed in blandly neutral terms, as usual.

"Com1, don't mess about with me. Of course I mean our illustrious leader. Please connect him."

David's voice came through the speakers. "Hello S2. We've all been listening in. It's good to know that you can see us. How do we look?"

"You're too far off yet, I think. No, got you, though!" Matt fiddled with the console until, with startling suddenness the ship appeared full screen in clear focus and illuminated by the shuttle's floodlights, bright even at the distance Alpha Seven still was."

"Dear god!" His voice was awed. They had not seen the ship from outside before.

"What's holding it together?"

"David, she's a complete wreck. I had no idea how bad the damage was!"

They stared in horrified amazement at the scene before them. The ships name, ALPHA SEVEN and the CEC logo were made fuzzy by a network of random holes. The second 'E' of seven was punched out completely by a large impact crater, one of a row of three which had also split the letter N in half. A large black void was visible at the front of the ship where they had cut through and removed the wrecked shuttle bay doors. One of the four spokes was sticking out at an angle, misaligned from the others and closer inspection showed it to be the hydroponica. There was little resemblance to the smooth, sleek ship portrayed as the universal screen saver.

Matt focussed in on the group of four hydroponics modules at the end of their spoke and expanded the view up to maximum magnification. "David, the hydroponic spoke is out of line from the others but I can't see any apparent reason for it." He had to continually keep adjusting the viewfinder to compensate for the rotation which generated the ship's artificial gravity and at the same time he tracked the view up and down along the length of the spoke, pausing where it connected into the hull. Everything seemed to be encouragingly normal in dramatic contrast to the rest of the ship, the hydroponica had evidently been completely protected on the lee side at the moment when the disaster had struck her.

"There's nothing wrong over here. We have normal vector gravity downwards at... Com1, how much?"

"'G' force is 0.74 standard gravities normal to the hydroponica."

"What does that mean? Normal?"

"'Normal' means at right angles or 90 degrees to the direction of propagation of the combined centripetal and acceleration forces being developed by the main fusion drives, currently at zero."

"Thank you for that Com1!"

"In which case, why is the spoke misaligned. Com1 can you enlighten us?"

"The problem lies with the other three modules. Their alignment gimbals have been damaged and jammed in their configurations at the moment when the ship was struck. They are immovable. I can estimate the operations needed to return them to operability if you wish" offered Com1.

"Does it matter if they are out of alignment?"

"There will be extra restoring forces imposed on the structures but they are currently stable and my instruments do not detect any dangerous overloads."

Not wanting to show up his ignorance by actually asking Com1, Solly went to the shuttle's on-board computer help menu and searched for 'alignment gimbals.' A text summary appeared on screen.

' **Alignment Gimbals** are located at the inboard end of the access spokes to the four gravity-supplied modules on the ship. These permit limited movement of the spoke so that the modules can set with 'G' forces vertically downwards, thus preventing forces generated by the acceleration of the main drives from leaving an angled resultant which would make working within the modules uncomfortable. Such a resultant would also cause plants in the hydroponica to grow at an angle determined by their geotropism.

To learn more about ' **Alignment Gimbals** ' see ' **Gimbal Maintenance'** , ' **Gimbal Malfunctions'** , ' **Gimbal Repairs** ' and ' **Location of Gimbal Spare Parts**.'

Alpha Seven was very close now. Matt switched over to steam drive and steered away, turned the shuttle and aligned S2 to the ship, finally turned everything off keeping alongside in parallel. He keyed in the command 'S2:A7 maintain' and switched over to autopilot.

Solly operated the vision screen and made a careful scan all over the ship, working with the floodlights to illuminate her. The damage was far more apparent than it had been from inside her, when the holes in the superstructure, black against the black of space, had been effectively invisible. Her surface was almost as pockmarked as that of the moon, he thought and it was a credit to her designers that she was still substantially intact, even so she was a cripple. They stared intently at her through several cycles as she rotated her scarred surface like a short period planetoid with a day length measurable in minutes.

"We need to go alongside the accommodation. How can we do that while she's rotating?"

"I don't think I could steer that closely alongside her. We're going to have get Com1 to pre-program the autopilot."

Matt looked up at the screen as Solly zoomed in to bring the blasted accommodation block into close-up. "We will have to try to find a way to connect alongside. Com1, how can we dock to the accommodation block?

"There are attachment points available for docking but they will need to be checked before use." A schematic of the accommodation appeared in place of the actual block with a number of winking arrows indicating anchorage points.

"Com1, can you drive this shuttle into position so that we can dock?"

"Affirmative."

"How do we lock on?"

"S2 has two extending cables fore and two aft. These will have to be manually attached."

"That means crewmembers going EVA. None of us are EVA trained."

"Affirmative. I cannot authorise EVA activity."

"But he can't actually stop us, can he?" pointed out Evelio.

"No, he can't but as Adam found out, he can be mightily uncooperative. We need David to use his leadership credentials and tell him."

"David, are you still listening in?"

"Aff..yes. Com1, I authorise you to assist any crewmember who goes EVA. I take responsibility for the fact that they have not been EVA trained."

Com1 had never significantly paused before, even when carrying out complex calculations. It was some seconds before 'he' responded. "Authorisation granted for 24 standard hours, renewable. Any persons wishing to EVA must confirm that they have read and understood basic EVA procedure. I will ask confirmatory questions."

"OK, you heard! Better start reading up on this and make sure you don't fail the quiz!" The smirk in David's voice was obvious even through the sound system.

Solly put up the help menu again and searched the heading 'EVA'.

The screen immediately filled with text.

**EVA, Extra Vehicular Activity**. All activity outside into free space is to be considered as extremely hazardous and requires appropriate risk assessment before being undertaken. Any EVA should have specified objectives and a safe system of working designated for it. All EVA crewmembers should be directly supervised from an appropriate command platform having either direct line-of-sight or cctv monitoring. There should not be more than two persons engaged in EVA at any time unless a dire emergency otherwise dictates and supervision levels should be nonetheless maintained.

EVA suits and all ancillary equipment should be checked and verified as functioning before leaving the vehicle. In particular, breathing air tank status should be >85% full, emergency beacon should be manually tested and battery status confirmed. Under no circumstances should any person going EVA allow themselves to become unattached from the structure. Acceptable attachment devices are either a direct belayed line as supplied with an EVA suit or a permanent magnet attachment to the superstructure of the vehicle. ELECTROMAGNETIC ATTACHMENT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE without a backup.

No crewmember should attempt EVA if they are feeling in any way unwell or have had any recent injury. A basic medical check should be made via the on-board computer or approved paramedic technician. Medical status should be monitored throughout the activity and EVA aborted if there is any significant change in parameters.

EVA should not commence less than one standard hour after eating a meal.

Related topics are ' **EVA suit** ', ' **EVA suit maintenance and testing** ', ' **EVA procedures** ', ' **EVA risk assessment** ', ' **EVA Ancillary equipment** ', ' **EVA communications** ', ' **EVA training and simulation** '

"OK boys, you've got to read up all that lot so call me back when you've passed your exams. Enjoy!"

********************************************

"Com1, this is Solly, M3. Ready to answer your EVA quiz."

"Affirmative, M3. State the minimum ancillary equipment to be carried when going EVA."

"Come on, Com1, that's too easy! In addition to equipment carried as integral to the suit such as knife, toolkit, rocket pack and hand lamp the following should be taken, fixed to the belt by snaphooks: 2 electromagnets, 4 permanent magnets, each with line and foot stirrup, 30m coiled 9mm terylene safety line with eye splices and snaphooks at each end."

"Correct. What should be the status of the magnets?"

"Electromagnets switched off, permanent magnets separated from their keepers and stowed in a plastic carrier, preferably as far as possible separately from each other."

"OK M3, temporary EVA status granted."

"Thank you Com1. Do I get a certificate?"

Com1 ignored this last response but a message appeared on the vision screen. 'M3 status upgrade to EVA authorised for 24.00 standard hours." As they watched, the timer display began to count backwards in a faintly threatening sort of way.

"Com1, this is M4, Matt ready to take my turn at your EVA quiz. Give it to me!"

"Affirmative, M4. Describe the EVA operation required in transferring to a second vehicle in free space."

"OK, then. Before going outside, confirm the relative positions of the vehicles are not drifting by greater than 0.01m/s. Confirm open and operable status on the airlock on the other vehicle. On passing through your own airlock, attach one permanent magnet to the superstructure and clip on to it, attach another permanent magnet and one end of the 30m line. Unclip yourself when steady and push off gently against the superstructure, float over to the second vehicle allowing the 30m line to uncoil. Switch on one electromagnet and clamp to the superstructure when you reach it. Attach the second electromagnet and use them to 'walk' yourself to the other vehicle's airlock. Enter the airlock but leave the 30m line attached between them."

"That is correct. What extra precautions are needed if the vehicles are accelerating?"

"Wow, Com1, that's a bit of a stiffie, isn't it? You can't use the same method because you would fall between the two vehicles and end up dangling at the end of the 30m line. You should take with you a gas rocket and fire the 30m line over to the other vehicle with a permanent magnet on the end of it. You can then pull yourself over and once there use the electromagnets as before."

"OK M3, temporary EVA status granted."

"Well that's fine then!" He gripped Solly's hand and shook it. "Ready when you are, brother!"

"David. We're ready to go for it now. As team leader, I've just volunteered Solly to go EVA first and clip S2 on to the accommodation block. I will act as 2nd man and Evelio will supervise us both from the flight deck here. Once we are moored, then we'll see how we can transfer everything over."

"OK, Matt. Be careful, that's all!"

"You can bet your life we will! OK, Com1 put us alongside the accommodation."

"Affirmative, M4. Secure yourselves and confirm when ready."

The fusion drive ran up under automatic control, S2 turned slowly and approached the ship, flying in a circle over the whirling arms of the four modules. They watched, enthralled as the undamaged hydroponica passed only a few tens of metres below them, every detail standing out with pin-sharp clarity in the shuttle's floodlights. They were next able to see the medical centre as it passed below them. It looked as though it had been battered just as badly as the accommodation block and was probably completely wrecked inside. Next came the observatory with only two or three longish gashes in the side of it but the big Plexiglas observation dome seemed to be intact and the telescope was clearly visible inside it.

Then the accommodation block was below them. With Com1 at the controls, S2 took up station above it, the nose began slowly to tilt downwards until it looked as though they would collide with it and they stopped only a few metres away.

"S2 is now in position. Awaiting further instructions." Com1's voice, smooth as usual even sounded a little smug.

"Well done, Com1. That's a brilliant bit of flying. Please maintain position until we have secured S2."

"Affirmative."

"OK Solly? You and me to suit up and go for it."

The 'G' force within the accommodation block was matched inside the shuttle as S2 effectively flew around in a circle, matching the resultant gravity force of 0.74 standard gravities needed just to keep on station alongside. They felt heavy and clumsy getting into the EVA suits but nonetheless were able to suit up quickly enough, check each other over and clip on the various magnets, lanyards and 30m lines that they would need. A final nod to each other, beacon check, suit radio confirmation to Evelio at the controls and they entered the airlock. As soon as the outer door swung inwards, Matt attached two permanent magnets to the hull, clipped their lines to his suit belt and let himself outside. He found himself hanging heavily below the airlock. The nose of the shuttle was pointing vertically upwards and the accommodation block was towering over the top of him. It felt distinctly claustrophobic.

Solly reached out and up and fixed his two electromagnets as high above as he could reach, secured his 30m line to a permanent magnet and swung out. Heavy as he was in the 'G' field, he managed to put one foot into a loop and lift himself up, move the other electromagnet and take a second foothold in its footloop. The airlock was fortunately close to the front of the shuttle so that he was now only about 3m below the accommodation. He fixed a permanent magnet as high above him as he could reach, transferred a foot into its footloop and was able to move higher with the electromagnets. He fed the 30m line through it and looked down to confirm that Matt was belaying him from below in a proper climbing stance.

The second permanent magnet went on almost at the nose of the shuttle and the third was on the superstructure of the accommodation itself. He fixed the fourth and was midway between the accommodation's open airlock door and where one of the fixing brackets should be. He was now looking way down through four intermediate belay points to Matt, some 6m below him.

"So far so good", he panted, suddenly aware how physically and emotionally demanding the climb had proved to be. "I'm going to make the first connection." He had to step back down until he was able to reach the nearest of two small, orange-painted hatches which contained the retractable securing cables. He turned the handle, lifted the cover back and gripped the snap hook at the cable end. He pulled and the cable ran out against a ratcheted recoiling mechanism and it proved to be easy to climb back up to the highest point. Once there, he deployed the electromagnets sideways and found the eyeletted bracket just where it was supposed to be. The snap hook clipped into place with a satisfying 'clunk' which he could hear transmitted through his suit.

"OK, I've got one attached. I'm going to have to work across the hull and do the other one. I'm going to need two more permanent magnets. Matt, can you pass them up to me?"

"Solly, We did it a bit wrong. I'm going to have to clip my 30m line to yours and you must pull it through, swap the ends over and use yours to lower back to me."

"That's OK as long as the ends go through the intermediate belays!"

Luckily, they did and soon he had achieved the pull through, lowered his own line back down and collected the two magnets. He then had to traverse across the hull, using the permanent magnets as an intermediate and a final belay in setting up a traverse line. He then had to retrace his moves until he could collect the second cable, climb back up and then across one more time and secure the second cable.

"Matt, there's been some damage close to the fixing point. There's no way for me to know how safe it is. We're going to have to take a bit of a chance on it. I'm coming back down now."

With the pitch rigged, the return was easy. Once Solly had reached the security of the airlock and Matt had climbed back in, they gave the order for Com1 to cut the fusion drive. Ominous creaking sounds began to reverberate through the hull as the cables took up the load of the shuttle. But everything held, S2 had become an annexe to the accommodation block.

Chapter 14

It was Matt's turn to make the climb. He found that it was easy enough to ascend using the various footloops and with the assistance of the lines rigged through. He noted the set of the cables taking the entire load of the shuttle and then made his way in through the airlock and the familiar but almost forgotten interior of the accommodation. There were the rows of identical doorways, ending in the awful chaos of the explosive meteorite impacts which had ended the lives of so many of his fellow crewmembers. He shivered inwardly and went into Leonora's cabin, F1. The hibernation cubicles had been designed to be easily removed. Secured to the floor by four catches, they only required the four handles to be turned and it was released. He disconnected the electrical umbilical and hauled the unit out into the corridor whence it was easy to move through into the end lobby and out into the airlock. Once there, he secured it by the snaphook on the end of his personal 30m line, clipped himself on to the fixed traverse and called up Solly.

"I'm going to lower the first cubicle. Once you've got that into the airlock, Evelio can take it through and you can come up to join me"

"OK Matt. Send it down."

It was not hard work to pull the empty cubicle out and slide it over the hull until it swung free, then all he had to do was control its descent by lowering it hand over hand until it reached Solly who, in turn pushed it into the airlock, unclipped it and swung the outer door shut. Evelio, on the inside operated the airlock and pulled it in, securing it against the wall of the main cargo bay with cargo slings provided for the purpose.

Solly climbed back up and joined Matt inside the accommodation. Working together, it was easier to unload the cubicle from F2, Mina's cabin and they soon had it lowered down. Matt went down after it this time while Solly made his way along the corridor into F3 with it's still hibernating occupant. He briefly studied the naked, sleeping girl within and was much taken with the thought of how beautiful she was. He closed the valve to the emergency air cylinder and disconnected it thinking that she would be OK for a good while on the residual air in the cubicle. It took no longer to unattach than if it had been empty but it was much heavier to manoeuvre. He fixed his buddy line to it, turned it through the entry and slid it down to the end, turned it into the airlock and reclipped it to the door latch before making his way down to meet Matt coming back up. Together they worked the cubicle out into the open, slid it across the roof and clipped it into the traverse line ready for lowering.

"I'm going down with her."

"OK then. Be sure to clip into the pitch line."

"Are you going to guide me from the top?"

"When you're ready!"

Matt clipped himself into the top permanent magnet and took control of the lowering line. It was very heavy so he deployed an extra belay line actually through the main securing cable to the shuttle and clipped a snaphook through two turns of the rope to act as a friction brake. It worked smoothly enough and Solly, clipped to both the cubicle and the pitch line began the descent. He paused at the first magnet attachment point to undo and reconnect himself below it before progressing on down. He was almost at the second one when the suspect cable attachment point to the accommodation block failed without the slightest warning.

Evelio was in the act of standing the empty cubicle up against the shuttle wall in preparation for clipping it into place, the shuttle swung violently sideways on the remaining cable and he was thrown over, the cubicle striking his head as it fell. He saw bright stars mixed with black blobs of blood over his right eye and rolled, disorientated and shocked on the floor, then more or less fell through into the cockpit. Solly was screaming into the radio as the shuttle pendulumed sideways and started back, threatening to crush him against the accommodation. Somehow he pushed himself sideways as the gap closed, then reopened.

"Evelio, cut loose. Now!"

The shuttle swung back again and once more he contrived to push himself and the cubicle out of the way. "Evelio!" he screamed once more, the third swing had twisted him round and the cubicle with its sleeping charge inside was now in the way of his legs. Evelio who had fallen over the back of the pilot seat, somehow contrived to reach out an arm and pull the two levers that opened the snaphooks on the ends of the cables. The shuttle was sprung clear, its huge mass stretched and then severed the pitch line and Solly, still connected to the cubicle by the 3m length of his personal belay line was hurled into free space, rotating rapidly and sickeningly around F3 like a binary star system.

Evelio's action was too late to save the ship. The violent wrenching action of the shuttle on the spoke caused it to collapse by buckling close to the bottom, creating a lever action which tore the damaged and misaligned gimbal mechanism at the top clear out of the hub. The accommodation block and it's attachments had now become just an ungainly assemblage of space debris, narrowly missing the observatory as it rotated away into space with Matt dangling by his personal safety line on the side of it.

Inside the hydroponica they felt the shock as a protracted judder passing through under their feet like an earthquake. The larger trees rocked alarmingly and one fell with an awful crash amongst the foliage in H2. Com1 automatically put the main fusion drives into emergency stop and what was left of Alpha Seven somehow didn't break up completely.

********************************************

Solly stopped screaming and pulled himself and the hibernation cubicle together, which had the unfortunate effect of increasing the speed with which they rotated, making him even dizzier and rendering it harder to think. But he remembered the rocket pack, reached down and unclipped it from its connections against his thigh. He pointed it against the direction of rotation and pulled the trigger in a series of short bursts. It worked. He managed to almost completely stop the rotation, preventing the potentially fatal danger of vomiting, though he was faint with terror and was still dizzy and feeling nauseous. Next he turned on the beacon. He checked his suit air. With the extra capacity in the EVA suit he had several hours duration as long as he made himself calm down and concentrate on breathing quietly.

'Calm down, Solly' he thought. 'They'll come looking for you soon enough' He called into his suit radio "Solly calling. Help! I'm in free space. Is there anybody able to hear me?"

He looked around anxiously. There was no sign of the ship or the shuttle. Everywhere was the vast immensity of space, that incredible backdrop of constellations. There was some slight comfort in the familiar shape of some of them, recognisable to anyone from his home planet who had ever seen the sky on a clear night. He was still turning gradually through the signs of the zodiac. There was Orion, The Plough, Great Bear and Little Bear. The beautiful overarching veil of the Milky Way provided a backdrop to his dreadful isolation. He could see inside the cubicle the sleeping girl, ignorant of the terrible peril that she was in but then the uncomfortable thought occurred to him that she would still be alive inside her fragile spaceship long after his air had become exhausted.

He was helpless, slowly rotating in the void, and nobody was answering his distress calls. 'Keep calm, Solly. There is plenty of time yet. You will be rescued. Evelio is in the shuttle. He will come and get you. He will come!'

********************************************

It was just by chance in the brief, terrifying moments of the disaster that Matt ended up clinging to the accommodation rather than the shuttle. Like Solly, he might also have been plunged into free space. Now completely weightless, he pulled himself along the remaining traverse line into the airlock, paused to consider his plight and then had the idea of going back into his own cabin where he could use the emergency air supply to repressurise it. He took off his helmet and looked around at his little home. It was somehow reassuring. The computer console was dead, of course and nobody answered when he put out a call from his suit radio, which he suspected was anyway screened out by the metal hull.

He had seen Solly and F3's cubicle thrown off into space, disappearing almost instantly into the inky blackness. Solly was in great peril, he realised, but then, his own situation was not greatly better even if he was indoors. He was cast adrift in a wrecked hulk with limited air supplies, enough for a day or two perhaps but that was all. But then, the shuttle would pick him up on radar and Evelio would recover him soon enough so that they could then search for Solly. Time was of the essence. A small object in immensity, drifting ever further away would be increasingly difficult to find. Matt consoled himself with the thought that Solly would have operated his emergency beacon and he would be that much easier to detect.

Matt tried out his meal service console and was surprised to find that it was still live. It delivered him an isotonic drink and then commenced to heat up a dinner. He ate and drank carefully in the zero gravity, not wanting his food to get over everything. There was nothing much else that he could do now. He had to await rescue. And he wasn't completely alone, the remaining two hibernating crew members were still on board with him \- in body if not in mind.

So where was Evelio?

********************************************

"Com1, what's happening?" David's voice was quaking with alarm.

"There has been a major structural failure of the hull." Com1 imparted this information in his inevitably soothing manner. "My sensors indicated critical stress readings in all sectors of the ship, I therefore made an emergency shutdown of the main drives. Otherwise the ship might have disintegrated."

"What kind of failure?"

"The accommodation spoke collapsed when S2 was moored against it. It has parted from the hub and is now free in space."

"Do we need to do anything to secure the ship?"

"You will need to carry out a full structural survey."

"What, now?"

"Negative. The hull is currently in a stable condition but the drives cannot be operated."

"OK, Com1. Patch me through to S2."

"S2 is not responding to the radio. The onboard computer indicates that S2 is functioning normally but is receiving no instructions from the crew, even though it is on manual."

"Can you put it on to autopilot?"

"Negative. Manual control can only be overridden from on board."

"You're joking! We must be able to take over in the event the crew are disabled."

"Negative. The design does not allow for such a contingency."

David turned to Leonora, Mina and Melissa who were grouped around him, listening anxiously to his dialogue with Com1. "We have to do something!" he said firmly. "I'm going to try to fly the other shuttle."

"We should come too. You will need a crew."

"Someone should stay here. Leonora, I think it would be best if you did. Melissa and Mina could come with me. What do you say?"

Leonora would have preferred otherwise but she said nothing. Time was critical, arguing about who did what would simply delay whatever action they might take. "Let's suit up. Check your air, we have some climbing to do. Leonora, will you keep on radio and try to raise S2." It was a command, not a request. She simply nodded.

David went ahead through the airlock on his own and started up the ladder at breakneck speed, climbing as hard as his suit would allow him and was soon far ahead of Mina and Melissa. Once in the hub, he hauled himself over on the remains of the scaffolding to reach and let himself in through the airlock on the remaining shuttle, S3, pressurised up the cabin so that he could remove his helmet and began to work through the pre-flight checks. By the time they had joined him he had discovered that the steam drive wasn't functioning. The on-board computer insisted that the hydrogen supply line to the fuel cell was blocked. It wasn't the sort of running repair that they would be able to sort out quickly.

"What if I take her out on fusion?"

"David, you can't do that. You'll melt down the bulkheads and you might blow up the main storage tanks."

"What if I take it very easy, just a series of short pulses?"

"The ship's already in a critical state. You heard what Com1 said."

"Mina, we have to do something!"

"But not anything that will finish off the ship. That way we're all likely to die."

"OK, then. How about if we push the shuttle out of the bay and turn it before starting the drive?

"How?"

"Connect a rope and pulley to it and literally haul it out like we did with the other two shuttles."

All three of them would have to leave the shuttle again, recover the lifting equipment from where it had last been used, rig it and then physically pull the shuttle out of the ship. They set about it with all haste and minimal discussion, horribly weighed down with the pressure of their companions drifting away into the void. Rigging the tackle was time consuming but then it was the work of a few minutes to start the shuttle drifting forward. Once it was clear of the bay, they transferred the pull to the nose and began turning it across the hub. It was still gently rotating as all three together crowded into the airlock. They had left the hauling line still attached but free at the pulley so that it ran through the block and S3 was drifting free from Alpha Seven.

David cautiously started up the fusion drive. The shuttle surged forward for a few seconds, then began to shake and abruptly cut out. "What's the problem?" cried out Melissa as alarm lights flashed from the control panel.

"I don't know." He tried the throttle again, S3 powered up briefly and then stalled again. "Feels like fuel failure. It must be common mode, same reason as the steam drive. Lines blocking up. We're going to have to open up the engine compartment and sort it out.

"David, we haven't had any training for this."

"Well this is the wrong time to go on a course" he responded tersely.

"Patch through to Com1 and get him to give me a checklist. Mina, can you get the radar up and try to locate S2 and the accommodation block."

Mina called over from the cockpit. "I've already located both of them. Looking for Solly, now. Only I can't find him."

"Maybe he's already drifted too far. Hasn't he switched on his emergency beacon?"

"I've got nothing either on radio or radar."

"Try calling him directly then."

"I was just going to do that."

"OK then. Leave you to it. Meanwhile" he looked up at Melissa from the engine compartment hatchway, "we should get on with this."

Despite repeated calls they were unable to raise either Solly, Evelio or Matt though they now had an accurate fix on S2 and the accommodation block which were drifting quite rapidly apart. Of Solly there was no sign. They also kept contact with an increasingly anxious Leonora who was sitting in the control room with Adam beside her. Ahmed had managed to join them, climbing unaided up the ladder and was lying, exhausted but pleased with himself on a mattress on the floor

David and Melissa, working through Com1's help menu for servicing the fusion drive were making slow progress. It looked as though the fuel cell which melted water in the main fuel tank in order to deliver it to the drive pump wasn't working properly. The cell itself was powered by liquefied hydrogen gas, delivered from an external tank which was at little above the 3 degrees K of deep space, actually as a mush of solid and liquid. A rechargeable battery warmed up the hydrogen to melt it. It seemed as though solid hydrogen or possibly traces of CO2 ice, or even water ice were blocking the intake feed to the fuel cell but heating the area with an electrical heating element which they found in the toolkit had no effect.

After numerous fruitless attempts to get the shuttle restarted, they took out the fuel cell assembly and replaced it with a spare one they found in the on-board stores inventory. David connected everything up and switched on. The result was instantaneous and devastating. Hydrogen gas had collected undetected inside the engine compartment, mixed with air from the cabin and ignited from the electrics with an ear-splitting detonation. For a couple of minutes, all three of them were completely traumatised and temporarily deafened. Through the ringing in his ears, David could barely hear Mina saying something. He was aware of acrid fumes and dust in the air, drifting out of the engine compartment, realised that he was coughing. He grabbed the cabin fire extinguisher and looked inside the engine compartment but there was no fire, not even anything smouldering. Closer inspection revealed that the damage had been remarkably little except that the fuel cell itself had been completely smashed.

He looked up, met Melissa's eyes. "Fuel cell blew up!" His voice sounded distant and he lip read her reply rather than heard it. "What can we do now?"

"Put back the original cell, reheat everything with the element and try again."

This time they fanned air through the compartment before switching on to avoid any chance of a repeat explosion. Even so, all three of them winced as David threw the switch. The fuel cell itself reported 'normal' through the onboard computer but the engine resolutely refused to start. And time was running out for Solly.

# Chapter 15

"Adam, we've got to do something!" Leonora's voice sounded despairing.

"They've been trying everything they can think of. Nothing seems to do any good. Whatever it is blocking up the fuel lines, they can't clear it."

Mina, sitting at the controls was distractedly watching the three blips around them, their disabled shuttle inexorably drifting away from it's mother ship, and drifting away too from the wrecked accommodation which was also gradually separating itself from the mute S2.

Leonora's voice came over the radio. "Mina, can you get David to talk to me."

Mina looked over to David and was about to say that he was too busy when he threw aside the wipe he had been holding and pulled himself over to the cockpit. "Leonora, we've been working on this thing for four hours now and we're no nearer to repairing it than when we started. Have you got any ideas?"

"Listen!" Mina shouted excitedly. "Listen!"

It was Matt's voice over the radio. "Can anybody hear me? Calling Alpha Seven. Calling S2. Solly? Anybody?"

"Matt, we can hear you. What's happening?"

"Is that Mina. You don't know how glad I am to hear you!"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes. I've got air to last a couple of days and all the food I can eat."

"Why haven't you called up before?"

"After it happened I went into my cabin for shelter. But then I found that my suit radio wouldn't work. I couldn't afford to waste the air so I waited until it got stale before coming outside. The accommodation block is still in one piece but I don't know how the shuttle is and I saw Solly and F3 get thrown into space."

"We can't get a response from either Solly or the shuttle. We haven't been able to pick up his beacon. Maybe he didn't switch it on."

"His radio went dead shortly afterwards. I fear the worst. He's connected to F3 on a buddy line. He was in danger of being crushed when the shuttle broke away. It was swinging about like a seesaw with Solly between it and the accommodation."

"Matt, we can't reach you. The spare shuttle's out in space as well now but the engine's not working and we don't seem to be able to fix it."

"So what can we do?"

"I don't know but we were about to have a conference about it when you came through."

"Matt!" Leonora's voice. "I'm on board the ship with Adam and Ahmed. David, Mina and Melissa are in S3, Evelio hasn't responded from S2 and we can't run it remotely because it's on manual drive which Com1 says he can't override. We are all short of ideas and time is running out for Solly. What does anybody think?"

"There's only one other way." The voice was Ahmed's. He sounded ill, even over the radio. "If Mahomet won't come to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Mahomet. One of my father's favourite expressions!"

"What do you mean?"

"We come and get you."

"That's no good." David's voice was firm, clipped. The engines have had another emergency shutdown. We have to give them a full functional check before we use them again. Anything could happen. If one exploded then it's all over for all of us. It isn't an option."

"What else is there?" Adam interjected. "If we get Com1 to just give very low power on one of the two, we should be able to manoeuvre enough to reach S2 which was working fine. Obviously something's happened to Evelio."

"I forbid it. Think of something else. Meantime, I'll get back to trying to start this." David pulled himself back to the engine compartment and reached inside for a spanner.

"I give you just one hour to start this thing, David. Then you must order Com1 to do what Ahmed said." To his astonishment, the words, full of menace, came from Melissa. She was holding a portable welding torch from the toolkit and now she turned it on, letting the flame go up to maximum for a few seconds, waved it in front of his face. "Turn it off!" he cried in sudden alarm. "Don't be stupid!"

She let it burn a few more seconds, then shut it down. "My man is out there and his friends are in terrible trouble. One hour David! I've watched you messing about in there for too long. I don't think you really know what you're doing."

He stared her out. "You wouldn't use that thing, F4. And as long as I'm leader of this expedition we won't be starting the main drives. Got it?"

She stared back, anger burning in her eyes but rendered speechless by his response.

Mina's voice made her jump. "She might not, but I won't hesitate." She had put on her helmet and her voice was coming through the radio. I will vent the air."

David let himself float slowly up until his head touched the ceiling. He stared at, first Mina, then Melissa with withering scorn in his voice. "Kill me and you kill everybody. Solly first, then your precious M4 and eventually all the others. Because the hibernation units are all out there in space. Grow up girlies and just do what you're told!"

Silent in the cabin of the shuttle they stared at each other, Mina in defiance, Melissa in anger and loathing, David with an arrogant sneer. This crackling tableau of animus was interrupted by Adam's voice coming in over the radio. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. We rely on you out there to get that shuttle going. David is so far right. We shouldn't run up even one of the main engines except as a last resort. Only if it comes to it, then that we have to do. If you can't get going in an hour I'm going to suggest that we have no choice. Right, David?"

"I'll let you know. Now don't any of you distract me." He floated back to the engine compartment, swore silently at the maze of electronics and electrics within and connected up his test meter.

Mina and Melissa looked at each other. Mina shrugged. Melissa wept silently. Time passed.

"Turn it on." David looked up at Mina who operated the throttle. The shuttle juddered a few times, then ran smoothly and powerfully forward. A great smile of triumph spread over his features. "Hand it over to Com1. Tell him to set course to S2."

Mina repeated the commands, threw the switch over to auto. "All yours Com1" she said with sudden cheerfulness.

"Negative!" Com1's inevitably smooth tones sounded through the speakers. "The power supply is uncontrollable and operating at 96% of full power. I cannot stop it."

"The hell you can't!" David was holding on against the acceleration. "Why can't you?"

"My sensors indicate a malfunction in the power controls. I recommend stopping by shutting down the fuel supply and running a diagnostic check on the power circuitry."

"Damn it, useless bloody computer. Go switch yourself off!"

He reached down into the engine compartment, ignoring Com1's suggestion that he take an isotonic drink and carry out a standard exercise routine to reduce his stress level. He turned the fuel shutoff valve with a savage twist and S3 once more became weightless, now further than ever away from the ship, hope and their stranded and increasingly desperate companions. Despite herself and the awfulness of their plight, Melissa felt a twinge of pleasure at David's cutting down to size.

"Can you control it by cracking open the valve?" she suggested.

He looked at her with a strange mix of emotions, anger, loathing, embarrassment. "Yes." He said after a while. "Good idea. Yes, let's give it a go!"

He cracked open the valve, nodded to Mina who put the controls back to manual and ran up the throttle. The shuttle's engines responded jerkily, throwing them about inside the cabin. He gripped on with one hand and struggled with the valve settings with the other. The fuel supply was hunting, he didn't seem able to find a setting other than full throttle at which they could fly smoothly.

"Turn her around" he shouted at Mina, we've got to get back."

"I'm trying, damn you!" Mina locked her concentration on to the instruments, operated the controls and managed to get S2 back on to a return course. "I can't control it!" she cried in vexation. "We might end up colliding with the ship. It's too dangerous. Turn it off!"

David angrily closed the valve and pulled himself forward into the cockpit. The radar showed them closing rapidly on the little cluster of blips at the centre of the screen. Now they were on to a collision course, the shuttle had become an uncontrollable ballistic missile, hurtling back home at alarming speed. "Mina, I'll open it up again, steer us on to a safe course."

Once more he worked the fuel valve and once more the engine emitted a pulse of power which Mina used to deflect them away from danger. He pulled himself back to the cockpit one more time, got into the copilot's chair and strapped himself in. He stared morosely at the radar screen as if trying to make up his mind then spoke into the radio.

"Adam, we can't control the engines. If you try to run up the main drives it will be the same problem. We can't manoeuvre. We're going to end up crashing into everything we approach. I just have to try again, only I can't..." He left the words unfinished and just sat, staring at his hands. Mina looked at Melissa who was about to say something vitriolic and shook her head. S3 drifted amongst the stars and her crew of three drifted with her, numb with helplessness.

David was crying.

********************************************

Solly opened his eyes. The pitiless backdrop of brilliant pinpoints of light against the inky blackness of space had become unbearable but then, so had the inner darkness of his closed eyelids. He was paralysed with terror at the awfulness of his isolation, his situation worsened, 'if that were possible' he pondered, by the failure of his distress beacon, it's battery running down after only a few minutes of operation. He had given up calling on his radio. Nobody had replied and he had heard no other radio traffic amongst the others. He wondered if his radio had lost power as well. That at least was better than the awful alternative, that there was nobody alive out there to respond or hear him. He was alone. Even F3's silent presence made no difference. She, like him was destined to die silently here with him only without ever knowing anything about it. 'Hibernating persons don't even dream', he reflected sadly. 'She would simply pass away into the infinity of death!'

He turned on his suit light and studied her. Waxen with the colour of the hibernated, she was still stunningly beautiful. His despair was softened by gazing into her face, surrounded by the golden halo of her hair. It seemed so terrible and so pointless that such a beauty should die alone out here. And he didn't even know her name.

He looked once more out into the vast starry blackness. It was both magnificent and terrifying, the ultimate in unblinking, star-studded emptiness, the constellations at once infinitely distant and at the same time seeming to be just beyond the end of his outstretched, gloved fingers. Completely unchanging, motionless. Only there a star blinked out! He thought he had imagined it but then it winked on again. It suddenly acquired an enormous importance for him as something that changed in that unblinking, timeless void. He counted up to thirteen and it winked out again. Eight seconds later it returned, winking like a lighthouse with metronomic repetitiveness – thirteen, eight, thirteen, eight....

Was it a distant pulsar? If so then it was a binary because it had a dim nearby companion which did the same. He was watching a wonder of space. They would have named it after him only nobody would ever know that he had seen it. The thought brought tears of anguish into his eyes, reminding him of the hopelessness of his position.

"Anybody? Evelio, Matt, David, Com1! Anybody! Come in please! Somebody's got to be able to hear me." He continued to stare at the winking star, now through tear-blurred eyes. 'Perhaps this damned star is the beginning of madness. Perhaps I will go out of my mind before I die. Damn it star, I'm coming to find you" and he turned the rocket pack in the opposite direction and recklessly fired off half the remaining contents before he made himself stop. 'Don't waste it Solly, you never know, you might need it. If only I could play some music. If only there was something to break into this silence.' He closed his wet eyes again, contracted into self pity and terrifying loneliness.

"And so will I die' he thought.

Loneliness forced his eyes to open once more. He had made himself keep them closed for as long as he could bear it but now he needed the remote companionship of the stars that it seemed his destiny to join. He looked, then stared uncomprehending. About a third of the sky had gone. It was inky black, no, extremely faintly starlit. It was the shuttle!

His heart pounded with the shock of realisation. He was rushing towards it and it was growing bigger even as he took in it's great size, it was so close. He might collide with it! He turned his suit lights on and there it was, lit up for him to see. It was turning fairly rapidly on it's axis and at the same time slowly tumbling end over end. It looked as though he was going to impact with it towards the stern. He turned the rocket pack and gave a short blast, then another and another. He had almost stopped beside it but the wing was rolling down over him and he gave another panic-stricken pulse of power to propel himself out of harms way so that he began to drift astern of it.

The shuttle's complicated motion made it difficult for him to see how to approach it, but approach it he must and approach it he would, because he was going to survive! He was going to make it and bring F3 home safely with him. His heart sang with a great surge of joy. He had beaten the odds. He was going to make it! His brain was working with the overtime of the adrenaline rush as he used a series of tiny pulses from the rocket pack to steer himself over and above the hull, between the turning wings, then down on to the open airlock door that he had emerged from a lifetime ago. There was the frayed end of the terylene line which had been his guide when the side of the shuttle had become a vertical pitch and now it was in his grasp!

He carefully pulled himself into the welcoming confines of the airlock and drew F3 in behind him. He closed the outer door with immense relief and operated the pressurisation switch. By the time it had run up to cabin pressure and he could slide the inner open, he was trembling uncontrollably with relief. He unclipped F3 and drew himself gratefully inside the illuminated interior. He had survived!

He took off his helmet and looked around. A hibernation cubicle was blocking the way into the cockpit but this he moved easily in the weightless conditions, revealing Evelio's limp body hung over the back of the pilot's seat. He lifted him up and rolled him on to his back on the cabin floor. His face was covered in dried blood from a wound above his eye, just below the hairline and there was stale vomit on the front of his space suit. Solly checked and found a pulse at his neck. Confirmed he was breathing. Lifted an eyelid which showed a dilated pupil which contracted when his suit light shone into it. Evelio felt a bit cold, maybe mildly hypothermic, but his condition was so far stable and there wasn't much he could immediately do for him.

He left him lying there, climbed into the pilot seat, switched the controls over to automatic and instructed the computer to stabilise it. The uncomfortable rolling motion stopped almost immediately, the starfield outside becoming static in his view.

Solly switched on the radio. "S2 calling Alpha Seven. Come in please"

# Chapter 16

The mood of the expedition became positively manic when they heard Solly call from S2. Even the news of Evelio's injury and current concussed state could not suppress them. David, suddenly relieved of his terrible burden of responsibility, flicked up some circuit diagrams on the shuttle's VDU, cried out "aha!" and went back to the engine compartment. Moments later he called out to Mina. "Start her up!" One more time she opened S3's throttle and this time the shuttle accelerated smoothly forward, she ran it up to full power and S3 surged sweetly away.

"Put her on to automatic. Let Com1 set us a course to intercept the accommodation." He emerged from the hatchway with a broad smile. "I had two leads crossed over, that was all."

In a matter of minutes, Com1 had brought both shuttles alongside the derelict accommodation and Matt was waiting for them with mooring lines already deployed to prepare for the completion of the salvage phase of the operation. With no further ado, they transferred the remaining cubicles over until there were six to each shuttle, the hibernating F5 and M10 being loaded into S3 along with F3. It was then only a matter of transferring a few more useful items and they departed the wrecked accommodation block for the last time. Less than one hour after Solly had regained S2, Com1 working on autopilot docked the two shuttles back in their bays and they were all safely home.

Evelio had to be transported via the elevator but this was neatly achieved by sending up Ahmed as a counterweight. David and Mina were waiting for him, while the others were making the inevitable laborious descent back to H2.

"We wanted you to come up and see how we have rigged up the shuttles." He offered by way of explanation. Ahmed was physically weak and now disorientated by weightlessness so they had to assist him on board S3, to show him the recumbent figures in the hibernation cubicles. As soon as they were through inside the airlock and could take off their space helmets, David came to the point.

"I didn't want to talk to you in front of everybody, Ahmed." David looked him squarely in the eyes. "Your health seems to be holding up now but you could easily relapse and get pneumonia. You know that could knock you right back, in fact it could be life threatening."

"You want to hibernate me, don't you? That's why you got me to come up here, isn't it?"

David nodded. "We're all hibernating soon enough but there's still some preparation to be done and we have to get the ship's main drives up again. It's going to take some time but you won't have to worry about it, you'll be resting."

Ahmed was weak and pale, but his voice was quite determined. "Rehibernating isn't good for any of us. It was always an emergency option. So it's more dangerous for me. I've had plenty of time to think about this while I've been lying about, I'm getting better now so I should risk a relapse and leave it as long as possible. That would be when we all go together, isn't it?"

"Well, I'm the leader now, Ahmed. I have to take decisions. Believe me, this is better for you. Really!" He nodded to Mina over Ahmed's shoulder and she injected the hypodermic syringe into his neck, squeezing the plunger at the same time. He was completely taken by surprise and the anaesthetic acted almost immediately. He started to say something but his mouth went slack before he could articulate his anger, his eyes closed and now he was floating limply inside the cabin of the shuttle.

David smiled at Mina. "That was brilliant, Nurse Mina. It's better for him."

"No it isn't, David. You can't kid me. Ahmed was exactly right in what he said. So why were you so anxious to put him down?"

"Just you and me, Mina? Just between us? He was like some kind of albatross hanging around my neck. Reminding everybody with his sick presence that it was my mistake that did it to him."

"Well, it was, David. It was your fault and you can't deny it."

"Don't think I haven't agonised about it. M8 died because of it but he's gone now into space along with all the other casualties so it's only this one that reminds them all that I got it wrong. And I'm their leader. Your leader, Mina!"

She gave him a sudden flash of a smile. "I wouldn't really have vented the cabin, David. I love you!"

He felt a great warmth inside and his heart beat so hard inside his breast that it felt as if it would burst. "Oh, Mina! If only I could...."

She looked away, her face flushed. "We've got to undress him. Help me!"

Without any further words they wrestled the awkward space suit off him, peeled off the fleece and then his underclothes, rolled them into a bundle and stuffed them under one of the cubicles. He looked dreadfully emaciated and pale from his recurrent sicknesses. They were about to put him next to F3 when Mina recalled that Solly wanted to be beside her, so they placed him in the next one beside nobody for the time being. Once his poor skeletal body was secured and the lid lowered, they activated the link to Com1 and let him begin the process of taking Ahmed down into hibernation.

David took Mina's arms and floated her against him. He kissed her gently on the mouth. "My darling little Mina" he said gently. "We're going to have to do something about" he hesitated, breathed in and said simply "sex!"

She nodded, gazed into his eyes. "Be sure to let me know when you've got any ideas, won't you!"

********************************************

Evelio was semi-conscious by the time they had got him into H2. As Adam and Leonora had wrestled him out of his suit and laid him out on a mattress he had begun rambling incoherently. Adam organised Com1 into diagnostic mode and taped various sensors to him while Leonora gently sponged the area around his wound. It was a longish gash and capillary bleeding had spread bruising down the side of his face so that he had a horrendous looking black eye and cheek. Coupled with dark, dried blood matting his hair, clogging the inside of his ear and soaked into the collar of his fleece, he looked a desperate sight. To make matters worse, he was starting to thrash about with his arms and legs and it was taking both of them just to keep him lying down on the mattress. By the time she had concluded that she was going to have to stitch his wound and that they were going to need help in restraining him, Matt, Melissa and Solly had emerged through the airlock in time to assist.

They had to hold him still while she closed up the gaping gash, assisted by Melissa and thinking that she seemed to have been doing too much of this lately. 'We have been taking far too many casualties" she thought grimly. 'At this rate it's only a question of time and chance before somebody else gets killed. And there are so few of us!'

Despite three of them holding him, he was still moving his head from side to side too much for her to make the next stitch. "Hold him still!" she snapped at Solly who was trying to hold his head steady but at the same time not to touch him anywhere near the site of his injuries. She managed to make the next one, noting that Evelio was now flinching with pain. "Another needle!" she ordered Melissa sharply, even though she was actually already holding out to her.

"Getting to be a right little Prima Donna, aren't you" observed Matt who was restraining his arms and upper body.

She held the needle out, thrusting it to within inches of his face. "You do it then!" she snarled.

"Only joking! Christ, Leonora. Just ease up a bit!"

She looked away, bit her lip, made the stitch, the last in a straight row of ten and it was completed. "There!" she said, outwardly making a show of confidence. "Pretty neat if I say so myself. What does Com1 think?"

Adam was reading data from the local module that they had originally set up when Evelio was first injured and which also had been so useful in supporting Adam's traumatic accident. "He's going to be OK. No abnormalities in his brainwaves. Blood pressure, pulse rate and breathing all within what they should be. We don't know if he's cracked his skull without an X-ray but the indications are that he hasn't.

"How do we treat him, Com1?"

Com1 opted to put up a screenful of instructions:

'nil by mouth;

set up a glucose drip, one litre every two hours for four hours;

monitor blood pressure, pulse, breathing , temperature;

restrain movements;

observe eye movement, report if dilated;

keep under continual observation for 24 hours;

it is considered good therapy to talk to the casualty even if they appear to be asleep or are comatose.'

Leonora stood up, feeling unsteady and emotionally exhausted. "Could you organise a rota to sit by him? I need a bit of a break."

She had wandered off to the ladder, climbed up into the control room and then gone to their tent in H3. Adam followed her as soon as they had settled Evelio and Melissa had agreed to take first shift with him so that Solly and Matt could have a rest and unwind from their ordeal at the accommodation block. She was sitting by the pool, head in hands, emotionally wrung out, crying uncontrollably. He knelt by her, put his arms around her and hugged her to him. "It's alright Eve, darling. It's alright now. We're going to be alright!"

She nodded and leaned against him, let him rock her gently like a baby, run his hands through her hair and sooth her until her trauma passed.

At length she looked through puffy red eyes into his blue ones. "I know it will be OK now. Dear Adam. I'm sorry I'm being such a wimp."

He smiled, ruffled her hair, kissed her on the mouth. "Eve, my Eve! You're no weakling. You're stronger than any of us. But you need to rest now, why don't you have a lie down in the tent and I'll go and give Melissa a hand with Evelio."

# Chapter 17

David had called a conference for 12.00 hours the next standard day and now at the appointed time they had gathered together around Evelio's mattress, a sombre little group. David looked around at his ragged band of expeditionaries and thought how well they had done against all that the situation had thrown at them. There was Adam, still weak from that terrible injury, Leonora sitting beside him on the grass, her arm through his. She looked drawn, as well she might, with the strain of leading the nursing effort. He thought of her as being the leader of the 'girls' ('girlies' he recalled with a twinge of embarrassment). Mina was sitting on the other side of him, gazing steadily back at himself, bringing a momentary smile to his lips. Mina! His but not his! Adam's, according to their pre-programming, though neither of them knew it. And Leonora, beautiful, blossoming F1, even though she looked so tired, Adam's but not Adams. His! His to savour. His to initiate when the moment was right. Only she didn't know it either.

On the other side of Evelio, Melissa and Matt snuggled together, a bonded pair within a world of their own, looking on at the proceedings together. For them the programming had been perfect, preordained though neither of them knew it. Only he knew it! David savoured the knowledge, deliciously stored up as his alone, part of his power base, part of his leadership. And just one other, standing behind them. Solly, lonely Solly who didn't know that the deeply hibernating F3, whom he had saved from the wastes of free space, was destined for him. Only she wasn't because she wasn't going to be coming out of hibernation.

Then there was Evelio. They had cleaned the dried blood off him but they couldn't wash away the black and blue of bruising all down one side of his head and face. He was coherent now. The effects of concussion were fading and Com1 had (reluctantly, insofar as he did not recommend it but did not on the other hand say he mustn't) allowed him two ibuprofen tablets to suppress his headache which he said was just a dull pain now. He was laid back, propped on two pillows, not opening his eyes a lot, though he was answering questions and taking an interest in what was going on.

"So here we all are" began David.

"Not all of us", Solly reminded him. "You hibernated Ahmed."

"It was better all round."

"So you say."

"So I do say. Anyway, he is now hibernated so that isn't an issue, is it?

David had set up his projector and now turned it on to show the original action plan which he had created. "Just to remind us where we are on the plan." He said. "Despite everything that went wrong, we are well inside schedule for the work. Which is good because now we have some extra things to handle. First and most important is the main drives. We have to inspect the combustion chambers and do any repairs if they are needed. I'm hoping we don't have to" he added "because anything like that will put us on the limits of our technical capability and is likely to take weeks to do."

Nobody said anything so he continued. "I had Com1 run through a structural analysis of the ship. He does not recommending running up the drives unless the gimbals to the medical and observatory blocks have been repaired and also he has made up some drawings for structural stiffening around some critical bulkheads." He clicked on his mouse and the screen showed up some diagrams of the hub with coloured overlays illustrating where extra plates needed to be fitted.

"What do we do for materials?" asked Adam. "We had pretty well used up the girders and stuff from the stores when we fixed the engine compartment."

"Com1 wasn't very helpful about that. We're going to have to have a look around and see what there is. Like some of the redundant scaffolding in the shuttle bay."

"How about the accommodation block and spoke? There must be quite a bit we can cut away and reuse from there."

David nodded. "Maybe. Though I'd rather not ever see it again."

"What do we do about the gimbals?"

He clicked on his mouse again and brought up a view of a gimbal unit. Zoomed into closeup on a switchbox. Zoomed inside and showed the control gear and pipework. "We will need to inspect them. It could be minor damage causing the hydraulics to leak, in which case we just have to patch up the holes and repressurise the bearings with fresh hydraulic fluid from the stores. I'm hoping that's all."

"Do we know if we've got any? There was quite a loss of fuel and stuff from the meteorite damage."

"I did a nominal check with Com1 and he says there is enough to refill all four gimbals but we'll have to go and physically check it out. So that's a critical point. If we can't fix the gimbal units, it may be too dangerous to accelerate the ship."

Leonora looked up from where she had been studying the diagram on the screen. "What if we can't fix them? All our plans devolve on being able to slow the ship down by the time we get to our destination. What happens if we have to start the drives without?"

David locked eyes with her. "Alpha Seven will probably break up completely", he said grimly. "But we can get back home eventually, even if we can't use the drives again, it'll take a lot longer that's all. Which doesn't matter either because we'll all be hibernating."

"So you keep saying." Leonora's stare had become positively baleful. "But just remember, David, you can be voted out of leadership in about a week from now and..." she forced herself on through whatever he was going to argue back "...why don't we vote again. I think we should go on, not just hibernate and run back home again because the going got a bit rough."

"A bit rough!" This from Evelio who suddenly opened his eyes and turned to her. "I nearly get killed twice already, Anatoly is dead, Ahmed as good as dead, Adam was lucky not be killed, David got hurt and even you've told us that Adam saved your life twice!"

"And don't forget me" chimed in Solly. "Only by the merest lucky chance am I still here!"

For a moment, Leonora was taken aback by the vehemence of their outburst. "But you went through all that and now you want to chuck in the towel?"

"Hold on, Leonora!" To her astonishment, then anger this last came from Adam. "This isn't about giving up, this is about saving what's left of us!"

"So there it is, F1" David sneered. "Yes, let's have another vote on it. Those in favour?" He lifted his hand and waved it cheerily. Solly did the same, Evelio from his mattress, Mina from Adam's other side.

"Those against?" Adam hesitated, lifted his hand. There was an awful silence as she looked around them. "I take it you two abstain?" said David turning towards Melissa and Matt.

Leonora slowly stood up, looked around at each of them in turn and then said with appalling clarity "I'm pregnant. Hibernation will kill my baby." And she walked away into the forest.

********************************************

"She's lying isn't she?" he said to Adam. He was completely taken aback and couldn't help the words coming out. Adam had already gone an unhealthy colour and now he stood up without replying and headed after her.

"Why should she be lying?" Melissa's words were an accusation. "We haven't been using anything, either. I could just as easily be pregnant, too!"

David was staring into a block vote that could endanger his leadership and abort his planned hibernation and return, the only sane option open to them if they wanted a chance to survive. If they voted against him, it would only take one other to turn. Maybe Mina? Mina who loved him but Mina whom he was not allowed to love in return. He could be in trouble!

"She couldn't be" he replied. "I just know she couldn't. She doesn't look pregnant, does she" he added lamely.

"So how's she supposed to look, David? Do I look pregnant. Do we suddenly look different. You're talking bullshit and you know it."

"Melissa, all of you. Look, we don't stand a chance if we go on with the mission. If we don't get killed trying to steer this wreck into a parking orbit around some unknown planet, there aren't enough of us to make a colony work? Are there? Besides, even if you are both pregnant and you lose your foetuses you can just as easily start again if that's what you want and that would be in safely back at home, not on some dodgy frontier operation. Come on, get real!"

Melissa stood up, too. "I don't think there's anything else to say, is there?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What that means to me David is that I don't want to discuss this any further right now. I'm going to think things over. Are you coming, Matt?"

He shook his head. "We've got some work to plan, whatever else. Everything depends on patching up the ship, regardless. I'll join you in a while."

They were down to the hard core now. Adam hadn't been fit anyway and Evelio was clearly going to need a few days rest as well which left just David, Solly and Matt to begin the task of getting Alpha Seven on the move again.

"So what do we do first, Boss?" enquired Solly. "Just so long as I don't have to go EVA again. At least, for a while!"
Chapter 18

"It's a bit difficult to get used to the idea" said Adam.

Leonora looked at him thoughtfully. "It must have been just the right moment."

"Are you really sure you're pregnant?"

"There's a test kit in the medical stuff. There isn't any doubt about it, the result was a big positive colour reaction."

"Are you pleased?"

"Surely you don't need to ask? So I'm damned if he is going to hibernate us and risk killing off my little miracle. Our little miracle!"

"We don't seem to have much choice. They were all against us."

"Adam, who's side are you on? You're beginning to sound like David. I wouldn't mind betting that Melissa and Matt are having second thoughts as well. Then it only needs one other person to change his mind and we've broken his power base."

"We would need to choose a new leader. Who do you think it should be?"

"Well, you, of course! You're the natural choice. And I can be your First Lady!"

She leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Their eyes met. Adam looked away.

"We need to keep trying, Adam. We've got to learn how to defeat whatever it is."

"I'm still not very well, yet. And I get so sick, Leonora. I can't fight it, it's too powerful."

"Eve!" She tried to smile. "You forgot to call me 'Eve'

********************************************

They had organised day and night in the hydroponica by getting the local computer to switch off some of the lighting over their sleeping area. They had even set up a dimmer so that it appeared to be more natural. And it even attracted the birds to come and roost in the nearby bushes and trees. Leonora felt herself beginning to relax even though at times her physical frustration with Adam would cause her to flare up with sudden anger and she would snap at him.

Her only sexual experience had been profoundly unsatisfactory, though the outcome of it brought her a sense of great happiness and a certain amount of pleasure in the thought that she had created her own destiny and started off her own family. But they were no nearer to understanding why they were being prevented from having sexual relations. There seemed to be no sense in it, especially as Matt and Melissa were clearly much in love and therefore not prevented from doing what nature meant them to do. She wondered about David and Mina. She suspected from their behaviour towards each other that there wasn't a lot going on between them either. One of these days she was going to have to have a chat to her.

But not today, not this evening. The lights were dimming down. The frogs were making a little chorus of croaks and the birds were chattering to each other as they prepared to roost for the night. She wondered if there were any bats. She had never seen any but maybe she had never looked.

Adam had brought their supper over from the meal service console and they sat quietly side by side and ate it. By the time they had finished, it was as dark as it ever got with only a background glow of the peripheral lighting. There were no stars visible through the canopy above them but she didn't seem to mind that.

"And so to bed!" Adam yawned and went inside the tent. She sighed. He said that every night now. She pulled off her undies and climbed inside alongside his naked body. She was acutely aware of him with all her aching senses, but they just turned away from each other and lay back to back in the small space, together but growing gradually further apart. She sighed again. It was going to be a long time before she fell asleep.

********************************************

Mina appeared from among the bushes. "Hello, strangers. I haven't seen you for three days! What have you been up to?"

Leonora looked up and smiled. She was sat by the pond, wearing just her knickers. Her breasts had swelled somewhat and her nipples had become fuller and noticeably tender, more evidence, if she needed it, of her pregnancy. She knew that it looked erotic and it certainly felt like it, she avoided touching herself, it was too distracting. Adam was lying face up on the bank nearby staring up at the canopy, the still-livid gash across his abdomen startlingly red just above his regulation pants.

"We've been taking it easy. Him", glancing towards Adam, "because he is convalescing and me because, well, you know! I'm going to be a mum."

"Well, that's fine with me! Anyhow, the workers are having a day off today so we thought we might all have a get-together this evening in H2. So I'm here to invite you."

Adam sat up. "Great! It was beginning to get a bit boring around here."

Leonora flashed an angry glance at him. "Oh, no! I didn't mean it like that. Sorry!" His face reddened and he looked down at his lap.

"Oh, and David said while I was here that he wanted to have a word with you, Leonora!"

She looked up, suspiciously. "What about?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask him."

"Perhaps I'll do just that, especially as it's rather dull around here." She stood up, picked up her bra and walked off without a backward glance.

"What was that all about, Adam?"

He looked up, shrugged his shoulders. "She's been in a bit of a mood lately. Maybe it's something to do with having a baby."

********************************************

David was sitting by the identical pond in H1. He smiled. "By god, you're a looker, Leonora! Why don't you come and sit down." He patted the grass beside him. She looked down at him and felt somehow angry with him. And something else.

"What do you want to talk to me about, David? Have you changed your mind."

"Sit down and let's discuss it."

She did as she was bid. They were half a metre apart and she realised with a sudden insight what the something else was. She wanted him. She wanted him and her body was aching for it. The miserable frustration of Adam's constant but impotent presence had been building up inside her for days and she was about to burst with the angst of it. She had become aware of her breathing, knew that her face was reddening. He looked straight into her eyes. "You won't make me sick, Leonora!"

"What do you mean?" Her words came out almost as if part of some kind of ritual.

"Because you were meant for me!"

"Meant for you?" He had reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. She shuddered.

"Preordained." His hands were sliding down over her breasts, sending a surge of want through her. Her mouth was open and her breath was coming faster.

"I want you to change your mind, David"

He paused, the palms of his hands rounding under her nipples which were standing up taughtly through the thin fabric of her bra. "There's no way, Leonora!"

She stiffened, despite herself and the agony of yearning that was beginning to consume her. She lifted his hands away, then with a swift movement pulled her bra off. His eyes were devouring her, his own breath coming swiftly now, his face reddening as his raw want began to overpower his senses.

"Would it make you change your mind if I let you?"

He made no answer, put his hands back on to her shoulders and began to press her backwards and down. She yielded, let herself lie back until her shoulders were touching the soft ground, then locked eyes with him. It was the sudden leer of triumph that changed her. In a flash, she realised that he wasn't going to give anything away, that he thought he could do whatever he liked with her. That he couldn't care less about her baby. That he would like it to die because it wasn't his. That all he cared about was possessing her, making her his harlot! Want died inside her. She stiffened, he pressed harder and rolled on top, pinning her down, his knees forced between her thighs, pushing them apart. She could feel his hard thrusting erection pressing down, escaped through the fly of his shorts but held from penetrating her only by the thin fabric of her knickers.

"No!" she gasped.

"You're mine. Mine alone. That's why I know you're not pregnant"

"I'm not yours!" she spat back at him.

"Oh, but you are. Programmed, Leonora." He was gasping the words now with the effort it took to hold her down. "Me and nobody else. Ever!"

"Don't believe you. I am pregnant."

"You can't be! It's only me. I'm the one who won't get sick. The only one!"

"You're lying."

"Oh, but I'm not. Only me. Ever! Me or nobody. Me, Leonora!"

It had become an impasse. She was almost as strong as he was so that he couldn't spare a hand to reach down and pull her knickers away. His hot breath was in her face, his eyes slitted with lust, the veins standing out on his neck. They wrestled there silently for what felt like forever. She knew that in the end he would be too strong for her and that he was eventually going to win as her resistance weakened.

She was going to be raped!

It was something remembered. A puzzle locked in the back of her mind, in this dire moment suddenly broken through to the surface. "Why did you vent M10's cabin?" she demanded.

"Lessen the competition!" The one phrase, uttered spontaneously, but he was distracted.

"You wanted to murder him!" She rolled her trunk sideways to free her right arm and hit him in the side of the face as hard as she could. He grunted and rocked to one side, lost his grip. She wriggled out from under him and ran, sobbing hysterically, for the ladder and the hatchway into the control room. She slammed the lid down, but she couldn't lock it. "Damn him!" she cried aloud. He had been caught once and he had fixed it so that he would never be caught like that again. She dragged in a deep, almost choking gasp and fled for home, to H2, to Adam and safety.

As she landed on the grass in H2, falling from the last step on the ladder, she was aware of pain in her hand where she had hit him. She staggered to her feet, absently sucked at her scraped and bleeding knuckles and entered the forest. As soon as the undergrowth enclosed her she felt suddenly safer, stopped where she was, leaned forward and concentrated on bringing her breathing back under control. As well as the hand, there was pain in her side and she saw three long red scratches alongside her left breast where she had caught herself in her frenzied run to safety. Or was it David, clawing at her as she struggled to get away from him. She couldn't remember.

Her pulse rate had begun to fall back as the adrenaline rush subsided. She was feeling woozy and faintly sick. Her groin ached. Everything ached. Slowly now she made her way home. She realised that he wasn't going to pursue her here.

She could hear Mina before she reached the clearing. Crying? Moaning? She pushed aside the bushes and stopped dead, utterly stunned. Not 3metres away from where she stood, Adam was on top of her. Mina was on her back, arms wrapped around his shoulders, his hips and thighs were thrusting rhythmically as he pumped into her, his big, glistening penis visible each time he pulled back. As Leonora watched in an uncomprehending haze, she wrapped her legs around his thighs and lifted herself up to him, crying out with the surging pang of orgasm, Adam let out a deep groan and then sagged forward and down on top of her.

Mina had turned her head sideways and found herself looking at Leonora's white, distraught face for a shocking instant before she turned away and fled.

"Adam!" she whimpered, but Leonora was gone.

********************************************

She didn't know how she had got there. Her mind was completely numb. She was utterly traumatised and her body was operating on some kind of autopilot. She no longer had a home. There was no place for her, anywhere. She had got into her space suit and climbed the spoke into the weightlessness of the hub and now she was in the shuttle bay. Even here, she realised, he could pursue her, he could have followed her down and even now, not be far behind her, only a few landings higher up.

She wasn't afraid, she was far beyond that but she just wanted to run and hide. She wanted to find somewhere to collapse inside herself and come to terms with the agony in her heart. But now she could not allow herself the luxury of giving way. There seemed to be nowhere to run to but run she must so she went down the nearest spoke, falling into the rhythm of the climb as her weight increased with the distance and remoteness from the centre of the ship. She was about half way there when she stepped out on to the next landing to find herself looking beyond the broken off stump of the ladder and a big drop to where the broken stiles of the rest of it pointed back up to her. She recognised this place from David's description of it. This was where he had turned back on his way to the medical centre, deeming it to be too dangerous to attempt to climb down on the wreckage left by a meteorite strike.

She studied it with the eyes of desperation. Something inside her decided that turning back was no option. Below the top rung it was a long stretch to take a foothold on the edge of the ragged hole torn through the metalwork of the spoke. From there she would have to seek handholds and make the climb down to the other end of the broken ladder some metres below. It was a desperate climb but she was beyond despair. She stretched her leg down until she got a toehold on the edge of the hole, took hold on the lowest rung with her injured right hand and stretched her left hand over to the stump of a wall bracket, flailed her right leg around until she got some sort of grip on another projection, almost doing the splits. From there, she could reach over and jam the snaphook of her buddy line into another, smaller hole level with her waist to give herself some fall protection. Although she only weighed about 0.5g it was still a daunting reach from there to move a foot over on to a bit of a ledge formed by the twisted remnant of one of the ladder brackets and she could lower herself down, move her bad hand to another hole in the wall and the line was starting to take up slack.

"I know where you are F1. Com1 is monitoring your every move."

She screamed as the voice sounded in her suit radio and she lost grip, fell until the buddy line brought her up with breath-jarring savagery and she was swinging on the end, eyes blinded with tears, pulse banging in her ears, on the verge of vomiting.

"Damn you to hell!" she snarled, fumbling with her hand to find the 'off' switch. She caught the hole with her hand and then took a foothold, resting until she had enough strength to climb again. She reversed the previous manoeuvres until the line had gone loose and could be unclipped, wriggled the snaphook free and was able to clip it on again level with her foot, using the same bracket. There were no more easy footholds below, she somehow slithered down, finding hand grips only until the line had tightened again and she could just get a foot on the top rung. This was the defining moment. She could reach up and unclip, poke her gloved finger into a small hole in the wall at shoulder level, release her other hand and lower herself delicately until she could stand one foot on the top rung then lower the other behind the ladder until she could hook it into the back of the next rung down and take a leg-lock. From there she had to carefully hold balance, keep her back straight and lower herself into a sitting posture, grip both hands on to the top rung, level with her foot, then lower it until she could swing the other leg back over and she was safe! She climbed the rest of the way down with shaking arms and legs to slump exhausted on the next landing.

From there it was just a wearying plod to the airlock and she entered the medical centre. She realised at once that the place was a wreck. It had been shot through with holes. She was faced with a random tangle of metalwork, cables and bits of plastic, grimly reminiscent of the destruction in the accommodation block. She made her way carefully around. Everything seemed to be in a hopeless mess but towards the far end she found a chamber which appeared to be intact. She opened the door and went inside. It was not unlike her own little cabin in the long-gone accommodation and in some atavistic way it brought her comfort. There was an emergency air supply and she operated it, though she had to wait for a few minutes while the fuel cell ran up, boiled the liquid air in the tank before passing it through a secondary heater and delivering it at breathable temperature into the room.

She took off her helmet, gasped as the still frigid air entered her lungs and a cloud of condensation from her breath turned into tiny ice crystals and spread out around her. She made herself breathe steadily, made herself just wait until the air and the lining of the room heated up and she could wrestle off her oversuit. She was in a recovery room. There was a bed and numerous surgical bits and pieces, monitors, consoles and the trappings of a modern medical facility.

But it was the bed that she wanted. She pulled back the duvet cover and lay down on the mattress, pulling it over herself. It was chilly even through her undersuit but it soon warmed with her body until she was comfortable and then, only then did she let herself go into the anguish of grief.

Leonora, F1, not Eve anymore, wept her heart out in the little cabin until she was emotionally empty and fell into a deep exhausted sleep.

# Chapter 19

Adam hadn't realised. He was lying heavily across her, his face buried in the side of her neck, his breath warm in her ear. Mina's body was glowing with pleasure in the aftermath of that great, overwhelming orgasm, followed seconds later by the warm spurts of Adam's ejaculation, deep inside her. She closed her eyes, the memory of their lovemaking rerunning through her mind, her body tingling with joy. He was still inside her, slackened now following his own release, but she wanted to keep him there until he was ready again which was going to be very soon, as long as she didn't say anything. But she remembered...

"What was that all about, Adam?"

"She's been in a bit of a mood lately. Maybe it's something to do with having a baby."

"Or maybe not?"

"What do you mean?"

She had sat beside him on the grass, so close to him that their arms were in contact, and looked directly into his eyes. His face had reddened but he hadn't looked away.

"David said that I wouldn't make you sick. She makes you get ill, doesn't she?"

He had nodded. "It's the same with David and me. He can't do it with me. But you can, Adam!"

"How does he know? How do you know?"

"Because he's got leader status and Com1 told him so." She had leaned closer to him.

"Kiss me, Adam." And he had kissed her, mouth open, lips pressing hard against lips, his tongue touching hers, then pushing in between her lips. A long, passionate, erotic kiss that had left them both gasping. She had pulled off her regulation bra, feeling instantly and fantastically excited. "Kiss my breasts!" she had demanded, taking his head in her hands and pulling his face down on to her. His mouth closing round her nipple had sent powerful waves of sensation through her, until now she could feel the slippery wetness between her thighs and already she was ready for him. She had let herself fall back on to the grassy bank, watched him languorously as he had pulled off her panties, then lifted his own shorts over his erect penis and discarded them. She had taken him in her hands, marvelling at how big and hot he was, guided him in between her parted vulva and whimpered to him "Now!"

He had been like a man possessed. With a single thrust, he had buried himself to his full depth inside her, bringing a cry from her lips with the sheer force of it, then he had gone at her so hard and so quickly that she could only give herself up and go with him, surrendering herself to a great, surging tide of pleasure. He had come almost at once and she had made him keep on going. She had wrapped her legs around him and ramped herself up and down against his body, slick and hot inside with their mingled fluids, not letting his erection slacken until he had settled into a slower and more gentle rhythm, when she could relax and let herself drown from the sheer joy of it, her whole being centred on his big, hot member. Until he had lifted her higher and higher on that mighty flood tide of sensation to the moment of huge, sundering orgasm.

After which she had found herself looking at Leonora.

Well, now Leonora was competition. Only she could not compete. Mina smiled. This was her home now, she wouldn't be going back to David. She was going to stay here with Adam, dear Adam and she was going to make sure that he never had cause to look away from her or leave her side. She would love him with all the artfulness and passion that her body could give him. And she knew that she would have an enormous appetite for sex.

She sighed and wriggled her hips so that her mound rubbed against his lower abdomen and she felt him beginning to harden once more. 'Adam is a lucky man', she thought, 'and I am a lucky woman!" She turned to him, lifted his head in her hands and kissed him once more.

No, she wasn't going to say anything!

********************************************

The gathering in H2 was anything but a party. Melissa and Matt had put together a bit of a meal which they were nibbling at with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Adam and Mina had snuggled up side by side, making no attempt to conceal their change of relationship and were obviously hungry from their exertions. Solly was toying with the fare on his plate, feeling a bit miserable almost because of them, a reminder that he was without anybody that he could take an interest in other than the deep-frozen F3 down in S2. Evelio was still a bit woozy from his head injury and didn't have much of an appetite. David wasn't eating at all. Leonora's absence was palpable.

"We had a bit of an argument" he said. "She hit me. Something I said, I think. Anyway, she went off after that and next thing I heard she was climbing down the spoke towards the medical block."

"So where is she now?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure that I care all that much after what she did." He stroked his bruised cheek which looked red, puffy and sore from the impact of her fist.

"I thought that you couldn't get there because the ladder was missing."

"That's right. She must have come back up by now, I suppose. Ask Com1 if you want to know" said David defiantly.

Solly went off into the control room, returning shortly afterwards to report that Leonora had managed to get to the medical centre and now was in room M3, apparently asleep.

"Maybe we should go and get her. You must have said something pretty bad, David."

"She started going on about carrying on with the mission. I had to tell her. It isn't going to happen and anyway you all voted against. Except Adam, only you might have changed your mind as well now."

Adam nodded. "She'd just got this fixation about it. I couldn't make her see things any different and she's been in such a bad mood all the time that I just didn't want to say anything."

"So now she's in a minority of one!" David smiled vindictively. "I would leave her to sleep it off. She'll have to come back eventually."

"When she does, she will have to find somewhere else to sleep!" said Mina emphatically. "Because I'm with Adam now!"

"I might take her in if she's prepared to be reasonable. But I would want an apology first and a promise to control her temper."

Solly looked at David with a sudden suspicion. He seemed too smug about the whole thing. He was enjoying something to do with Leonora's predicament and he didn't like it.

"She can always come and join me and Evelio, if that's how things are. I'm not sure you're being straight with us, David. She wouldn't hit you that hard for nothing. If she doesn't come back by the morning, I'm going up there."

********************************************

She was awake now, dry eyed and clear headed. She had begun the mental process of reconstructing the events of the last day and she continued to think deeply even as she ordered breakfast from the still-functioning meal service console in the little cabin. There wasn't a toilet but there was a disposable bed pan and she used this instead, placing it into a waste receptacle. To her delight there was even a functioning shower unit, neatly fitting into a corner of the room and she luxuriated in being able to wash her hair as well as her skin and she emerged from it feeling clean, warm and surprisingly good.

She sat naked on the bed and marshalled her conclusions as she drank a warm malted milk drink on request from the console, as befitted her pregnant status. The centre of her thoughts turned not on David, the potential rapist, but on Adam who had betrayed her so cruelly. Only that now she was over the shock, she could understand how it had happened and she was honest enough to admit her own lust towards David. All of them were victims of some perverse preplanning designed for reasons she could not comprehend. They had been put into emotional and physical situations that had driven them to act as they did. 'Not that that would make her forgive Mina', she thought. 'She must have been on to Adam as soon as she, Leonora had gone off to her traumatic encounter with David. It was more than likely that she even knew what he intended to get up to with her'.

The pattern was very clear, she realised and really quite obvious. M1, David - F1, herself. David had been totally sure of himself that he would be able to have his way with her, he had not had the slightest hesitation whether she had been willing or not ("Meant for you! Preordained! Me or nobody!"). M2, Adam – F2, Mina. Well, she had seen that for herself. M4, Matt – F4, Melissa. They had hit it off immediately. So it was all by numbers, stepping out of their cubicles in the accommodation block to meet their preordained partners directly opposite them. Not very subtle exactly but contrived for whatever reasons the planners had decided upon. Perhaps it was simply to avoid jealousies and rivalries. How neat! The first colonists pairing off seamlessly, starting families pretty well straight away, being fruitful and multiplying.

Too damned neat and then the great spanner of the meteorite strike thrown into the works. Leaving Solly and Evelio out in the cold!

The lighting was bright in the little room and there was even a mirror on the wall so that she could look at herself. All that remained of yesterday's struggle with David was the three scratches on her side and a twinge of soreness in her right hand. The face that looked back at her in the mirror was strong and determined. And part of that determination was that she would not let them hibernate her, whatever they did on their own account. She was going to have her baby and that was paramount above everything else.

She couldn't stay where she was, though. The air in the cubicle would be used up in a matter of days and anyway, they would come and get her eventually. She had to make some plans and the first was to make herself invisible to Com1. She looked carefully at herself in the mirror and delicately fingered the little bump under her right collar bone. And made up her mind to the idea that had been gradually forming ever since David's shocking jibe as she was climbing past the broken ladder, causing the fall that could so easily have killed or injured her.

She prepared and laid out the necessary instruments on the surface in front of the mirror. A scalpel. Five needles, each threaded up ready for stitching. Scissors, tweezers, small retractor. Hypodermic syringe containing local anaesthetic, swabs, disinfectant wipes, antibiotic powder. She wouldn't need the surgical gloves, she decided, her hands were clean from showering.

She opened the sterile cover, removed the syringe from within and used it to inject novocaine under the skin on either side of the bump. She had a second disposable syringe ready in case she needed it but the numbness was spreading quickly and it felt as though it would be OK. But it was good to have a backup handy, just in case. She took up the scalpel, unsheathed it and looked carefully at her reflection in the mirror. She was beginning to sweat and her breathing was coming faster. She made herself wait and made herself calm down.

She decided that she could just about see what she was doing directly rather than by the awkward business of operating in the back-to-front of the mirror image. She hunched herself into a position so that she could focus down on to herself, albeit straining both eye and neck somewhat. She made the cut. About 8cm long, straight down through the skin on to whatever it was, cleanly and with very little blood. She took up the retractor and inserted it into the cut but she couldn't quite see what it was inside there. With considerable difficulty she used her other hand to grip the tweezers and probe inside. For an instant, terror threatened to break through her concentration but she willed it away. She poked around with the tweezers but they somehow wouldn't get a grip. She put them down and felt inside the wound with her finger. It was flat and quite thin but the tweezers wouldn't get a firm enough grip on it and she couldn't pull it out no matter how hard she tried to. She was in trouble but there was no going back now. She quickly opened the second syringe and injected herself lower down on the shoulder. Waited only the few seconds before numbness began to spread and the skin was dead to her touch. She took the scalpel again, pinched up the skin and made a down cut at the outer end, being careful not to go too deep and cut into the underlying muscle, so that she could then dispense with the retractor and flap open her skin.

There it was. She just went for it, thumb and forefinger, got a grip and pulled it out. It came easily, there were no wires or other attachments, it was just a silicone-coated block about 5 cm x 4cm x 8mm thick. She put it down on the surface, picked up the antibiotic powder and sprinkled it into the wound before closing it up. Then it was just a matter of stitching it closed with the five needles. She had to rethread another four to complete the job, clean the area with a disinfectant wipe and cover it with a sterile dressing.

She leaned forward and threw up into the little handbasin by the shower unit. She was trembling violently with reaction but she had done it. When she had stopped retching, she lay back down again in the bed and covered herself up, letting warmth and softness relax her until the shock had passed. Her shoulder was beginning to ache as the anaesthetic wore off but she was over it and she needed to move on.

There was nothing to detain her here now and the air smelt unpleasantly of a mixture of disinfectant and stale vomit. She wrinsed out her mouth with water to clear it of the aftertaste of bile before dressing in her knickers and undersuit. She realised wryly that she had left her bra with David. She collected up some spare dressings and sterile wipes and then went about the difficult business of getting into her oversuit with her now painful shoulder. Once that was done, she was ready.

Immediately, her imperatives had become different. Her suit air was uncomfortably low and there was nothing to be done about it until she reached Refuge 2. It wasn't so long since she had passed through the horrors of suffocation that she had forgotten the terror of it and she had to will herself to evaluate the risk objectively. She would get there as long as she conserved air, moved slowly and carefully. She took a mental deep breath, fitted on her helmet and vented the cabin air. As soon as she could open the door, she picked up the implant on her way out and threw it through a convenient hole into space. 'Goodbye F1', she said to herself. 'Now get out of here, Leonora Fiennes!'

She made it to Refuge 2 with enough and to spare. The ascent past the broken ladder, to her surprise had been much easier than the climb down and now she was safe. There wasn't even any question about where she should go next, it was down the spoke to the one remaining unexplored region of the ship, the observatory, so without any hesitation she just got on with it.

She reached the last of the seemingly endless ladders, the final landing and then the standard airlock which opened into the observatory. Inside, she found herself in a large open space which housed the bulk of the telescope, with a dome, open above to the stars which shone with their pinpoint brilliance above her head. It was like being out in the open air of Earth on a clear, moonless night and the reminiscence tugged her heartstrings with an aching loneliness. Suddenly she wanted her father.

She fought off the impulse to cry, found the master power switch and operated it.

The lights came on after a few seconds of hesitation, throwing the interior into instant artificial daylight. She looked around her, amazed at the pristine condition of everything. Clearly, the meteorites had missed this part, it must have been shadowed by the hub in the same way that the hydroponica had been spared. The telescope with all its technical paraphernalia dominated the room but there was also a rest area there with table and chairs, even two sofas. A celestial globe stood in one corner, a globe of the Earth in another. There were pictures on the walls, large landscapes of Earth, rainforests, the plains of Africa, even Antarctica - the Ross Ice Shelf, penguins and all. She took in the screen on the wall and the projecting equipment on a stand facing it, the rack of electronic books and programmes, the big speakers at either end. This was a cinema as well as its other functions.

At the opposite end was a corridor which led off into a toilet, bathroom and shower unit, a fully fitted kitchen and two cabin-style double bedrooms, complete with all mod. cons including duvets and pillows. There were two smaller rooms, one of them housing the main archive and library, the other containing numerous artifacts, some being artwork but others being more functional, including a microscope and a number of analysis machines.

As she had been making her tour of inspection, the fuel cells had been operating at full power, boiling and then heating up air just as it had in her little cubicle in the medical block, creating an atmosphere so that she had to wait only a few minutes more and she could take off her helmet to breathe in chilly but otherwise wholesome air. It would be a little while before everything came up to temperature but Leonora couldn't wait and at once stripped off her oversuit to emerge in her fleece undergarment. She walked slowly round, touching, looking, feeling, crying silently with relief, happiness, comfort.

She sat down on one of the sofas. There was a meal service console to hand and she ordered a malted milk drink. At a convenient side table was a computer console which was displaying the standard screen saver and a secondary screen which evidently accessed the library. She tried it out, identified a few book titles, then films, then documentaries. There was a complete history of the Alpha Project but this was not the time to look into it. Her father's ghost was still with her and it was his phantom fingers that guided her to the music collection, the sub-heading of 'classical' and his own lifelong favourite. Beethoven's ninth symphony! The glorious ninth, the choral symphony! As the opening bars began to swell through the sound system, crystal clear against the silence of the background, she turned off the lights. In her mind she was sitting beside him in the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London, so very far away in space and time.

She was still crying silent tears but she was happy. Leonora felt as though she had, at last come home.

By the time the music reached it's magnificent climax she had become aware that her shoulder was beginning to hurt quite badly so she went to the bathroom and ran a sinkful of hot water, undid the dressing and took a good look at her amateur surgery. There had been a little superficial bleeding but by the time she had sponged it clean, it looked respectably neat. She would have a scar, she realised, but she was prepared to live with that as long as it healed cleanly. She redressed it and took two analgesic tablets which she had brought along from M3.

She returned to the sofa and dialed up a meal from the service console, along with a vitamin supplement to try and compensate for the lack of fresh vegetables and fruit. By the time she had eaten it, the tablets had made her drowsy and she fell asleep watching the magnificent starfield slowly rotating above her.

Some unknown time later she slowly opened her eyes and gazed sleepily at the panorama, thinking that she could lie here and watch it forever, captivated by the primaeval beauty of it all. It was then that she saw the lights and the black, unmistakable shape moving against the background stars above her. It was a shuttle and it could only be searching for her. She almost shrank down into the seat, it seemed to be so close above, then suddenly the room around her lit up with an irregular, flickering incandescence as the shuttle's searchlights probed the observatory. She lay completely still, not even daring to breathe as the beams moved around, seemed to point directly at her, paused for long heart-stopping moments and then moved on.

As soon as she was fairly certain that the lights would not return, she went over to the airlock and locked the latch in the 'open' position so that nobody could to use it to get in from the spoke, then hid herself away in the nearest bedroom, closing the door before turning on the light. It had been pure chance that she had been sitting in the dark, she thought. She could so easily have had the whole place lit up and brought them instantly down on her and that was the last thing she wanted.

She didn't want them to know where she was.

She wouldn't be ready to have anything to do with anybody for quite a long time, she thought. What she most wanted was peace, rest, solitude – time to lick her wounds and recover, both physically and emotionally. She wondered if Com1 knew about her, whether 'he' had logged the activity in the observatory. Whether he would say anything. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't, she rationalised, Com1 wasn't particularly good at imparting unsolicited information and they may not think to ask the right questions.

'Well, that was up to them' she decided. She was not going to go near the computer console and she was not going to respond to any attempts from outside up until the moment they tried to burn their way in through the airlock. She looked around the room, taking in its details, approving the décor and she became drowsy again. Well, she needed to rest, that was why she had hidden herself here. Rest and recover. And incubate her baby.

Chapter 20

Solly hadn't been able to sleep. He didn't like the idea of Leonora being up there on her own. Also, there was something about David's demeanour that had bothered him. And she had certainly fetched him one! His swollen face, starting to bruise under his right eye had been developing even as he had been looking at him.

Eventually he got out of his sleeping bag and went into the control room, sat at the nearest console. "Com1, give me a status report on Leonora."

The console went from blank screen to standard screen saver. "Presuming that you refer to F1" said Com1 with his usual soothing tones, "my sensors indicate that she is no longer on Alpha Seven."

"What!" Solly stood bolt upright. "What do you mean?"

"There were movements detected to indicate that F1 made an EVA from the medical block 4 standard hours and twenty-seven standard minutes ago."

"But that's impossible! Besides, what possible reason could she have for doing such a thing?"

"My sensors indicated that F1 was experiencing an abnormal emotional condition. However, the local console had been turned off so that I was unable to advise her to perform a standard exercise routine and drink isotonic solution."

"What makes you say that she went EVA?"

"She left room M3 just before all contact was lost. A faint signal was detected from outside the medical block one standard minute later."

"Couldn't she just have gone out of range of your monitors? Are all your monitors operating normally? Are you sure, Com1?"

"There has been structural damage to the medical facility. I estimate that F1 is not on board Alpha Seven with an 86% probability."

"The Hell you do!"

He tore open the front of David's tent and dragged him outside, still in his sleeping bag. "She's gone!" he snarled.

David, wrenched from sleep, looked up with alarm at Solly's furious countenance.

"What did you do to her, you little rat?"

He tried to sit up but Solly was kneeling across his neck. "What is this?" he choked.

Solly slightly eased the pressure on his windpipe. "Leonora seems to have gone outside the ship. Com1 says she went EVA from the medical block. What did you do to her?"

"Nothing! I swear!"

"I don't believe you!" Solly pressed down and David began to see bright lights before his eyes. "Stop it!" He could hardly get the words out. "Please!"

Solly stood up, still looming threateningly above. "You had some sort of fight. Why?"

"You know why! She wants to go on with the expedition. That's what it was about."

"If you drove her to do god knows what to herself, I swear I'll kill you. I'm going up there to find out."

Solly roused Evelio and told him to gather the others in the control room before suiting up and heading up the spoke as fast as he could go. Once in the hub, he refilled his air tank at Refuge 2 and called up the others. "I'm going over to the medical block now."

"You'll need a line or some slings to get past where the broken ladder is." This from David, he noted.

He found a length of line with two snaphooks which had been used to secure some maintenance equipment and headed on down. Once he reached the breached section it was easy enough to rig a line to the top rung of the ladder, doubling it for ease of descent and tying footloops in it at intervals. He was then able to climb past the problem, wondering how she could have managed it on her own.

Once in the chaos of the medical block he quickly located M3, it's door hanging open but with the lights still on inside. There was just enough emergency air in the tank to allow him to pressurise the room so that he could take his helmet off and look around.

Solly's voice came through the console in the control room where all the others were crowded round listening anxiously for news. "She was certainly in here. It looks to me like she had some sort of injury because there's some used surgical instruments here with what looks like blood on them. She must have stitched herself, there's needles and bits of monofilament here."

They were all looking at David. "What happened, David?" asked Evelio. Before he could reply Solly came through again. "She must have been ill or in a state of shock because there's vomit in the sink. But that's it. She isn't here and there's nothing else to tell us what she may have done. I'm going to search the rest of it down here. It's in an even worse mess than the accommodation block was."

Adam wasn't saying much because he was riddled with guilt, even though he reasoned that Leonora couldn't have known what he had been up to with Mina. Mina wasn't saying anything at all. Melissa and Matt were staring at David's face with horror and disgust so that it fell to Evelio to press him.

"What did you do to her?"

"Nothing!" David was becoming almost hysterical. "I never touched her. Believe me!"

"She was injured. Badly by the look of things. Had to operate on herself. Stitches. What did you do, David?"

David had become panic stricken. "You don't believe me, do you? I never touched her. She hit me and ran away. That's all. I promise!"

"You promise, do you?" Evelio turned to the others. "Maybe we should send him back to his tent while we decide what to do." He looked around at each and each simply nodded. "David, I think you'd better do that. Now!" he added with more than a hint of menace.

********************************************

They had made sure that the hatch into H1 was firmly jammed down despite David's earlier disabling of the lock. Solly had eventually returned with no further news. Com1 had been put on full alert with orders to report at once if he detected her presence. It was seven hours now. If she had gone EVA she was no longer alive.

They sat around the console, a distraught group of young people, faced with what looked like a heinous crime which had led to Leonora committing suicide. Solly had taken over as spokesman.

"This is how I see it. Mina was asked to go to Adam and send Leonora over to talk to him. He told her to stay with Adam for a while. Isn't that so, Mina?" She nodded, compounding the lie by omitting the detail. David's words echoed inside her head. " _You won't make him sick, Mina, and that's a promise. My leader's privilege to know these things. I can't do anything about you myself, my little hot-pants, but he can. Enjoy!"_

"She goes over to him in H1 and they have a row which turns into a fight. He injures her so badly that she has to operate on herself and goes straight to the medical block to do it. Maybe she isn't successful and then decides to end her life by going out of the airlock."

"Why wouldn't she just go back to Adam for help? Or anyone else, come to that?"

Solly looked round grimly. "Suppose she had been violated? Suppose he had beaten her up and then raped her so that she was out of her mind and she just ran away? She had used tweezers and a retractor. She had cut herself open and got something out, or tried to. For god's sake, what did he do to her?"

Matt looked up, he had been staring at his hands. "I think we should beat the truth out of him".

"Not now!" Melissa broke in. "This is too serious and we may have got it wrong. I think we should wait and see if we can find out anything else."

"We could go and search outside. We should have thought about it before. We can take a shuttle out and use the radar to try and find her."

Matt, Melissa and Adam suited up and set off to fly S3, while Mina, Evelio and Solly remained behind. They fell to debating at some length whether to attempt to interrogate David any further, though Mina just sat and listened in a mood of gathering gloom. She was gradually coming to the realisation that when she had found Leonora staring at them in the aftermath of her wild lovemaking with Adam that she had not been obviously injured, even if she was very distressed, that she had turned away, walking so far normally. David didn't seem to have physically harmed her and if the others decided to beat him, she would have to intercede. Which would reveal that it was her betrayal, she and Adam writhing together in their sexual abandon before her poor friend's eyes that drove her to do whatever awful thing she did. Besides which, David had not long ago put his own life on the line to save Adam's.

She was glad when they concluded that they should wait for whatever the others found.

They took S3 out under steam with Com1 instructed to fly a search pattern in the vicinity of the ship, with the radar and visuals all on their highest sensitivities. They operated the searchlights manually, taking the opportunity to take a good look at the exterior, photographing everything as they went so that they could study the detail later. The medical block looked to be in an appalling state. It had been struck by numerous meteorites and looked as cratered as the surface of the moon, there were even elongated gashes on the spoke, giving some impression of the directional nature of the impacts.

"Looks to me as though a lot of the damage was secondary" observed Melissa after a prolonged session of staring at the projected camera image on the visual console." She pointed to the hub "see where those three big hits were alongside the engine bay. The stuff couldn't have been very consolidated, it must have exploded on impact and peppered everything with bits of debris. If they hadn't broken up, there's no way that the ship could have survived. I think we were very lucky, despite everything."

"Hey, look at this though!" Adam pointed to the next spoke rotating below them. "The observatory looks pretty well untouched. There's the telescope!" He operated the searchlight and camera controls, zoomed into closeup. "I can even see inside the astrodome. That's amazing!"

"Might be worth going up there for a look" observed Matt.

"Could do. When we get a bit of spare time. We've got a lot of repairs and checks to get done first, though. And now there's only six of us left."

"Seven, surely?"

"I think we should leave him to rot in H1, after what he did."

"Maybe we should hibernate him and let the justice system back home decide."

"Maybe we should. Could be the best thing all round. Otherwise he might end up getting beaten to death. The way I feel, I could do just that!"

********************************************

Some hours later they reconvened in the control room, having reluctantly given up the search as hopeless.

"So what now?" began Matt.

"We are no further forward. We don't know for sure that Leonora is dead."

"Well, where could she be if she is still alive? Com1 has sensors everywhere and he hasn't found her. We even looked in S2 in case she had hibernated, but then Com1 would have known that anyway."

"We have to accept that the most likely explanation is that we simply didn't find her...body"

Mina had begun weeping, more distressed than even they knew. Solly changed the subject. "We have to go on with the repairs. Maybe we will find her, maybe not, but we have to go on otherwise we will never get home again. In many ways it's simpler now. Two teams of three, one on and one off. I suggest Evelio, Matt and Melissa for team one, with Adam, Mina and me as team two. What do you say?"

They each nodded their assent. There didn't seem anything else to say. "My team first? you've already been down to the shuttle. We'll let Adam rest out the first shift, though. How about it Mina? Let's try something simple like fixing the gimbals."

"One more thing. We vote him out of leadership right now." Matt was emphatic.

Adam activated the console beside him. "Com1, we wish to vote for a new leader."

"Affirmative, M2. Please record your votes."

"So who's it to be, then?"

"Why not you?" said Solly.

"Because I'm not fit enough." Adam rubbed a hand over his abdomen. "And I was never the leader type. Good follower, not a leader."

"Why not you then, Solly?" This from Melissa. He looked around at the others. Matt smiled assent, Evelio nodded enthusiastically, Mina inclined her head.

"If you're all sure, so be it" he accepted.

Adam keyed in M3 and stood aside as the others took their turn to do the same. As soon as the sixth entry was keyed in Com1 spoke again.

"I do not have a vote from M1."

"You don't need it. You have six votes for Solly, M3. That is sufficient."

"Accepted! M3 is reclassified to L3 with single leadership status, effective immediately. L1 is reclassified to M1, effective immediately"

"Thank you Com1." Solly looked around at his weary little crew. "So that's it then. Mina, lets go and suit up."
Chapter 21

Fixing the gimbal on the observatory spoke was surprisingly easy. They found a single small hole, easily seen by the stain of solidified hydraulic fluid around it. It took longer to bring the welding set to the job than it did to weld a small patch of scrap metal over it. Com1 had identified the stores location of the spare fluid for them but they found only one intact canister remaining. The others had all been peppered with small holes and fluid was everywhere, a solid grime spread far and wide which immediately and annoyingly contaminated their suits.

The hydraulic fluid was a specially designed low-temperature thixotropic grease which nonetheless had to be warmed up from the frigid temperatures within the ship before it could be pumped into the system and this they managed using a small portable hydrogen fuel cell which itself had to be prewarmed by holding in gloved hands until the hydrogen boiled inside its cylinder. The pump itself was a remarkably simple, hand operated grease gun which they had to refill several times before it began to pressurise. Solly pumped it as hard as he could until the gauge was reading and holding a high enough pressure within the operating range.

He grinned behind his visor and led the way to Refuge 2 for a suit top-up before the return climb back home. On impulse, he signed to Mina to go into the airlock, followed her in and operated the air pump. They floated inside, he checked the air pressure and temperature, gave the 'thumbs up' and took off his helmet, signing to Mina to do the same. He smiled at her shyly, "I'm in no great hurry to go back up. Why don't we stay here a while?"

She returned his smile. She was suddenly flattered and at the same time somewhat surprised. Did Solly intend to make a pass at her, as soon as she was out of sight of Adam. 'Perhaps that's what promotion does to men' she mused.

He was wriggling out of the space suit, clearly expecting her to follow his lead and it was the matter of a minute of wrestling with them before the two suits had become floating, detached, oily companions in the small space. He captured them, pushed them into the airlock along with the two helmets and closed the hatch.

"I've never had a chance to talk to you, Mina. It seemed like too good an opportunity to let pass."

"David tried to screw me in here. Is that what you want, Solly?"

He stared at her, taken aback as she pulled down the zipper on her oversuit all the way from her neck to her groin. She was wearing nothing underneath it. She shrugged it off her shoulders, rolled into a floating ball and pulled it off altogether, straightened herself up so that he could feast his eyes on her slender, beautiful little body. His eyes roved from her pert, jutting breasts to her prominent mound with its mat of dark, curly hair and his face had coloured at the same time as he had begun to breathe heavily. She took his arm and with her other hand unzipped his suit, reached her hand inside, slipped it inside his regulation briefs and gripped his rapidly rising penis, stroking it until it became hard and hot between her fingers.

"You do, don't you Solly?"

He put his arms around her and drew her to him, kissed her feverishly but amateurishly on the mouth. She opened her lips and pushed her tongue between his as they rolled slowly round inside the refuge. She had both hands on him now, had pushed down his briefs to expose him properly and began to massage him against her clitoris. He wasn't as big as Adam, she thought, but he was still lovely. She was beginning to pant with desire now, she could feel the slickness as her fluids leaked out over her vulva, fingers and his member but she made herself hold him back.

"Solly, there might be a problem."

"Problem?"

"David got sick as soon as he tried to come inside me. He couldn't do it. Something stopped him making love to me. We never managed it. That's why I'm with Adam now. Solly, it might happen to you." She parted her legs and drew him inside her warm, juicy folds, hoping frantically that she was wrong.

But she wasn't. Solly reacted just as David had done. She felt him collapse just as he slid into her vagina. She willed him to stay hard, but it was hopeless. He was coughing and then pushed her away, rolled into the foetal position and gagged. She held his shoulders and waited until he could breathe properly, then pulled his face against her breasts, soothed him like a mother. "It's not your fault, Solly darling. It's something they've done to us. It won't work between you and me, they've somehow programmed it so. David knew that Adam would be able to have me even as he knew that he couldn't.

She held him at arms length, lifted his face and looked solemnly into his eyes. "I suppose that's why he sent me to Adam and called Leonora to himself. Except that it went horribly wrong between them and now she's lost and maybe she's dead."

Solly had regained control of himself and could begin to think properly, could begin to see things he had not realised before.

"You're our leader now, Solly. If you can find a way, I'll be waiting for you. And Solly. You've never had sex before, have you?" He shook his head. "It's more beautiful than you could ever imagine!" She kissed him once more, a sister's kiss this time. "I fancy you like mad! You'll come for me when you know what to do and the time is right, won't you?"

He was overwhelmed by her sheer presence and his body was already beginning to reassert itself. He desperately wanted her. His senses were drunk with the sight, smell and touch of her. He took hold of her again by the arms and drew her against him. She was soft, warm and yielding. Her body smelled as he had never smelt anything before, making him positively giddy. She kissed him gently on the mouth and he responded with a fierce embrace, bruised her lips with the pressure of his until he had to pause for breath and she was able to push him back and then snuggle her face into the side of his neck.

She could feel his renewed erection hard against her abdomen and she was beginning to feel giddy herself but she willed herself to take control. She bit his neck until he yelped, just to make him listen to her. "Solly, not now! Just hold me! Don't try anything more because it won't work."

"Oh, Mina!" his voice was indistinct, his face pressing into her shoulder.

"Steady now! Please Solly. Just cuddle me, just stay like this"

They floated together in their weightless embrace, naked in the warm air of the refuge until she could feel that his heartbeat was slowing down and he was breathing more quietly. "So you know how it would be with me, don't you Solly?"

"Why do I get sick?"

"I've told you all I know about it." She pulled back from him to arms length, looked down at his burgeoning manhood and smiled. "It looks like it is M1 with F1, Adam and Me, Leonora for David, Melissa for Matt and sleeping beauty, F3 down in the shuttle is meant for you so it's just as well you held on to her out there in space, isn't it!"

"How can you be so sure about all this?"

"I worked it out from what David said and when Adam was – able to perform with me, that sort of proved it. Why don't you ask Com1?"

He nodded. "Com1, explain to me how it is that I cannot have ...relations with Mina without getting sick."

"Your programming does not permit it." Com1's smooth tones floated into their little trysting space. "My sensors detect that both you and F2 are suffering abnormal emotional activity. I recommend that you both drink isotonic liquid and then perform a standard exercise routine." Two bottles immediately fell from the refuge's meal service console and Mina grabbed them. 'Déjà vu!' she thought, blushing at the memory of her previous encounter there. She gave one to Solly without even reading the label and proceeded to consume her own, made difficult because she was trying to suppress a fit of giggling at the same time.

"Oh, Solly! She burst out into a helpless peal of laughter and pressed her face into his chest, noticing for the first time a down of brown hair beginning to grow on it, and snuffled with mirth. He held on to her until the fit had subsided and she lifted her face to his, started giggling again, "How I'd love to do a standard exercise routine with you!" and buried her face into his chest again. He just held her there, their bodies continuing to rotate slowly around in the room. "Com1, just what does my programming permit?"

"You are programmed to mate with F3. This is unchanged by your redesignation from M3 to L1."

"Listen, Com1! Mina, F2. I want to mate with her." He squeezed her a little tighter. "Now!" he cried emphatically. "Change the programming."

"Programming can only be changed by agreement of two 'L' designated crew members."

"Oh, come on, Com1! I am the only leader on the ship. Change the damned program!"

"Request denied! May I remind you that you have not yet performed a standard exercise routine as advised."

Mina was convulsed with a further fit of muffled giggling so he just held her until she eventually stopped. She lifted her face and looked at him with red, mirth-streaked eyes. "Your lovely hairy chest really turns me on, Darling Solly!"

He held her at arm's length. "David was here too, wasn't he? He couldn't get the programming changed and I bet he wanted you every bit as much as I do."

She nodded. "But because he couldn't make love to me we started to get really bad with each other. That's why in the end he sent me to Adam and went after Leonora."

"Do you think he raped her?" he asked grimly.

"I can't answer that, Solly." An image of Leonora's distraught face flashed into her mind. She mentally pushed it away, smothering the guilt. "Not while he's locked up like some sort of prisoner waiting to be tried. That wouldn't be fair. It's so easy for a woman to cry 'rape' when things have gone wrong."

Solly nodded acceptance. "If I can break the programming, what about you and Adam?"

She grinned. "Just between me and you!" She placed a finger over his lips, "I wear him out! He can't keep up with me! He might actually be pleased if he had a bit of help now and again. Just because we sleep in the same tent doesn't mean that I've got to be his alone and his forever, does it? Especially if he doesn't give me enough. Besides", she looked at him very directly, "I could move in with somebody who does!"

"Do you know something, Mina? You're the first and only person I've heard laugh since I was revived from hibernation. I love you!"

"Oh Solly!" She sighed. She had run out of words.

# Chapter 22

Leonora was enjoying her new home. She created a daily routine for herself, important if only because there was no day and night in the observatory, just the turning on and off of the lights. She let herself awaken naturally and then spent an hour on her toilet, luxuriating especially in the hot shower. She diligently performed her standard exercise routines, then had breakfast, being sure to take vitamin supplements to try to compensate for the lack of fresh fruit. Mindful of the life she carried inside her.

She spent her morning studying various projects but particularly in familiarising herself with the telescope which she had to learn up manually because she dared not have anything to do with Com1 lest she give her presence away. After three days she was greatly pleased with herself when she was able to locate and photograph their destination star system, already the brightest object in the celestial sphere. She enlarged and produced a digital image which she could project on to the big screen and study at leisure. There were several planets, visible as tiny discs and she thought she had identified their intended home destination, the second one out from the orange-yellow star. She could just about imagine that she could see that it exhibited phases, currently it was like a three-quarter moon, and that it could even have a blue-green albedo. This latter she confirmed a few days later when she got the spectroscope to work. She really was looking at the expedition's planned destination. She decided to call it 'New Earth' and felt extraordinarily happy at the idea.

Each day she photographed it again and already she could begin to think that it was growing larger – or maybe it was just becoming easier to see as it advanced through it's phases towards becoming a full New Earth. Now she could see it, her determination to settle there became stronger and more focussed. The baby beginning to grow inside her would be the first of the new colonists, a brave adventurer in a brave new world.

But she was going to have to fight against David's cowardly plan to hibernate and go back home. Her baby was unlikely to survive hibernation, she knew that and she was utterly determined that it wasn't going to happen.

But for the time being she and her new life were safe and comfortable in the observatory and she was content that it be so. In the afternoons she trawled extensively through the library, after a few days coming to the history of the Alpha Project and then homing in on Alpha Seven. It was there that she found the personal files of all the crewmembers and the devastating revelation that her own father had been L1 and his partner, L2.

The agony of the discovery stunned her completely for the rest of that day. That he had been there with her all along, that the cruelty of an arbitrary chunk of debris had deprived her of seeing his dear face ever again was unbearable to contemplate. That even now, his mortal remains were drifting away in space in the wreckage of the devastated accommodation block. For a brief time she felt as though she was losing her mind with grief. She wandered about in the observatory, keening with the dreadful pain of it, her mind blown into shards of disjointed thought. Though she eventually took to her bed, it was not really to sleep, it was to cry into her pillow until it was time to get up and go through the next day in the same sleep-walking nightmare.

It was her first bout of morning sickness two standard days later that forced her back from the brink. She held up her red, tear-streaked face to the mirror as the new life inside her asserted itself. She could hear her father's voice inside her head. 'I didn't do all this so that you could fall to pieces at the first bit of bad news. Pull yourself together Leonora. You are my daughter and you are my life!'

"And now I'm carrying your genes in my new baby! Oh, Daddy! How you would have been pleased. For you I will survive. For you, this expedition will succeed." She looked into her own eyes, suddenly calm. "That I promise you with all my heart!"

She filled the basin with water and washed her blotchy face. Then she showered and soaped herself all over, washed her hair. Then she went to the meal console and ordered up a proper meal, vitamin supplements and a litre of mixed fruit juices. Then she carried out her exercise routines. Finally, she went back to the library, opened the files on her father and his partner (who she had never met, though she knew of her) and read everything there was about both of them. After which she went to bed and slept soundly.

The next morning, she took her stitches out.

She felt the movement as a gentle swaying that felt as though the observatory were a ship, long becalmed and now picking up a slight breeze. It went on for a few minutes and then died away again, a reminder. She was not alone on the ship, the others must have continued to work on the repairs and it felt as though they were testing the fusion drives. She needed to know what was going on, her period of self-isolation was coming to an end, it was time to make her presence felt. Because soon they proposed to hibernate and if they did, she realised with a faint shiver, she could be left with the option of being on her own for the next eighty years or more or else hibernating herself. And what about her baby?

She switched on the computer terminal and stared at the screensaver for a few seconds. "Com1 give me a status report on the crew."

She suddenly felt hungry for his voice but he chose to put the results on screen instead.

Title---status----condition------location

M1 revived depressed Hydroponicum H1

M2 revived normal Hydroponicum H3

M3 revived normal Hydroponicum H2

M4 revived normal Fusion Drive Bay

M7 hibernated radiation exposed Shuttle S2

M9 revived normal Fusion Drive Bay

M10 hibernated normal Shuttle S2

F1 missing presumed dead unknown

F2 revived normal Hydroponicum H3

F3 hibernated normal Shuttle S2

F4 revived pregnant? Fusion Drive Bay

F5 hibernated normal Shuttle S2

'Well, at least Com1's communicating with me even if he thinks that I'm dead' she mused. It looks like David is sulking in H1, Adam and Mina are...' she mentally bit the bullet... 'shacked up in H3, Solly's on his own in H2 and the other three are working on the fusion drives. Her eye fell on F4. 'So Melissa's pregnant, too, is she? That could make her an important ally. And it could only be a matter of time before Mina, the little minx gets in the same way if they carry on like they were when...'

She felt her throat tighten with emotion. 'Oh, come on Leonora! What the hell does it matter. I'm past suffering. What does it matter if he screws her, too. What does anything matter except this expedition survives?'

She studied the screen again and the ominous list of the hibernated. 'So Ahmed's gone, too, now. There's only eight of us left, and they don't even know about me. Moreover, they are all for hibernating except Adam. Only I expect he'll go with Mina now.' She had read his profile – Adam was not leadership material, he was easily swayed. 'Yes, he'll go with Mina who will follow David, I expect.'

She studied the list again. With Melissa pregnant, Matt will go with her, making three of us. If Mina fell too, then they could turn things, always assuming that being pregnant would make enough difference. Leaving only poor Solly and Evelio, the two spare males.

The fatal mismatch of seven males to five females and the programming that left F5, M7, M9 and M10 either alone or else incompatible were the biggest long term threat to the viability of the expedition, she realised. Already, it could threaten the attempt which she was soon going to have to make to overturn the vote for hibernation. The planners had designed them for monogamy, ten males and ten females. Only it hasn't worked out like that.

There was something that she had to know!

Chapter 23

If fixing the gimbal to the observatory had been easy, the one to the medical centre proved the complete opposite. They patched every hole that they could find and used up all the remaining hydraulic fluid in a fruitless attempt to pressurise it. Nothing worked.

After three frustrating sessions they gave up and turned instead to the fusion drives, each of which had to have a detailed internal examination and meant a crewmember climbing up inside the combustion chamber from the bottom, carrying out checks on the ceramic ablative layer on the inside. This claustrophobic work was slow and painstaking and whenever a flaw was detected, the damaged area had to be repaired by hand grinding it out and filling it with new composition. It took days and was mentally and physically exhausting. They worked on both drives simultaneously, one person climbing up inside each engine and the third acting as support. They finished both drives on the same day and Solly was called to take charge of Com1 to supervise trial runs at low power, both of which appeared to be successful.

The next day, following radiation checks, they physically examined the repaired drives and declared them to be as perfect as they were ever going to be. Alpha Seven once more had power, but they didn't dare yet to use it.

The next task was to complete welding and bolting extra structural members to buttress bulkheads in compensation for the weakening caused by the tearing away of the accommodation spoke, the work eventually coming to a stop because they had run out of suitable metal.

Which left them to reluctantly address the problem of the medical block and its spoke emerging from the inoperative gimbal. The only option looked like being to cut it away.

Solly engaged Com1 in hours of detailed calculations until they had evolved a reasonably safe way to dismantle the medical centre from its spoke and then cut down the spoke itself, using some of the material in it to act as extra reinforcing plates to stiffen the hub where it still needed to be done. Further arithmetic revealed that the ship could be accelerated safely in that configuration even though it was rotating about a virtual centre between the two remaining spokes and actually outside the hub itself. It looked fearful in simulation on screen but Com1 seemed to be his usual sanguine self about it so they agreed to give it a go.

The biggest problem would occur when the medical centre was sprung free from the spoke. It had to be done cleanly lest it tear away and tumble erratically, creating a risk of striking the still rotating observatory as it cleared the ship. Com1 located some explosive bolts for them along with the accompanying detonators and wiring and they set about the protracted business of dragging everything they needed, including the welding kit down the damaged spoke in readiness to begin work.

Melissa, Matt and Evelio went along for the first shift. Each took along two extra air cylinders to give them 12 hours endurance or so with enough spare to repressurise M3 once to act as a temporary refuge when they needed a rest. They had all by now become expert at cutting and welding with the hot hydrogen flame so that they were able to take turns at the cutting while the other two measured and marked up the plating in readiness. Nonetheless, there was a great deal to do and the work progressed only slowly.

At the agreed time, six hours later, they all three entered M3 and pressurised it. Although it was a crowded little room, it felt homely and they were able to take off their suits and even summon up food and drink from the meal service console.

Evelio toyed with the surgical instruments which still lay where Leonora had left them. He wondered at the vacuum dried remains of vomit in the handbasin but forebore from commenting on it. Instead he said "It's sad to think of her in here, carrying out some desperate procedure on herself. Perhaps we'll never know what it was or if it went wrong. We may never know what happened to her."

Matt nodded sombrely. "Most likely her body is out there somewhere. Maybe it's best we don't know the details. Even so I may beat the truth out of David!" he contradicted himself.

"I just cannot believe that he would have done something so dreadful to her that she would kill herself. He may be headstrong and sometimes aggressive. But not as bad as you seem to be making out." With that Melissa ended the discussion and they fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.

********************************************

A dreadful blackness was blotting out more and more stars. He could sense this even though he could not open his eyes. It was growing bigger and bigger as it came closer and closer. He had to open his eyes! If he did not then it would either swallow him up or else it would go on by and he would never know that it had been there and he would float away to die alone in space.

It was almost on him now! He was going to crash into it, his helmet was going to splinter into fragments, his air would puff away and the blood would boil up out of his lungs and choke him. He had to open his eyes, but he could not! He was trying to scream, to cry out but nothing would escape his lips except an incoherent mumble. It was filling all the sky now, he could see even through his closed eyelids that the wing was bearing down on him as it rotated.

But he could not force his eyes to open. He was struggling to free the rocket pack from his thigh but his arm was tangled up in the buddy line. He was staring into F3's white, beautiful face in the hibernation capsule and now he was cringing, waiting for the final dreadful crash of the impact that would destroy them both. He made one final, despairing effort and came suddenly awake, drenched with sweat and panting for air in the warm fug of his darkened tent.

He was not alone. There was a hand on his arm and another touching his forehead, a gentle, familiar voice. "It's alright now, Solly. It was just a bad dream. You were having a nightmare. Take some deep breaths. Relax!" She was wiping his face with a towel. He was shivering violently but he did as she told him, took a deep shuddering breath and held it, following a long forgotten breathing control routine from when he had once trained on an aqualung. He breathed out slowly. His pulse was slowing down, he could feel himself relax with the relief of wakefulness, sank back on to the mattress and let himself come fully awake.

She was still wiping him down, dabbing away the sweat from his naked torso but she had stopped saying anything. He knew who she was. He knew that she was Leonora, but Leonora was dead and gone so maybe he was still inside his dream. It was dark in the tent and he could just make out the curving shape of her body as she lay on her side, facing him. Her face was just a dark oval, fringed by the darker surround of her hair. He reached out with his hand until it came in contact with the warm flesh of her upper thigh. She let the towel lie on his abdomen and closed her hand over his, pressing it more tightly against her.

She was real! "Leonora?" His voice was hoarse from his dry, still-tense throat.

"Yes, it is me, Solly. I came to find you and you were asleep. I crept into the tent beside you but you didn't wake up so I lay down and just watched over you for a while. Then you began to have your nightmare."

"It's always the same. I am falling towards the shuttle with my eyes shut, knowing that I'm either going to crash into it and my helmet will burst or else I'm going to miss it altogether and drift away without ever knowing it was there. The wing is starting to roll over and down on to me and then I wake up in a sweat trying to cry out for help only my voice won't work either. It's the same every time" he repeated.

He sat up, electricity tingling through the hand that she was still holding against herself. "Where have you been? What happened to you? Are you OK?" Solly could feel a great flush of happiness engulfing him, making him suddenly aware how much her disappearance had eaten into him as it had to all of them.

"I'm fine. I've been resting up. But I'm fine now!"

"David? What did he do? We might have killed him. Matt was going to beat the truth out of him!" Everything came out in a rush, his words tumbling over each other, the grief and anxiety of the days since she was lost flooding out of him.

"He tried to rape me. But I hit him and ran away. Ran to Adam for help only..." She caught her breath, suppressed a sob as the traumatic vision of Adam's body on top of Mina's, pumping his seed into her as they both cried out their ecstasy, flashed before her eyes, her emotions even now raw with anguish. "...Only he was screwing Mina! My Adam! She was lying under him with her legs wrapped around his thighs, clutching at him like she couldn't get him far enough inside her. My Adam...." She was suddenly crying, flooding out the tears that she thought she had long dried, keening again the agony of her wrenched heart that she thought she had so-far mended.

Solly had his arms around her and was rocking her. It was his turn to give her comfort in her time of pain. She snuffled and wept incoherently into his downy chest and he realised that he was silently crying with her as he understood what had happened to her. "Minx!" she choked out. "Little minx. And I saved his damn life. I'm bearing his d.., bearing his child."

She sat up suddenly, her face was close to his in the dark. "And that bastard David would be happy for it to die by putting me into hibernation." She took a deep breath that seemed to calm her a little. She touched his face with her hand and felt wetness under his eyes, tasted the saltiness and lost her heart to him in that one instant.

She wound her hands round his head and pulled his mouth to hers. They kissed, gently at first, then with increasing fervour. He was stroking the hair at the back of her neck. Her upper body was pressing against his, he could feel her swelling breasts squashing against him and then she was lying beneath him. There were no preliminaries. She parted her legs and used her hand to guide his erection inside her. He pressed down with his hips and thighs and she gasped as he penetrated. He drew back and then went to his full depth inside her. For an instant she cringed inwardly in terror that he might be afflicted by the sickness and then abandoned herself to the joy of him, the joy of sex. She was drunk with the smell of him, her skin tingled as their bodies tangled together, her inexperienced vagina flooded with unbelievably powerful sensations. She gripped his shoulders with her hands and lifted herself up to him, moaning with a delirium of pleasure and release.

They were both wet with sweat in the warmth and humidity of the hydroponicum, their bodies sliding against each other. Solly let his instinctive desires take over, he thrust and thrust, bucking against her as she pressed herself back to him, her cries and moans spurring him on until he felt the ascending spiral of sensation and gasped out his orgasm, his ejaculation spurting warmly in a series of strong pulses as he flooded her with his semen. He slowly sank down over her, his trunk rolled sideways, causing her to turn sideways with him, her breasts nuzzling against his chest. She took hold of his neck again and kissed him softly before pressing her face into his shoulder.

They lay together, holding each other until their breathing and their pounding hearts had settled back to normal. She could feel him beginning to slacken inside her until he slipped juicily out, then rolled on to his hip to lie beside her and thus they cuddled together dreamily inside the small, darkened interior of the tent, drowsy with contentment.

She was wonderfully happy. Her body was glowing with pleasure recalled. Her mind was glowing with pleasure at the knowledge of having won. 'He didn't get sick!' she whispered inside her mind, over and over as a kind of mantra. 'He didn't get sick! I've beaten it. They don't control me any more. I can have whoever I like! And I've beaten you, David. You don't have any power over me. You smug bastard! I've beaten you!'

Solly was on the verge of sleep for a few minutes, relaxed and filled with satisfaction. He was a man. He had made love to a woman for the first time. Such a beautiful woman! He hadn't been sick as he had been with Mina. He had willed himself to hide the sense of embarrassment and shame after his failure in the refuge. She had told him that it wasn't his fault but that hadn't made it any better, he had felt his manhood impugned. But now all that was expunged! Leonora, beautiful Leonora had given her body to him and he had taken it, wantonly and wonderfully and he had driven her wild with desire. He was a man!

"Solly?" she murmured into his ear, "why did you finish so quickly?"

"Quickly? I didn't know it was quickly. It was just like it was."

"Solly, darling, it was just lovely. It was my first time. First proper time, that is."

"What do you mean? Proper?"

"With Adam. I got him inside me and he came at once, before the sickness got to him. That's why I'm pregnant."

She was reaching down to him with her hand and touching his slack, but still slippery penis. Her want for him had only partly subsided and now she was aching between her legs, she needed him to finish her off. "Kiss my breasts" she whimpered. "Touch me. I want you again. I need you. Kiss me!" She had arched her back, thrusting her full, tender breasts to him. He leaned over her, his mouth found her nipple by instinct and he felt it puckering up as he sucked on it. She felt the hardness returning to his member, stroked it until it was fully firm and then rolled herself underneath him, parted her thighs and rubbed him against her clitoris, drew him down inside her open vulva, he did the rest.

Solly had it under control, this time. He entered her slowly and then rose and fell on top of her, letting her feel the full pressure of him, pushing down strongly until his pubic bone was hard on her mound, driving a moan from her lips. He bit her earlobe gently as he worked her steadily and powerfully, his rhythm in tune to the cries coming from deep in her throat until it was her turn to reach orgasm. She was sundered by it. Her body erupted around the blaze of sensations welling up inside her. She wrapped her thighs around him and pulled him even harder into herself, gasping with the overwhelming joy of it. Solly just rode along with her as she was driven up to a series of peaks of sensation until she was completely finished and slumped back under him after which he continued thrusting steadily and with slowly increasing power until he, at last, came for the second time.

But by then she was asleep.

# Chapter 24

He was awakened by a distant sound to find that she had gone. The tent in which he lay felt empty in a way that he knew it would always feel empty from now on if she were not lying there beside him. Solly reached down a hand and felt the tenderness in his swollen penis. He put his fingers to his nose and smelt on them the musky, lingering scent of her body. The muscles of his thighs provided him with an aching reminder of his sexual initiation and he lay back, reliving the most profound and beautiful experience of his young life.

It was daylight now so he crept out of the tent. He called out her name, prompting only a twittering reply from the birds. He blundered through the forest looking for her, checked the pond first then the vaguely defined paths that wound randomly here and there, calling as he went. He encountered the gardening robot but nothing else. Next he went into the control room but she wasn't there either.

He sat at a console, still naked. "Com1, where's Leonora?"

"I presume that you refer to F1" Com1 responded silkily. "My sensors indicate that F1 is no longer on the ship."

"Don't give me that! She has been with me in my tent until recently. So where is she?"

"M3, my sensors indicate that you are becoming emotionally unstable. I suggest you drink isotonic solution and eat a light meal, then perform a standard exercise routine. If the condition persists, you should seek counselling with a person of 'L' status."

A bottle popped out of the terminal's meal service console which he just managed to catch. "God, Com1! If I weren't in such a happy frame of mind, I'd connect you to the lighting circuits. Listen, dumb brain! I have just slept with her. We have made love. The real thing. All the way. OK! So tell me where she is, if you don't mind."

Com1's voice sounded puzzled. Solly fleetingly wondered if he had a special algorithm which he used to put such an inflection into his voice when responding to what he took to be stupid questions. "The last recorded contact with F1 was leaving the ship from the medical block 12 standard days, five hours and 27 seconds ago."

"So how come she has been having it off with me in my tent last night?"

"Perhaps you were suffering from an illusion. Or a bad dream. My sensors have noted your irregular brain patterns while you are sleeping which are related to your recent traumatic experiences when you went EVA. I repeat my recommendation that you seek counselling from a person of 'L' status and confirm that I have recommended...."

"I am the Leader, dummy!" He snapped off the sound on the console, leaving only the silent reproach of a transcript of their conversation scrolling down the screen. "Leonora, where the hell have you gone? And why can't Com1 detect where you are? And why, oh why can you be my lover, my wonderful, ecstatic lover when I'm supposed to be bonded to F3?"

He turned the console on again. "Com1, who am I able to mate with on this expedition?"

"Nobody, L1!"

"What do you mean, nobody! I just made love to F1. And it was fantastic, Mr chipset! Just fantastic. Not any kind of illusion, that's for sure 'cos I can still smell her delicious body scent on my fingers. OK?" He held his hand against the screen and spread his digits over it.

"L1, you are also designated M3 which means you are genetically paired off with F3 and F3's current status is hibernated. It is forbidden to mate with hibernated crewmembers."

He shook his head. "Fat lot of good you are, Com1!" Then he remembered something else. "What was that noise woke me up?"

"The medical block was explosively separated from the spoke about 35 standard minutes ago. You were awoken by the shockwave propagating through the structure of the ship."

"The Hell I was! Put me on open channel."

"Confirmed!"

"Hi everyone! What's happening? Are you all OK?"

Evelio's voice. "We blew the medical block away. It went perfectly. No problem at all. It looks a bit weird now, you go up the last landing and if you're not careful you can just fall away into space if you want to! The spoke shook for a bit like a tuning fork but that's quietened down now. We are just heading back up with all the gear. Should be home in about two hours."

"Well, that's just great. I'll put the kettle on!"

Solly was about to tell them that he had found Leonora, alive and extremely well, but something checked him. Com1 had acted as if she didn't exist and she was nowhere around now. They might think he had dreamt the whole thing and begin to have doubts about his mental state. Especially as he was their leader. He switched off the console. If it hadn't been such an incredible experience, he might have begun to doubt it himself. But there was no doubt! He looked down between his legs at a newly resurging erection standing up proudly between them, a red, swollen member that looked and felt bigger than it ever had before and wondered anew where she had gone.

"L1, you have a message."

"That's bound to be her. Why didn't you say so before? Put it on screen."

'Darling, Darling Solly' he read. 'I love you. You were my most wonderful lover! I will come back soon. Please don't tell anybody that you have seen me. I am not ready to confront everybody yet.

Your Leonora.'

In fact, Leonora hadn't gone very far. It had still been in the dark of the hydroponicum's artificially induced night when she awoke from dreamily recalling their joyful lovemaking. She had opened her eyes to the outline of his sleeping body, smelled the lingering, heady perfume of their recent union and was minded to wake him up, desire beginning to tingle within her once more. But she resisted, lay quietly for a while listening to his breathing and then crept stealthily from the tent, driven initially by the need to relieve herself but then deciding not to return just then.

She was positively glowing with remembered pleasure. Her limbs felt languorous and heavy, her thighs and lower back aching gently from the effort with which she had given herself back to his powerful sex drive, her labia pleasurably warm and swollen. There would be plenty of time from now on, all the time in the world, she thought. She could lie with him every night for the rest of time.

The last thing she wanted to do was suit up and climb laboriously down the spoke to her new home in the observatory, but she didn't want to be with Solly when he awoke, she wanted some time and space in which to digest her emotions. So the choice came down to H1, in which David was evidently imprisoned, H3 – now Mina and Adam's little love nest or H4 with Melissa and Matt. Basically, no choice so she opened the hatchway into H4 as quietly as she could and let herself cautiously down the ladder. She presumed (correctly) that they would have put up their tent in the middle of the wooded area by the central pond and made her way around near the wall to the far side. H4 was decidedly different to any of the other hydroponic setups, consisting of deciduous woodland with shrub and grassland undergrowth. Eventually she found a little grassy space underneath a stately oak tree and sat down there with her back against the trunk to rest and contemplate.

She felt incredibly pleased with herself. She had achieved independence! She was invisible to Com1 and therefore beyond David's malign clutches and more importantly even than that she was a free woman. She could choose whether or not to have a partner and she could change her mind according to the dictates of her heart. Anything less, she mused, made her into a concubine. David's concubine at that! But now she had proved that she could have any of the men on the expedition, if she wanted to.

She ran quickly through her analysis of them. The sum total of eligible males in the entire world which she inhabited amounted to:

David. Odious overbearing, potentially her rapist. His personal profile which she had read up from his personnel record said that he was an aggressive, dominant extroverted type who would make an autocratic but effective leader. He regarded her as his property and as such was still dangerous. Trouble was that she found him magnetically attractive. After all, they were preordained for one another according to their genetic profiling.

Adam. Father of her child. Not a leader, though basically a nice person. Her first love, grown in the crucible of the traumatic circumstances of those first desperate days. Her heart still ached for him in an unfulfilled sort of way but the relationship was sullied, maybe irrevocably, by his relationship with Mina, preordained as it may have been. He didn't have to have gone for it with quite such immediate abandon, it was that which she really found to be unforgivable.

Solly. Darling Solly. Her real mate. Her first real lover with whom she had just shared the exquisite, never to be forgotten joy of the first time, the more wonderful because it was the same for both of them. Solly also is a leader, though his personnel records described him as basically a democrat. He is her ideal mate, she could love him forever. She recalled his tears, wept for her as she described her moment of anguish at encountering Adam and Mina making love. Also for them it had been the first real time.

Uncomfortably, she remembered the unknown hibernating F3 down in S2, with Solly's place reserved alongside her. Leonora had seen her naked and frozen body lying there in her cubicle. She was frighteningly beautiful. Revived, she would undoubtedly be a great threat.

Evelio. Unknown Evelio. Still recovering from his second brush with death and a head injury that might even have effected his personality. Described as a stable introvert, a team player but not a leader type. Evelio was out on his own, he had no potential partner other than the hibernating F3 and F5. The position for him was complicated by the still-hibernating M10 and the sick Ahmed who might even die from a combination of weakness and the extra stresses on his body imposed by his second hibernation. In some ways it might be better for the stability of the expedition if he did die.

Leonora found herself wrestling unhappily with the dire awfulness of the thought which she had just allowed her mind to articulate when she became uncomfortably aware that she was being watched. Only a few metres away, a man, wearing only the regulation boxer shorts was staring fixedly at her. It was Matt. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she had not noticed his approach.

She was suddenly and shockingly aware that she was completely naked. While clothing was almost irrelevant in the warm and lushly humid atmosphere, it gave an element of modesty. She was instantly and instinctively aware of her swollen breasts with their red, protuberant nipples. Her very sexiness made her vulnerable. She cautiously returned his gaze.

"Leonora?" He spoke softly but with surprise and interrogation in his voice. She nodded her head. "We thought you were dead."

"You can see that I'm not."

He stepped forward, squatted down in front of her. "What happened? Where have you been? What did David do to you?"

"He wanted to rape me but I fought him off. I fled to Adam but he was otherwise occupied with Mina so I went to the medical centre to escape."

"Com1 traced you there, to Room M3, then you disappeared. He said you had left the ship."

"Look at my shoulder." She traced a finger over the fresh scar. "I took out my personal monitor and posted it into space. I'm invisible to Com1 now. I'm a ghost!"

Relief and happiness reflected in his face, as they had done with Solly. "We thought that David had done something unspeakable to you. We found the surgical instruments in M3. I was going to beat the truth out of him. Leonora, we might have lynched him!"

"I couldn't have known, could I, Matt?"

"No, you couldn't have known. We locked him into H1 and nobody has had any contact with him since. Com1 says he's depressed but otherwise stable. He is eating and drinking regularly."

"Good! It is no better than he deserves."

"We voted for a new leader. Solly." He reached a hand forward and touched her scarred shoulder. "Oh, Leonora! You don't know how pleased I am that you're alright!"

She looked into his eyes and they gazed at each other unflinching for an uncomfortably long time. His hand was still touching her and her skin was tingling at the point of contact. His eyes dropped to her breasts and he almost whispered the words "you're very beautiful."

"Where's Melissa?"

"She's sleeping. She was very tired from the work we've been doing, cutting away the medical centre. I couldn't sleep so I came out for a walk." His hand had moved down. His fingers traced the contour of her breast and touched her nipple, causing it to pucker up immediately. She could see the growing bulge under his shorts, was aware of her heightened pulse and breathing rate.

"I've not long since been making love to Solly" she thought wildly. "But Melissa's your partner" she said aloud.

His eyes were boring into hers now and she could not look away from them. "But you want me, don't you, Leonora?"

She was chewing her lip. She tried to say something but nothing came out. He put his other hand on her other breast and she found herself leaning forward against them, then was in his arms and they were kissing. She was surprised at how gentle he was and how incredibly erotic was the touch of his body against hers. There was none of the fiery rush into it as she and Solly had done. He took his time with her, stroked her back, neck, shoulders. Kissed her eyes, nibbled her ear lobes, kissed her breasts, took her nipple between his lips, first one breast, then the other. He laid her back on the grass, kissed her navel, then her mound, finally pushing his tongue inside her open labia.

She was completely compliant when he entered her. She was juicy and eager for him. He took her slowly, urging her steadily up to her orgasms, holding her to the peak of pleasure for a long time. When she had finished, he made her go on hands and knees and entered her from behind, more forcefully now until he reached his own climax and she felt the warm spurts of his semen inside her.

After which, they lay side by side and drowsed together.

"Matt" she murmured eventually. "That was heaven! How did you learn to be such a wonderful lover?"

"Don't ask me" he responded gently "because the answer is obvious!"

"Won't she be upset?"

"She won't know, will she? Because I'm not going to say anything and neither are you!"

"You're right, Darling Matt. Promise me you won't say anything about having seen me. To anyone."

"Who else knows you are here?"

"Only Solly. He might tell the others. But then he may not. I left him a message next time he uses the computer asking him not to. I'm not ready to face you all yet."

"Have you been in here all the time? In hiding?"

"Not at all. I've set up home in the observatory and I'm going back there now. Not even Solly knows. Will you come to me there? I will leave you a message on the computer. It will be when you are able to without rousing any suspicions."

"Yes" he said simply.

"Go back to Melissa now."

He kissed her again, lingeringly. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch. When she opened them again, he had gone.

# Chapter 25

Work on the ship continued. Solly, Adam and Mina took the next shift and cut a one hundred metre section off the top of the departed medical block's spoke, watching it disappear with abrupt suddenness into space. They then moved down another hundred metres until they were just on the hub side of the damaged area where Leonora had had her frightening climb past the missing ladder section and began another cut. This they left unfinished because their air was running low and it fell to Evelio, Matt and Melissa to complete it. The next section was deemed to be the most critical because there was a risk of the severed part colliding with the observatory. They had run a simulation with Com1 and it looked close enough to be worrying but as there was little else they could easily do, they simply chopped it through and held their breaths. It missed.

The next section weighed very little now, being close to the hub so they were able to tether it to the stump of the spoke as they cut it through. Matt then went EVA down the outside and along to airlock 3, trailing 250m of line which they used to pull the section out of the plane of rotation before releasing it into space. They lost the line along with it but all that remained then was the hundred metre stump joined to the hub.

Over the next four shifts they cut most of it into bits and either welded or bolted them across the remaining weak points which Com1 had identified in the hull. Alpha Seven now resembled a cross between a scrapyard and an elaborate piece of modern sculpture but they were proud of what they had managed to achieve and it was time to run up the main drives.

Everybody gathered in the control room as Solly worked with Com1 to bring them up to full power in carefully controlled stages. There were no problems. The various strain gauges all gave negative readings, the gimbals both operated relatively smoothly and the ship took up her somewhat eccentric configuration as she accelerated up to 0.47g. It was an emotional moment. The six of them gathered together and linked their arms in a big mutual hug. The expedition was on the move again, they had performed a miracle. They were going to make it, they were going to survive!

The resultant forces made everybody feel much heavier and they soon became lethargic with the sheer effort of moving about but it was time for the crew to take a rest and consider the next and final stage before hibernation. They would have to start fabricating the extra tankage for the shuttles and transfer water from the hydroponica to fill them but for a while they could all take a break while Solly and Com1 worked out the logistics of the job.

Matt took himself to a spare console and found a personal message logged there. It said simply 'come as soon as you can. I need you.' His heart began beating faster as he read it through. He had begun to wonder during the intervening days if their encounter had been in his imagination, some sort of dream. Certainly, in his mind it had had a dreamlike quality to it, she had been there with him almost every waking moment ever since. But here was the message she had promised him. His body was responding emotionally of its own volition. He could imagine holding her, gazing into her eyes, whispering little words of love to her, feeling the press of her breasts against him, smelling the fragrance of her body... He entered a reply, his fingers trembling as they keyed in the letters 'I will come as soon as possible. I need you too.'

He told Solly that he intended to go and check out the observatory but it proved a bit of a problem to persuade the others, especially Melissa, that he didn't want their company. That he wanted to do his own thing.

Solly was busy and Evelio was helping him. Adam and Mina wanted to rest up anyway. Adam's wound had healed but he still tired easily and he had worked as hard as anybody on the ship repairs. Mina intended to see to it that he rested up for a time. Apart from attending to her needs, that was. Melissa was secretly relieved not to have to make yet another climb up the spoke, and this time from a much deeper gravity well than ever before. She was feeling tired, partly from the physical stress of their endeavours but also because her pregnancy was beginning to make its own demands. She was happy to take time out and relax and it would be good for Matt to have some space to himself. She thought.

The climb was much harder now. He had to stop to rest several times on the intermediate landings in the early stages but gradually the going grew easier and then he was floating into the hub. Equally the climb down became harder as he descended into the well of the observatory but he could feel his excitement build as he came closer to his assignation with Leonora. He was confronted by the airlock. The door opened and he went inside. Operated the pump, heard the hiss of air entering until it equalised with the inside. He took off his helmet and operated the latch.

She was waiting for him on the other side.

"You came!" She was standing naked before him. She was smiling. She was staggeringly beautiful.

"I am in love with you. You are in my thoughts every waking moment." He put down the helmet and together they wrestled him out of his suit leaving him standing only in his fleece. She reached a hand to his neck, unzipped it all the way down until her hand was touching the front of his boxer shorts "My rules. No clothes. It is warm in here."

He peeled it off and let it fall beside the oversuit. Slipped his pants down and stepped out of them. They embraced, kissed. She held him back at arm's length, gazed into his eyes. Her voice was husky with desire; she said simply "come to bed!"

It was a long time before they burned each other out and fell asleep under the duvet. When they awoke, they were hungry and thirsty and in need of a shower and it wasn't until they had dealt with all these that she took him into the observatory, sat him down on the sofa beside her and played Mozart's Requiem with the lights out under that magnificent vaulting starfilled sky.

When it finished, it was time to talk.

She played an image on to the screen. "Do you see that little blueish dot?" She used a laser pointer to indicate it. "The sun it rotates around is just out of the picture. It is our destination, Matt. That is New Earth! I filmed it using the telescope. And here is an archive photograph taken by the original high speed probe." The image of the planet filled the screen. It was hauntingly like home. He felt a lump in his throat as his eyes took in the white, swirling clouds, the blue oceans, the brown land masses. White polar caps. "This is what we came for" she continued emphatically. "This is what all the effort to put Alpha Seven together, provision and fuel her, is all about. We are privileged to be her crew!"

She turned so as to look directly into his eyes. "This is our children's birthright, Matt. Mine, Melissa's and, by now I expect, Mina's. We must not give up and go back."

He shook his head sadly. "They are all opposed. Only you voted to continue with the mission."

"And Adam!"

"He changed his mind."

Leonora looked down, her eyes misty. "That, too!" she murmured. Then she looked defiantly back to him. "And what do you say now, Matt? What about your baby that will probably die if Melissa is hibernated?"

"There are so many problems, Leonora. And if Melissa lost her pregnancy, we could start another afterwards."

"Except that you would be back in another time with different imperatives. How do you know that your relationship with her would survive, that there would be another one? You love me, don't you. You said those words to me, you worshipped my body. You said that, didn't you? You will want me again very soon, won't you? Just as much as I will want you!"

It was his turn to look down. "All those things are true, Leonora. I'm just overwhelmed by you. It is just fantastic between us. It isn't like that with Melissa, never will be. But I love her, too. A different love" he finished rather lamely.

"Matt, I've thought about a lot of things while I've been down here waiting for you to come. You can have both of us, can't you? You can't have a baby with me because Adam got there first. But I won't have just one child, will I? The next one could be yours. And Melissa's next one could be with somebody else."

"So what are you telling me?"

"That we don't have to be monogamous. We are a small group. I've lain down with Solly, too."

"You what?"

"Why shouldn't I have done? Solly's beautiful! It was my first time, and his. Something special that can't ever be taken away from us. But that doesn't diminish my love for you and yours for me. Or does it, Matt?"

"I thought you were pregnant by Adam. You've already been with three of us, then!"

"It wasn't like that with Adam. He got sick every time he tried. It was a bit of a miracle, to be honest. But we aren't lovers."

"Why was he sick? I don't understand."

"You never had the problem. You and Melissa were programmed to be a couple. It just worked for you as it was meant to. F1 goes with M1, F2 with M2 and..."

"...F4 with M4" he finished for her. "You and David? Mina and Adam! What about Solly and what about Evelio?"

"Solly is programmed for F3. There's nobody for Ahmed, Evelio, F5 or M10. Even if we can disable the programming, there aren't enough females to go around. In the conventional sense. And David told me that I was destined for him and him alone. Which meant that it was alright to rape me if he felt like it. Which he did, only I fought back."

"Leonora, I'm just completely confused! So how is it then that you can go with me. Or Solly" he added with a hint of sourness in his voice.

She took his hand and traced his fingers over the scar on her shoulder. "Nobody programmes me, Matt. I'm a free woman. I can have any man I like. Or all of you. In the fullness of time!" she added hastily. "Not all at once!"

He sat silently beside her for some time, just watching the image on the screen as it rotated slowly on it's axis. "You operated on yourself" he said finally. "Do you mean that we should all do the same and be free?"

"Only the females need to. If they want, as I did."

"Just now, that means Mina. And Melissa – if I let her."

"If you let her? Matt. You mustn't think like that. We are going to a new world, we must think anew, make our own way, make our own decisions."

"For the sake of your love, I would go with you Leonora. But I don't know if I can accept that you...sleep around."

"You would be free as well, don't forget. Darling Matt!" She leaned closer to him. "Whoever you wanted to make love to, as long as you could give me what we have just had, I would be happy!"

"Leonora, I need to think about all this. I didn't have any problems until I met you under the tree. It's a lot for me to take in but I will agree to this much. I will vote with you to continue the expedition. You just have to convince the others."

Matt sent a cautiously worded message back to them, said that the observatory was fully functional and had atmosphere, he was doing a bit of research and intended to return a day later when he had finished it. He downloaded the images that Leonora had produced so that he could present them on his return, after which she took him on a tour of the facility, they had another meal, watched some documentary footage of the origins of the expedition, played some more classical music which was so suited to the place and then went back to bed to repeat the joy of the previous night, lost in each other's arms.

Before he departed she made him promise to go to Solly, tell him how it was and ask him to come down to her. It went completely against the grain of his masculinity and he told her as much but despite his misgivings he said that he would and furthermore agreed that he would try to talk Melissa into voting to continue even though he didn't feel capable of telling her about his love affair with Leonora. With that, she bade him a passionate adieu and helped him to suit up. His last view of her was as his first had been when the airlock opened, standing naked before him, stunningly beautiful and smiling her dazzling smile.

As she would next greet Solly. It was a thoughtful Matt who made his plodding return up the spoke to the hub and down the other side to his hydroponic home, Melissa and the other revived members of the Alpha Seven expedition.
Chapter 26

A message scrolled down the screen. It was from Solly.

'Leonora, Matt has told me everything that has been happening. I will come to you straight away.

Solly.'

She put Holst's Planet Suite on the sound system and lay back luxuriously on the sofa to contemplate things. Matt had told her that they had voted Solly as leader, which made him very influential so that she hoped, through him to save the expedition. If she carried his vote, and she had no doubt in her heart that he would agree with her then that only left Adam and Mina, Evelio and the discredited David. They would be deadlocked, four all. She would have to persuade Evelio, then. She smiled inwardly at the thought. Or Mina might be persuaded at the promise of sexual freedom.

Leonora felt confident that she could win the day. Her baby would be safe and so, then, would the expedition. Once they had made the right decision, there would be a million and one things to occupy their time for the four years that it would take to arrive at their destination. They would have to revive the remaining crewmembers and bring them up to date with the situation. They would have to sort out their relationships with each other over time. For success they would have to be welded together as a coherent team and that would need to be emotionally as well as physically. It would be best, she pondered, if everybody committed to everybody else. She was advocating free love, the only equitable way to solve the imbalance of the sexes and make them function as one big family and not a series of dangerously fragmented nuclear units, each perhaps seeking territorial advantage in times of short supply. It might be particularly difficult for some of the males, she thought. Matt had already been equivocal when it came to Melissa and she knew that David was aggressively possessive. He would want to be the stud of the expedition. She hadn't forgotten that he would have killed M10 even before he had specific designs on any of the females. David would have to be worked on.

Then the babies would come. They would need to calculate the extra demands on Alpha Seven's creaking infrastructure. They could easily have had two children each before they arrived even at their destination, the second generation would be well established in the reasonably safe and sterile environment of the ship. They would need to ensure that nobody was pregnant at the time of arrival because they would need the full complement of the crew to be fully functioning at that time. Her mind began to run and run. So many details, so many things. They ought to try to get at least one of the auxiliaries going so that the ship would have power to run the services, especially the elevators! So many things....

The music had finished. The airlock was operating from outside. Her body tingled with anticipation. Leonora had discovered sex in a big way, she was young, blossoming and she loved it. With Matt especially. She had already learned how subtly beautiful it could be and she would enjoy teaching Solly what she had learned from Matt....

She went to the airlock as it opened, revelling in her own naked beauty. The suited figure stepped from within and took off his helmet. It was David.

"Well Leonora! I've said it before, you're certainly a looker!" He grinned widely.

The smile on her face collapsed into open mouthed shock. "Solly?" But the word wouldn't come when she tried to say it. For a moment, she felt faint, she physically staggered backwards a couple of paces.

"Aren't you going to help me out of this thing?" He had opened the oversuit and was starting to climb out of it. She automatically went to help him, shocked as she was. She was still speechless. He stepped clear of it, discarded it on the floor. Looked her up and down with a lascivious expression on his face. "I'm overdressed, I think!" He was enjoying this immensely, unzipped his fleece from neck to crutch with an exaggerated flourish and peeled it off, paused for no more than a second, then pushed his boxer shorts down his hips and let them drop, to stand naked before her. She took several steps backwards, her eyes never leaving his and at last found her voice.

"I may not be strong enough to prevent you from raping me but if you even try it I will never forgive you."

He smiled, continued to take in the panorama of her body. "I'm sorry for what happened. My face still hurts, I think you may have cracked a cheekbone. So let's call it quits, shall we Leonora? And start again."

"How did you know I was here? Only Matt and Solly know and that was because I invited them to come."

"I may only have had a primitive computer terminal in the hydroponicum but I had a lot of time to work on things. As soon as I made sure that I couldn't be physically attacked by wedging the hatchway from the inside, I did some serious programming. I've been following everything that's been going on. But I only knew what had happened to you when you left a message for Matt. So when Solly sent you a message to say that he was on his way, I decided to come along as well. And here I am!"

"So here you are, David." She was recovering from the shock and her mind was going into adrenaline-induced top gear. He wasn't going to attack her, she realised. At least, not immediately, though she was horribly aware of how extremely vulnerable she was. Solly couldn't be far behind him, but the airlock was open from the inside and he wouldn't be able to let himself in because the inner door had latched itself open, her own safety precaution against unwelcome visitors. David was between her and it, she realised that he knew, recalled that he had opened it fully, must have heard the 'click' and realised what it meant. For the time being she was trapped.

"So here I am, beautiful Leonora. Do you welcome all your guests like that?"

She had to manage David. Her final expedition plans required him to be on board even though he was the author of the hibernate and return strategy. Her first thought was to run and get something to defend herself with, maybe a scalpel from the medical kit, her second to manoeuvre him around so that she could unclip the airlock for when Solly arrived. She was still mentally running from his attempted rape, she was still frightened of him.

All these thoughts flashed through her in an instant and she rejected them. It was up to her to move on from that awful moment which had galvanised her to flee to the medical block and then find her new home which he was now invading. In fact, and she was reaching into her heart now, it wasn't so much her encounter with David as her distress at finding Adam and Mina that had traumatised her. She remembered those first moments when she had wanted him, but rapidly supplanted by her anger at his arrogance and lack of care for her, a lack of love, just a wanton conquest. And he still thought that she was his alone, to do what he liked with.

"You aren't exactly a guest, are you? You invaded the home I have made here. So apart from the obvious, what do you want of me?"

"The obvious will do, for a start." He wasn't grinning any more. "We have been pre-selected for each other, you know that don't you?"

She looked down at his penis, the start of an erection forming. She realised that she wasn't scared of him any more but she needed to be in control of the situation. "I want you to sit down, David. Get a drink. I am willing to talk to you."

"And then perform a standard exercise routine! With you, I'd like that" He laughed, but he did as she bade him and she sat opposite him, keyed in an order for malted milk for both of them. He looked at the vessel she offered him, sniffed it and wrinkled his nose. "Malted Milk?"

"It's my favourite. I'm pregnant, remember. You don't have to drink it but it'll do you good."

"Yes, mummy!"

"Very well then, David. When we last met, before you attacked me..."

"Not an attack, Leonora. Just a bit of a kiss and cuddle. You went way over the top, didn't you."

"Blast you, David. You tried to rape me. You deserved what you got. But let's stop that now. I offered you a bargain then." She looked directly into his eyes. "The bargain still stands. You can have everything you want with me, here and now in exchange for a commitment to continue with the expedition. I will give myself to you willingly and you will not be disappointed, I promise you." She let her voice drop a little lower and set her lips slightly apart. She knew from his eyes that she had won.

"We are preordained Leonora. Me and no other."

"Do you agree the bargain?"

"I do."

She stood up, reached over and took his hand. Their fingers tingled at the touch. "Come to bed." Her voice had gone husky. She had caught the scent of his body and he had caught the scent of hers. She was suddenly drunk with desire for him, took him to the same bed where she had spent the last two nights with Matt and rolled in under the duvet with him. With Solly and then Matt it had been wonderful. With David it was incredible. They were preordained.

Out in the spoke, Solly reached the airlock only to find that it was barred to him. And he didn't have enough air to make the climb out again.

Chapter 27

Solly put out a mayday call via Com1 with an awful sense of foreboding. The horror that had only stopped plaguing him at night since Leonora awoke him and then made love to him reared up in his mind, causing him to freeze mentally, rooted to the spot on the wrong side of the airlock.

Adam and Mina were resting by their pool in H1, Matt was back with Melissa in H4 and Evelio was asleep in his tent in H3, dreaming of going home. Leonora's computer terminal was silently flashing Com1's MAYDAY in red along with every other monitor screen on board Alpha Seven. All the others were also giving out audible alarms, alas beyond earshot of the other crewmembers. Leonora had turned hers off in a moment of illogical pique because Com1 had refused to acknowledge her existence and afford her the courtesy of spoken dialogue.

He was stranded. If he kept his cool and waited for rescue, his air could maybe last more than an hour, if he started to climb back up out of that deep well he would probably only get about half way. The last thing he was going to keep was his cool, he was panic stricken. He tried banging with his gloved hand on the metalwork but he couldn't hear if it was audible, he suspected that it wasn't. He needed to propagate a loud noise through the metalwork and hope that Leonora within would hear it. After all, she was waiting for him. He didn't seem to have anything remotely useful in the suit's kit and there was nothing loose around him. Eventually he resorted to banging with both fists together against the airlock door and shouting futilely into his suit radio.

The chemical attraction was fantastic. It wasn't skilled or paced out lovemaking. They devoured each other with complete abandon. David ejaculated as soon as he had penetrated her but then she wouldn't let him stop, she kept him erect by the physical force of her response until he was able to respond to her thrusting hips and heaving thighs with renewed force of his own. He felt her fingers digging into his shoulders, she was biting his neck. She screamed out her orgasms, practically lifting him off the bed with the power of her response. They were soaked in sweat, rocking and thrusting, twisting and writhing with mutual ecstasy until she forced him to a second climax, sharing the sensation with him, coming too then slumping back on to the bed, exhausted.

She rolled them sideways, kissed him, gently now and whispered into his ear "I said I wouldn't disappoint you!"

He nodded once and fell asleep, still holding his arms around her.

She became aware of a dull thudding sound and instantly realised that it must be Solly. She sat up abruptly, waking David as she did so. "It must be Solly. He can't get through the airlock"

"Just as well!" he replied "or he might have happened upon more than he could cope with." But Leonora had slipped from under his arm and tottered to the airlock, released the catch and swung the inner hatch shut. She picked up David's fleece, returned to the bedroom doorway and tossed it to him. "Better put something on!" she said with a grin and returned to meet Solly, wondering whatever she was going to be able to say to him. She was aware of her body aching just about everywhere and a glorious warm glow inside her. Leonora felt wonderful despite the emerging emotional crisis making it's way through the airlock.

The pressures equalised and Solly erupted through the hatchway, taking his helmet off at the same time. He came face to face with her and stopped. "Leonora, for Christ's sake. I was almost out of air. What the...."

David, contemptuously discarding the fleece, stepped naked out of the bedroom, came over to them and put his arm around her shoulders. "Three's a crowd, so they say Solly."

"What... what the Hell are you..." He let the rest of the question die. "How did you get here?"

"Same way as you, oh my leader. Up the spoke and down again."

"But how did you escape?"

"I put my mind to it. You were all far too preoccupied to bother checking up on what was happening to me. I managed to shock the hatchway loose some days ago and I've been following everything on the computer which I linked up to Com1. The rest was timing!"

"I could have died out there you..."

"Solly, I had to tell you before about topping your air up. Remember? Now you're supposed to be our leader, isn't it about time you started to act like it?"

Solly flushed. Turned his angry eyes to Leonora. "So he got here first and you just couldn't wait. You whore!" He spat on the floor at her feet. David started angrily forward but she held him back. "Solly, I know how it looks. This isn't the time to talk about it."

He turned away with a shrug, connected his suit to the air supply and studiedly watched it until the gauge registered full, climbed back inside the airlock and pulled it closed behind him. They stood silently waiting until they heard the outer door open.

"Why did he call you that? What's it to him what we do? Did he think he could have you?"

"Come back to bed, Darling. Then I'll give you the answer." She took his hand, drew him back to the bedroom, threw back the duvet which revealed a satisfyingly large wet stained patch in the middle and pulled him down on to it. She rolled on to her side facing him, took his fingers and traced them over the scar on her shoulder. "I'm a free person now. I can do what I like with whoever I like and not what some computer programmer decided for me seventy-four years ago. Solly and I made love. It was the first time for both of us. Why shouldn't he have come to me again."

He ran his own finger across the scar. "You operated on yourself?"

"It was your doing, really. When you told me that Com1 knew where I was, I determined that in future he wouldn't. You nearly killed me, by the way! I was climbing past the broken ladder when you spoke into my suit radio and I fell. If I hadn't rigged a safety line I would have gone all the way to the bottom."

He shook his head. "We've got some making up to do, you and I. I think I'd better stay here and look after you Leonora. Keep you safe!"

She smiled at him. "You know, I think I'd like that David. So how about breakfast in bed?"

Chapter 28

Solly climbed back up the spoke in a paroxysm of rage. 'How could she! And with _him_ out of all of them. After all, he had tried to rape her. It doesn't make sense. Maybe she likes it like that!' After slipping his feet off a rung and ending up dangling by his hands and wrenching his shoulders, he forced himself to calm down and concentrate on the climb, eventually entering the hub, not weightless as before but being pulled towards the bulkhead at what now formed the floor of the shuttle bay by a healthy 0.45g. Somehow he couldn't face his companions in the hydroponica and on impulse he walked along until he was able to climb up a ladder and on to the entry platform which gave access to S2. He passed through the airlock into the warmth of the pressurised cabin and took off his suit. This would do, he decided, until he had sorted himself out.

He ordered a hot drink from the meal service console and went to check up on the hibernating crewmembers. F3, his F3, beautiful and asleep. For a moment he toyed with the idea of reviving her, after all, she was his by predestination – and to Hell with Leonora! But then, they would all be joining her soon enough, it would simply be unfair. On the other hand, he rationalised, if they continued with the mission, she would be his anyway and that could be straight away. As leader it would fall to him to take her through the events which had transpired all the time she had lain asleep, including their horrendous journey into space together. Until he would have to explain the preparations they had all been making to hibernate. On the other hand, everything that they had so far achieved had actually been essential repairs to Alpha Seven so that they could achieve a slingshot trajectory around their destination sun and head back for home. It wouldn't take a lot of computation to redirect her into a stable solar orbit and then a planetary one around their destined planet. So the options were still all open. Maybe she and her other two companions, F5 and M10 would have a view on whether they should abort or go ahead with the mission. Three fresh views on the subject, unsullied by the various traumata they had all endured and uncluttered by the emotional crises they had passed through.

As for the rehibernated Ahmed, he dared not think.

Solly sat at the controls and called up Com1. "Compute me an orbital trajectory around our destination sun, Com1."

"Confirmed." Com1's measured, imperturbable tone. A brief pause before the orbit displayed on screen. At least he acknowledged that it was possible. "Have we sufficient fuel to do it?"

"Affirmative."

"Would there be sufficient also to orbit our destination planet and effect a shuttle descent?"

"Affirmative."

"Would the ship's structure be sufficiently stable to survive such manoeuvres?"

Com1 paused for some seconds before responding. "With an approximately 95% probability, the current repairs would be sufficient."

"Thank you Com1!" Solly closed his eyes and pondered. Remote now from Leonora and the loathsome David, remote from his other companions, Solly made up his mind to go ahead with the expedition. He would have to have a majority of votes. He thought that he could carry Evelio with a promise of F5. He went over to her cubicle. Another very beautiful girl. Another sleeping beauty. All he had to do was order Com1 to start the process of awakening them. If he left M10 in deep freeze along with Ahmed, the sexes would be balanced in number and if Leonora could surgically remove her personal monitor, it could be done for F5. Not F3, though, he decided. F3 was his!

But he couldn't do such a thing without carrying the vote first. Evelio and himself, Leonora, Matt and Melissa as a couple or Mina and Adam as another couple. Either would be enough to carry the day – he wouldn't need both.

There wasn't any point in delay, then. The expedition had to make a decision.

"Com1, put out a message on open channel. Get me an acknowledgement from all crewmembers. This is the message:

"All crewmembers please gather in H2 in four standard hours from now. I wish to hold a further and final meeting on whether we should continue with the expedition as an alternative to hibernation and return.

Solly."

'That should give the lovers time to finish what they are doing and make their way back home from the observatory' he thought. 'Funny enough, he wasn't the slightest bit jealous any more. Not now. Not now that Leonora had been with David. And who knew who else', he mused.

He dragged his suit on again, took a last look at F3, so peaceful, so beautiful. "I'll be back for you my sleeping beauty. Very soon!" he said.

********************************************

They had gathered in H2 once more. Only Leonora and David had yet to complete the descent from the observatory. Solly had been careful not to say anything before everybody was there except to appraise those who did not yet know, that Leonora was alive and well and had been living in the observatory. Also that David was now released from his incarceration in H4 and had gone to get her. There was an air of anticipation among the group. He looked around them again. Mina sitting beside Adam, wearing only a pair of knickers matching his boxer shorts. Matt and Melissa also topless, but maybe not so together, there could be something amiss, there. Evelio on his own; and himself. Six out of the eight and four hibernated.

The hatchway opened and the two suited figures entered. They were all watching with studied intentness as David and Leonora took off their helmets, then solemnly peeled off their suits and fleeces. Leonora cast her eyes around, meeting the gaze of each in turn.

"I think I'm a bit overdressed" she said with a grin, pulling off her bra and dropping it beside the pile of their clothes.

Mina stood up, went over and hugged her. "Welcome home Leonora" she said with tears of relief and guilt assuaged in her eyes. Melissa remained sitting on the grass. She was still coming to terms with the knowledge that Leonora had been in the observatory and that Matt had kept the fact to himself. He had not been able to look at her since Solly had told them.

David said nothing, sat down also. Leonora went to him and sat on his lap, put an arm around his shoulder. "Over to you, Solly!" she said.

"Yes, over to me! In my role as leader, I thought it was important for us to make the final decision about what we do. To hibernate and return to Earth or to go on and start up our new colony. I know that everybody except Leonora voted to hibernate last time but I think things have changed now. We are in a far better position than we were to continue, and Com1 says that we can get into a stable orbit around our destined planet." He used the projector which he had set up to display the image Matt had brought with him from the observatory. There was a noticeable intake of breath from everybody as they took in the beautiful sight of 'New Earth' as Leonora had dubbed it.

"This is what we can have. This can be our home. I vote to go on."

"Well, I don't!" Melissa snapped. "I think you've got something to tell me about, haven't you Matt?"

He looked down unhappily, the silence in the little group was palpable, waiting for his response.

"The answer is yes, that we made love together!" Leonora's answer for him snapped all their heads around.

"The Hell you did!" Made a joke out of me too, Leonora!" David stood up angrily, tipping her over on to the grass. "Is there anybody here that you haven't been with?"

Evelio looked on, bemused. "Well not me, that's for certain!" I've got no reason to stay with this expedition. My vote stays. We hibernate."

Leonora stood up, facing them out. "Listen, all of you! Yes, I have made love to three of you and I would have done with Adam, too if I could. And Evelio" she turned and smiled at him "there is still time!"

She spread her arms, lifting her breasts, tilted her head back showing off her beauty, then pointed to her scarred shoulder. "We were set up for this expedition. We are not free individuals, we were programmed. Me for David, Adam for Mina, Solly for F3, Matt for Melissa, F5 for a dead crewmember and the same for Ahmed, Evelio and M10.

Only, my first love was for Adam who is the father of my baby but the programming made him sick every time we tried. I removed my personal monitor when I was in the medical block so that now I am free and I can have who I want. But there's more to it than that. If we all pair up there aren't enough females to go around and that imperils everything. I advocate free love! Each of the three of you have brought me joy. On this ship there are only seven men I can possibly have, ever. Which applies to all of you too. Let's bond together, let's be a big extended family, not a few tight little couples. That way we all come to love each other for our strengths and weaknesses, that way is to heaven, the other way is to hell!"

Her monologue was received in a silence of mixed and hidden emotions. "I vote to continue the expedition" she concluded.

"If I can have my monitor removed, I vote to go ahead too" Mina stood up and went to stand beside her."

"If that's what you want, I vote to hibernate!" Adam's voice was coldly angry. "I love you Mina and I love you only."

"You loved me, too, Adam. Not very long ago! You are the father of my child." Leonora's face was streaked with tears. He looked down but said no more.

The silence stretched unbearably until Solly broke it. "I have votes to continue from me, Leonora, Mina. Votes against from Adam, Melissa, Evelio. Matt, what do you say?"

The unhappy Matt looked at Melissa. "We could lose our child by hibernating but if you vote against, then so do I."

"You've said nothing, David."

"I vote to continue. Even if you made an unfair bargain, made a fool out of me" he said to Leonora. "You for me and nobody else? Before I knew you'd been with Matt as well. But I will go with you for the fire in your belly that I know burns only for me."

"Which makes it four each, I think" concluded Solly.

"Not so, alas" interjected Adam. "You forgot Ahmed. He has already voted to go home. Five to four against. We hibernate.

David's eyes met Mina's. Neither spoke. They had voted for him.

"Well, at least some of you have enough vision. Maybe we're all too young and inexperienced and we lost the guidance of our leaders. My father was L1. I have lost him but I am not going to lose my baby. I will fight you to the death over that. David, will you come back with me." Leonora was choking the words, turned away and went to the airlock. David went with her.

When they had gone, Solly looked around with a mixture of anger and sadness. "I resign as your leader. Com1 will tell you what you have to do to prepare for hibernation. You can find me in S2 if you need me."

# Chapter 29

"I want to thank you, David."

"You've nothing to thank me for."

"But I have. You were dead against carrying on and you changed your mind on my account."

He smiled. "You're incredibly beautiful, Leonora. I've lusted for you from the moment I set eyes on you and now you're mine. Even with all that free love crap. We set each other on fire. Personal monitor or not, we were predestined for each other."

"How do you know it will last?"

He laughed. "You won't ever look at another man. Not after me! Besides, I don't have a lot of competition, do I."

She smiled. "Alright, my man. Then tell me how to turn this vote?"

"I would have thought I could do a bit of persuading. But I'm not offering your body to Evelio, that's for sure! Maybe Matt can be persuaded to change his mind. Just because he's in the doghouse with that wimp Melissa!"

"That's not really fair, you know. She was upset because he hid the truth from her."

"Well, he certainly had good reason to. I bet she's giving him a hard time right now. Free love won't work, Leonora darling. I think you were being a bit naïve, don't you?"

"Maybe I am but I'm at least halfway right. What do the leftover men do?"

"If I was leader again, there wouldn't be any! Poor Ahmed is unlikely to survive anyway and as for M10..."

"You would have killed him, David. I'm still horrified that you did what you did."

"It was a moment in time, Leonora. I think we were all a bit crazy, just then. No, I would advocate keeping him in deep freeze until we need another male. Maybe until the next generation when our children have grown up. Add a bit of genetic diversity. It's a new game and there's only us to make up the rules."

"It was Adam who really hurt me. I saved his life. I bear his child. His child who will die if we hibernate. Adam has changed so much."

"He came close to dying down in the engine bay and he had a horrendous wound. I think he's had enough. Just hasn't got the fibre left in him. Going back is an easy way for him."

"Whatever, we have a loser with Adam and Mina anyway. Give her the operation and she'll vote 'yes' but Adam will vote 'no'. Deny her and he said he'd vote 'yes' but she'll vote 'no'!"

David had a sudden vision of Mina. Mina who he vowed to have one day. Mina with whom he had been embarrassed by the sickness. Mina who he could fancy just as much as he could want Leonora, delicious Leonora, lying in bed beside him, waiting for the coming moment when they would explode again in each others' arms. Just the thought started a surge of pleasurable sensation between his thighs. "Maybe I can persuade Mina to defer the pleasure until later when there's no going back. That way we win Adam and Mina's votes."

"Why don't you go and see her then. Probably better coming from you than from me just at the moment."

He smiled. "Maybe I will, at that!" His hand touched her breast, stroked the sensitive tissue there. Her nipple puckered up tightly in response.

"Tomorrow!"

********************************************

As it happened, there wasn't much work left to do to prepare for hibernation. Adam, Evelio and Matt worked together on making up the extra fuel tanks while Mina and Melissa stayed in the hydroponica and carried out inventory checks, verified programs with Com1 and prepared for moving his CPU into S2. After four shifts they had selected what they needed, unfastened them from their fittings, welded patches over some holes and transferred them into the Shuttle bay. They had then to be connected alongside and fuel connections made into the shuttles' umbilicals. A reluctant Solly agreed to help them connect up transfer pipework and start filtering and draining down water from the hydroponics ponds. It required the contents of the ponds in H1 and H2 only, leaving Adam and Mina's home and Matt and Melissa's unchanged.

Mina and Melissa did the delicate job of transferring Com1's hardware into S2 and running through another lengthy series of checks. With the crew hibernated, Com1 would have to attend to everything himself. It was important that everything was correctly assembled and positioned so that the shuttles would fire up and detach from Alpha Seven without mishap.

Then there was nothing else left to do.

They gathered together in H2, on the grassy meeting place for the final stage of the operation, emotionally and physically exhausted. They ate a meal together, discussed everything they had done, checked with each other and with Com1 via a local terminal until all was said and done and the last subject was all that remained to be resolved.

"What are we going to do about Leonora and David?" asked Solly, feeling curiously detached from events. Once he had resigned his leadership and informed Com1 of the fact, he had felt much better. Nobody else could be persuaded to take the role so they had managed leaderless from then on and it hadn't mattered so far, except that only a crewmember of 'L' status could initiate the hibernation process. For this one act, a distinctly unhappy Matt agreed to take responsibility.

"We have to negotiate with her. Or, more to the point, negotiate with David because she isn't ever going to agree to be hibernated."

"She is just as likely to barricade herself in the observatory" pointed out Solly. "She can stay there indefinitely unless we burn our way in through the airlock, and I for one won't condone anything like that. Over to you my leader!"

Matt nodded unhappily. "I will contact David."

********************************************

They met in Refuge 2. "So this is it, David. Just you and me, out of hearing from the rest of them. What do you want to do?"

He smiled, a trifle crookedly. "I want to spend the rest of my days in bed with her!"

Matt resisted the temptation to hit him. "It's hibernation time, now. She doesn't have any choice any more than you have."

"Oh, I'll come quietly, Matt. But there's no way that Leonora will. Not so much Leonora, but her's and Adam's foetus. She will fight to the death for it, I can assure you."

"So what can we do, then?"

"I've given it a bit of thought. I knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when. When I give you the call, have the three of you ready to bring her up in the elevator. That will be tomorrow. In 24 standard hours from now. I will call you."

Chapter 30

"Tell me about your father"

They were sitting on the sofa in the observatory in the dark beneath the starry canopy. David had his arm around her shoulders. "He was L1 and his partner was L2. He never told me. The last I saw of him was when I hibernated, he sat with me until I fell asleep. I found out when I searched the crew profile in the archives here. It was a terrible shock, I wandered about down here for days in some sort of black despair until a bout of morning sickness brought me out of it."

"How so?"

"My baby. I promised him that my baby would be the first colonist of the next generation. Which is why I can't accept being hibernated. You understand that, don't you David?"

He nodded but said nothing. A cloud of sadness drifted into his mind and showed in his face, which she misunderstood. "Oh, David! Adam doesn't deserve to be my baby's father, but there's no changing that. I promise you faithfully, Darling David, that my next child will be yours and as many others that I am able to bear for you. I love you more than anything in the whole universe." She touched the scar on her shoulder. "I am a free woman but I give myself to you utterly. For life."

He must have looked scared because she suddenly grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "That's a terrible responsibility, isn't it!"

"You were close to him?"

"He brought me up. He was mother and father to me. I loved him dearly and he loved me. Which is why I am here now, he saw the Alpha project as a fantastic opportunity for me. For us, I now realise!" She told him all about her father and he let her pour the pain of her loss into his heart so that when she had said everything, David was ready to listen with her to his beloved Beethoven. The Glorious Ninth Symphony.

When it finished, they were both weeping. He picked her up and carried her to bed and made love to her with great gentleness and for a long time so that eventually she drifted off into sleep without either of them reaching a climax.

He was still inside her when he reached over to the drawer where he had concealed the syringe. He pushed the needle carefully into her skin, just beside the scar where he knew that she was still numb and she did not even stir in her sleep. "You will never forgive me Leonora but there was nothing else that could be done. Sleep well, my love."

He waited for a few minutes, then lifted her eyelid. She was deeply unconscious so he slipped out of the bed and went over to the console.

"Matt?"

"David?"

"You can come down now."

********************************************

She had been dreaming for some long while as consciousness gradually began to return. Everything was very quiet and still, very peaceful. At last, she opened her eyes. She recognised the hibernation cubicle, she was being revived. They must be at their destination now, their long journey was over.

She lay there unmoving, remembering the preparations for their great journey then the hibernation and her father's face looking anxiously at her from outside the cover. Then all the rest came flooding back and she remembered making love with David, drifting into sleep. She sat up, lifted the cubicle lid, pushed aside the restraints. She was in the shuttle, surrounded by the others. She stood up, felt very woozy, slumped back on to the couch. She shook her head, trying to clear it and tried to stand again, more carefully this time. Holding on, she tottered to the cubicle beside her. David was in it, asleep.

So were all the others. She was the only one to have awakened. Perhaps she was just the first. She tottered forward and sat gratefully in the pilot's seat of the shuttle.

"Com1. Are you there"

"Affirmative."

"Com1, why am I the only one waking up?"

"Hibernation sequence could not be initiated."

"What do you mean, initiated?"

"Your personal monitor is inoperative or missing. Initiation was aborted."

"I don't understand. Com1, where are we?"

"In Shuttle S2."

"I can see that. How did I get here?"

"You were carried here by other crewmembers. You were unconscious" he added.

"Why was I ...unconscious?"

"Not known due to telemetry malfunction."

She touched her shoulder and then laughed. "So you couldn't hibernate me. Com1, give me a malted milk drink!"

As she drank, her mind began to work properly. David had betrayed her she realised. He must have drugged her, brought here in her sleep. Put her into hibernation, knowing that she might lose her baby. The man she had promised herself to. For life. She stood up, went to his cubicle and looked at his sleeping face. "Trouble is, I still love you David, whatever you might have done."

She returned to her dialogue with Com1. "How do I revive them?"

"You cannot. Reviving can only be done by a person of 'L' status."

"Com1, I'm the only one on the whole damn ship who isn't hibernated. Can't I have 'L' status?"

"You do not exist. Your personal telemetry is inoperative or missing."

"If I don't exist, how come you're talking to me?"

"This fact gives me a paradox which only a person of 'L' status can resolve."

"Oh, come on, Com1. Search your records. You must have my fingerprints or something on file."

"Affirmative. All crewmembers have retinal patterns filed."

"OK, then. Look into my eyes. What do you see."

A camera whirred and focussed above the console. "You are identified as crewmember F1"

"Well, that's good Com1. So now you know that I exist, does that resolve your paradox?"

"Affirmative."

"But you said only a person of 'L' status could resolve your paradox."

"Affirmative, F1."

"Then please acknowledge my 'L' status!"

"Acknowledged, F1. You are redesignated 'L1' with immediate effect."

"So now I'm in charge of the ship and the expedition?"

"Affirmative, L1"

"And I can initiate the revival sequence for the other crewmembers?"

"You can command me to do so."

"Thank you Com1." Leonora smiled and sank back into the seat.

The effects of the drug had worn off almost completely, though she still felt a little drowsy. So she was in charge, now, she mused. She was going to go ahead with the expedition whatever they may have voted, but there was no reason to rush into things, they were still four years away from rendezvous. Now that they were all asleep, it would be pointless to wake them up again and it would doubtless spark a furious row if she did. She'd had enough of trauma, she wanted a period of peace and contemplation for a little while.

Then she might wake somebody up. David being the obvious choice and she certainly had a few words she was going to say to him. But before that she thought she might revive her friend Mina. Little Mina who saw things much as she herself did. Yes, she would revive Mina and then they could decide between them who else to wake up. David certainly. But first, maybe they should do something with poor lonely Evelio, and what about the unknown M10? They could have enormous fun once Mina's monitor had been removed and later on, if it looked as though they might get bored they could always revive a new crewmember to join in with them.

They would have lots of time in which to discuss it.

