 
Luminosity

A Dream Suite

By R.D Francis

Based on the screenplay

"Luminosity"

Cover Design by R.D Francis

"Planet Moon Orbit Solar System" image courtesy of LoganArt via Pixabay.com.

Free for commercial use. No attribution required. CC0 Creative Commons.

https://pixabay.com/en/planet-moon-orbit-solar-system-581239/

Cover typefaces "Anton" and "NeonOne" courtesy of PicFont.com.

Free for commercial use. No attribution required.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2019 R.D Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Thank you for downloading this free eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own free copy from their favorite authorized eRetailer. Thank you for supporting the hard work of this author.

For Pop

I can only dream about it and write it.

You are out there . . . living in luminosity.

You are the greatest coauthor in the universe.

You are now God's solar prophet.

* * *

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.  
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  
Of all the western stars.

—Lord Alfred Tennyson  
From his 1842 poem, Ulysses

Chapter 1 — A New Beginning

Chapter 2 — Soul Mission

Chapter 3 — Interconnectness

Chapter 4 — Being

Chapter 5 — Loyalty

Chapter 6 — Balance

Chapter 7 — Intuition

Chapter 8 — Confidence

Chapter 9 — Enlightenment

Chapter 10 — Simplicity

Chapter 11 — Transmutation

Chapter 12 — Achievement

Chapter 13 — Manifestation

Chapter 14 — Double Measures

Chapter 15 — Harmonious

Chapter 16 — Realization

Chapter 17 — Luminosity

About the Author

Appendix: Movies and Books

1 — A New Beginning

**THE** future is now. The science is no longer fiction. The science is a reality.

True, man hasn't perfected a one-push-of-a-button gravity field that miraculously allows us to effortless take a causal walk through the park of a space vessel, but man is now able to pilot their own, unmanned versions Bishop Wilkins's mythical "flying chariots" for travels far beyond the limited parameters of Jules Verne's fantasies of traveling _From the Earth to the Moon_.

And while man may never achieve the technology to bridge the 70,000 Earth-year gap journey to Promixa Centauri down to the span of man's current life expectancy (in this year of our Lord of 2045) of 110 years, man has conquered the confines of Earth's solar system, with manned travel to our solar system's outermost rim within a span of twenty two to twenty four years—depending on a ship's size and payload factored against its propulsion systems. So, when considering man's earliest days of propulsion-based travel with wheeled steam engines, it is an admirable feat that man has achieved the abilities to travel the speeds up to 25,000 miles per hour necessary for interplanetary travel—but will man forever be 669,975,000 miles per hour short for a neck-to-neck race with light velocity? That is the question.

Meanwhile, for the Earth-bound astrophysicist, their "new reality" is the confined, unglamorous surroundings of a mission control center, which possesses none of the hardware or architectural features of a science fiction film from years gone by. Today's mission control center is nothing but a commons area office space with countertops populated by flat-panel monitors and portable Surface-droids. In reality, a typical MCC resembles a slightly more high-tech version of the long abolished boiler room-inspired call centers of the late 20th and early 21st century.

There are no fancy uniforms or dress codes of crisp white shirt and ties. Today's mission control is a unisex work environment of Izod-shirted equality. To be honest, working in a mission control center is just a "job" most days. And like most jobs, it can be uneventful and boring.

Then, on a classified day in 2015, an occurrence interrupted the monotony for twenty mission techs in New Horizon's Mission Control. As the New Horizon's probe uploaded data that began scrolling on the monitors—the techs, at first, rubbed their eyes and shook off a case of double vision.

At first, wooziness washed over Mission Tech Palmer. Rubbing her face and running her fingers through her lavender-colored hair, she quickly regained her bearings to update the Mission Control Officer. "MOM, this is RF on Pluto One with stat—," then a smile washed over Palmer's face. "They're beautiful . . . colorful seraphim with three sets of wings!"

All the monitors displayed twisting, rotating kaleidoscopes accompanied by an audio pitch that squealed from 20 hertz to 20 megahertz in a manner of seconds. None of the techs raised their hands to their ears in pain. While a few were able to rise from their chairs and stagger drunk for a few steps, they soon fell to the floor with the rest of the techs who spilled out of their chairs at the first sign of the computer-generated color tunnels.

One common trait among all of them: their irises took on the appearance of the spinning kaleidoscopes on their monitors.

2 — Soul Mission

**THE** U.S.S Burdett, a white cigar-shaped aircraft carrier-sized pupa encased in latticework, orbits the Moon in dry-dock. The second Tombaugh-class vessel of its kind, some refer to her design as the "Great White Whale" of the space program. Her sister ship, the Gustav Holtz, broke away from her perch several years ago for a mission to Saturn's rings—and never returned.

A centrifuge near the tapered mission center nosecone of the Burdett slowly rotates. Courtesy of recent scientific advances, the floor of the centrifuge is fitted with rectangular portals around its circumference, constructed with a variant of transparent aluminum—a type of faux-glass that is opaque to ultra-violet light, passes ordinary light, offers a clear view, and can support the weight and force of a man running on its non-skid surface (for exercise) around the inner hull. The windows are positioned that whether you are looking down at your feet, ahead, or above you, the centrifuge offers spectacular views of the stars. Centrifuge portals, however, were not the invention of engineers, but of psychologists who believed the ability to "look out" of a window—even in deep space—deterred a man's natural tendencies of isolation and estrangement and promoted a crew's good mental health.

A photo of a then twenty-four-year-old Clyde Tombaugh—pictured with one of his homemade telescopes—is displayed on the wall of the crew's Commons Area inside the centrifuge. The frame's glass reflects the forty-something images of Commander Virgil Chaffee, his pilot, of Sioux Indian heritage, Kimimela Kamara, and his flight engineer, Robert Cornthwaite. While he was not named after him, one of Corny's distant relatives was actor Robert Cornthwaite, who starred in one of Kim's cherished science fiction films from the 1950s, _The Thing from another World_.

As the trio sits at the commons table, Virgil reads a copy of Rene Descartes's 1641 dissertation, _Mediation and Other Metaphysical Writings_.

Kamara wears wireless ear buds as she watches one of the numerous films from her iPad's sci-fi film library: the then "groundbreaking" Russian film, _Planeta Bur_.

Cornthwaite sketches with a charcoal pencil on a paper sketchpad an image of Clyde Tombaugh in a Kansas cereal grass field perched over a telescope. In addition to his aeronautical accomplishments (he was a U.S Navy fighter pilot during the North African conflict of 2032) Corny is also well known for his lithography of the Universe's wonders utilized in scholastic texts. ". . . but I'm no Trouvelot," he would oft say.

Their pre-mission meditations are broken by com-bleeps. "Time to tuck in the caterpillars," breaks the Mission Center-based voice of Flight Officer Polikwaptiwa over the com.

Inside the stasis chamber section of the centrifuge, Virgil, Kamara, and Cornthwaite, adorned in undergarments peppered with discs of wireless monitors, climb into their respective stasis pods. On the stasis control center's main panel reads the mission start date: January 15, 2045.

"May a sexy, green-skinned Queen of Blood greet me in twenty years," jokes Kamara.

"What dreams may come on Pluto and in the Kuiper, Kim, as we bathe in the western stars," counters Cornthwaite.

"And may man realize," interjects Virgil, "that, in space, we are not gilded butterflies. The stars are our body."

As they settle into their pods, hydraulics hiss and the pod seal. Sightless gases consume the pods as the crew's eye flutter and they quickly fall asleep. . . .

Virgil's "view" pushes out of the viewport of his stasis pod, travels through the circumference of the centrifuge, and out of a centrifuge portal into his lifelong, boyhood dream: To see the Milky Way Galaxy from deep space—on a voyage home from points beyond man's current technological constraints of space travel.

As Virgil's dream travels through the stars, the first hint of the Kuiper Belt's field debris of the Earth's solar system appears. Then, Pluto and his five moons pans into Virgil's view. Quicker than an REM-blink, Jupiter fills his sight; then he jets through the asteroid belt on an approach to the Asteroid classified on star charts as 7-Iris. Then, he's on an approach to Mars. As he approaches the Earth's moon, his view travels downward, on the far north region of the near side of the Moon. His spirit travels over the southern border of Mars Frigoris (The Sea of Cold) and the Vallis Alpes (The Alpine Valley), then onto the Trouvelot Impact Crater. Then his soul speeds toward Earth and downward through her atmosphere, and onto the eastern European coastline. The land mass of England appears, and soon, he's traveling the streets of Cambridge, England—in the year of 1666.

Morpho and Ulysses Butterflies flutter under a rainbow streak that dangles under cloudless, blue skies. They come to rest on tree branches—and on a window sill of a dorm room at the University of Cambridge. The hand of a twenty-four-year-old Isaac Newton twirls insect pins stuck in the thorax of Morpho and Ulysses Butterflies. He studies the Morpho's shimmering, iridescent shades of blue and green under the window's borrowed sunlight.

"What creates a rainbow?" Newton silently ponders. "Is sunlight a mixture of colored light? If color resides in objects," thinks Newton as he picks up feather, "then why do Morpho and Ulysses butterflies, and a fowl's white feather, take on various colors under sunlight?"

The following day, Newton composes an alphabetized list on a large sheet of white parchment of the letters "A" through "G" to represent the seven-color spectrum of "Red," "Orange," "Yellow," "Green," "Blue," and "Indigo." After the letter "G," he writes the color: "Violet."

"Pure, white light holds the colors of the rainbow. Not the glass itself," wonders Newton as he turns a 12-inch tall, triangular glass prism in the sunlight. A seven-color rainbow spectrum projects onto the parchment tacked on the wall. "Light consists of rays that, when bent at different degrees, the angle of illumination changes."

3 — Interconnectness

**A** nineteen-year-old Clyde Tombaugh wakes from his dream-nap in a rocking chair on the porch of the Tombaugh farmstead. He lifts a hardcover book from his lap—composed in 1704 by Isaac Newton: _Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, and Inflexions and Colors of Light_ —and places it on an end table.

He gazes out to the horizon of cereal grasses on the plains of Burdett, Kansas.

The "Burdett" water tower stands at the westbound lane of Broadway Avenue and State Highway 156, which cuts through fields of cereal grasses of oat, wheat, and barley cultivated by a 1925 John Deer Model-D Spoker.

A teen-farmer reads an August 1, 1925 copy of the _Burdett Gazette_ as he sits on grain sacks loaded on an eastbound Model-T Ford pick-up that speeds along the 156. Distracted by an oncoming westbound dairy truck entering town, the teen picks up a pebble from the flatbed and tosses it at the truck's haul of empty milk bottles as the Model-T and dairy truck simultaneously pass a "Burdett City Limits" road sign.

The dairy truck driver pays no mind to _three persons_ adorned in flight jackets with logos and name patches—out-of-time for the 1920s—who gather around a Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker set under the shadow of the town's water tower—in commemoration of the "Discoverer of Pluto."

Virgil Chaffe, Kimimela Kamara, and Robert Cornthwaite pour a lime-based sport drink into NASA Shot glasses. "To Clyde," proclaims Virgil. "The future belongs to those who prepare for it." As they clink their glasses together, they also clink the marker.

The dairy truck swings onto the Tombaugh Farmstead—a two-story home complete with a barn and coops originally constructed in the late-1800s—surrounded by oat crops.

In the distance, a forty-seven-year-old Muron Tombaugh drives a well-worn, 1925 John Deer Model-D Spoker as it tows a four-row listed cultivator.

The honk of the dairy truck's horn catches the attention of a nineteen-year-old Clyde Tombaugh, who gazes out the window of his bedroom on the second floor.

The walls of Clyde's bedroom display prize ribbons and framed certificates for excellence in science and math. A University of Kansas banner flag hangs beside a Trouvelot lithograph of Jupiter. Books on solid geometry and trigonometry, physics and astronomy fill a bookshelf. An early 1920s telescope from Sears & Roebuck's (a long gone and iconic, influential brick-and-mortar retail chain from the days before online retailing) stands in the corner.

Clyde returns to his desk and continues to read an article in an astronomy magazine that features a black-and-white portrait of a distinguished, forty-one-year-old man with thick, side-parted hair and overgrown beard. The caption under the photo reads: Etienne Leopold Trouvelot, December 26, 1827 — April, 22, 1895.

Clyde then turns his attention to the homework assignment on his desk:

An Artist brought the Heavens to the Earth  
by  
Clyde Tombaugh

He reads his opening sentence:

Etienne Leopold Trouvelot was a 19th century French astronomer whose iconic images gave man his first detailed look into the heavens.

Clyde gazes at the wall-framed Jupiter lithograph by Trouvelot that features the giant's cloud bands and ubiquitous red spot. He puts his pencil back to the paper—.

He continues to recite his report inside a two-story brick building with a flat roof on a campus dotted with Pine and Elm Trees. Welcome to Burdett High School.

Clyde stands at a lectern in front of a teacher and sixteen fellow students.

"Trouvelot's premature death at the age of sixty-eight was hastened by an illness he contracted in the South Pacific while observing a solar eclipse, and searching for Vulcan, a theoretical planet beyond the orbit of the solar system's first planet: Mercury."

Thor, Zeus, Jove, and Set unleashed their anger across the plains of Burdett, Kansas, as a green, discolored thundercloud forms and dispenses a distant cyclone—a hailstorm approaches.

Filled with grains and feed sacks in the flatbed, Muron Tombaugh's Model-T Ford pick-up speeds westbound by the road sign and water tank at the Burdett City Limits, but . . . the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker isn't there—not yet. Pluto won't be discovered until February 18, 1930. . . .

Muron drives, with his thirteen-year-old son Charles and fifteen-year-old son Ray next to him in the cab. In their sights is the Tombaugh farmstead.

As the Model-T Ford pick-up speeds onto the property, a now twenty-one-year-old Clyde dashes toward the barn under falling twigs and branches shaken loose from the immense canopies of two Elm trees. Clyde opens the barn doors as the Model-T skids to a stop inside the barn. Muron, Charles, and Ray jump out. Clyde shuts the barn door.

"Did you and yer sister git all the livestock inside?" Muron says as he latches the door.

"Yes, sir. Esther's down in the cellar with Momma and Robert," says Clyde. The first signs of pea-sized hailstones pepper the ground.

"Ray, Charlie," calls out Muron as larger hailstones land with a thud. "Git ta the cellar. Let's go, Clyde. Move it, boys." As the Tombaugh men approach the cellar, Muron pounds on the door, "Adella, sweetie. It's Muron." A nineteen-year-old Esther opens the door and the Tombaugh men crawl inside.

Amid the metal canisters of milk and cream, along with wooden vats of butter and shelves of egg-filled baskets, the Tombaugh family cowers in lantern light. Muron hugs his forty-three-year-old wife, Adella, while Esther coddles her four-year-old brother, Robert, alongside Ray, Charles, and Clyde.

Clyde stares out of his second floor bedroom window onto clear, blue skies as Esther, Charles, and Ray rakes leaves and clean up storm debris around the farmstead. Then he gazes out into the once tall, golden fields of healthy oat crops as his father inspects his destroyed lot. Clyde tears down the University of Kansas banner flag.

A black velvet starfield envelops the Tombaugh farmstead as a now twenty-two-year old Clyde rests on a blanket near a lantern light and stares upward—pondering. He pulls out an April 1928 edition of _Popular Mechanics Magazine_ and thumbs the pages to an article:

How to Build Your Own 9-Inch Telescope

The article features a black-and-white diagram that illustrates a sectional view of an outer and inner tube, the correct location of an Objective (Concave-Convex) lens, and an eyepiece (with a plano-concave lens).

Inside the storm cellar, light from a ground-floor window shines on the beginnings of a 9-inch reflector telescope set on a tripod mount constructed from a 1910 Buick crankshaft and dairy separator parts. The scope stands next to a table with bottled and canned abrasives, polish rags, and a glass-on-oak grinding disc mounted on a 20-gallon drum. Adorned in a butcher's apron and chemical gloves, Clyde swaddles a nine-inch mirror in a polishing cloth and gazes at his reflection in the reflected seven-color spectrum.

As he drags from his pipe, Muron steps out onto the porch on a clear, crisp night and takes a seat next to Adella on the porch glider.

They stare into the backyard at a distant lantern's glow that reveals a Gypsy Moth that lands and flutters its wings on the eyepiece of Clyde's homemade Reflector Telescope. The moth accepts his fingertip. As he fingers the moth that soon flies off, Clyde perches over the eyepiece and positions a drawing board on his lap. Through the telescope's eyepiece, he views the planet Jupiter.

He picks up a pencil and, in cursive script on the drawing board's paper, Clyde writes the centered title of:

Jupiter and his Belts

And underneath the title, on the left-handed corner of the page he writes the date of:

October 3rd 1928

Clyde then sketches a circle under the date. He pulls out an engraved silver pocket watch that displays the time of 1:00 AM; he notes the time and the telescope's setting and writes:

1:00 AM — 4:00 AM  
Power 400

He leans over the eyepiece and begins sketching details inside the circle that represents the red-eye giant that is Jupiter.

In his bedroom, Clyde stares at the Jupiter Lithograph by Trouvelot on the wall, and then he stares down at his own pencil drawings of Jupiter and Mars.

The drawings of Jupiter represent the planet's six-phases seen from October 3, 1928, through January 3, 1929. Below the images of Jupiter are two-phases of Mars seen on December 24, 1928. All eight-planet phases indicate their viewing times and magnifications.

As he sits at the desk, Clyde takes a pencil to a sheet of letter-sized paper and reads the salutation of:

January 4, 1929

V.M Slipher  
Director of Lowell Observatory  
Flagstaff, Arizona

Dear Mr. Slipher,

He writes:

My name is Clyde Tombaugh . . .

As Clyde gazes again at Trouvelot's walled lithograph, he turns his stare out the bedroom window and his views speeds towards the Moon set against the deep, dark starry night cast over the Tombaugh farmstead.

"I graduated high school," Clyde thinks as his pencil glides across the paper, "four years ago, in 1925. I worked on my dad's farm with the hopes of saving enough money to attend the University of Kansas."

On the Far North Region of the Near Side of the Moon, Clyde's imagination takes him across the southern border of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) and the Vallis Alpes (Alpine Valley), then onto what will become known as the Trouvelot Impact Crater. As his mind's eye jets off from the Crater, he speeds towards Mars and flies through the asteroid belt, then arrives at Jupiter.

"Sadly," Clyde thinks as he leaves Jupiter and gazes onto the stars, "a hailstorm in 1927 ruined my family's oat crops and stalled those plans."

As he returns to the starry night over the Tombaugh farmstead, he finds himself back in his bedroom, where he continues to compose his letter to V.M Slipher. "I have taken to constructing my own telescopes for two years, to study astronomy independently without schooling. . . ."

In an office of the Lowell Observatory, a twenty-something desk perched V.M Slipher reads Clyde's letter, "Please find enclosed drawings," thinks Clyde, "that I have completed from October 3, 1928, to January 3, 1929, of the planets of Jupiter and Mars."

V.M Slipher unfolds Clyde's drawing. He raises his brow in amazement at Clyde's artistic skills. "Any critique," Clyde continues, "or advice you could provide on my work would be greatly appreciated."

At the roadside mailbox of the Tombaugh farmstead, Clyde removes and sorts the mail. His eyes go wide at the sight of an envelope with the receiver address and return address of:

Mr. Clyde Tombaugh

V.M Slipher  
Lowell Observatory

A grin washes over Clyde's face. He rips open the envelope and reads the letter to himself. His grin grows bigger. "Whoooo-hooooo!" Clyde races to the farmhouse. "Mom! Dad!"

"As you know," says V.M Slipher from the letter's pages, "following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, Percival Lowell speculated that another planet may exist beyond its orbit, " Clyde races up the front porch stairs as V.M Slipher continues, "which he published in his 1915 paper: Memoir of a Trans-Neptunian Planet."

In the kitchen, Adella cooks. Clyde shows her the letter, "We are currently working," V.M Slipher continues, "to prove his predictions and would like to offer you employment. . . ."

By January 15, 1929, Clyde Tombaugh clutches notebooks as he strolls against the background of a thick, Yellow Pine forest towards a cobblestone Rotunda with a single door and two small windows. A white, wooden dome caps the structure. "We are prepared," continues V.M Slipher, "to offer you room and board, and a paycheck of nineteen dollars a month, to assist us in our search for what is referred to as 'Planet X,' by Mr. Lowell."

The small gable roof that caps the wooden dome splits open onto the starfield overhead.

Through the open gable roof stands an orange-colored, 13-inch astrograph (an optical telescope) where Clyde jots down into a logbook the date of:

January 29, 1930

Then he leans into the eyepiece and snaps photographic plates of the night time sky.

In the hallway of the observatory, light pulses and flashes from an open doorway of the photographic lab as Clyde sits at a Blink Comparator. He looks through the single-lens eyepiece onto two photographic plates.

The left plate, displays the date of January 23; the right plates displays the date of January 29—each image is composed of hundreds of white dots on a black background. The image through the eyepiece rapidly switches back and forth between the left and right plates—as the images literally "blinks" between the two photographs taken of the same starfield. In the midst of this stationary starfield, Clyde sees _one star_ slightly _shift position_ between the plates.

Clyde's face sports a wide grin. He looks at his engraved pocket watch—the watch he's looked at so many times during his astronomy studies—and jots down the date and time into the logbook:

4 PM, February 18, 1930

On the office wall behind the paper and journal-strewn desk of V.M Slipher, a framed reproduction of the 1634 painting of _The Muses Urania and Calliope_ by the French painter, Simon Vouet, catches the light—with Urania adorned in a blue dress and a star crown; Calliope in a pink crown as she holds a harp.

Clyde Tombaugh dashes in. "Sir, Mr. Lowell was right about 'Planet X,' I think I found it."

Later, Clyde and V.M Slipher perch themselves at the base of the 13-inch Astrograph as the gable roof doors open on the Lowell Observatory to expose the nighttime sky.

4 — Being

**SEVENTY-SIX** years later, on July 19, 2006, the view of the nighttime sky over the Lowell Observatory exposes the Earth with her curvature against a starfield.

"T-Minus one minute and counting," says the filtered, com-cracking and disembodied voice of Mission Control Officer Davidson.

"Minus fifty-five seconds," says the com-filtered voice of Mission Control Officer Riley.

An Atlas V Booster Rocket stands tall on the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for the launch of the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

"Status Check," says Mission Control Officer Riley.

"Third Stage is a go," says Mission Control Officer Rodriquez.

"Roger," says Riley.

"T-Minus forty-five seconds," says Davidson.

"Stable at step three," says Rodriquez.

"Minus at twenty-nine seconds," says Riley.

"Status Check," says Davidson.

"Go Atlas," says Riley.

"Go for Centaur, leader," says Rodriquez.

"T-Minus eighteen . . . fifteen seconds. . . ." says Davidson.

The rockets on the Atlas begin to emit fuel vapors. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three," continues Davidson. White smoke billows from the bottom of the rocket. "Two," says Davidson as the rockets fire. "One. We have ignition and lift off NASA's New Horizons on a decade-long voyage to visit the Planet Pluto, and then, beyond."

The Mission Control Center bursts in a whirlwind of excitement.

When man sets aside his seven deadly sins and crawls out of over the rim of Dante's icy ninth circle, he can accomplish amazing feats. In a mere eight-five years after Clyde Tombaugh's discovery, man reached out and touched Pluto by way of a Grand Piano-sized probe with a large satellite dish that traveled from Earth to Pluto in nine years—to arrive on July 14, 2015.

It was Robert Frost who said that space is lovely, dark and deep. Robert Browning referred to stars as a being that opens its soul to you. And the soul Frost's lovely, dark and deep space chose to expose at this moment was the Jupiter system.

In the distance there is the small, faint hint of an adrift space vessel.

Two vertically-opened solar panel wings extend from the port and starboard sides of the three engine-cone array on the rear of the U.S.S Burdett. Two extended heat radiator wings run the full length of the port and starboard sides of the ship—from the engine cones and stop just before the rotation of the crew centrifuge. Along with solar panels and radiator wings and a radar dish that protrudes from her deck's top spine, what once resembled a great white whale in dry-dock now appears as a giant, ivory butterfly.

Through the viewport on the U.S.S Burdett's nose cone, three unoccupied flight seats sit in darkness under the glow of indictor flashes from control panel data:

Earth Date: July 19, 2089  
Return Mission Time: 22 Years, 5 Months, 19 Days.  
Day: 1600 hours, 20 Minutes, 06 seconds

Then, computer screens illuminate. Consoles emit buzzes, beeps and flashes. Astronomical data begins to scroll on the screens. Overhead lights flicker and fully illuminate the cabin. Then, low, arbitrary, disembodied and filtered cracks come over the coms. "Request status check, Ranger Three," says the Russian-accented voice of Traffic Control Officer Sochevanov.

"Mark at latitude four-six-niner. We're in the pipe," Officer Lieber's voice echoes through the Burdett's unmanned flight deck.

"Roger, R-Three. S-Eight on six," echoes Sochevanov.

Then a clearer, stronger voice cracks over the Burdett's com system. "This is Galilean Traffic Control to unidentified craft," says Traffic Control Leader Sherin. "Request transmits of flight data." Amid a channel change and com beeps, Sherin calls out to Shuttle Officer Gribben, "Sphinx Three, request visual identification of unidentified bogey."

"Sphinx Three. Roger, Galilean," echoes Gribben over the Burdett's com system. "Sphinx Three on approach."

In the silence of deep space the Sphinx rotates under the power of retro-rockets.

As her names implies, the shuttle is, in fact, a spacecraft with the profile of the Egyptian mythological creature. Her rear haunches support a triangular, three-engine cluster. Just below her "Lion's Head" flight deck, her two front legs and their related "paws" serve as detachable cargo bays that can carry supplies to remote outposts or release various probes and satellites for a variety of remote expeditions. The legs can also be jettison and, with retro-rockets fired by remote control and with parachutes, can safely land on a planetary surface. And while there has not been a need for it, there are U-shaped dockable variants of the cargo bays that are used for troop transport and armory deployments in cases of hostile activities—both alien and terran. Thankfully, for the time being, man's pettiness and corporate greed and need to war hasn't advanced into the vacuum of space. Oh, but it will. Man loves to war, after all; for the subjugation of the free will of the many is their biggest and most profitable business.

The history of the Sphinx design was courtesy of eminent Orientalist and Biblical Scholar Zechariah Dickenson who, without any military training, quickly advanced from flying small, one-manned planes to captaining Air Buses for Luftanza Airways. Then, after a stint of operating his own aircraft design and repair facility on the coast of Scotland, he joined the European Space Agency as an aeronautical designer.

Deep down, Dickenson believed that, one day we may encounter the probes or deep-space missions of another star bound race and, perhaps encountering the Sphinx craft, based on the Earth-based monument he believed aliens, and not man, built, would serve as a peaceful, acceptable harbinger. Needless to say: the troop transport and armory deployment pods were not of Dickenson's design. As with any design: no matter how honorable the peaceful, explorational intent, the military division always makes what they believe to be necessary modifications to the craft—for the "safety" of the human race. Dickenson found it silly that a technologically advanced alien race would waste their economic, financial, and social resources to conquer the Earth for the purpose of subjugating weak, diseased human flesh for slave labor or as a food source. An advanced race will simply drop a bio-bug into Earth's atmosphere to kill off the human infestation, and then cultivate the Earth resources with no resistance.

Back on the flight deck of Sphinx Shuttle 3, Shuttle Officer Gribben and his Chilean Pilot Pirx look out into deep space through the forward port window's of the shuttle's "Lion's Head." A few button bushes from Gribben—and a spherical probe launches from one of the cargo leg "paws."

Upon its silent release into the void, a radar dish rises out of the probe's hull. Three headlights on the front of the probe illuminate the space before it. The probe's centralized camera lens pulls focus on the U.S.S Burdett. As it closes its proximity, the lights cast a glow on the U.S.S Burdett's hull.

On the flight deck monitors, Gribben and Pirx view the probe's approach towards their target.

"Galilean Control," says Gribben. "We are receiving probe-imaging recon."

"We copy, S-Three," cracks Traffic Control Leader Sherin over the Sphinx's com.

As the probe's recon information fills the flight monitors with data and video images, Gribben and Pirx trade stares.

"That's not possible," says Pilot Pirx. "I'm seeing a ghost."

"Say again, Sphinx Three. Did you say, 'ghost'?" cracks Sherin.

"Our U.I.O has J.P.L and Lockheed Martin logos," says Shuttle Officer Gribben. "NASA and U.S.A.F markings." Then, the ship's name appears on the Sphinx's monitors. "Christ Jesus, it's the U.S.S Burdett. My god. She's home after forty-five years."

On her approach, Sphinx 3 fires her retro-rockets and rotates her portside body as she advances toward the starboard hull of the Burdett. A jetway extends from the Sphinx and locks onto the emergency airlock hatch on the starboard hull of the Burdett, set near the nosecone.

Inside the Burdett's emergency airlock, a metallic clank and hydraulic hiss echoes through the cabin. The latch on the hatch pops and rotates; the door slides into its wall pocket. Two spacesuit-clad rescue astronauts enter the cabin. They immediately notice the Burdett's three empty pilot seats.

"The lights are on, but nobody's home," says Rescue Astronaut LeBlanc.

"The environmental systems must have activated when they hit our airspace," says Rescue Astronaut Dittman.

"The light doesn't make her any less creepy."

"Her schematics indicate the stasis chambers are beyond that hatch, inside the centrifuge."

Inside the rotating centrifuge, the starfield of the Jupiter system scrolls through the floor viewports. The hatch hydraulics hiss and lights flicker and pop on. The cabin illuminates three stasis pods labeled with the names:

R. Cornthwaite, Flight Engineer  
K. Karmara, Pilot  
V. Chaffee, Commander

Each pod has heads-up display monitors with bio-signs data for Cardio Vascular, Metabolic Level, Central Nervous System, Pulmonary Function, and System Integration status. Cornthwaite's and Kamara's pods display no bio-signs. Chaffee's pod indicates bio-sign functions.

"Pod's empty," says Dittman as he looks into Cornthwaite's pod.

"So's this one," says LeBlanc as he gazes into Kamara's pod. Then he looks into Chaffee's pod. "Jesus! Damn it!" He stumbles backward.

Dittman looks into Chaffee's pod. "Damn. Poor bastard. Is he dead?"

"No. The pod has full life signs, but the system's integration failed. The stasis field lost containment."

Inside the pod rests a sixty-two-year old Virgil Chaffee.

"Sphinx Three," radios Dittman. "We have one survivor in a failing pod. Request an emergency med-tech for transfer."

5 — Loyalty

**IN** Earth-space, Sphinx Shuttle 9 approaches the Moon for a flyover of the far north region of the near side of the moon and travels across the southern border of Mare Frigoris, where three astronauts survey the ridge of the Vallis Alpes. They wave at the Sphinx's shuttle pilots on a ten kilometer approach to the Trouvelot Base at the Trouvelot Impact Crater.

The base features groupings of several hangers and silos that surround three geodesic domes connected by spokes to a triangular, prism-inspired designed office tower topped with a retractable landing pad.

As Sphinx Shuttle 9 lands on the roof pad, the landing pad begins to descend and the roof's pad doors close.

Inside a hospital room that offers the northern views of the Vallis Alpes, medical equipment and monitors surround the bed-bound and unconscious sixty-two year-old body of Virgil Chaffee. Hydraulics hiss and the room's door opens as a forty-year old Uranie Trouvelot, enters. Adorned in a 1860s nurses uniform and a hat adorned in stars, she carries a medical tray with a pill cup, pitcher, and a drinking cup. Virgil slowly awakes and gazes puzzled at Uranie.

"Forgive my intrusion, Commander Chaffee. It is time for your medications, sir."

He takes notice of her "Uranie" name tag, then of the Madagascan Sunset Moth Broach of black forewings highlighted with green stripes and orange and yellow highlighted hindwings.

"Who? You don't dream in stasis," says Virgil.

"You're not in stasis, sir."

"Then, I'm in heaven?"

"No, sir. You're on Trouvelot Base at the Trouvelot Impact Crater." Uranie helps Virgil lift his head. "Please take this pill. And drink."

"That's a beautiful broach," Virgil says after he swallows the water and pill. "My entomology is a bit rusty. Is that moth from Madagascar?"

"So kind of you, sir. Yes, it is a Madagascan Uranie Sunset Moth. 'Tis good you find humor in it."

"I'm sorry. It is just, well, your name is fitting. Comforting. Urania is the muse of Astronomy."

"Yes, sir. 'Uranie' is quite the popular name in France."

The doors to Virgil's room hiss once more as Calliope enters, adorned in a similar 1860s nurse uniform with a name tag—and a large harp broach—as she carries a porcelain wash basin.

"Calliope, my assisting nurse, is here to give you a bath. I shall return with fresh linens for your bed, sir."

As Uranie exits, Calliope dunks and rings out the washcloth. Virgil gazes at and finds comfort in her broach harp.

"You are the muse of music and poetry from Simon Vouet's painting."

"Relax, kind sir. I will have you feel like a newborn baby in no time."

"Calliope, could you sing 'John Barleycorn' to me," asks Virgil.

In French-accented English, Calliope sings the 17th century British folk ballad.

There were three men  
Came out of the west  
Their fortunes for to try

And these three men  
Made a solemn vow  
John Barleycorn must die . . .

As Calliope continues to sing, Virgil turns to the sounds of insect flutter from several Gypsy Moths against the hospital room's viewport window that offers views of the Vallis Alpes.

As Virgil awakes in his hospital bed—Calliope is gone. There's no washbasin or medical tray on the nightstand. As Virgil clears his mind and regains focus, he sees the same Gypsy Moths outside the viewport window of his room. Only now, the moths flutter against the northern view of—not the Vallis Alpes—but of lush woodland acres.

Then, a Madagascan Sunset Moth lands on Virgil's lap. As he moves his finger to the moth, it climbs on. As he inspects the moth on his fingertip, he comes to realize his now weathered, age-spotted hand. The moth then takes flight off his finger and flies across the room, out into the woodland acres of 1868 Medford, Massachusetts, which appears on the opposite end of the hospital room—where a solid wall once stood.

Virgil, adorned in his hospital gown, staggers his old body out of the hospital bed in pursuit of the moth—and walks into the woodland wilds of Medford. The Madagascan Sunset Moth flutters under cloudless blues skies towards a distant tree line.

Under the tree line, a twenty-four-year-old Clyde Tombaugh assists a forty-one-year-old Etienne Leopold Trouvelot collect Gypsy Moth Eggs from a tree. Clyde takes notice of Virgil and waves a reply.

"Excuse me, kind sir," says Uranie. "May I be of assistance to you?"

Uranie's voice causes Virgil to turn his view from Clyde over to a Bostonian Farmstead: the Trouvelot residence. He sees Uranie stroll towards him as she pulls up the hem of a 1860s era blue gown. She clutches a blue-metal bucket adorned with white stars that contains a ladle, along with a white towel draped over her arm. "Oh, Commander Chaffee. Forgive me. I did not recognize you in the flight suit of your ship."

Uranie's observation causes Virgil to first notice that, in fact, his sixty-year-old body is no longer adorned in a hospital gown, but in his Burdett flight suit.

"You've rescued me from having to go into those dreadful woods and ruin my dress." Virgil instinctively accepts the blue bucket. Uranie bushes at her dress.

"It will be my pleasure, Mrs. Trouvelot."

"Etienne loves it so, but I do wish he would return to his art." Uranie shakes her hem. "There are days I privately curse Doctor Agassiz from Harvard for filling Etienne's head with all this bug-nonsense."

"Uranie, dearest," calls out Trouvelot in the distance. "Are you coming with the water?"

"Etienne is quite taken with your young charge Mr. Tombaugh."

"I know the feeling, Mrs. Trouvelot. It was Clyde who brought me to your husband."

"Well, I must be off to finish the table settings. Of course, you and Mr. Tombaugh will join us for dinner, Mr. Chaffee."

"We'd be honored, Mrs. Trouvelot," says Virgil. He walks off with the blue metal bucket and towel towards the distant tree line where Clyde assists Etienne in the collection of his entomology supplies.

"Commander Chaffee." Etienne offers a hand. "Sir, it is an honor."

"It is good to see you again," hugs Clyde. "Welcome home, my friend."

"Young Clyde tells me you guided him on quite the odyssey, Virgil."

"An odyssey I would not have taken, if not for your both," says Virgil.

A Madagascan Sunset Moth lands on Trouvelot's shoulder.

"The gilded wings of Shakespearean entomology affect not this moth and its brethren." Etienne offers a fingertip to the moth. "They are also embarking on an odyssey, as they will soon become the last of our planet's living inhabitants."

"If they can outlive prehistoric reptiles, they'll survive man," adds Clyde.

"We seem as giants to them," says Etienne as the moth flies away from his fingertip, "but insects are the personification of endurance." He then directs Clyde and Virgil to a Death-Head Sphinx Hawk Moth that extends it long proboscis to suck flower nectar from a plant. It accepts Etienne's fingertip. "Notice how evolution bestows a fearsome form to harmless species, such as this Sphinx Hawk Moth who only longs for sweet nectars."

Clyde shutters at the sight of the moth.

"Ah, my young Clyde, you respond to the death-head markings resembling a skull on the upper side of the thorax." The Sphinx Moth flies away at the upward motion of Etienne's hand. "As you can see, evolution is informing us that humankind is doomed to extinction by insects." As Etienne strolls, he continues to explain. "The life patterns of locusts, moths, and even the peskiest of flies are equipped to withstand man's foolishness. In the end, we will serve, and they, will master. And they'll succeed because we stagger drunk, filled with the jealousy and greed of the mosquito, devoid of the pride and chastity of the ant."

The wall of the dining room inside Trouvelot's Bostonian farmstead features a framed painting of Jesus Christ. He cradles a child as a butterfly rests on the Holy Savior's fingertip.

Uranie clears away the dishes. Etienne, Virgil and Clyde sit at the dining room table and enjoy a Merlot as they finish a vegetarian and fruit meal.

"I have always found inspiration," says Virgil after a sip of Merlot, "in how much you and Clyde are alike."

"How so, Commander Chaffee?" says Etienne.

"The fall of hail on Clyde's family farm is no different from your misfortune with the gypsy moth."

"Very astute, Commander. Both are defining moments that will change our destinies."

"When the hails fell," says Clyde, "I feared I would haul oat crops for life. However, if not for the hail, I wouldn't have discovered my resolve to become astronomer."

"My resolve," adds Etienne, "was discovering economic applications for entomology, to benefit man."

"By protecting the lucrative silk industry."

"Yes, quite correct, Commander. When I discovered silk-spinning caterpillars were succumbing to disease, I was optimistic I could create hardier hybrids."

"And a freak weather pattern will change your destiny."

"Yes, quite correct, Young Clyde. Winds will waft some of the Gypsy Moth eggs I imported from Europe into the woods. If not for those winds. . . ."

"Clyde and I are evidence of your legacy in astronomical renderings, and the art of self-reinvention. You will change our destiny."

"Sadly, my legacy is to become the birth father to one of the worst agricultural plagues responsible for defoliating millions of acres in America." After Etienne sips his Merlot, he adds, "Don't make the same mistake I will make, Virgil."

"Sir?"

"Don't allow the moths to escape into the Kuiper Belt, for man is a defoliating pest that decimates without pity." Etienne pours the wine decanter to refill Clyde's Merlot glass. "His head is more deadly that the symbolic head of the Sphinx Moth. Man is but a gilded fool."

"Yes, Etienne is right, Virgil. If man learns of the Kuiper's secrets, they'll strip mine and terraform the belt into embers."

"Man is a plague who spreads his disease merely by speech, Commander."

"Don't let them hail destruction on the oat crops, Virgil," says Clyde. "They're not interested in life. It is man's natural instinct to want natural resources. To pillage and plunder."

"Yes, I agree. Look at the American Indians' plight—."

Before Etienne can complete his thought, Uranie enters the dining room. "Etienne perhaps our guests would enjoy an after dinner brandy and cigars in the parlor."

"Yes, of course. What would I do without you, my sweet?"

"I have oft wondered that myself." Uranie accepts an affectionate lip peck.

"You men go on. I will join you shortly. I need to check on some cocoons in the lab."

"May I assist you," says Clyde as he begins to place Merlot glasses on a service tray, "with the rest of the dishes, Mrs. Trouvelot?"

"Yes, why thank you, Mr. Tombaugh. Commander, the parlor is down the hall and to your right. We will join you and Minerva, shortly."

As Uranie and Clyde exit the dining room into the kitchen, Virgil ponders Uranie's mention of his beloved Mini. Did he hear her correctly? 'Minerva'?

As Virgil, his sixty-two-year-old body adorned in his Burdett flight suit, strolls down the hallway to the parlor, he hears the faint cries of a baby. He slides the parlor's doors to expose—.

A hospital room back on Trouvelot Base—Minerva's hospital room in the year 2035. Looking inside, older Virgil sees his thirty year, younger self clutch the hand of a pale, bed-bound, thirty-year-old Minerva Chaffee. In her arms she cradles a newborn baby—their daughter, Diana Chaffee. A nurse checks a bedside monitor and I.V.

"Virgil. I am not going to have the chance to be the mom I was supposed to be, destine to be."

"Minerva, please stay with me."

"Nurse, please take the baby to the nursery." Minerva winces as she lifts her head. "Remove our locket from my neck, Virgil."

Virgil cradles Minerva's back and removes a nickel-sized, stainless steel floating glass locket. Under its hinged lid _floats_ a sun charm and a rainbow charm over an interior aluminum disk with an inward-spiraled inscription:

You are my sunshine,  
my only sunshine.  
You make me happy.

"Give it to her on her seventh birthday. She'll be old enough—."

"Mini, you are giving this to—."

A doctor enters alongside a care nurse, who carries a wash basin. "May I speak with you for a moment, Commander Chaffee?" As the nurse begins to bathe Minerva, the doctor and Virgil walk to the viewport that looks out onto the Vallis Alpes. "There's nothing more we can do about the pressure in her diaphragm and chest."

"You contained the internal bleeding, restarted her heart. Why is she spiraling downward?"

"Minerva has spent most of her adult live in zero gravity, longer than any other woman." As Virgil stares at the locket inscription in his hand, the doctor continues, "And the science of birthing children on the Moon isn't—." The doctor stops his thought as Virgil stares out onto the Vallis Alpes to watch the approach of a Sphinx Shuttle. "Even with an Earth-based birth, she still would have had an amniotic fluid embolism."

"Virgil. Come to me," says Minerva.

The doctor nods at the care nurse. The nurse turns off the monitors. As Virgil goes to Minerva's side, the doctor and nurse exit.

"We are fallen angels, Virgil. God created man for our spirits to have bodies to experience the physical world. Inside we're luminous and infinite." Minerva begins to fade away. "Space travel is the purest expression of man's curiosity. Don't stop expressing yourself," she says with a squeeze of Virgil's hand. "The stars are you body. Space is your soul. Explore it. Promise me, Virgil. Promise."

"From one world, and then to the next, I'll find you there. I promise." Virgil shares one final kiss with Minerva. Then he raises the glass locket to his lips and kisses it.

Back in his hospital room on Trouvelot Base, Virgil's sixty-two-year-older self, now adorned in naval dress blues, stands at the viewport and stares back at his own hospital bed. As he rubs the locket under his uniform . . . his reminisce of Minerva's image in his bed fades away. "As I feel the stars, I feel you, Mini. Forever."

As he turns his gaze out the viewport, deep into the dusty, far north wilderness regions of the Vallis Alpes, Virgil hears Minerva's whisper, "I want to name her 'Diana,' after the Moon Huntress."

Through a rectangular, floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall viewport on one of the floors of the triangular office tower at Trouvelot Base, a soft, white glow can be seen emitting from three walls trimmed in black molding—opposing the viewport's glass wall. In the center of this room sits an elongated, chrome oval conference table circled by thirteen black-leather executive office chairs. Two chrome lecterns planted at the table's head stand in front of the wall opposing the viewport.

Space Executives occupy eleven of the chairs while two chairs at the opposing ends of the oval conference table sit empty. Each executive views mission documentations regarding the U.S.S Burdett on flat-panel monitors embedded in the table's surface and displayed on personal iPads. An Executive Chief speaks from one of the lecterns and in front of a flat-panel presentation screen that protrudes from the ceiling and displays Virgil Chaffee's Personnel File.

"The Burdett is minus her payload of six probes, and her flight data recorders are void of entries after their planet fall, resulting from, as Commander Chaffee states, 'An autopilot correction failed to compensate for Pluto's gaseous tail, and atmospheric by-products derailed probe flight plans, rendering them irretrievable.' As for the data loss, he states, 'An unforeseen gravitational and magnetic anomaly enveloping the Pluto system compromised the Burdett's data banks.' He attributes the death of his crew to an agricultural disease not seen on Earth since the Merovingian and Carolingian eras of the 1870s called 'Saint Anthony's Fire'. And I quote, 'A highly destructive fungus that reproduces via microscopic spores, a hybrid of ergot growth on acidic cereal plants discovered on the surface, leaked through their suits.' Then he states he, 'Jettisoned his crew in the Percival to avoid infecting Earth with spores of parasitic plant life.' And yet, he avoided contagion, and jettisoned his own space suit."

The executives trade stares.

Then the Executive Chief renders his conclusion of Virgil's account of the Burdett's mission failure. "I believe he found Shepard's mission. He knows."

"Must we add inquisition to the Commander's tribulations," speaks the Communications Executive to the affirming nods of the other executives. "Isn't it enough the return to the noise and activity of an ordinary life will be a cultural shock and socially disorienting to him?"

"Agreed," says the Financial Executive. "Why debate? Both flights were already a loss. Let it be."

"We must respect Commander Chaffee has done the most exciting thing this world has ever known," adds the Security Executive. "Now he's home and nothing that exciting will ever occur like that again in his life."

"I also find an inquest regarding his claims unnecessary," agrees the Flight Operations Executive. "Although his assertions can't be verified, it's obvious 'something' doesn't want us in the Kuiper System."

Then the Human Resources Executive speaks, "He gave half of his life in stasis for a failed mission—and worst of all, returned as an old man because of a technical failure. I'm for reuniting him with his family, what's left of it."

As he stares out onto the Moon's wilderness, a klaxon and hydraulic hiss fills Virgil's hospital room. "Commander Chaffee," says a disembodied voice. Virgil turns to see a uniformed Sergeant and Station Security Officer. "They're ready for you, sir," says the Sergeant. Virgil smoothes out the jacket of his naval dress blues. He exits with his escort.

Inside the conference room, the Executive Chief sits at the table head, in front of the lecterns. Virgil sits at the opposing end of the table circled by the eleven other executives.

"During your recover, we spoke with your daughter, Commander," says the Human Resources Executive. "She kept your Florida farmstead in the family."

"'Diana'? She's alive?"

"And she followed your footsteps into the program," continues the Human Resources Executive. "She a fifty-four-year-old, retired astrophysics professor with the Planetary Sciences Group in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida."

The news of his daughter's accomplishments brings a pleasant grin to Virgil's face. "Does she have any children?"

"She's a single, unwed mother with a ten-year-old son."

"Does she want to see me?"

"An official visited her. She's agreed to security protocols and we've made travel arrangements."

"Can I speak with her?"

"Security oaths," says the Communications Executive, forbid personal communications from Moon to Earth at this time."

"In respect to you, and your crew's sacrifices," adds the Financial Executive, "your families continued to receive your flight pays for the mission duration."

"And you will retain your rank, on inactive status, so you can continue to receive flight pay. Provided you agree to security protocols," says the Security Executive.

"'Protocols'?" curls Virgil's brow.

"If you please sign," says the Security Executive. He presents an iPad to Virgil.

"What is this?"

"A non-disclosure agreement."

"As far as the world is concerned, your mission is lost," says the Flight Operations Executive. "Secrecy is paramount."

"You can appreciate the alternative, under the circumstances," says the Executive Chief from the opposite end of the table. Virgil's takes the tablet's pen and signs. "Welcome Home, Commander Chaffee."

6 — Balance

**TALL** cereal grasses surround the Chaffee farmstead of a well-maintained, two-story home with a barn, stables, coops, and farm equipment. A stable groom attends to corralled horses. A John Deer S670 Combine harvests crops in the distance.

In the living room, ten-year-old Leopold Tombaugh Chaffee curls on the couch next to a fifty-four-year old Diana Chaffee.

Diana turns the pages of a photo album that features a photograph of a forty-year-old Roger Shepard standing alongside an African-American astronaut, Michael Wilhelm, and a Persian-Arabic female, Parvaneh Yara, as they pose against the Gustav Holst Mission Logo that features the Roman God of Saturn clutching a sickle before his planetary namesake. The next turn of a page features the crew of the U.S.S Burdett posed against their Mission Logo. Below is a photograph of the U.S.S Burdett in Moon orbital dry-dock.

"How old will Grandpa Virgil be? Will he be as old as Principal Schiaparelli?" asks Leopold.

"Yes. Grandpa got sick in stasis and he's sixty-two years old." Diana turns the page. The page features a photograph of a hospital room at Trouvelot Base as a young Virgil cuddles next to a bed-bound Minerva Chaffee—who cradles a newborn baby Diana. On an adjacent page is a newspaper article that features Minerva with Baby Diana:

First Woman on Mars Gives Birth to the First Child on the Moon

"How come you're so tiny, Mommy?"

"Well, Maw-Maw got sick. I'm very lucky to be here, Leo."

"Will I go to cool places like Auntie and Maw-Maw, and Saturn like Grandpa Roger, and Pluto like Grandpa Virgil?"

"Whatever you can dream or imagine, Leo." Diana then turns her gaze through the living room window. She smiles at the approach of a vehicle that stirs up dust from the farm's long dirt driveway.

Inside the moving government-issued SUV, a naval sergeant drives while a naval lieutenant sits in the passenger seat. Adorned in his naval dress blues, Virgil gazes from the rear passenger driver's side seat.

As Diana and Leopold step out onto the porch and down the steps into the front yard, the SUV stops. The naval lieutenant exits, walks around and stands at attention by Virgil's door. The naval sergeant exits and opens Virgil's door. The lieutenant says, "Commander on deck," and the sergeant and lieutenant salute upon Virgil's exit.

"Daddy," weeps Diana. The two walk towards each other and embrace. Virgil remains strong, but moved. The sergeant and lieutenant remain at attention; both moved—but remain at arms. "Daddy, this is your grandson, Leo. Leo, this is your Grandpa Virgil."

"Hi, Grandpa." Leo hugs Virgil's waist.

As the Chaffee family walks up the steps and on to the porch, the sergeant opens the SUV's rear hatch and hands a suitcase to the lieutenant. The sergeant removes and carries a well-worn guitar case.

In the dining room, Virgil, adorned in causal, civilian clothes, finishes a feast with Diana and Leopold.

"Diana, that was incredible. I feel like king."

"Well, you're not King Lear, but you are a god among the stars. Would you like more coffee?"

"Oh, no thank you." Virgil pats his belly. "I'm stuffed."

"No apple pie?"

"Well, in that case, please."

"Grandpa, will they accidentally find my daddy in space?"

Diana's eyes begin to well.

"How about you show me that spaceship collection of yours," rises Virgil from the table. I think Grandma and I might have flown a couple."

Leo nods as a smile breaks across his face. He takes Virgil's hand to drag him across the living room and towards the staircase.

"Thank you, Daddy," Diana mouths silently. "Now, remember the rules, Leo. Grandpa isn't a free pass."

"But can I wheel my telescope out to the backyard? I want to show Grandpa I can find stuff."

"Alright, but wear long sleeves and pants, so you aren't eaten alive by mosquitoes. Take repellant."

"Wait 'til you see the big picture of the Earth I have on my wall," says Leo as he drags Virgil up the stars.

The wall paper on the one wall of Leo's bedroom features a view of the Earth from the Moon's landscape. Model spaceships dangle from the ceiling on filament lines; others are poised on shelves.

"See, it's like walking on the Moon, Grandpa."

Virgil walks over to a bookcase. "Hmmm, let's see. I helped design this one, and I flew this one. Your Grandma Mini flew this one." Then he picks up a replica of another ship. "Your Aunt Camille, Grandma's sister, was the commander of this mission."

"I know. Mommy told me about the Borealis accident on Mars. Hey, Grandpa, watch this," says Leopold. He goes to the wall and clicks off the light switch. The room darkens and illuminates with a starfield projected by a toy planetarium globe.

"I just go home and I'm off again into the stars," says Virgil from the edge of the bed.

"Where did you go that you had to leave Mommy, Grandpa?"

Virgil sighs as he looks up at the ceiling-projected Universe and hears Diana's ten-year-old voice from the year 2045.

"What do those shapes mean, Daddy?"

Along the banks of the Indian River in Titusville, Florida, sits Space View Park, west of Launch Complex 39 on Merritt Island. In the distance stands NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building.

A then forty-year-old Virgil stands with ten-year-old Diana at a commemorative Mercury Missions Monument—with the symbol for the Roman God, Mercury.

"The crescent moon on the top is the symbol of the mind, the circle is the spirit, and matter, is the cross."

"Like Jesus's cross?"

"I never thought of that. Jesus and Mercury both strived for perfection of the mind, body, and spirit."

"Did Mercury die on a cross, too?"

"No. All the shapes make up the symbol for Mercury, a Roman god who traveled between the worlds of the gods and humans. You had a great-great relative who helped design the Mercury rocket."

"What's the '7' inside mean?"

"That's for the seven astronauts who flew the rockets. Alan Shepard was the first to fly Mercury, and the first American to fly in space."

"Can we go look at Mommy's name on the Mars monument?"

"Yes. But first, I wanted to tell you about a job that Aunt Kimmy, Uncle Cornball, and I have to do."

"On Trouvelot? says Diana to Virgil's silence. She grasps the floating glass locket around her neck. "You promised you'd never go back to Mars and die like Mommy's sister."

"Mommy didn't hate you Grandpa," assures Leopold's ten-year-old voice.

Outside, Virgil and Leopold walk towards the barn on the Chaffee farmstead.

"Mommy takes me to the space park and tells me stories. She said I'm named after your two favorite astronomers, that you flew farther and slept longer than anybody, and you were a hero."

"If a 'hero,' is a gilded fool who embraces destiny and still spreads his wings for the sake of others, then yes." Virgil's insight leaves Leopold puzzled. "Uh, so Mommy told you I left to explore the Kuiper Belt?"

"And to the planet Eris? Mr. Schiaparelli taught us about it."

"Yes. I did. And one day, you will see so much more, Leo. So much more."

"Are Uncle Cornball and Aunt Kimmy still in space? Are they going to visit?"

"Maybe not in the flesh, Leo. But they're closer than you think."

7 — Wisdom

**OUTSIDE** of Space Launch Complex 41, cameras click and whir as the press area teems with news crews.

"Thirty years after the unmanned New Horizons probe made first contact with Pluto in 2015," says a Fox News Field Reporter into the camera, "NASA sends its first manned mission into the Kuiper Belt. . . ."

"A joint E.S.A and Russian survey team," reports a CNN Field Reporter, "discovered the U.S.S Burdett in a cloaked Moon dry-dock. . . ."

". . . and the mission secrecy leaves us to wonder," reports an MSNBC Field reporter, "what does the crew of the Burdett expect to find, and will they find their way home?"

Inside, NASA officials, electronic and cable TV reporters observe, write, film, and snap photos, with the press conference for the U.S.S Burdett already in progress. A forty-year-old Virgil sits at an eight-seat banquet table on stage alongside Cornthwaite and Kamara, along with four mission control techs—and an empty chair and nameplate for Clyde Tombaugh.

". . . I am also pleased to introduce to you Nathaniel Green, Jules Janssen, and Mariposa Chouko of J.P.L, along with Nova Polikwaptiwa of Lockheed Martin, and with us, in spirit, Clyde Tombaugh. Now, Ms. Nova Polikwaptiwa and Flight Engineer Robert Cornthwaite will present details of our ship."

On an overhead theatre screen on the stage, a U.S.S Burdett Mission Logo appears against a starfield. The computer graphic then zooms pass the logo and then, passes the Moon, then approaches the U.S.S Burdett in Moon orbital dry-dock.

"Once a ship leaves Earth's protective bubble of her magnetic field," says the Hopi-Indian descended Polikwaptiwa as the screen displays a graphic of Earth's atmospheric and magnetic fields, "astronauts are susceptible to radiation." Then, a three dimensional cutaway of the U.S.S Burdett appears on screen. "A material, such as aluminum, which was adequate for Moon travel, is inadequate for deep space missions. To solve that problem, the Burdett is constructed with the polymer-based material, Polyethylene, an element which is found in most household disposal bags."

The explanation of the ship's construct begins to lose the reporters.

"A groundbreaking variant of that material, 'R.X.F Two,' which is five times the tensile strength of aluminum, but five times lighter—."

"What is the reason for covering up a historic first mission to the edge of our solar system?" cuts off a reporter. "Why radar cloak the construction?"

"The media requested . . . demanded a full disclosure of this mission, and we're giving it to you," says Cornthwaite. "Now if you allow Nova to—."

"Aren't you just galactic Don Quixotes who will die batting at the windmills beyond Jupiter?" says another reporter. "The moons of Jupiter and Saturn have all the resources we need."

The Burdett's crew and mission techs look at each other with a scoff.

Then, a twenty-eight year-old NASA official stands up. "He's right. This quixotic journey offers no probative value to life on Earth and has already negatively affected Mars colonization and Jupiter mining—."

"Marshall, the last time I checked, you were NASA's Mars Flight Director. Anything after the asteroid belt isn't your concern," interjects Kamara.

The press core reacts stunned by Kamara's testy reply.

"The reason we sail the stars is to find life, not strip-mine and colonize. The organic, carbon-bearing molecules found in the DNA structures on Earth originated in the 'Third Zone'—the Kuiper Belt. We are tenants in this system, Marshall. Not owners," says Kamara.

"So, you divorced Nova, your high school sweetheart, to search for 'theorized' DNA structures on the edge of the solar system, Kimimela?" jousts Marshall.

"This mission," Polikwaptiwa interjects, ". . . In space, man isn't a gilded butterfly who—." Nova curls her lip into silence upon the touch of Virgil's hand on her shoulder.

"We thank you all for wishing us well," says Virgil. The crew and mission techs rise on Virgil's cue and leave the conference.

A wall in the U.S.S Burdett Mission offices displays a series of framed Etienne Trouvelot Lithographs for his astronomical renderings of Jupiter and Mars, the Moon's Mare Humorum and the Sun's Solar Protuberances, the Earth's Zodiac Light and the Leonid Meteor Shower of 1868, along with the Moon's Lunar Eclipse of 1874 and the Solar Eclipse of 1878.

Virgil, Kamara, and Cornthwaite sit in silence at their small conference table and smoke cigars as they stare at the other framed photos in the office that feature the portraits of Clyde Tombaugh and Etienne Trouvelot, along with the crews of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, and iconic Russian mission accomplishments and firsts the world seems to forget.

"All 'gilded butterflies' report to flight operations for I.S.S departure," cracks Polikwaptiwa's voice on the com. The first trio of humans to venture into the Kuiper Belt stubs out their cigars. Kamara and Cornthwaite each touch Tombaugh's photo and leave the room. Virgil's pays his respects to Clyde's photo, then stares at Trouvelot's lithographic rendering of Jupiter.

8 — Confidence

" **THERE** is it. I found Jupiter, Grandpa," says ten-year-old Leopold. Older Virgil places his eye onto the telescope set up in the backyard of the Chaffee farmstead. He gazes at the red-eyed gas giant's glows against the starfield.

"You sure did. That's Jupiter," says Virgil. "Did you figure that out by yourself?"

"Mommy showed me how. I can find the seventh planet, Uranus, too. Did you ever go there, or to Neptune?"

"Well, we can. But they're all gas and ice. There's no hard surface to land on."

"How come you didn't come back, Grandpa? Why did Mommy think you were dead? Did you forget about her?"

"Remember, Leo. Our souls feel without our bodies, so no one is ever forgotten and no one dies. They live in our hearts and minds, because we are all infinite beings. . . ."

The U.S.S Burdett makes its final approach to Pluto.

Inside the centrifuge's stasis chamber, computer screens spring to life with data scrolls, bleeps and clicks. The eyes of the Burdett's crew begin to flutter as their previously, almost flat-line life signs begin to increase. Their chests expand as they inhale their first deep breaths in over two decades.

A master control panel reads:

Earth Date: Feburary 18, 2067  
Mission Time: 22 years, 1 Month, 18 Days  
Day: 1600 Hours, 01 Minutes, 01 Seconds

Then lights illuminate the stasis pods. Overhead lights brighten the chamber. Hydraulics engage and the pods hiss-open. The crew fully awakens and rises. They swing their bodies out of the chambers and pull away conveniently located biological disposal bags.

"You look like the four million miles of bad road I feel," Kamara retches into her bag, "and not a day over sixty-two, Virg."

Cornthwaite rubs his arms and coughs. "It's cold. Someone pour me a shot." Then he vomits phlegm and bio-fluids into his disposal bag. "Man isn't meant to travel between worlds like Greek gods."

As Virgil finishes retching into his bag, he composes and stares at the wall-framed photograph of the Burdett's crew as they posed at the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker all those years ago. A smile breaks across his face.

Adorned in their flight suits and planted in the seats of their respective stations on the flight deck, the crew of the Burdett taps away at keyboards and touch screens, entering and reviewing data.

"Probe status check," says Kamara.

"Charon-Pluto One, Nix-Pluto Two, Hydra Three, Kerberos Four, Styx-Pluto Five, all online. Go for Melvin," replies Cornthwaite.

In the cold silence of the Kuiper System, an elongated landing bay door splits open, topside of the U.S.S Burdett. The Grand Piano-sized Melvin probe rises from its moorings. The engines engage and Melvin jets off to Pluto. Then, Charon-Pluto One rises from its moorings—and jets off to Charon.

Later, on the flight deck, Virgil clutches an iPad and monitors Pluto's orbital graphics on the control panels of the flight deck. Kamara, adorned in graviton-boots and using the handles conveniently located around hull's interior to assist in walking, enters the deck.

"When they said we'd experience an overactive bladder post-stasis, they were kidding." Then Kamara gazes at the monitors. "And the Vatican wanted Galileo to recant the Earth circled the sun. It's a mesmerizing waltz."

"Even in an orbital graphic display," gazes Virgil at the monitors. "It's an amazing, intricate dance of a double-dwarf planet with four moons, all coplanar orbiting a barycenter that elliptically orbits the Sun on a seventeen-degree inclination that crosses Neptune's path. It's a freak compared to the rest of the planets, and it's beyond beautiful."

"Ah, astronaut here," Kamara points to her mission patch. "It's not my first day swinging on a star."

"Yeah," Virgil blushes. "I have to hear myself say it. I can't believe I get to see this with my own eyes."

"It's our museum of wonder," says Kamara with a pat to Virgil's shoulder. "It's our cathedral. Our ninth heaven." Kamara settles into the seat of her flight station and puts on a headset.

"So, how's our dreamy realm of speculation, Virg," enters Cornthwaite.

"Just a bunch of measured shadows as we search among ghostly errors of measurement."

"So, anything from back home in the recorders?"

"Nothing for me. You Corn?" says Virgil.

"The kids graduated the University of Utah with honors and they're off to law school. Maggie married a lawyer who became a senator. Sounds like a good man. A good influence on the kids."

"Corny," says Kamara, "I need you to rerun the dish diagnostic and double-check my math. Stasis must have scrambled my eggs." Cornthwaite plops into his flight seat and stars working the numbers.

"We should have heard from Mother with a mission briefing by now," says Virgil. "Are there any buffering issues with Neptune sub-station?"

"Nep is green across the board. But there's a gravitational anomaly, a magnetic glitch I can't pinpoint. It's all transmission bounce back. Feels like I am talking to my own ghost," says Kamara.

"Sub-systems and signal frequency, status green. Your math is solid, Kim."

"Should we deploy Vesto Probe to get beyond the magnetic bubble?" says Kamara.

"I don't want to risk both probes," says Virgil. "We'll retrieve Melvin and send him back out. In the meantime, run the orbital and planetary stats, Corny. Let's see what's brewing."

The U.S.S Burdett—with its vertically deployed solar panels from its engine array and horizontally deployed radiator panels along its hull—drifts as an intergalactic butterfly in the Kuiper's astronautical sea.

Meanwhile, on the flight deck, Virgil, Kamara, and Cornthwaite tap keyboards and operate touch screens. Cornthwaite views the incoming data scroll on his flight station's computer screen with Pluto's Orbital Characteristics. Then, with another tap of the keys, Pluto's Planet Characteristics scroll on another screen.

Cornthwaite centers his concentration on the characteristics of Pluto's Surface Gravity and Atmospheric Data:

_Surface Gravity_ : 9.798 m/s2 / 0.99732 g

Then he views the _Min_ (minimum), _Mean_ (average), and _Max_ (maximum) _Surface Temperature_ readings:

Kelvin: 184 — 288 — 330  
Celsius: -89.2 — 15 — 56.7

_Surface Pressure_ : 101.325 kPa

Then the _Stratosphere Percentages_ :

Nitrogen 78.08 %  
Oxygen: 20.95 %  
Argon: 0.930 %  
Carbon Dioxide: 0.039 %  
Water Vapor: 1.00 %

Then the _Exo-thermo-mesopheres Percentages_ :

Methane: 60.02 %  
Ammonia: 20.98 %  
Carbon Dioxide: 10.99 %  
Argon: 6.90 %  
Nitrogen: 0.010 %

"I must be suffering stasis side effects, too." Cornthwaite rubs his eyes and tries to regain focus on the data. "Or my mind is going. . . ."

Back on the Chafee farmstead, Older Virgil and ten-year-old Leopold lay on a blanket in the cereal grasses, near the telescope.

"How did you learn to figure out all those elements and numbers, Grandpa?"

"You have to study solid geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Even when you're not in school."

"Math? Yuck. Even when I'm not in school? Can't you just join the Air Force or the Navy and learn to fly planes?"

"Your real 'plane' is inside, Leo. And whatever the dream, you have the genius, power, and magic to make it real," a response that puzzles Leo and causes Virgil to restate his point. "Dreams are important, but to make dreams come true, you have to learn the math to figure out where to go."

"Okay. I'll study harder. So, you didn't wake up, even to get a drink of water or go pee?" says Leo, which bring a chuckle to Virgil. "So, what happened to Uncle Corny, Grandpa?"

"All the orbital and planetary readings are normal," says Cornthwaite, back on the flight deck of the U.S.S Burdett. "Expect when you look at the planetary readings for surface gravity, temperature, and pressure. Am I reading it right?"

Virgil's takes a close look at the readings.

"Those are Earth gravity and temp numbers. Pluto's surface pressure should only be point-thirty P.A's."

"And look at the atmosphere composition," points Cornthwaite.

Virgil looks closer at the stratosphere content and exo-thermo-mesopheres composition data on Cornthwaite's screen. "Nitrogen 78.8 percent? Oxygen 20.95? Earth level argon and carbon dioxide. Water vapor."

"And Earth-level methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, argon, and nitrogen up in the exo-thermo layers," says Cornthwaite.

"Well, these crust numbers can't be right, either," ponders Virgil. "Iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, sulfur, nickel, calcium, and aluminum."

As she looks over Virgil's shoulder, Karmara scoffs at the data as well. "Those are all Earth numbers. And the methane crust reading is less one percent."

"Look at the planetary accretion, Kim," points out Cornthwaite. "It's full of heat-producing isotopes of Potassium 40, Uranium 238, U-235, and Thorium 232."

A rock on the edge of the system producing its own surface heat," says Kamara. "I'll be damned."

"What it's producing is Earth-like conditions. It's like a shield. The outer-spheres act as a bell jar," says Cornthwaite.

Then, an indicator flashes on Kamara's console.

"Melvin's uploading recon-imaging," says Kamara.

As the image loads, the screen displays hazy, aerial images of cloudless blue skies, golden-brown-green cereal grasses, and thick pockets of trees and plants.

"What wrong with Melvin?" says Virgil.

"Nothing." Cornthwaite looks at the data on his screen. "Readings are fine. The chemical soup of the outer-spheres must have adhered to the lens."

"Virgil," says Kamara. "Are you seeing that? We're dreaming, right?"

"The imaginations of Newton and Descartes couldn't dream this up."

"Why send us all the way out here and not tell us," says Cornthwaite. "Pluto didn't miraculously transform during the past fifty-two years."

"Or while we were sleeping for the past twenty," says Virgil.

"We're not the only tenants out here. If we can rape the Moon, terraform Mars and strip-mine the asteroid belt—," says Kamara.

"Someone," interrupts Virgil. "Something terraformed the Kuiper. It makes sense. All the planets beyond Mars are gas giants. Pluto's the only planet with a rocky surface."

"All of this, in fifty-two years? Amazing," ponders Kamara.

"What about Earth Plutonic Theory? It's feasible on other planets," says Cornthwaite.

"The temperatures," realizes Kamara. "Intense heat radiated deep within the crust caused changes on the surface."

"And the gaseous compounds of the exo, thermo, and mesospheres act like a pressure bubble against the stratosphere to retain the heat," says Virgil.

"What the hell is that dark spot?" Kamara points at the screen. "Is that a structure?"

"It looks like wreckage," says Virgil.

"It us." The color drains from Cornthwaite's face. "It's the Burdett. We crashed."

"Corny, take it easy. What are you talking about?" says Kamara.

"Look at the elongated hull, the engine cluster, the nose section—."

"Robbie," says Kamara. She places her hand on his shoulders.

"The shredded radiator wings. The solar panel hanging off the engine cluster. Can't you see it? We're dead. We're seeing into our future," shakes Cornthwaite.

"Corny. Robert. Bobbie." Virgil shakes Cornthwaite by the shoulders and snaps his fingers. Cornthwaite regains focus. "You there, Corny? You frosty?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Cornthwaite's breathing settles. "I'm with you. Cold as ice."

"Now, whatever that wreckage is, it's _not_ one of ours. It can't be older that July 2015," says Virgil.

"We're on a pre-determined flight plan and by _comic chance_ our survey spot is where an alien terraformer crashed in the middle of Tombaugh Regio?" says Kamara.

"Do a geo-survey on the basin, well, plain, right here, Corny." Virgil studies the recon images. "I want this pocket of trees between whatever that is, and us. Kimmy, run a status check on the Percival and warm 'em up."

9 — Enlightenment

**THE** elongated cargo bay doors on the topside of the U.S.S Burdett split open and expose two docked shuttle planes: the Percival and the Lowell. Percival lifts off and jets off to Pluto.

As Virgil, Kamara, and Cornthwaite gaze through the Percival's viewports, they descend through Pluto's swirling, chemical mixtures as the haze breaks to reveal hints of blue stratosphere, then hints of green surfaces.

The shuttle lands on an expansive plain with endless fields of cereal grasses of wheat, oats, barley, and corn. Patches of woodland areas dot the plains filled with oaks and walnut, maple and elm trees.

Frogs croak and crickets chirp. A Cape Dwarf Chameleon scurries into the brush. A mollusk leaves a slimy trail on a small boulder.

The wonders seen through the Percival's viewports and computer screens leave the Burdett's crew in a state of wonder.

"Toto, are we in Kansas?" says Kamara.

"And who's the wizard of this 'Oz'?" says Cornthwaite.

"Perchance to dreamy, Corny," replies Karama.

"No fifty-foot rats with spider legs and bat wings, Kim," says Virgil. "Your classic sci-fi movie library is officially obsolete."

"Radiation on the inner and outer hull reads normal," says Kamara. "98 degrees and a full atmosphere. Melvin's numbers are spot on."

"So," says Virgil. "You're both with me on doing this without suits?"

"Westward," says Kamara.

"Brave Ulysses; to a newer world," Cornthwaite joins in unison with Kamara.

"As we bathe in the western stars," says the trio.

Inside the Percival's airlock, Kamara clutches the locking mechanism. Hydraulics engage; the door opens to a hissing sound.

Then, Virgil's boot crushes into the soil and grass of Pluto's surface.

"Now that is a home movie opener," says Cornthwaite. He looks up at the deployed, low-flying drone overhead.

"And a massive step for mankind," says Kamara. The trio looks at the wilds of Pluto that surround the ship.

"So much for the theory of 'no carbon based life' in the Kuiper Belt," says Virgil.

"Minor planet 134-340? There's nothing 'minor' about this place," says Cornthwaite.

"Yes. Not too shabby for the system's tenth most massive body," replies Virgil.

"And not a mountain in sight," wonders Kamara. "It's like I'm back home in Kansas."

"I'm expecting to see Clyde set-up in the fields with his telescope," says Cornthwaite.

"I can't get over," Virgil wonders, "how much it feels like my old farm in Central Florida."

"The woodlands areas remind me of my childhood camping trips in Massachusetts," says Cornthwaite.

"Heat by Plutonic Theory is one thing, Corny," wonders Kamara. "Where is the light coming from, if there's no sun?"

"Why is the sky clear blue without a hint of cloud vapor," counters Virgil. He pulls out a set of binoculars.

"Kimmy, which movie has the space gardens in the geodesic domes?" says Cornthwaite.

"Silent Running."

"A glass sheet holding up the heavens."

"More like worms under a bell jar," realizes Kamara.

Virgil scans the surroundings with binoculars. "If we're inside a structural bio-cap, there's no end to it."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Cornthwaite's quoting of poet John Milton's wisdoms gives pause to Virgil and Kim. "What if this . . . is something . . . are we, our minds, are creating this?"

"I've never had a dream this detailed." Virgil grabs a leaf from a low-level branch and feels it in his fingers. "It has texture . . . and it has an aroma." He inhales. "The air is sweet."

"According to the probes, it's the whole planet. Electronics don't dream electric sheep." Kamara inhales. "And I smell the pine . . . and the elms." She wipes her forehead. "I feel the humidity."

The trio checks their utility belts and pistols. Kamara removes a shoulder-strapped rifle and takes point. Both weapons emit a low-level electro-shock pulse to a biological system when fired upon—leaving the target paralyzed, but not, hopefully, deceased. The effect of the pulses in the magnetic and gravity fields of foreign environs—even when the ship's computers calibrate the weapons accordingly to the environs they're used in—are always of a concern. Until now, no threatening life forms—beyond the microscopic—have been discovered in the solar system. So nothing—no one—has died, yet, at the hands of a pulse weapon.

Virgil looks at the drone's eye-view on his wrist monitor. "There nothing but trees and fields as far as the eye can see."

"Look at that! Fiddler Crabs," Kamara breaks Virgil's thought. A family of four crustaceans creeps into the reeds. "Look at their shell's iridescence."

"I'll be damned, crustaceans on Pluto," notices Cornthwaite. He adjusts the squeals on his belted Geiger Counter. "I haven't seen Fiddler Crabs since my summers at Spanish River Park when I was a kid."

"Did you notice there are no birds in the sky?" Virgil adjusts his Voice/Video Record secured over his ear—sets that are also worn by Kamara and Cornthwaite. "Flora surrounds us, but no bird squawks."

"The environs read clear," says Cornthwaite. "Whatever it is, it has no emission signature."

"We'll head north to the clearing, and then loop around the tree line for a peek at our neighbor," says Virgil. "Corny, bring down the drone. I don't want to spook them."

Kamara keeps point with her rifle at the ready as they trek to the clearing.

"What dreams may come." Cornthwaite notices the butterfly fluttering around him. "Shakespearean Entomology surrounds us four billion miles from the Sun."

"And it burns like Faust's Hades," says Virgil.

"More like a tenth circle of Dante's Inferno," says Kamara. "Thank god we brought you along as a guide, Virgil."

"It's no hotter than those field training missions in Madagascar. Toughen up, you two," jokes Cornthwaite.

Kamara then notices two spiny Orb-Weaver Arachnids spinning webs. One has red spines on a black and white spotted abdomen. The other has black spines on a yellow and black spotted abdomen.

"Welcome to the divine comedy, Kim," Cornthwaite notices her wonder of the spiders.

"Have you ever seen so many butterfly chrysalises?" Kamara takes notice of the overhead branches. She gasps as a butterfly breaks free and hangs to dry its wings.

Then, in wide-eyed wonder, Cornthwaite extends a pinky finger to a low-level leaf as he allows a bugged-eyed, 16-millimeter lizard the size of a match head, crawl onto his pinky tip.

"A Brookesia Micra, the Earth's smallest living vertebrates. How is that even possible?" says Kamara.

"You weren't discovered until 2012 in Madagascar," says Cornthwaite to the lizard on his finger. "How did you get all the way out here, fella?" He places the creature safely back on the leaf.

Then, a moth leaves it chrysalis and lands on Virgil's arm. The moth features black forewings highlighted with green stripes and orange and yellow highlighted hindwings. Virgil offers a fingertip. The moth crawls on. "Madagascan Uranie Sunset Moths?"

"A twin for an Earth biodiversity environ with ninety percent of its wildlife found nowhere else? In the middle of the Kuiper?" says Kamara.

"It's a collection of all the most beautiful," says Virgil as the Uranie flies away, "things on Earth. It's Eden."

"Or we're dead and in heaven," counters Cornthwaite.

The comment causes Kamara to curl her brow.

Then Virgil notices the shimmering blue wings of a butterfly that lands on a flowering bush. "If this is a twin for Madagascar, then how to you explain that?"

"That's the deepest blue I've ever seen," says Kamara.

"And it shouldn't be here."

"We're standing in the middle of a nitrogen ice field on the Sputnik Planitia. None of this should be here," says Kamara.

"No. This is a South Russian Blue." Virgil offers a welcoming finger and it climbs on. "It's native only to the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia." Virgil rotates the blue butterfly on his finger tip admires the wing's iridescence.

"I read the paper on that," says Cornthwaite. "They were discovered in the late 1990s and mistaken for another species. It took two decades to sequence its DNA and it was classified as a new species when it was discovered that, instead of the usual sixty-eight chromosomes, it had forty-six—the same number as humans."

"Wait a second. . . ." On cue the butterfly glides from Virgil's fingertip and lands on Cornthwaite's shoulder. It's as if the butterfly _knew_ Virgil needed his finger . . . to enter data into his wrist monitor. He accesses a map of the Earth. "Look at this." He feeds the data into Cornthwaite's and Kamara's wrist monitors.

Their monitors show the Earth's eastern hemisphere—with a red longitude line cutting through a mountainous land mass between the Black and Caspian Seas. "The 45th meridian east longitude runs through Caucasus Mountains and Madagascar," says Virgil.

"And the 45th meridian east," Cornthwaite spins the globe with his finger to display the Earth's western hemisphere, "forms a great circle with the 135th meridian west."

"And your point being?" says Kamara.

"The sum of each meridian longitude is nine," reasons Cornthwaite.

Virgil and Kamara look at each other.

"And the total sum of both meridians is eighteen and one plus eight is nine. So what?" says Kamara.

Virgil settles Kamara with a hand to her shoulder. "I'm not as biblically attuned as you are, Bobby," says Virgil. "What's the meaning of the number nine?"

"Nine is an 'angel number.' Butterflies are referenced in all of the world's religions as spiritual symbols. The number nine is a sign that angels send to mortals for us to understand the discovery and fulfillment of our life's purpose. '9' even looks like a butterfly wing."

"And so . . . what? Humans from Earth are reincarnating as butterflies?" says Kamara.

"Well, it's not like I expect a close-minded atheist drunk on materialism to get it."

Kamara takes a step toward Cornthwaite. The blue butterfly spooks off his shoulder and flutters away.

"Hey. Hey," Virgil steps in. "What the hell is with you two? Do we need to go back to the ship and take a couple of stress pills and put you on ice?"

"Wow. Corny," says Kamara. "I'm sorry, I—."

"No. I was the one out of line, Kim."

"Let's cool it with the theist debates and stick to tangible science for the time being, okay?"

"If you can call all of these things 'tangible,' motions Kamara.

"So, onward, brave Ulysses?" says Virgil.

"I got the point," Kamara draws her rifle.

"You frosty," Corny?

"Cold as ice."

As they reach the end of the tree line along the clearing, the rear silhouette of a rectangular placard on a post comes into their view.

"Is that a . . . road sign?" says Kamara.

"You're not seeing things, Kim. Virg?"

"I see it, Corny."

They walk up to the sign, then around to the front to see a replica of the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker commemorating his 1930 discovery of Pluto—identical to the marker posted in Burdett, Kansas.

"Did we retrieve the marker from the ship, do the ceremony, and plant the canister and the coin, already?" says Virgil.

"The communications bounce back on the Burdett," reasons Kamara. "That could have been from a temporal distortion." She places down the rifle and, with her hands, digs at the post base and removes a palm-sized, commemorative urn with an inscription on the container's lid:

Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the system's 'third zone.' Adelle and Muron's boy, Patricia's husband, Annette and Alden's father, astronomer, punster, and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906-1997)

Kamara hands the urn to Virgil. Then she notices the glitter of a 2004 Florida Gold Quarter encased in a protective, plastic shell that commemorates the U.S Space Program. She turns the coin in her hand to reveal the tail-side's etching of a Spanish Galleon and a Space Shuttle in flight, along with the inscription:

Gateway to Discovery  
E Pluribus Unum

Kamara hands the coin to Virgil. Then she notices the blue cloth of a flight uniform. She brushes away the dirt and exposes a J.P.L Mission Patch.

"Jesus," she shocks and falls back on her hands. "This is a gravesite."

"See, I told you." Cornthwaite loses his composure. "That wreckage is the Burdett. We're looking at our own dead bodies. We're fulfilling our purpose."

"Corny, stay with me," says Virgil. "Look at me, Bobby. Look at me." He shakes Cornthwaite by the shoulders. "I'm right here. We are not dead."

"No. No. One of us buried the other two," reasons Cornthwaite. "We died. We're dead. We crashed."

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it, Robert," speaks a disembodied voice.

Cornthwaite turns toward the voice and sees a twenty-one-year-old Clyde Tombaugh in the clearing perched over a 9-Inch Reflector Telescope.

"I'm prepared, Mr. Tombaugh." Cornthwaite stands in a hypnotic state.

Virgil and Kamara stand baffled—there's no one there. Then Cornthwaite sets off at a brisk pace toward the cereal grass line.

"Corny. Wait!" calls out Kamara and Virgil.

"Confucius would say that man is not ready to follow the yellow brick road into the Kuiper," says Clyde.

Then, the cereal reeds rustle. Transparent apparitions—hazy, three-foot tall entities—surround Cornthwaite.

"Don't be afraid, Robert. They're here to help you find the wizard," says Clyde. "Don't fear the gilded bricks. Come, take my hand."

While Virgil and Kamara don't hear Clyde's wisdoms, they both see the hazy distortions of the cereal grasses—and of Cornthwaite's lower body. He begins to stagger as a drunk.

"They're beautiful, colorful seraphim with three sets of wings." He raises his arms in the air. "Can you see the rainbowed jets!" His eyes begin to water with joy. "They're . . . so . . . beautiful."

"Corny," Virgil cautiously approaches Cornthwaite. "We'll figure this out."

"Stay away! Don't hurt them, Ahab. Don't—."

"We're not going to hurt them, Corny."

"I won't be the Ishmael of your Pequod, Virgil! I won't be the lone survivor and bury you and Kim."

"Bobby, take it easy," says Kamara. For a moment, Cornthwaite seems to calm.

"They really are . . . angels." Cornthwaite's eyes release the wells. Then he becomes agitated again. "Damn, Isaac Newton and his reflecting telescopes." He pulls his pistol from the holster. "You and Tombaugh with his cornbread, cowpoke telescopes." He staggers as tears stream down his face. "Filling my head with your great white whales," he points to Virgil.

"Bobby, put the pistol down," says Kamara. "Everything is—."

Cornthwaite fires pulse-rounds. Virgil and Clyde hit the deck. The gun fire stops. Clyde, and his telescope—are gone. Virgil shocks back as the transparent apparitions scurry into the cereal grasses.

"Virg . . . il. Virg," coughs Kamara from the ground.

Virgil rolls Cornthwaite's dead body. He has no wounds—only a set of kaleidoscope eyes that morph back to normal irises. Blood trickles from his nose.

Kamara, however, lies with a large chest burn from a pulse-shot wound. "And we're off to see the wizard. The wonderful wizard of Oz," sputters Kamara in beat with the iconic song's lyrics. "My courage, heart, and brains trek four billion miles of bad road and instead of falling victim to a green-skinned Queen of Blood—."

Virgil kneels in shock between the dead bodies of his crew mates. Then he hears the wind carry the distant, acoustic guitar notes of "John Barleycorn," an acoustic arrangement crafted by a 1960s musician named Steve Winwood, for his band Traffic, of a traditional 17th century British folk song.

There were three men  
Came out of the west  
Their fortunes for to try . . .

Virgil follows the song into, and breaks through the cereal grass reeds.

He sees a spry, seventy-nine year old man perched on a log stump in the front of the cereal grasses surrounding the clearing—with an acoustic guitar. He wears a worn-flight suit with logos for NASA and JPL, Lockheed Martin, U.S.A.F—and the _U.S.S Flagstaff_ , and a name patch: Shepard. He continues to sing:

And these three men  
Made a solemn vow  
John Barleycorn must die . . .

Virgil rubs his eyes into focus. He sees a mass of transparent apparitions sway against the backdrop of cereal grasses as they enjoying Shepard's singing:

They've plowed, they've sown  
They've harrowed him in  
Threw clods upon his head

And these three men  
Made a solemn vow  
John Barleycorn was dead . . .

Shepard motions with a welcoming nod towards a boulder.

They let him die  
For a very long time  
'Til the rains  
From heaven did fall . . .

Shepard picks the final notes of the last measure of the song. The cereal grasses rustle and the transparent apparitions scurry back into the cereal grasses.

"What's a matter, friend," says Shepard. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Are we, am I, dead?"

"They don't mean to hurt anyone. They were just trying to talk to him, comfort him." Shepard slings his guitar over his back. "When they realized they hurt Wilhelm, they never bothered me. Sorrow for young Parvaneh, though. She died in the crash."

"Who, what are they?"

"Seraphim of Dante's Ninth Heaven? Angelic figments? Outside of my guitar, we never established any form of communication." Shepard pulls out a pocket watch. "Next to my guitar, a surplus of strings, and a stack of poker chips, this old watch is the best piece of equipment on my ship." He opens and gazes at its face. "You're in time for the poker game," coughs Shepard. He pulls out a handkerchief and dabs his chin. "Commander . . . Chaffee. Separate the wheat from the chafe. What's your first name, Commander?"

"Virgil, sir."

"After the singer-poet of the Roman Empire who served as Dante's guide through his Divine Comedy?"

"Y-es. . . . Are you a ghost?"

"Are you my guide from the Primum Mobile into the Empyreal Sphere? Or is it back to the Inferno for me? _That_ is the question."

"Are you an Earth--ling?" Then, as he gazes at the name on the ghostly musician's uniform, a realization comes to Virgil: "You're . . . Shepard? The mission lost in Saturn's rings?"

"Commander Shepard," stands Shepard with a salute, "relative of Commander Alan Shepard of the Mercury-Freedom 7 and Apollo 14 at your service!"

"The Saturn Mission was the Gustav Holst. How do you end up—?"

"Come on. The guys will love having a fourth to swindle chips." Shepard readjusts the guitar slung over his back and beings to walk away.

What else can Virgil do? He follows.

As they round the clearing they come upon the wreckage of the U.S.S Flagstaff, a ship identical in design to the U.S.S Burdett. A tarp draped over a hole ripped in the starboard hull serves as a makeshift front door. Another tarp attached to the hull and supported by hunks of scrap-metal lattice serves as a makeshift patio awning.

Two scarecrows wear flight suits and sit in flight deck chairs positioned around a table torn out of the ship's commons area. A poker game is in progress on the table.

"Welcome to Casa de Flagstaff," says Shepard. He starts to operate a homemade water pump constructed from ship parts; attached to a conduit, the tube runs off into the tree line. Once the water flow starts, Shepard cups his hand and washes his face. "Feel free to freshen up, friend." He takes a towel draped over the pump and dabs his face. "There's a lake beyond those trees. Just follow the conduit. Great for swimming."

Virgil accepts the offer and, as he cleans up, Shepard begins to set the table with four place settings of plates, cutlery, and cups.

"Have yourself a seat in my flight chair, friend," Shepard motions with his hand. "This is Michael Wilhelm. And that slicker-than-snot card shark," he motions as he pulls up a chair salvaged from the ship's Commons Area, "is Parvaneh Yara."

Virgil stares at his host with a baffled, blank stare.

"Don't worry. I know they're just piles of branches. But Mike will still talk your ear off most days."

"You have a very nice home, Shepard."

"No thanks to these two. They stick me with all the cleaning." Shepard cleans the poker chips off the table. "Hope you're a poker playing man, Virgil. We sure could use a fourth to take Parry to the cleaners."

"I never heard of the Flagstaff, Shepard. When did you set sail?"

"Shhh," Shepard fingers his lips. "Secret Kuiper Belt Mission. Stick to the cover story." He picks up a decanter and fills it off the water pump. "The Flagstaff sailed in 2023. I was thirty-five." He pours cup of water from the decanter for Virgil. "You know the, uh, Kuiper, the Horizon's probe we launched in what, 2000-something?"

"Of course," nods Virgil.

"We got surprising data about Pluto's surface, its moons, and the belt. And we received communications."

"You made contact?"

"Someone imbedded signals into the data stream. Speech articulated at great, high frequency speeds," continues Shepard off Virgil's intent stare. "We attempted to decode it, but the techs got sick. Complained of ear buzzing and feeling drunk. They seen color spots and winged phantoms."

"That sounds like what happened to Bobby."

"They're friendly, but don't know how to talk to us. Nor us to them."

"They're on an illumination we can't see. A frequency spectrum—," reasons Virgil.

"Yes. Sound modulations and light humans can't comprehend by ear or eye. They communicate on a deeper level, one we have yet to achieve." Shepard pulls an inscribed copper guitar pick from his pocket and hands it to Virgil:

Music  
The Universal Communicator

"But with my trusty, universal communicator," Shepard reaches to take back the pick, "anything is possible." Perched on an old footlocker, Shepard begins to play another old, late 1960s rock tune composed by Steve Winwood: "Can't Find My Way Home."

Come down off your throne  
And leave your body alone  
Somebody must change . . .

Virgil's eyes widen as the cereal grasses rustle.

You are the reason  
I've been waiting so long  
Somebody holds the key . . .

He sees the transparent apparitions return. They sway to Shepard's singing.

Well, I'm near the end  
And I just ain't got the time  
And I'm wasted  
And I can't find my way home

Shepard picks the last measure of notes. Upon the end of the music, the apparitions vanish back into the reeds.

"I don't think they understand the words," reasons Shepard. "It's the harmony and tone they respond to. Music is unbound and timeless, Virgil."

"That's incredible."

"Shame they don't play music. We'd be onto something," coughs Shepard in a fit. Virgil tries to offer comfort. "I got a couple of shovels 'round here. We should give your buddies a nice service. I know those shovels are around here, somewhere," Shepard stumbles around the camp. "Mike, Parry, and Clyde will take real good care of them, show them around."

Virgil pats down dirt with a shovel on grave mounts at the base of the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker. Shepard lays down his shovel and takes a seat on the ground. After he swings from a canteen, he picks up his acoustic guitar, blesses himself and starts to play.

The cereal grasses rustle in delight around Virgil and Shepard as the transparent apparitions sway to the sounds of an American folk-music classic from 1933—"You Are My Sunshine."

Virgil puts down his shovel and takes a seat next to Shepard—and pulls out the floating glass locket once worn by his wife, then daughter. He gazes at the description:

You are my sunshine,  
my only sunshine.  
You make me happy.

Shepard begins to sing.

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey . . .

"You know the words, Virgil," offers Shepard. Virgil joins in.

You never know, dear  
How much I love you  
Please don't take  
My sunshine away . . .

The sun shines on the tall cereal grasses that surround the backyard of the Chaffee farmstead in 2042. A thirty-seven-year-old Virgil and a seven-year-old Diana rest on a picnic blanket. Diana blows out candles on a Moon-decorated birthday cake with the greeting:

Happy 7th Birthday  
Diana, the Moon Huntress

Virgil removes from his neck, the floating glass locket and places it around Diana's neck. They begin to sing "You Are My Sunshine."

Virgil and Shepard continue their duet. . . .

I'll always love you  
And make you happy  
If you will only  
Say the same . . .

Back on the wilds of Pluto, Virgil and Shepard sit at Wilhelm and Yara's graves—and fresh graves for Kamara and Cornthwaite—dug under the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker.

But if you leave me  
To love another  
You'll regret it  
All one day . . .

Virgil wipes tears of joy.

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey . . .

Shepard grins with delight.

You never know, dear  
How much I love you  
Please don't take  
My sunshine away

Please don't take  
My sunshine away

"I haven't done a duet since I left Earth. I can die a happy man with no regrets. Thank you, Virgil."

"No, Shepard. Thank you."

"God bless Homer for inspiring you, Rome's greatest poet. As with your _Aeneid_ , I also struggled. But I have fulfilled my destiny," coughs Shepard. "So where will my odyssey take me now, my lord, oh Virgil of Rome?" He coughs chunks of blood into a handkerchief. "I have cancer, Virgil. Radiation and all that." Shepard accepts a canteen from Virgil. "You know, voyagers like us are no different from the ocean explorers John Cabot, Vasco de Gama, or Ferdinand Magellan; even Herman Melville's Ahab lusting for his white whale."

"True. We just sail bigger oceans."

"And there's no difference between them and our 'ol buddy, Clyde."

"The Flagstaff and the Burdett are no different from what the Lowell Observatory was for Clyde," reasons Virgil.

"I've always thought that, too. The Lowell Observatory was his Spanish galleon, his spaceship."

"And his journey from Burdett, Kansas, to Flagstaff, Arizona, was no different from us leaving Earth for the Kuiper."

"If Clyde was born in our time and giving the same opportunity, he would have went, Virgil. In a sense, he left his family for the Kuiper, just like we did."

"There is no shame in being a galactic Don Quixote, Shepard. Our wives and children understand."

"I am too old to bat at windmills," Shepard rises. Virgil lends a hand. "Well, I don't know about you, friend, but I worked up an appetite." Shepard slings back his guitar. "Hope you like to dine vegetarian. I couldn't bring myself to kill any of the wildlife. I should long be dead from a protein sufficiency . . . there's just something about this place that sustains me."

Back at the wreckage homestead of the U.S.S Flagstaff, Shepard exits onto its makeshift patio; he holds food bowls. "Help yourself to some Summer Cookies, Virgil"

"These are . . . dried oranges and apples, pears and bananas. But how?"

"I built myself a food hydrator, a pressure cooker, and a bread maker from bits n' parts. Power cells off the shuttles and probes do the rest." Shepard places a loaf of bread on the table. "It's Eden here, Virgil. Eden. There's fruit, corn, wheat, oats, barley, and several kinds of berries." Shepard enters the Flagstaff and calls out, "I hope you like veggie stew, Virgil. Going Vegan is good for the soul." He exits with a hot bowl and ladle. "There's even carrots, potatoes, celery, avocadoes, and tomatoes around here. Dig in, friend."

"It smells—," inhales Virgil.

"Like home."

"Yes. Like home."

"The charm locket on your neck. Who did you see?"

"My daughter, Diana. She must be fifty by now."

"I had a boy back home." Shepard pulls a faded photograph from his pocket. "I used to play him to sleep with "You Are My Sunshine."

He hands the photo to Virgil.

"That's from his school. We won first prize at the father-son follies," Shepard accepts back the photograph. "When I came out of stasis, I hoped he, or my wife, had sent me a video mail." Shepard puts the photo back in his pocket. "Then we crashed. My karma for leaving and lying about my real mission, I guess." Shepard starts to pick notes on his guitar. "Every time I pick her, I feel my son picking up his guitar back home. Music is the universal language, after all." Then, Shepard suffers another coughing fit; he dabs his mouth with a cloth. "I oft wonder what he's become. I dreamt about him, once . . . at least I thought it was my boy. . . ."

A twenty-eight year old man stands inside a working display of consoles from Launch Complex 36-A. He hosts a group of twenty-five elementary school students, a teacher, and a teaching assistant that laugh as the young man lectures through an insect-fly hand puppet plush toy.

"He was volunteering at the Space Walk Museum in Space View Park," Shepard recalls his dream, "with my old friend, 'Freddy the Fruit Fly,' the Earth's first living creature to travel outside the Earth's atmosphere."

Back at the wreckage-cum-patio of the U.S.S Flagstaff, Shepard and Virgil sit at the Commons table. "It is amazing, is it not, Virgil? Man advanced from a V2 launch in 1947 from the White Sands Missile Range with fruit flies—."

"And here we are, one hundred twenty years later, in the Kuiper Belt."

"Don't fret, son," Shepard places his hand on Virgil's shoulder. "You may not be the first into the Kuiper, but you are finishing the mission."

"'Mission'?"

"I have something I want you to take with you, Virgil. There's a flight case just inside the door," motions Shepard.

Virgil flips up the cloth-tarp door, goes inside and brings out the hard-shelled, metal-trimmed case. "Those are sketches, photos, data disks, and logs of the surface. I had to do it manually, as the ship's data cores were damaged." Shepard has another coughing fit; pieces of blood soak the cloth. "And," Shepard reaches into his flight suit's breast pocket, "I want you to have this."

Shepard presents his trusty pocket watch to Virgil. Virgil gazes in wonder at the transcription:

Clyde, you are our star.  
Love, Muron & Adella

"How did you get Clyde's . . . Corny really did see him?" Shepard's cough changes the subject. "I have medical supplies on the Burdett. I can place you in stasis, Shepard."

"I am the Captain Courageous of the Kuiper, whom death could not taunt," Shepard dabs his mouth. "We never intended to go home, Virgil. After finishing our survey, we were hi-jacking the ship to Eris."

"'Eris'? What's on—?"

"Twenty some years just to deliver data from Troy? I'm not Odysseus." Shepard places his acoustic guitar back into its road case. "We were going to transmit our findings, load the hard samples into a shuttle and sent it home," coughs Shepard. "If we hadn't crashed, Parry and Mike would've agreed sending info to Earth was a bad idea." Shepard places the inscribed-copper guitar pick into a small compartment in the guitar case. "Take my guitar with you, Virgil. Maybe you and your little girl can learn to communicate again."

"You grant sight to this blind gladiator, friend," says Virgil.

"Mon ame, il faut partir," says Shepard. ("My soul, it is time to depart.")

"Safe voyage, Captain Courageous."

"Is this heaven, Virgil? When we die on Earth, do we come here?"

Virgil nods: yes

"Are they, us, waiting to reincarnate and grow again? Are we . . . the cereal stalks?" Shepard's face blanks.

Virgil passes his hands over and closes Shepard eyes. Then he opens the flight case and ruffles through its logbooks and binders. He notices an old-fashioned photo album with "HOME" printed on the cover. He opens the photo album and starts to fan the pages—his eyes widen in shock. He reaches over and pulls the photograph from Shepard's flight suit pocket.

"I know exactly what's going on in that head of yours, tiger," says the disembodied, thirty-year-old woman's voice.

10 — Simplicity

**VIRGIL** turns to the voice and sees Minerva Chaffee, adorned in a summer dress and sandals, walk out of the cereal grasses. He stares in silence.

"Don't you dare disappear into the stars," says Minerva. "You have to finish the mission." She picks up the guitar case and starts to walk off. "Get your flight case."

"Wait, we can't leave Shepard."

"He'll be alright. His mission is just beginning."

Virgil stares in shock as a flock of Madagascan Sunset Moths, Morpho and Ulysses Butterflies lift Shepard—and carry his floating body off into the cereal grasses.

"I have a surprise for you, tiger."

"Are we going to heaven, Minerva?"

"If you play your cards right, you'll get to where you need to be."

They enter the cereal grasses.

As they exit the other side of the cereal grass field, they come upon a picnic setting of a red-and-white gingham blanket and a rattan picnic basket.

"I brought your favorite Merlot," says Minerva. She sits on the blanket and opens the basket and removes two insulated wine duffels and a two-service set of merlot glasses.

"Uh, no. You're up to something," says Virgil.

"Why, sir. What do you mean?"

"The merlot. The flirty innuendoes. The Minerva Aldora Chaffee I know talks like that when she wants—."

"I want to have a baby," she says to Virgil's shock. "Yes, Virg," she strokes his cheek. "I want to have kids."

"More than one? Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Commander Chaffee."

"Well, that depends on you, tiger."

"But, Mini. Your Borealis command."

"I've been in space longer than any other woman, and I was the first woman on Mars. Now, it's time to chase new frontiers."

"You mean, right now? Here?"

"Well, my eggs aren't spring chickens. And I want to name her 'Diana,' after the Moon Huntress. Diana Penelope Chaffee."

"Oh, so you decided the sex and her name. You know, Mini, this isn't Mars where you can pull rank—."

Minerva plants a deep kiss onto Virgil's lips. They fall onto the blanket.

A weathered hand clangs an old-fashioned triangle bell that hangs from an exposed roof beam on a porch.

"Mini! Virg! Dinner's ready," calls out Grandma Chaffee in the distance.

"Uh, oh. Now, you did it," says Minerva.

"'Me'?"

"Yes, you. Being all sexy. Making us lose track of time."

"That's why the Mars Mission was a success. You were the boss."

"You can leave all this," rises Minerva with the guitar case. "I'll come back and clean up later. Get your flight case."

As they come out of the cereal grasses, they come upon the Chaffee farmstead in Central Florida.

"Grandma! Mom and Dad are home," welcomes a ten-year-old Diana at the front door. "You're just in time. Grandma made summer cookies for dessert."

Virgil puts down the flight case. Diana jumps into his arms. "Diana-banana-bo-bana. Oh, how I've missed you."

"Fe-fi-moe-mana. Diana Banana," hugs a closed-eyes Diana into her father's shoulder.

"Oh, that's okay. Let me get that heavy flight case for you. I seem to remember I did all the heavy lifting on Mars, Mr. Chaffee."

As they walk inside, Minerva sets down the guitar case and the flight case. Grandma Chaffee, adorned in an apron, exits the kitchen as she wipes her hands with a towel.

"You kids and your long walks. I almost ruined dinner," she says with a toss of the towel over her shoulder. "Help me in the kitchen, Mini."

"Sure, Mom," says Minerva with a quick peck on Virgil's cheek.

"Come on, Daddy," pulls Diana. "Let me show you my baby."

"Remember the rules, Diana," says Minerva as Diana drags Virgil up the stairs. "Daddy isn't a free pass."

As they approach Diana's bedroom, Virgil hears the happy, playful sounds of a baby. As he enters the room he sees a month-old baby boy joyfully whack at a crib mobile of seven butterflies—each butterfly represents the seven rainbow-colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

"His name is Leopold Tombaugh Chaffee, after your favorite astronomers, right, Daddy?" She holds a baby bottle to Virgil. "Could you feed Leo? Mommy won't let me unless she watches."

"It's been a long time. 'Hey, there, I'm Pluto!'" jokes Virgil. "Oh, wait. I'm going Goofy. Pluto doesn't have a voice."

As Baby Leopold laughs at Virgil's Disney cartoon imitation, he hears a ten-year-old boy's voice from outside an open, second-floor window.

"Okay, Grandpa. This one is gonna burn a hole right through your glove!"

As Virgil cradles Leopold, he looks out the window and down into the front yard.

Virgil sees a ten-year-old boy toss a baseball to a forty-year-old man who yanks his hand out of the glove and shakes off the pain.

"Yow!" says a forty-year-old Virgil. "What an arm! We'll have to call you, 'Leo, the Rocket.'"

"Wait until you see me hit 'em into the corn stalks, Grandpa."

"Okay, you two," calls Grandma Chaffee from the opened screen door. "Time to bring it in. Cool off with some iced tea and summer cookies."

"Watch how fast I run, Grandpa," dashes off Leopold.

As the forty-year old Virgil approaches the front porch, he notices an older Virgil—even more well-worn than his Pluto-aged self—perched in a rocking chair reading a hardcover book.

Grandma Chaffee places a tray with a decanter and glasses on a porch end table, next to a card box:

Urania's Mirror,

Or a

View of the Heavens

The lid features an illustration of Urania, the muse of astronomy. Next to the card box is its deck of thirty-two astronomical star chart cards.

"Thanks, Mom," says older Virgil. "Come on up, young man," he says to the younger Virgil. "Pull up a wicker and sit a spell."

"Oh, my. Leopold Tombaugh, you are a sight! Let's get you cleaned up," says Grandma Chaffee. "You two have a lot to talk about. I am so proud of both of you."

As older Virgil collects the cards into the box—Card #21, the card that illustrates the maiden Virgo as she clutches wheat grains; the wheat ear in her left hand depicting the star, Spica, falls to the floor.

Younger Virgil picks up and gazes at the card. He hands it to his older self, who uses the card to bookmark the hardcover book—originally written in 1808—that he's reading:

Faust

by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"I feel a bit Faustian, myself," says Virgil.

"There's no need to sell your soul for knowledge, for the knowledge is always within," says older Virgil with a pour of ice tea from the decanter. "Remember, the greatest of evils is guilt, and in acts of forgiveness, man releases sinners from guilt. For man must draw back upon himself and find—."

"A world within," adds Virgil. "Our dreams are real, but the world is a dream."

"And know forgiveness is the most divine victory of them all, and—, counters older Virgil.

"The trick is not only forgiving others, but forgiving ourselves," finishes Virgil.

"Yes. He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. Only then," motions older Virgil to the cereal grass line, "will he discover the luminosity within and show man the heart is not a tragic organ that destroys."

Out at the cereal grass line, Older Virgil places his arm around a twenty-year old, naval uniform adorned Leopold. They gaze out onto the cereal grasses as a distant Atlas V Booster Rocket roars into the heavens.

11 — Transmutation

**VIRGIL** shocks awake in the command chair on the Percival's bridge. He stares through the viewport at Pluto's wilds and at a flock of thousands of butterflies. His view clears as the transparent apparitions and butterflies surrounding the ship scurry into the cereal grasses.

Behind his command chair on the flight deck are the guitar case and the flight case, along with several bushels of fruits and vegetables, and a bushel of fresh breads. Virgil logs in a flight sequence.

The rockets fire as the Percival vertically lifts off and jets into the cloudless blue skies of Pluto. The ship breaks through the swirling atmospheres into Pluto space. As the Percival approaches, the docking bay doors open on the U.S.S Burdett in Pluto orbit.

In the commons area of the U.S.S Burdett, documents from Shepard's flight case lay scattered on the three-seated commons table. A bowl of fresh fruit and half-eaten loaf of bread rests at the table's center. A Clyde Tombaugh Commemorative Urn sits in front of one of the empty chairs.

Virgil, clad in undergarments, enters as he rubs his wet hair with a towel. He clutches the neck of a whiskey bottle and two shot glasses between the fingers of his one hand—and places a shot glass beside Clyde's urn. He fills both shot glasses. As he takes a seat, he picks up an apple and inhales its aroma. He takes a knife and slices it in half and, for a moment, stares at the apple's five seed pockets arranged in five-pointed star.

As he eats the apple and flips through the pages of a sketchbook, he ponders one of Shepard's renderings of a butterfly feeding on a flowering plant. After a few taps on his surface droid's keyboard, he accesses a Pluto-recorded video image of a red-headed butterfly as it feeds on a flowering plant. It has lean, narrow-triangular black wings that feature a bright lime green streak across its center from wingtip to wingtip—identical to Shepard's sketch.

Virgil taps the screen with its stylus to stop the video playback; he traces around the image and taps the image capture. An encyclopedia window cascades and cycles through the Burdett's database: it identifies the butterfly: Rajah Brooke's Birdwing. It also identifies the plant: East Bauhinia (along with their Latin scientific classifications). A window-map of Indonesia cascades and highlights the habitat. The species are noted as native to Indonesia, currently extinct, and survive only in bio-dome captivity at the Sri Lanka Wildlife Preserve on the isle of Sri Lanka.

After pondering the butterfly's image for a moment, Virgil accesses a map of the Earth's eastern hemisphere and taps the stylus on the cities of:

Tbilisi, Georgia: Lat: 41.693630/Long: 44.801620

Antananarivo, Madagascar: Lat: -18.879190/Long: 47.507904

Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia: Lat: -0.952479/Long: 100.363242

And the related latitudes and longitudes appear alongside each highlighted city. Virgil draws lines with the stylus between the cities—and the lines snap into the form of a red scalene triangle. After some additional keystrokes, he calculates the triangle's altitudes—and three perpendicular lines from each side of the triangle connect to its opposite interior angle.

He notices the triangle's orthocenter—the intersection of the three altitudes—is in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Using the stylus, he traces a square around the orthocenter and taps the image: the map enlarges.

He notices through the coordinate graphing of the cities of Tbilisi, Antananarivo, and Padang that their orthocenter pinpoints east of the Republic of Seychelles off mainland Africa; west of the Republic of Maldives, which is southwest of Sri Lanka and India; and northwest of Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is a collection of atolls halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia, directly south of the Maldives.

And there's nothing except open water that drops to the depths of 6,000 feet to the Mid-Indian Basin.

"Ironic, isn't it?" says Clyde.

Virgil looks up from the screen and sees a twenty-one-year-old Clyde Tombaugh fan through one of Shepard's sketchbooks filled with pages of various detailed drawings of leaves, cereal stocks, butterflies—and life unique only to the geographical points of the triangle.

"That the Sputnik Planitia and Mid-Indian Basin are—."

"That man is in such a rush," Clyde cuts off Virgil, "to conquer the sea of stars and he doesn't understand the inner space of his own planet."

"Or the inner trinity of his own heart, mind and soul."

"Yes, quite," Clyde continues to fan through the sketchbook. "Shepard's sketches take me to the days when it was just my scope, a drawing board, and me. Everything became so complicated after I discovered Pluto. Then again, man has a knack for complicating the simple." Clyde toasts his shot glass, "Cheers."

Virgil clinks his glass and they down their shots.

"Have you seen what's down there?"

"And I still haven't seen _everything_ ," Clyde places his open palms on the table.

Virgil reaches—and they grip hands.

The naked Virgil-flesh-vessel sees an upside down view of a doctor and nurse in violet-colored surgical wares; as it looks to its left and right, it sees a woman's inner thighs. The doctor and nurse fade into the distance as its true essence—the soul—experiences a sonic freefall through a twisting, rotating kaleidoscopic tunnel accompanied by a progressive 20 hertz to 20 megahertz audio squeal. When the pitch reaches its apogee, the seven-color rainbow spectrum fades into a star-filled, white-streaked black hole. The rumbling, fiery-trimmed eclipsed sun at the sonic tunnel's end progresses closer and closer until it engulfs Virgil-flesh-vessel's sight—or what passes as "sight" with one's soul. . . .

A million-strong, mellifluous chorus repetitively sings "Amen" as Virgil-soul-essence freefalls to Earth, downward through her atmosphere, onto the eastern European coastline. Glanmore Lake, hugged amid the Sileve Miskish and Caha Mountain ranges of the Beara Peninsula on the southwest coast of Ireland, comes into view. As the soul-essence descends on the village of Ardrgroom (Dhá Dhroim, meaning "two drumlins") located north of Glenbeg Lough, his Muladhara (the "root chakra" at the base of a flesh-vessel's spine) opens, tunes, and calibrates with a second ear-piercing, exponential wail as the ancient-stone _Ardgroom Fertility Circle_ —as it once was, not how it is—northeast of the village, engulfs its sight as it plunges through the circle's central fertility pool. . . .

Virgil-flesh-vessel finds itself surrounded by a theatre's infinity rows of empty seats as a panoramic, white theatre screen flickers to life with what we know as Egyptian hieroglyphs of:

**Venus, the Divine Morning Star** —a left-facing flag with a five-point, asterisk-styled star to its right

**The Priesthood** —a loaf of bread (a half-circle) under a second star; to the right: a man sits upon a rock with four horizontal lines (students) beneath him

**Pupil** —a vertical line with two slight, angled-protruding lines (an altar with a man's arms raised to the heavens); above the altar sits a star to the left and a loaf of bread to the right

Then the theatre screen displays a:

**Dog Rose** —a five petalled flower (a symbol of resurrection and virgin birth) superimposed over a pentagram (a symbol of knowledge) with the rose-center representing the sun

Then a barrage of images from the alpha-omega cycle of Virgil-flesh-vessel's life history, the Earth's history, and its lifetime of acquired knowledge rapidly uploads onto the screen, and continues with a flurry of solid geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus equations, then astronomy charts—then star-plot courses and mathematical computations beyond man's comprehension, downloads from the screen into the soul-essence of the flesh-vessel. . . .

The theatre screen disintegrates as deep-blue Ocean waters tear apart and explode through the canvas and flood the theatre. . . .

Virgil-flesh-vessel realizes its nude body floats in the deepest, glittering blue waters imaginable and its sees the northern flat plain of the Mid-Indian Basin a few feet below. The geological deposits begin to swirl as an engineered stone roadway appears and trails off into the distance. Virgil-flesh-vessel begins to swim along the path and comes upon the base-faces of two 500-centimeter tall, equilateral prisms constructed of stone on either side of the roadway. The apexes of both prisms "point" in the direction of the roadway, as a signpost—en route for "something" obscured by the waters. In the center of both base-faces, Virgil-flesh-vessel sees one thread of identical, vertical etchings—what we know as Egyptian hieroglyphics of a:

**Leg** (a backwards "L")—which sounds out as "B"  
**Quail Chick** (a small bird)—which sounds out as "OO"  
**Loaf of Bread** (a half circle)—which sounds out a "T"  
**Reed** (a knife-shape, pointing upward)—which sounds out as "Y"  
**Mouth** (an oval)—which sounds out as an "R"  
**Snake** (squiggly line)—which sounds out as a "U"  
**Horned Viper** (a slug)—which sounds out as an "F"  
**Two Reeds** —which sounds out as a "Y"

Through his entomology and ancient civilization hobby-studies, Virgil-flesh-vessel came to know these particular hieroglyphics: "Butterfly," its mouth air bubbles.

The flesh-vessel swims between the prism-obelisks and, after swimming several hundred yards, it sees that the roadway leads into a large, triangular doorway on the face of a three-sided tetrahedron—that is, an equilateral pyramid—equal in height and analogous in materials to the prism signposts. A soft, violet light pulsates inside.

As Virgil-flesh-vessel swims through the pyramid's doorway, it notices the pyramid's interior is coated in violet glass and houses a large, shimmering statue of what man's ancestors classified as an Egyptian Bennu bird—also constructed of the same translucent violet glass. As is typical of the Bennu, it is fitted with a tall, almost penis-like crown adorned with two feathered plumes on either side. Unlike the rest of the violet-glass statue, the plumes feature gemstone-encrusted, seven-color rainbows; however, unlike the images of most Bennu birds, which stand tall on long, thin legs and resembles a heron, this large bird roosts-subservient at the center of a five-sided polygon—that is, a regular pentagon—of equal sides 90 feet in length.

Again, courtesy of its hobby-studies, Virgil-flesh-vessel knows the five points of a pentagon—and the Egyptian hieroglyph of a pentagram that fits inside the pentagon—acts as the symbol for spirit-sky, water, fire, earth, and air, as well as the five physical senses of hear, see, smell, touch, and taste which, in turn, represents man's head, two hands, and feet. And that the two feathered plumes of the Bennu's crown represent "truth" and "justice."

Virgil-flesh-vessel, of course, knows the internal angles of the pentagon are 108 degrees and the sum of all five internal angles is 540 and, when the vertices from those internal angles meet in the center of the pentagon, those angles are 72 degrees each; in turn, the sum of all five angles of those angles equals 360. Virgil-flesh-vessel also recalls the sum of each individual digit of the numbers of 108, 540, 72, and 360—each equals 9.

"The angel number. The discovery and fulfillment of our life's purpose; of knowledge, truth and justice. The trinity," Virgil-flesh-vessel thinks to itself.

Virgil-flesh-vessel swims closer to the bird's face and notices, as with the crown's plumes, the jeweled-eyes shimmer with the rainbow's seven-color spectrum; the flesh-vessel straddles its body over the beak and reaches out with its hands to touch both eyes.

Virgil-flesh-vessel bursts into flames and swirls with the seven-color spectrum of the rainbow; it sprouts three sets of seraphim wings . . . and the flesh-vessel absorbs into the bird's violet glass.

Disembodied and free of the constraints of the physical universe, the Virgil-flesh-vessel assigned to Virgil-soul-essence, so as to exist in the Earth-plane, begins to contort; it twists, stretches and melts into a swirling rainbow sea. It hears, not by ear, but in its mind, a chorus of voices that speak with a crisp urgency:

"The human body has nine bio-systems:

I. Skeletal  
II. Digestive  
III. Muscular  
IV. Lymphatic  
V. Endocrine  
VI. Nervous  
VII. Cardiovascular  
VIII. Reproductive  
IX. Urinary

"There are nine circles in hell:

I. Limbo  
II. Lust  
III. Gluttony  
IV. Greed  
V. Anger  
VI. Heresy  
VII. Violence  
VIII. Fraud  
IX. Treachery

"There are nine spheres of heaven

I. Moon  
II. Mercury  
III. Venus  
IV. The Sun  
V. Mars  
VI. Jupiter  
VII. Saturn  
VIII. Fixed Stars  
IX. Primum Mobile

"The human flesh-vessel has five physical energy points which coincide with the five orbital points that delineate the 40-year Earth-Venus celestial cycle, mapped as a pentagram. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, and Venus set upon those points.

The duality of the soul-flesh-vessel must harmonize with the pentagram's five elements of spirit-sky, water, fire, earth, and air in order to achieve the five virtues of generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry, and piety. Once achieved, this will permit the soul-flesh-vessel to purify its nine biosystems against the material-impurities of the nine circles of hell so one may achieve Primum Mo—."

Virgil-flesh-vessel gasps with the force of a hurricane that triggers the eruption of a violent ripple across the rainbow sea: darkness fills its sight. . . .

A dark-energy shaft blasts from the pyramid's capstone, on a high-velocity trajectory through the deep ocean waters. Virgil-soul-essence begins to shed the Darkness as a black filth that screeches in pain is peeled away from the essence-rainbow; the filth reaches out and fails to reattach itself to its rainbow-core, only to vaporize in the Indian Ocean. The water's deep gradients become brighter and brighter as the surface breaks. . . .

Virgil shocks awake at the commons table as he gasps a deep breath. Clyde is gone. Tears flow from Virgil's eyes as he takes a series of staccato breaths. "No. Please," he whimpers. "Please . . . I have to go back." He closes his eyes and clenches his fists where Clyde previously held his bands. "Please, take me back. Take me back." He opens his eyes and lightly pounds the table and whimpers, "I'm sorry that I feared. Please, take me back."

He breaks down, buries his face into the table, and cries.

"Do not cry in the sunshine, Virgil," Minerva places a hand upon his shoulder, "and don't be afraid of the dark. There is a full moon in your open eye. The remaining spheres are in your grasp."

As Virgil rises from the table, Minerva embraces him and whispers in his ear, "Space is lovely, dark and deep. You have promises to keep, and miles to go before you sleep."

At the doorway of the emergency airlock, Shepard's flight case and the Burdett's replica of the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker sit propped against the hull. Virgil opens the flight case. He kisses his hand, touches the Clyde Tombaugh Commemorative Urn, then stuffs the urn, along with an acrylic-encased 2004 Florida Gold Quarter into the flight case. Virgil presses the control panel. Hydraulics engage and hiss as the airlock door opens.

Inside the Emergency Airlock Chamber, he places the flight case and historical marker inside. He exits and the airlock door engages and seals shut. The airlock depressurizes. Then, the exterior airlock door blasts open in silence as the vacuum of space sucks out the flight case and marker.

The flight case and marker tumble across the starfield of Pluto space.

"Did you bring back the guitar?" says Leopold. "You didn't send it into space?"

12 — Achievement

**DIANA** sneaks in the hallway and listens at the doorway of Leopold's bedroom. In her hand she clutches the photograph that Shepard once held dear in the breast pocket of his flight suit.

"No," says Virgil. "That was much too important to jettison into space, Leo."

"Can I see it? Can I have it, Grandpa?"

"Well, the guitar actually belongs to someone else."

Leo's face droops in sadness.

"But I didn't forget to bring you something."

Leo's face lights up.

"These are one of a kind. You have to take good care of them and keep them a secret."

"Like top-secret military secret?"

"Yes. This is a mission patch from my ship, the Burdett. And this patch is from the Flagstaff."

Leopold stares in wonder at the patches, and then remembers, "So, who does the guitar belong to, Grandpa."

Virgil turns to Diana's muffled sobs in the hallway. "That can wait until tomorrow. Time for bed." Virgil pulls up the covers and Leo snuggles in. "Goodnight, Leo."

"Nite, Grandpa Virgil." That cues Diana to tab her tears and scurry down the hallway.

As Virgil closes the bedroom door, he walks to the hallway to hear Diana's gentle sobs in the bathroom.

Inside, Diana dabs her tears as she reflects into the sink's vanity mirror. . . .

In the year 2078, a then forty-three-year-old Diana carries a briefcase and strides among the students who populate the sidewalks, lawns and walkways of the University of Central Florida. Some students enter an elevated walkway. The walkway transverses a pond that trails off into a thicket of trees that leads to the student union building.

"I was just a kid at the NASA and J.P.L picnics, Daddy," says Diana, as her younger self enters the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences building. "And I used the last name of my first husband, Joseph, professionally. Marshall took his stepfather's last name, as well."

Inside the Engineering building, she strides with students and colleagues as she approaches the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

"Good morning, Professor Winlock," says one of Diana's students.

"Good morning, Sunita."

"Good morning, Carol," greets Diana to one of her colleagues approaching the doors.

"Diana, don't forget—," says Carol.

"Our conference call with Doctor Holden at the U.S.N.O."

"Three o'clock," says Carol. "And it's your turn to bring the Starbucks. Remember, two shots."

"Oh, how can I forget your late-afternoon caffeine fix?"

Diana strolls along the main corridor towards her office—a corridor adorned with framed photographs of iconic American, ESA, and Russian Rocket Missions. The opposing wall features framed photographs of American, ESA, and Russian Astronauts with descriptions of their unique, first time accomplishments. And everyday Diana makes purposeful eye contact with her mother and father in their flights suits as they clutch their helmets as the "First Woman and Man on Mars."

"Well, instructing students will be a new frontier for me," says a then sixty-one year old Marshall in a hallway conversation with two other colleagues.

"We didn't get into this business to not face the unknown," says Jim.

"No, I guess not. Our lives are a series of firsts," says Marshall.

"Well, welcome aboard Marshall," says Jim with a shake of Marshall's hand. "And remember, my door is always open if you need anything."

"Thank you, Jim. Nice to meet you."

"Good Morning, Diana," says Jim as he walks towards his office.

"Good Morning, Jim."

"Diana," says Eric. "I'd like you to meet Marshall Richter, your new, across-the-hall neighbor."

"Yes, of course. I heard of your arrival," handshakes Diana. "Welcome to the Starship M.A.E."

"Neither of us knew who the other was," Diana tells Virgil. "Not until we became friends."

Outside of the Student Union, students and colleagues bustle. Diana exits with a takeout food bag. She strolls to the thicket of trees and onto the elevated wood walkway and hears the acoustic guitar pickings of Steve Winwood's arrangement of the British folksong, "John Barleycorn." She comes to see Marshall sit alone on a bench under the trees with a brown bag lunch and his guitar.

"Oh, hello, Diana," motions Marshall with a head nod for Diana to sit.

"That's lovely."

"It's a 17th century folksong my dad taught me, long ago."

"Is your father a professional musician?"

"No. I followed my Dad's footsteps into the space program," picks Marshall on his guitar. "He was a big fan of neurologist Frank R. Wilson."

"I am not familiar with Wilson."

"Wilson was a clinical professor at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco."

"And how did a neurologist lead to you becoming such a wonderful guitar player?"

"Wilson's theory was that humans are born musicians, and we all have the neurological and muscular capabilities to develop musical skills."

"Yes. I can see his point."

"My father always said that music is the universal communicator and, with music, man is unbound."

At Space View Park in Titusville, Florida, Marshall and Diana hold hands at the commemorative Mercury Missions Monument. As Marshall comforts Diana, they gaze across the Indian River at the illuminated view of the vehicle assembly building.

"Then Marshall reenlisted as a Europa Missions C.O just before Leo was born," Diana tells Virgil.

In the living room of the Chaffee farmstead, a pregnant, forty-four-year old Diana tells a sixty-two-year old Marshall to get out. Emotionally distraught, he exits.

"I was furious," Diana tells Virgil. "After what he went through. What we went through."

"He knows it wasn't hatred, Diana."

Diana peeks out the window. Marshall looks back at her. She closes the curtain. He gets into his car and drives away.

"I never spoke to Marshall again. It was better for Leo to not know his father at all, then to lose him later on. . . ."

Back in the living room of the Chaffee farmstead, Virgil and Diana enjoy tea as they fan through some old fashioned family photo albums.

"It is so good to see these, again," says Virgil.

As the page turns to a birthday photograph of Virgil's Pluto memory for Diana's 7th birthday, he removes the floating glass locket from his neck.

Diana smiles with delight at the sight of the locket.

"I think it's time for this to pass over to Leo one day. That piece of tin is mightier than any starship." Then Virgil begins to sing. Diana joins in:

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine.  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey

You never know, dear  
How much I love you  
Please don't take  
My sunshine away

The other night, dear  
As I lay sleeping  
I dreamt I held you  
In my arms

When I woke, dear  
I was mistaken  
So I hung my head  
And I cried

"An old friend reminded me of our song. He also sang a 17th century British folk standard, "John Barleycorn," says Virgil.

"I know _that_ song," smiles Diana. "It's not about barleycorn or someone named 'John.' It's about guilt and regrets. The art of forgiving."

"And it's time we spot cultivating our barleycorns. Those poisons are worse than the alcohols made from the barley."

"Yes. We've toiled those cursed grain fields long enough. No more guilt and regrets," hugs Diana. "And forgive ourselves, as well as each other."

"Leo needs his father, Diana. His father needs him. Can he, does he, still have a father?"

"Yes," snuggles Diana.

"You know, I've never forgotten our visits to Space View Park."

"Leo drives me nuts to go there all the time," laughs Diana. "I tell him about you, Mom, and Aunt Camille."

"Do you know how to reach, Marshall?" Off Diana's nod, Virgil says, "I need you to make a call."

13 — Manifestation

**VIRGIL** sits on a bench at the base of the Gemini Missions Monument under the hint of a rainbow that crosses the clear blue skies over Space View Park. Shepard's guitar case sits on the ground next to him. A butterfly that lands on the bench-back brings a comforting smile to Virgil's face. He slightly nods his head in agreement.

"As I live and breathe in a world of nothing but miracles," approaches a seventy-two-year-old Marshall. "First, Diana calls. Now this. It's good to see you, 'young man.'"

"Yes. Quite," laughs Virgil. "I did the math, 'old man.'"

"Corporate agencies and their secrets."

"I don't think the world needs a sixty-two-year-old celebrity who traveled eight billion miles of bad road," says Virgil.

"No. I guess not. I think we all know about choosing the wrong fork." Marshall embraces Virgil with a back pat. "God, how I've missed her."

"And Diana misses you."

"How is Leo? I snuck to a couple of ball games. He has an arm on 'em already."

"He's a wonderful boy, Marshall."

"I have great memories of this park and museum," gazes Marshall at the surroundings. "But why here, at the Gemini Monument?"

"Because of the Gemini Twins, Castor and Pollux. They're the patron saints of old sailors like Commander Shepard and I."

Marshall doesn't process the meaning. Then Virgil pulls out and hands Marshall a Pluto artifact—Shepard's photograph of Marshall as a child on stage with his father, playing guitars.

"Your father lived as Mercury and traveled amid the gods, man, and the angels to find peace in his mind, spirit, and body."

"That's . . . his guitar?" looks Marshall down at the guitar case. "How? He died in Saturn's—."

"That," points Virgil to the case, "is a six-stringed starship. His pick is inside."

Marshall opens the case, then the small compartment. He removes the pick and smiles. A tear falls from his eye. "I remember when he made this from the copper of his Aries capsule."

"He is a great communicator, your father. He's a peaceful point of light."

As Marshall sits on the bench and begins to strum the engraved copper pick across the strings, Virgil pulls out Shepard's pocket watch and places it into Marshall's hands.

"This was his?"

"Yes. Marshall. You, Diana and I need to complete the triangle, the trinity. For Leo."

"Rene Descartes was right," sighs Marshall. "The triangle is perfection."

"Forgiveness, Marshall, is the most divine victory of them all."

"Yes. And it is time for us to go home and rest."

"Let me introduce you to your son, Son. And your father."

And out in the backyard of the Chaffee Farmstead, Virgil, Marshall, and a ten-year-old Leopold toss a baseball against the backdrop of cereal grasses—for they are the three men from west that made the solemn vow that their guilt and regrets must be buried. They plowed the barleycorns into dust.

"Never forget, Leo," beacons the weakened, seven-two-year old deathbed voice of Virgil in the year 2099, "the soul can feel without the body and you can stare into the glass darkly, clearly. Mon ame il faut, partir."

A twenty-year-old Leopold, adorned in naval dress blues, stands with a sixty-four-year old Diana in a clearing among the cereal grasses in front of Virgil's grave marker, which sits under the shadow of a posted, commemorative marker:

The first men to sail  
the Kuiper Belt and step on Pluto

Commander Clyde Tombaugh  
Discoverer of Pluto  
February 18, 1930

U.S.S Flagstaff  
2023-2067  
Roger Shepard  
Michael Wilhelm  
Parvaneh Yara

U.S.S Burdett  
2045-2089  
Virgil Chaffee  
Kimimela Kamara  
Robert Cornthwaite

"We need to remember the people  
who made it possible,  
so little is said about them."

—Alan Shepard, May 12, 1996  
Freedom 7 and Apollo 14  
First American in Space

Diana then places the floating glass locket around the neck of Leopold's naval uniform. A Madagascan Sunset Moth lands on Diana's shoulder. Leopold reaches with a fingertip and the moth accepts. Then the moth accepts Diana's fingertip. The moth then flies skyward.

14 — Double Measures

**ON** the surface of Pluto, the Clyde Tombaugh Metal Historical Marker continues to stand tall at the graves of Wilhelm and Yara, Kamara and Cornthwaite as cereal grasses sway in the breeze of cloudless blues skies. And regardless of the complete lack of clouds—a light rainfall begins to pepper the grave site. Four rainbow-swirling soul-essences rise from the dirt and drift, skyward bound, as the green surfaces of Pluto fade under swirling, blue gases. Once out in space, the four soul-essences are the first to witness Pluto's transformation into a pure, sky blue planet covered in clouds.

(Or the shield-bubble that hid Pluto's true composition from telescopic eyes was shut down. Is Pluto even a planet? Perhaps Pluto is a living, biological spaceship? Possibly an engineered organism? Virgil did reason that Pluto is "a freak compared to the rest of the planets," after all. Is that "freak"—an intelligence? It was British chemist James Lovelock who, in 1989, made the hypothesis of The Gaia Theory, which stated Earth is a single giant creature teeming with millions of life-forms that work with a collective intelligence to maintain the planet as a healthy habitat for living things (in spite of man's egotistical foolishness, of course). Since the organic, carbon-bearing molecules found in the DNA structures on Earth originated in our solar system's "Third Zone"—the Kuiper Belt—the oldest part of the solar system, perhaps Pluto evolved into an intellect beyond Earth's own aptitude . . . an aptitude stymied by its primate infestation.)

Beneath the clouds, on Pluto's surface, thousands of transparent apparitions materialize into solid form—spectrums—three-foot tall prisms consumed with the swirling, sparking colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

"Leo is our sunshine, our bokri," echoes the chorus of Spectrums, "for it is he who can make man happy. He shall be a canary among a flock of sparrows."

On a boulder, sits Shepard. He begins to pick "You Are My Sunshine" as the Spectrums rotate to reflect and refract light and begin to sing in an angelic chorus:

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey . . .

Then the Spectrums begin to radiate rainbow bands that zoom into the cloudless blue skies and enter Pluto's space. A prime meridian rainbow encircles the now sky blue planet. Then, a massive rainbow ribbon emits from the rainbow ring—and zooms towards the Sun.

The Rainbow Ribbon then approaches Asteroid 7-Iris in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars—and encases 7-Iris in a rotating, rainbow-geodesic sphere. Then another Rainbow Ribbon emits from the rainbow-cocooned 7-Iris and jets off into space—on an approach toward Earth.

Once the Rainbow Ribbon reaches Earth, a rainbow circles the planet's prime meridian.

At 12 noon—at the height of the hustle and bustle of New York City's Times Square—the blind, technologically consumed New Yorkers live in their own digital bubbles. . . .

Except for a five-year-old Iranian girl walking hand-in-hand with her father as her mother pushes a baby stroller through Central Park. In his free hand, the father watches a newscast on his phone via an ear bud; his wife watches her phone clipped on the handle of the stroller.

"Daddy, why are all the birds sitting on the ground? Are they sick?"

Pedestrians all over the park stand in fear as they gaze across the parks' walking paths and grassland and notice all species of birds—sparrows, pigeons, blue jays, cardinals, robins, crows—peacefully sit on the ground, cooing and chirping.

"Look!" a twenty-something jogger points upward.

Peaceful swarms of Morpho and Ulysses butterflies and Madagascan Sunset Moths flutter against the Earth's skies consumed in glittering geodesic-facets illuminated with the seven-color rainbow spectrum.

Then the supersigns, speculators, and jumbotrons begin to display swirling rainbows. The ABC Supersign then begins to scroll song lyrics—lyrics that also appear on iPhones, iPads and various electronic devices—and all begin to broadcast the Spectrums' angelic chorus of "You Are My Sunshine."

At the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in the Mojave Desert, a flock of butterflies and moths land on the rims of the complex's 70-meter antenna and three, 34-meter beam waveguide antenna dishes.

Meanwhile, at 9 o'clock in the morning at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, a flock of butterflies approaches.

Inside the JPL Mission Control Room, known as the "Dark Room" by its technicians, the monitors and screens all display the same rainbow light show, song lyrics and vocals seen in New York City.

The Madagascan Sunset Moths, Morpho and Ulysses Butterflies also come to meet the 4 o'clock in the afternoon pedestrians and commuters of London's Piccadilly Circus who, like their Times Square counterparts, gaze in wonder at all the native birds peacefully sitting on the ground—and upward at the geodesic-faceted skies and jumbotrons, marquees, billboards, and personal electronic devices that display the Spectrums' song.

Then, at 1 o'clock in the morning in Tokyo, the weathered and aged Shepard and Virgil appear on the Jumbotrons of Shibuya Crossing and speak as the words of their speech displays.

"We Spicians set out rainbow in the clouds to serve as the sign of the covenant between us, the people of Earth, and all life in the stars. . . ."

As the technicians in the JPL Mission Control gaze at their monitors, Shepard and Virgil continue their holy duet. "To grow beyond your sphere, you must purify your flesh. Live by these _Seven Rules of the Universe_. The rejection of these rules will ultimately destroy man. . . ."

On the Chaffee Farmstead, Adult Diana and Adult Leopold watch the speech on an iPhone—they have no choice; the Spicans have appropriated all of the world's communication devices.

Then, as Shepard and Virgil speak the Seven Rules, the text of each "rule" scrolls across the world's electronic communication devices—in the seven individual colors of the rainbow.

"Respect each person as a unique individual," scrolls the red text. "For their life is your life," says Shepard.

Then, as Virgil speaks, the text scrolls in orange, "Treat each person with kindness. Only then will you heal."

"Aspire to obtain and share wisdom," continues Shepard in unison with the yellow text. "For in the light, there is happiness."

"Aspire to search for the truth," advises Virgil's green text. "Then you will grow as the nature around you."

"Believe in your person," says Shepard as blue text displays. "Only then will you discover serenity."

"Peace and freedom is the only way to achieve infinity," continues Virgil's indigo text accompaniment.

"Value the freewill of the other. Do not impede it," speaks Shepard of the seventh and final rule, its words cast in violet. "Only then will your own freewill prosper."

The pedestrians and commuters of Times Square in New York City stand in silence. Tears roll from their eyes. The only logical response is to allow their electronic barriers of the busy fall from their hands to the ground, and turn to their fellow man and—regardless of their race, creed, color, or social standing—hug one another. To, once again, "see" each other—as in the days before man's will was held hostage by such foolish devices.

Meanwhile, in JPL Mission Control, two bright rainbow shafts of light appear in the room to interrupt the tearful embraces of the technicians. Each rainbow shaft sprouts three sets of seraphim wings, then morph into—

"Don't be alarmed, gentleman and ladies," says a twenty-four-year-old Sir Isaac Newton. "Allow me to introduce ourselves. This is the author of the Seven Rules of the Universe," motions Newton, "renowned French philosopher, Mr. Rene Descartes. I am Isaac Newton."

"The Spicans have chosen Isaac and myself," says Descartes, "as emissaries to assist you in constructing a vessel to these exact specifications."

"Do not attempt construction on more than one vessel," continues Newton to the shock of the JPL technicians. "All other attempts will end in disaster. If you alter our design, it will fail. Additionally, if you attempt a return to the Kuiper, that mission will also end in disaster. The belt must be allowed to evolve, untainted. You are part of this system's collective intelligence and it is time for man to accept that responsibility."

"As you can see," says Descartes to the display of schematics on the computer screens and jumbotrons in the control room, "Isaac and I have retrofitted an old Atlas-Five to transport the Odysseus and its pilot, Leopold Tombaugh Chaffee."

JPL Technical Sherstobitov turns her wheelchair and gazes at her station's screen display specs of a cigar-shaped pupa 500 centimeters long and 90 centimeters in diameter, with one engine cone and a transparent nose cone. She rotates her chair. "Transport him to where?"

"His ultimate destination lies beyond this system," says Descartes. "Your job is to get him to Seven-Iris in the asteroid belt via this flight plan." He motions to a monitor with an orbital display of the Earth, Mars and Jupiter—and the orbit of the 7-Iris asteroid between Mars and Jupiter."

"We will care to train and prepare Leopold for his journey," says Newton.

"What's on Seven-Iris?" asks Technician von Straff.

"Who are the Spicans?" asks Technician Margulis.

"When will he return?" asks Sherstobitov.

"When Pluto returns to your point of origin," Newton replies. "Only then will you be ready to achieve your full discovery and purpose."

"That . . . that's not until 2178. What will happen in—," Sherstobitov is cut off.

"The mathematical and philosophical perfections held within a triangle contains the answers you seek, young Valeria," says Descartes.

"For you must shed the jealousy and greed of the mosquito," says Newton.

"And practice the pride and chastity of ants," finishes Descartes.

Then, as the JPL techs ponder the meaning of the lesson of the triangle, mosquito and ant, in unison, Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes sprout three sets of wings, morph into shafts of rainbow light—and vanish.

15 — Harmonious

**AT** Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, an Atlas V Booster Rocket stands at the ready under geodesic-facet skies filled with fluttering Madagascan Sunset Moths, Morpho, and Ulysses Butterflies.

Across the Indian River, at Space View Park located in Titusville, Florida, just west of Launch Complex 39 on Merritt Island, stands the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building where so many of man's adventures into space began. The sounds of birds chirping in delight fill the trees and congregate along the shores of the Indian River. Birds were once the natural predators of butterflies—but now they yield the skies to their winged brethren.

"As I stand at this monument, I recall my father telling me the number 'seven' stood for the seven astronauts who flew the Mercury Missions," says Adult Diana.

A crowd gathered around the commemorative Mercury Missions Monument listens to Diana's speech. Government representatives from around the world sit on a stage behind the podium. The sky's rainbow geodesic facets glitter overhead.

"That its crescent served as the symbol of the mind," continues Diana, "the circle represented the spirit, and its cross embodied matter. Now, the 'seven' in the center represents a new meaning. Now, this monument serves as a life lesson plan that each of us must strive for perfection of the mind, body, and spirit. I am proud to present to you a man more than qualified to travel between the gods and humans to help us reach our brethren, the Spicans."

Diane motions to stage left. "Please welcome, my son, Leopold Tombaugh Shepard Chafee." As Leopold approaches the podium, Diane fingers the floating glass locket draped over her collar. They embrace.

"Clyde Tombaugh," begins Leopold, "the dreamer who discovered Pluto, lived his life by the words of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who told us that . . ."

As Londoners watch his speech in Piccadilly Circus, ". . . the future belongs to those who prepare for it. And thanks to our Spican brethren in the constellation Virgo, mankind is prepared for its next Armstrong-giant leap in our evolution as inhabitants of the Universe. . . ."

As techs in JPL Mission Control listen to Leo's speech, he continues, "For in space, there is no race, creed, or color. There are no borders, no countries, or nationalities. . . ."

"No war, nor hate," says Leo via the Jumbotron overlooking New York's Times Square. "In space, we, the people of earth, are now united in a quest to experience the purest form of expression: Space Travel. . . ."

"For our human trinity," he tells the Japanese citizens over the Jumbotron of Shibuya Crossing, "reigns luminous."

Worldwide—spectators erupt in applause and embraces.

16 — Realization

**AT** Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station—all systems are go for the Odysseus Mission.

". . . eight, seven, six, five, four, three," echoes the voice of a Mission Control Tech. White smoke begins to bellow from the launch pad. "We have ignition. Two, and lift off of the Atlas Five carrying the Odysseus with Leopold Tombaugh Shepard Chaffee on a two hundred fifty light-year voyage to Spica, the massive, blue binary star in the constellation Virgo . . . and the beyond."

In the vacuum of Earth space the Atlas V roars in silence against the curvature of the rainbow-facet draped planet. The rocket goes through stage separations, ignitions, and payload detachment. A single engine on the white, cigar-shaped hull of the Spaceship Odysseus ignites and blasts into the starfield. . . .

First, the planet Mars.

Then the Asteroid Fields.

Then a massive, old European style-cut diamond rotates among the asteroids—the Starship Iris.

The Spaceship Odysseus approaches.

Its transparent nose cone reveals Leopold floating inside its hull filled with embryozation fluid. He floats above white-padded bedding. A white skull cap encases his hairline and ears. A white facial shield adhered over his mouth and nose attaches to the upper hull by way of one oxygen hose. A white abdomen cup adhered over his belly button attaches to the upper hull by way of two clear, umbilical hoses. He wears a pair of white Speedos and ballet slippers. The rear bulkhead that faces his feet features four closed iris diaphragms.

On the Starship Iris a single iris diaphragm opens on the diamond's table. The Odysseus horizontally positions itself over the diaphragm and lowers into the Starship. The diaphragm closes.

17 (8) — Luminosity

**THE** Odysseus rests under the cloudless blues skies of the 1868 woodland acres of Medford, Massachusetts.

Clear embryozation fluids pour from a spigot on the rear of the pod as grass flutters under the air flow from a release valve.

Inside the Odysseus, empty of embryozation fluid, Leopold's body rests on the white-padded bedding. The four iris diaphragms in the rear bulkhead open and expose four fans. Two fans pull air into the pod as the other two fans spin in the opposite direction to vent air out of the pod and dry his body. Clear Ikhor (ethereal) fluids begin to extract through one of the umbilical hoses while blood pumps back into the body through the second umbilical hose. A hiss echoes as the abdomen cup and facial shield retract. The four fans stop and the iris diaphragms close over the fan blades. He inhales. His eyes flutter.

He stares through the nosecone at the cloudless blues skies and green vegetations. Hydraulics hiss as an eight-foot long gull-wing hatch opens on the chamber.

He exits the Odysseus and stares across the woodlands as he pulls away the skullcap and tussles his hair. He shocks back as a hydraulic hiss opens a second gull-wing door behind the stasis chamber; serving as a luggage compartment, it contains a guitar case, a duffel bag with a baseball bat and glove—and a flight suit emblazoned with NASA, JPL, Lockheed Martin, and USAF mission patches.

Then he caresses the Flagstaff and Burdett Mission patches his grandpa Virgil gave him all those years ago, sewn next to two new mission patches: _The Odysseus Mission Patch_ features the logo of the maiden Virgo, as depicted in Card #21 of Urania's Mirror. The _7-Iris Mission Patch_ features the number 7 set inside an equilateral, violet-colored triangle along with the number 3 set inside a red circle on the vertex angle and two number 2s set inside circles on each base angle: the left circle is green and the right circle is blue. The word "Iris" appears on the triangle's base set in an orange stripe; the Hebrew words "Yahi" and "Aur" ("Let There Be Light") are embroidered on each leg of the triangle: the left leg features a yellow stripe and the right leg an indigo stripe.

Uranie pulls up the hem of a 1860s era blue gown as she strolls away from the Bostonian Farmstead. She carries a blue metal bucket adorned with white stars that contains a ladle, along with a towel draped over her arm.

Leopold zips-up his flight suit, then checks and pockets Shepard's watch. As he adjusts Diana's floating glass locket around his neck, a South Russian Blue and a Rajah Brooke's Birdwing flutter before him. Both accept his opened palm. He offers the insect-soul harbingers a cordial smile and nod in acknowledgement. After a moment of gently flapping their wings, both flutter upward and vanish in swirls of light.

"Welcome aboard, Commander Chaffee," Uranie's voice breaks Leopold's view of the light-transformed butterflies. "May I be of some assistance to you?"

"Who? You don't dream in stasis."

"You're not in stasis, sir."

"Then . . . I am in heaven?"

"No, sir. You've successful docked with Seven-Iris. This will help end your disorientation in a moment. My name is Uranie."

Leopold accepts the ladle of water and drinks.

"To cool yourself, Commander."

"Thank you, Uranie," Leopold dabs his face with the towel.

"Come. We've prepared a welcoming picnic in your honor." Uranie points to the Odysseus. "Don't forget your guitar, sir. The crew is looking forward to a ball game, as well. Mr. Descartes and Mr. Newton will be arriving shortly."

As Uranie and Leopold stroll towards the direction of distant laughter, they come upon a picnic setting in a clearing. There sits Minerva Chaffee, her sister, Camille, Shepard, Clyde Tombaugh, and Etienne Leopold Trouvelot gathered around a red-and-white gingham blanket and rattan picnic basket. They sip from Merlot glasses while they enjoy a fruit and cheese spread.

Then, the crack of a baseball bat reveals—

A pick-up baseball game in the nearby field as Kimimela Kamara, Paravaneh Yara, and Robert Cornthwaite shag fly balls hit by Michael Wilhelm—all are adorned in their respective flight suits.

"Okay, you grandpas and grandmas. This one is going to burn a hole right through your gloves," says Wilhelm.

"Hey, hey! It's 'Leo the Rocket,'" says Yara.

"Commander Chaffee," says Uranie, "may I introduce Ms. Kamara, Mr. Wilhelm, Mr. Cornthwaite, and Ms. Yara."

They each offer simultaneous warm greetings and handshakes.

"So, let's see that arm of yours," says Wilhelm.

"After lunch, gentleman and ladies." Uranie sets down the bucket and offers the group the towel. "Please quench and freshen up and join us."

"Grandpa Roger!" Leopold calls out as he approaches the picnic with Uranie.

"How was your trip, Leo?" Shepard shares a hug with his grandson.

"Beyond anything I could have imagined or dreamed."

"So good to have you aboard Leo," says Minerva."

"Grandma Minerva. Aunt Camille."

"It is so wonderful to meet you," says Camille.

"Clyde, meet my grandson, Leo," says Shepard.

"Mr. Tombaugh, it's an honor to—."

"Yes, yes. He knows he's a legend," jokes Newton.

"Leo, this is the father of how we see the heavens," says Descartes, "Mr. Etienne Trouvelot."

"And man would not have shed his gilded wings," says Trouvelot, "without your reasoning based in mathematics, Mr. Descartes."

"Commander Chaffee," Newton motions to a nearby log. "Please start our journey with a song."

Kamara, Wilhelm, Yara, and Cornthwaite approach and take seats around the blanket. Everyone picks up a Merlot glass. Uraine pours the wine for everyone.

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Newton." Leopold opens the guitar case and removes the guitar. Then he opens the case's small compartment and removes the engraved copper guitar pick. He starts to casually pick at the strings.

Shepard shares a smile and nod with Leopold.

"I have the perfect song. Grandpa Roger taught this to my dad, Marshall. And my dad was able to teach it to me, thanks to Grandpa Virgil."

Leopold begins to play the opening bars of "From the Beginning," a song written in the year 1972 by Greg Lake for his band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Overhead, the glittering diamond facets consume the once cloudless blue skies with the seven color spectrum of the rainbow.

Minerva, Camille, Shepard, Clyde, Trouvelot, Uranie, Wilhelm, Yara, Kamara, Cornthwaite, Descartes, and Newton sit in twelve-point lotus positions and from a triangle. Their seven-color chakras illuminate—

There might have been  
Things I missed  
But don't be unkind  
It don't mean I'm blind

Perhaps there's a thing or two  
I think of lying in bed  
I shouldn't have said  
But there it is . . .

—and they each sprout three sets of wings. Then their bodies morph into their Spectrum form. Madagascan Sunset Moths, Morpho, and Ulysses Butterflies with long rainbow tails fly skyward out of each spectrum/prism.

You see, it's all clear  
You were meant to be here  
From the beginning . . .

Leo continues to sing as the Starship Iris begins her journey out of the asteroid belt—

Maybe I might have changed  
And not been so cruel  
Not been such a fool

Whatever is done is done  
I just can't recall  
It doesn't matter at all

You see, it's all clear  
You were meant to be here  
From the beginning . . .

—and onward to the central star of Spica.

Then Shepard joins Leopold in a rendition of John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" written in the year 1972—

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy . . .

If I had a day that I could give you  
I'd give to you a day just like today  
If I had a song that I could sing for you  
I'd sing a song to make you feel this way . . .

If I had a tale that I could tell you  
I'd tell a tale sure to make you smile  
If I had a wish that I could wish for you  
I'd make a wish for sunshine for all the while . . .

Sunshine almost all the time makes me high  
Sunshine almost always . . .

— and onto the stars 61, 70, 59, CH and NY Virginis . . . and their exoplanets.

END

# # #

Thank you for spending your time with me in the pages of my third novel. If you enjoyed this book, I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to leave a review at your favorite eRetailer. If you are a literary manager or producer in the film industry and you enjoyed this book, I believe you would enjoy reading one of my screenplays. I hope to hear from you.

If you enjoyed this free eBook, I hope you will be encouraged to purchase my previous two novels and non-fiction works, noted below. Each is very affordable as an eBook or softcover.

I do ask that you be kind in your reviews, as this book was a grass-roots effort on the part of this writer: I did not have the luxury of a publisher or editor, proof readers or fact checkers, or a graphics and public relations department. However, do not let that diminish the fact that I put forth my best efforts to provide you, the reader, the highest quality product possible, as your time and money is as valuable to me as it is to you.

About the Author

Luminosity is the third novel of R.D Francis

Also by R.D Francis

The Small Hours

The Devil's Anatomy

Tales from a Wizard:

The Oral History of Walpurgis

The band behind

Phantom's Divine Comedy: Part 1

The Ghosts of Jim Morrison,

The Phantom of Detroit,

and the Fates of Rock 'n' Roll:

The tales of the wizard behind

the mysterious 1974 album

Phantom's Divine Comedy: Part 1

Schooled as an architectural draftsman and radio broadcaster, and after a detour as a sometimes music journalist, roadie, and rock bassist, a move from behind the microphone to the front of the camera led to my current endeavors as a screenwriter.

Connect with Me:

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Appendix: Movies and Books

I hope you enjoyed _Luminosity_ , my homage to the Russian/Eastern Bloc science fiction films and books of my youth. Most of those films were adapted directly or inspired indirectly by the acclaimed works of Polish author Stanislaw Lem. Lem is the definitive forefather of introspective, psychological and philosophical science fiction films, such as 1968's _2001: A Space Odyssey_. The great production values and story quality of Russian science fiction films continues today, with 2017's _Salyut-7_ and _Spacewalk_ , along with _Forsaken_ (2018), _Glavnyj_ (2015), and _Gagarin: First In Space_ (2013).

All of these films—and their corresponding literary source materials—come highly recommended; they're listed in chronological, then alphabetical, order by year of release. Among this listing of influential Russian/Eastern Bloc films, you'll learn about a few influential—well, fan favorites, regardless of their overall quality—American science fiction films that strove for originality and didn't pilfer their superior Russian/Eastern Bloc counterparts.

Keep looking up to the stars . . . and keeping looking inward to achieve your luminosity. The future belongs to you. Yahi Aur.

* * *

1924— **Aelita** by Yakov Protazanov

Also known as _Aelita, Queen of Mars_ , this black-and-white Russian silent film based on Alexei Tolystoy's novel of the same name—forgotten as one of the earliest, full-length science fiction films regarding space travel—concerns a totalitarian Mars overthrown by Queen Aelita and her Earth-man lover. This film's influence over Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_ (1927)—as well as the set and costume designs of the later American serials _Buck Rogers_ and _Flash Gordon_ —can't be denied. First released in English-speaking markets in an edited form as _Aelita: Revolt of the Robots_ in 1929, it was Americanized and remade as the ill-remembered _Flight to Mars_ (1951).

1935— **Gibel sensatsii** (Loss of Feeling) by Aleksandr Andriyevsky

All of the robot, genetic-biological engineering exposition we've enjoyed in Ridley Scott's _Blade Runner_ , Gene Roddenberry's _The Questor Tapes_ , and other sci-fi films begins with _one man_ —who really did "create" the humanoids: Nobel Prize-nominated and award-winning Austrian-Hungarian writer, Karel Čapek. His 1919 play _R.U.R._ (Rossum's Universal Robots), first produced for the stage in 1920 and set fifty years in the future of 1969, introduced the word "robot" and many of the concepts used in today's science fiction, especially the plotlines of robots (and human clones; as in _Per Aspera Ad Astra_ ) revolting against their human creators, dehumanization through technology, and the failures of a utopia driven by technology into class warfare. While Andriyevsky's vision is a stunning achievement and shares striking similarities, it is, none the less, incorrectly credited as an adaptation of _R.U.R._ and Čapek's work receives no on-screen credit. Both works are somewhat similar to Wesley Barry's less-effective, low-rent sci-fi variant on the material, _Creation of the Humanoids_ (1962).

1936— **Kosmicheskiy Reys** (Cosmic Journey) by Vasily Zhuravlyov

Zhuravlyov raised the bar set by _Aelita_ and set the quality standard for all of the groundbreaking Russian films in this appendix with this futuristic tale of Russia's first moon shot in 1946 that substitutes the comic book buffoonery of its American counterparts with scientifically accurate depictions of spaceships, spacesuits, and weightlessness in space. While early American film goers were entertained by the toy ray gun mentality of the _Buck Rogers_ and _Flash Gordon_ serials of the 1930s, Aleksandr Filimonov penned this black-and-white silent film based on the novel by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky that stands alongside _Metropolis_ as one of the crowning achievements of pre-Kubrickian science fiction films. It should be as revered as _H.G Wells Things to Come_ released in the same year, but alas, it's not; outside of its homeland, it's forgotten.

1952— **Sadko** by Aleksandr Ptushko

This earthbound Russian tale, adapted from an 1896 opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, tells the story of a traveling minstrel who embarks on a quest to bring home a mythical phoenix-bird of happiness to restore order to his corrupt homeland; he comes to discover that happiness is closer to home than one thinks. The fact that Ptushko's lavish tale impressed at the Venice Film Awards and earned a coveted Silver Lion didn't stop Roger Corman from reimaging it as a Ray Harryhausen ripoff, _The Magic Voyage of Sinbad_ (1962). The travesties to Ptushko's visionary works based on Russian folklore continued with _Ilya Muromets_ (1956; Americanized as The Sword and the Dragon in 1963) and _Sampo_ (1959; Americanized as The Day the Earth Froze). If there was ever a need for a box set restoration proper of three films, Ptushko's films are it.

1957— **Doroga k Zvezdam** (Road to the Stars) by Pavel Klushantsev

While staid in its educational, documentary-styled first half—which deals in the science "fact" of space travel—the second half becomes a fascinating prediction (with a rotating, wheeled-shaped space station eleven years before Kubrick's vision appeared on theatre screens) as the film explores the speculative "fiction" of space travel and marks Klushantsev as the grandfather of Russian and Eastern Bloc science fiction films; for without him, there would have been no _2001: A Space Odyssey_ or _Silent Running_. Klushantsev's dreams of the stars began in 1946, with his groundbreaking, 10-minute short, _Meteoroid_ (Meteors), followed by 1951's _Kosmos_ (Universe). He then broke away from the short-film format with the highly influential, 58-minute long _Doroga k Zvezdam_ ; keen eyes will see where Stanley Kubrick found his costume and set design inspirations for his own homage to the Russian space epics of the 1960s—pictures themselves Americanized by Roger Corman and American International Pictures. Doroga k Zvezdam proved to be successful enough that Klushantsev expanded his outer space fantasies into his only feature-length film, _Planeta Bur_ (1962). Sadly, he went back to the short-film format, with the equally majestic _Stantsiia Luna_ (Station Moon; 1965; 50 minutes), _Mapc_ (Mars; 1968; 50 minutes), and _I See Earth_ (1970; 16 minutes). The majestic sights of Kosmos, Stantsiia Luna, and Mapc come courtesy of acclaimed Russian art director Yuri Shvets, which prepared him for his feature-film masterpiece under the eye of Mikhail Karzhukov: _Nebo Zovyot_.

1959— **The Angry Red Planet** by Ib Melchoir

Released the same year as the far superior _Nebo Zovyot_ , acclaimed writer Ib Melchoir (noted for the short story _Death Race 2000_ ) and producer Sidney Pink (who came up with the story) got the jump on the Russian sci-fi epics produced in the wake of Nebo Zovyot. Dispensing with those pesky psychological and philosophical ramifications of space travel that made the Russian films superior, this journey to Mars goes straight for the (low budget) action with a lone female survivor of the mission (in a curve-fitting jumpsuit and ballet flats; perfect for space travel) who relates in flashback the crew's terrors in dealing with man-eating plants, towering rat-spiders, and metal-eating sea amoebas—all shot through red filters to make the cardboard-and-rubbery sets "look" like Mars. In the end, Pink's story is not an antecedent to _2001: A Space Odyssey_ but to 1979's _Alien_ —itself a homage/remake to 1958's _It! The Terror from Beyond Space_. Melchoir also penned the Alien inspirational-precursors _Journey to the Seventh Planet_ (1962) and _Planet of the Vampires_ (1965).

1959— **Nebo Zovyot** (The Sky Calls) by Valery Fokin/Mikhail Karzhukov

Also translated as _The Heavens Beacon_ , the story concerns the galactic competition between the United States and Russia to execute the first mission to Mars. When an American spaceship requests repairs from a Russian crew, they come to discover their Russian saviors are on their way to Mars; the Americans set sail to beat the Russians, veer off-course, become lost in space, and the Russians scrub their mission to save the American crew. So great are the Yuri Shvets production designs on _Nebo Zovyot_ , Stanley Kubrick hired Shvets to work on _2001: A Space Odyssey_ during its pre-production stages. Sadly, that greatness is lost, courtesy of the film's Roger Corman Americanization as _Battle Beyond the Sun_ (1962), which also features special effects inserts from Karzhukov's next film, _Mechte Navstrechu_ (1963). You've also seen Nebo Zovyot's special effects shots repurposed in _Queen of Blood_ (1966).

1960— **Der Schweignde Stern** (The Silent Star) by Kurt Maetzig

The plot concerns the discovery of an alien artifact: a data-spool thought to be a flight recorder from a crashed ship; an international team of astronauts travels to Venus to discover the spool's origins. This influential antecedent to Kubrick's masterpiece, mistakenly coined as a Russian space epic, is actually an East German and Poland co-production based on Stanislaw Lem's 1951 novel, _The Astronaut_. (Lem's novels broke to mainstream American audiences courtesy of the success of the film adaptation of his best know work, _Solaris_.) While released in Poland as _Milczaca Gwiadza_ , it was released in the United States—relatively intact in 1962—as _First Spaceship on Venus_. It also received additional viewings through American UHF television syndication as _Planet of the Dead_ , airing back-to-back alongside _The Demon Planet_ (Planet of the Vampires).

1962— **Journey to the Seventh Planet** by Sidney Pink

A crew investigating Uranus, which turns out to be a world rife in Earth-like vegetation, runs afoul of an alien intelligence capable of manifesting their deepest fantasies (sort of like 1956's _Forbidden Planet_ ); an "intelligence" that seems to be only concerned with the hot Danish pin-up beauties dancing in the chauvinistic Earthmen's heads. This, Sidney Pink and Ib Melchoir's collaborative second effort, after _The Angry Red Planet_ , _wants_ to be a psychological Russian science-fiction epic, but is too cheaply made to achieve its potential. However, once you forgive the science gaffes of the day—that failed to realize the planets beyond Mars (expect for Pluto) are gas giants and impossible to land on their "surfaces"—this shot-in-Denmark treat is executed better than most sci-fi films of the day. While this film was released prior to the 1972 film version of _Solyaris_ , which followed a similar theme regarding mind-influencing aliens, Lem's book was issued in 1961—a year prior to Pink's film. And if it all feels a bit like Ray Bradbury's iconic 1948 short story, "Mars Is Heaven"—then it probably is. _The Wizard of Mars_ (1965), based on L. Frank Baum's _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ —complete with an astronaut in silver go-go boots named "Dorothy"—also dabbled in an even lower-budgeted alien mind control plot. Inspired by the success of _Alien_ , J7P served as the inspiration for the Alien cash-in "remake" _Galaxy of Terror_ (1981). Melchoir also lent his pen to 1964's _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_.

1962— **Planeta Bur** (Planet of Storms) by Pavel Klushantsev

The coordinated effort of three Russian spaceships making the first manned trip to Venus is assisted by "John," a lumbering robot-computer. John served as Kubrick's original idea for "Hal," that is until production problems resulted in the sentient being's redesign to a single, red-eyed monitor. This came to be Klushantsev's only feature film; after being purchased by Roger Corman and criminally reedited into 1965's _Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet_ , who can blame him? To add insult to cinematic injury: _Planeta Bur_ was revamped a second time with inserts from Mikhail Karzhukov's _Nebo Zovyot_ —and added a few bear skinned-clad bikini cavewomen—as _Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women_ (also known on American UHF television as _Gill Women of Venus_ ).

1963— **Mechte Navstrechu** (A Dream Come True) by Mikhail Karzhukov

While Roger Corman repurposed Karzkukov's _Nebo Zovyot_ as _Battle Beyond the Sun_ (1962), _Mechte Navstrechu_ became the space vampire romp, _Queen of Blood_ (1966). In the plot of the superior Russian original, the inhabitants of a distant planet receive a radio transmission of an Earth-based love song; they send a ship to investigate. When the alien mission crash lands on Phobos, a Mars moon, the Earth receives a distress call to rescue the survivors; technical problems and the harsh landscape threaten the mission.

1963— **Oblok Magellana** (Magellanic Cloud) by Jindrich Polak

During the exploration of the Alpha Centauri system in the year 2163, a star weary crew encounters a derelict alien craft (read: _Alien_ ) and a malfunctioning computer (read: HAL 2000), along with personal and professional tensions among the crew and passengers as the psychological breakdown of one of the crew threatens to destroy the ship (as in _Solaris_ ). Another mistaken Russian space epic; this one actually hails from Czechoslovakia (as _Ikarie XB 1_ ) and was also issued under the above Polish-language title. As with _Der Schweignde Stern_ , this was also based on the work of Stanislaw Lem: 1951's _Magellanic Cloud_. This was also Americanized, somewhat unscathed, as _Voyage to the End of the Universe_ (1964).

1964— **Robinson Crusoe on Mars** by Byron Haskins

Director Bryon Haskins, who directed several of the higher-quality _The Outer Limits_ episodes for American television, scared kids for decades with his version of _H.G Wells War of the Worlds_ (1953). Haskins then dispensed with the Martian-invasion tomfoolery for the first American space movie to delve—abet dryly—in "science fact" with Paramount Pictures' science fiction entry about a journey to Mars originating from an Earth-based, rotating-wheeled space station in _Conquest of Space_ (1955). Haskins applied that same care for scientific accuracy with Ib Melchoir's science fiction retelling of Daniel Defoe's 1719 classic literary tale; he nixed Melchoir's _Angry Red Planet_ -inspired killer alien monster foolishness to embrace scientific plausibility in the script's subsequent rewrites. Sadly, more people remember the casting of Batman's Adam West—as a way-too-soon, quickly-killed off astronaut—than for the film's superb storytelling or mesmerizing special effects work.

1965— **Terrore nello Spazio** (Terror in Space) by Mario Bava

The story and set design influences of this low-budget Italian precursor to _Alien_ (1979), adapted by horror-maestro Mario Bava from Renato Pestriniero's Italian-language short-story, "One Night in 21 Hours," which concerns astronauts possessed by the spirits of a dead alien crew while on a rescue mission, can't be denied. The film remained intact on its Americanized theatrical rounds—with the English-language dialog penned by Ib Melchoir—under the title _Planet of the Vampires_ (and syndicated on American UHF television as The Demon Planet). No actual fangs come out; however, those funky, yellow-piped bondage-leather space suits with the flipped-up collars look vampirific enough to justify the title change.

1967— **Tumannost Andromedy** (The Andromeda Nebula) by Evgeniy Sherstobitov

Based on the 1957 novel by Ivan Yefremov of the same name, this tale dispenses with the psychological effects of space travel and concentrates on the sociological—within the context of a Marxist society that has united several planetary civilizations. The mission of the starship Tantra to introduce a new alien planet to the union falters when the crew encounters the gravitational forces of an "iron star" that killed off the planet's inhabitants and threatens to destroy their ship.

1970— **Signale: Ein Weltraumabenteuer** (Signal: An Outer Space Adventure) by Gottfried Kolditz

When a research ship on an exploration for life in Earth's solar system disappears in a meteor storm near Jupiter, an astronaut refuses to accept the mission is lost; he sets out on a "metaphysical mission" to find the crew—which includes his wife. This German and Polish co-production, based on an East German novel _Asteroidenjager_ (Asteroid Hunters) by Carlos Rasch, bears some thematic similarities to _Solyaris_ ; however, unlike the similarly-minded _2001_ , _Signale_ offers back stories for its characters. The film is also notable as the first to feature a space ship with a visible, exterior rotating centrifuge (of spokes) to sustain gravity. Gottfried Kolditz returned to the fold with _Im Staub der Sterne_.

1972— **Eolomea** by Hermann Zschoche

Based on the book of the same name by acclaimed Bulgarian writer Angel Wagenstein, this East German-Russian-Bulgarian co-production concerns the disappearance of eight cargo ships coinciding with the loss of contact with a distant space station. Earth scientists determine the incidents are the result of a mysterious Cygnus-born transmission, deciphered as "Eolomea," which is believed to be a planet; it's soon discovered the planet's inhabitants stole the Earth-armada to escape an oppressive regime. The film bares similarities to both _Signale_ and _Solyaris_ , as the film explores the psychological and philosophical implications of space travel.

1972 — **Silent Running** by Douglas Trumbull

The award-winning Special Effects Supervisor from _2001: A Space Odyssey_ earned his director's stripes with this sister film that dispenses with the psychological and spiritual plotting of its Russian antecedents and substitutes an environmental message regarding a fleet of space freighters transporting clusters of geodesic domes containing the last remnants of Earth ecology. When the mission's resident botanist sees his dreams of Earth's reforesting scrubbed, he suffers a mental breakdown and steals the last remaining dome. The film is noted for creating a "Saturn sequence" that Kubrick wanted for 2001, but was unable to accomplish as result of time and technical constraints. The screenplay, penned by acclaimed American writer/director Michael Cimino and television producer Steven Bocho, was post-adapted into a rare, highly-coveted 1972 novel by Harlan Thompson. Since this was produced and released by the same studio responsible for 1978's _Battlestar Galactica_ , Universal repurposed stock footage of the cargo ships and the dome sets for a few episodes of the _Star Wars_ TV hopeful.

1972— **Solyaris** (Solaris) by Andrei Tarkovsky

Unfairly and incorrectly classified as a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ rip-off, _Solyaris_ is based on Stanislaw Lem's highly-acclaimed, 1961 breakthrough novel of the same name. In this epic, metaphysical journey that explores the influence "outer space" has on a man's "inner space," a psychologist travels to a space station orbiting a distant, liquid planet to discover what caused the crew—actually an alien force on the planet can that can recreate physical realities from one's thoughts (like 1962's _Journey to the Seventh Planet_ )—to suffer hallucinations resulting in several deaths. Tarkovsky continued with these philosophical and psychological themes in 1979's _Stalker_ , which concerns a ranger guide's journey into the mysterious Zone, where a sentient being can fulfill one's inner most desires.

1974— **Moskva-Kassiopeya** (Moscow: Cassiopeia) by Richard Viktorov

This early directing effort by Viktorov ( _Per Aspera Ad Astra_ ), also known by the English-language title Children of the Universe, pre-dates _Star Wars_ with a production design that resembles an old TV episode of _Star Trek_. When Earth receives radio contact from the Cassiopeia constellation, a crew comprised of teenagers is sent on a three decades-long journey to investigate, by which time they'll reach the age of 40. Upon arrival, they learn their mission is to liberate a planet's inhabitants from an artificial intelligence and its robot armies. The film was successful enough to warrant a 1975 sequel, _Otroki vo vselennoy_ (Teens in the Universe).

1976— **Im Staub der Sterne** (In the Dust of Stars) by Gottfried Kolditz

The fourth and final film by the DEFA ( _Der Schweignde Stern_ , _Signale_ , _Eolomea_ ) this is the only original-scripted film the studio produced that is not an adaptation of a novel. Dispensing with the psychological and philosophical plotting of its Russian counterparts, Euro-science fiction connoisseurs refer to this East German and Romanian co-production as the "German Barbarella"—referring to the production design of Roger Vadim's 1968 film adaptation of a popular French comic strip; others will see production elements of _Space: 1999_ and the later '80s American television series _Battlestar Galactica_ and _Buck Rogers_. The plot concerns a team of astronauts dispatched on a six-year journey to respond to a distress call from a distant, desolate planet in the regions of unexplored space. The crew comes to discover their hosts are actually invaders enslaving the indigenous population to mine the planet for corporate profit.

1977— **Operation Ganymed** by Rainer Erier

A dystopian-inspired version of an introspective Russian space epic produced for German theatres, this also appeared on German and European television as _Heroes: Lost in the Dust of the Stars_. The plot concerns a United Nations-sponsored space mission as three Americans, two Europeans, and one Russian deal with the psychological effects of returning to an Earth decimated by a cataclysmic event. The questions are bountiful: Are they back on Earth. Did they die on Ganymede and is this a hellish penance. Is the agency that sent them into space conducting an experiment?

1978— **Doznanie pilota Pirksa** by Marek Piestrak

The influential writings of Stanislaw Lem returned with this tale based on "The Inquest" from his short-story collection, _More Tales of Pirx the Pilot_. Also known in Poland as _Test pilota Pirxa_ , the film was also promoted in the Euro-home video market as _The Inquest of Pilot Pirx_. The plot concerns a mission to evaluate the use of non-linears (robots) as crews on future space flights. In command of a mixed human and non-linear crew that failed in its mission to launch satellites into Saturn's rings, which resulted in death, Pirx's career falls into question. An inquest comes to discover it was not human, but non-linear error that caused the mission failure.

1980— **Petlya Oriona** (Orion Loop) by Vasily Levin

Russian science fiction joyously traveled back to man's "inner space" as a mixed crew comprised of humans and their androids twins travel to a phenomenon on the solar system's outskirts approaching Earth—The Orion Loop. The closer the crew comes into contact, the stranger their psychological issues manifest. The script was co-written by Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov—the first man to complete an EVA (extravehicular activity) during the Voskhod 2 mission; the mission is the subject of a stellar Russian film, 2017's _Spacewalk_.

1980— **Zvyozdny inspektor** (The Star Inspector) by Vladimir Polin and Mark Kovalyov

Produced in the wake of _Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back_ , but with the awareness of a somewhat older episode of the pre-Star Wars TV series _Space: 1999_ , the commander of a Russian space police unit investigates the criminal dealings of corporate-capitalist space pirates who commit an unmotivated attack on an International Space Base. He comes to discover the attack was committed by a lost group of scientists led by a famed biologist who created an artificial intelligence that, with a robot army, plans to enslave humanity.

1981— **Per Aspera Ad Astra** (Through Hardship to the Stars) by Richard Viktorov

Carrying a philosophical message regarding the err of corporate greed and war profiteering, the film's title is from a familiar Latin phrase utilized in the writings of James Joyce, Hermann Hesse, and Kurt Vonnegut. Scripted by Viktorov (1974's _Moskva-Kassiopeya_ ) from the novel of the same name by Kir Bulychov, this Russian film appeared in English-speaking markets as _Through the Thorns to the Stars_ and on American television as _Humanoid Woman_ , itself a disgracefully edited, exploitive title that diminishes the film's deeper meanings. The story concerns the 23rd century discovery of a lone, female humanoid-clone survivor of a derelict alien vessel. As the clone adapts to life on Earth, it discovers it has a variety of psychic and physical powers—and learns she was part of an advance-army created by government subversives to overthrown her creator's home planet.

1983— **Lunnaya raduga** (Moon Rainbow) by Vladmir Karpichev

After encountering a space phenomenon, a squad of Russian space commandos (think _Aliens_ ) develops supernatural powers and the philosophical questions arise: what to do with such powers and how will they affect life on Earth. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Sergei Pavlov and presents itself as an insightful version of Marvel Comics' _The Fantastic Four_ series—minus the unscientific, childish comic book pretentions.

1984— **Vozrashchenie s orbity** (Return from Orbit) by Aleksandr Surin

Featuring a production design that reminds of 1978's _Doznanie pilota Pirksa_ , this dispenses with the _Star Wars: Return of the Jedi_ -inspired sci-fi fantasy of the times for a serious, dramatic approach regarding the daily trials of two cosmonauts adjusting to their new life on Earth after a lengthy mission. When a meteor storm accident occurs on an orbital station, the cosmo-duo must return to space to save their comrades. Unlike most sci-fi films shot on sets, scenes were shot on the Soviet Space Station Salyut 7 and the spacecraft Soyuz T-9 by cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov. Additional scenes were shot at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and inside the RKA Mission Control Center. The film's stellar, ambient soundtrack is conducted by famed Russian electronic conductor, Edward Artemeyev. Gargin's life was later chronicled in _Gagarin: First In Space_ (2013).
