9 Weeks

9 WEEKS. . .an Earth 2 story. . .
PROLOGUE

"Something has to be done soon, or the Eden Project is at an end."

Two weeks had passed since the group's co-leader and driving force had been put into cryogenic sleep in a desperate bid to save her life. In the ensuing days, the illness taking Devon Adair's life was no closer to being cured than it was in the hours immediately after her sad incarceration, even though the team's doctor spent her every waking moment trying endless experiments and making up countless theories in her attempt to end the sickness and save her friend.
Though no one wanted to leave their friends behind - in addition to Devon in her cold sleep capsule, another Eden Advance member, Eben Sinh had succumbed to a variation of the illness and was buried on a hillside nearby - everyone knew they had to move on soon in their journey to New Pacifica. It was the unspoken truth hanging over the camp, a guilty knowledge no one wanted to recognize.
Left with a promise to take the group onward to meet the colony ship, John Danziger was loath to make the final decision to pull out and begin the overland trek. He was sure there would be resistance to the command, and while he was not looking forward to a confrontation, he had given his word he would not only be at New Pacifica when the colonists arrived, but he would look after Ulysses Adair and have him there, too.

"Yeah, I know," Danziger said in reply to Yale's comment about the Eden Project. "I've been trying to bring it up for the last week, but it's too easy to let the others change the subject when I try."
Yale nodded. "Yes, and I must apologize for being one of those who has steered you away from broaching the matter. However, I have been thinking and I believe the time is now to talk about it. I think everyone will be receptive to the idea." He paused. "Well, perhaps not everyone, but if you can convince Ulysses it is time to go, Julia will have no reason to disagree."
John wished for all he worth he could push the job onto someone else, but if Yale was right, it was time for him make good his word and get the group started.
All he had to do was find the right words to put things into motion.

The evening gathering around the fire was subdued, as usual. Julia Heller looked like hell and Alonzo Solace was as worried about her as she was not. He hovered around her like a hummingbird, darting here and there, making her comfortable, refilling her cup, coaxing her to eat, wrapping her a jacket against the evening chill.
Danziger, standing in the shadows and watching, wondered if she noticed the fuss at all. Her attention never seemed to be in the here and now.
Yale was right. It was time to get these people away from here.
John approached the fire and stopped next to Julia and Alonzo, and the former pilot smiled a little and pushed a box toward him to sit on. He gave Julia's shoulder a gentle squeeze and took the seat offered him beside her.
Julia tried to respond politely but she was tired, exhausted was more the word, and all she could manage was to brush her fingers against his as he drew his hand away.
He gave Alonzo a concerned look and the one he got back from him told him all he needed to know. John looked around for Uly and spotted him a short distance away, huddled beside Yale, with much the same look in his eyes as the doctor had.
"Uly?" Danziger called softly. "Can I talk to you for a minute? I need your help with something."
The boy looked at him. "What?"
John beckoned him over and slowly, Uly relaxed his muscles and got to his feet to walk a bit unsteadily to him. Danziger took off his jacket and folded it to make a seat for the child. Uly dropped to his knees on it, facing him.
"Uly, listen. You know that one day soon we all have to go on to New Pacifica, don't you? And you also know I don't want to leave your mother here by herself, right? None of us want to do that. We would all take her with us if we could, but if we do, she'll die along the way and be lost to us forever. The best chance she has to live is by staying right where she is in the cryo-chamber until Dr. Heller can find a cure for the sickness she has. You know all of that, don't you? Sure you do," he smiled when the boy nodded slowly. "Well, just before we put your mom into cold sleep, I talked to her for a long time and she asked me to make her a promise that I would take care of you, and that I would see to it all of us, including you, got to New Pacifica to wait for the colony ship to arrive. I made her that promise, Uly, I told her I would do exactly what she asked me to do, and I'm not going to break my promise. Ever. Now, just like you, I don't want to leave her here by herself when we go. So, do you know what?" He paused momentarily to wipe a tear from the boy's face. "I think you might be able to help me fix it so someone is here with her all the time while we're gone."
Barely above a whisper, Uly asked, "How can I do that, Mr. Danziger?"
Around the fire, the others heard every word.
"Do you think you could ask your friends, the Terrians, to keep an eye on her while we're traveling? They could protect her, and Eben, too, in a way, and you and Alonzo would be able to check up on her through the dream plane. Any time you want to, I'll bet the Terrians will help you dream yourself back here to make sure the capsule is all right and she's okay inside it. I can't think of anyone who would be better at guarding your mother and protecting her than the Terrians. Can you?"
The boy shook his head slowly, but the tears had stopped and he was looking into Danziger's eyes and seeing him for the first time in days.
"Can you ask them for me?"
Uly nodded.
Danziger smiled gently. "Great, and when you do be sure to tell them it will be just for a short time, because we'll be coming back for her as soon as the colony ship arrives."
"Will we? Really?" The desperate hope in his young voice was heartbreaking.
"Of course, we will. Do you think I'd leave her way out here forever? Not a chance." He put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "If Julia hasn't been able to find a way to make her well again before the ship gets here, we'll just bring some of the cold sleep chambers down from the ship and put them in the new hospital we're going to build when we get to the ocean. Your mother may arrive at New Pacifica a little bit later than we do, but I'm going to make sure she gets there, too."
"I've already got it all planned," he continued, putting his elbow on his knee and resting his chin on that hand while gesturing with the other. "The first thing she's going hear when she wakes up is your voice welcoming her back, and the second thing she'll hear is the sound of the ocean in the background. She'll know what the sound is because she heard it before when she went through the spider tunnels and saw the ocean on the east coast. Man, won't she be surprised?" The little boy launched himself into Danziger's arms.

Three days later, John Danziger stood before the cold sleep crypt in which his friend and fellow traveler has been placed in order to save her life. Beside him, the small son of the woman in the chamber clutched his hand.
"I love you, Mom. I'm going to miss you," he whispered to her.
Danziger looked down and squeezed the boy's hand gently. "We all will, Uly, but we'll make sure it doesn't get too bad for you. I promised her I'd take care of you. I made the promise for the whole group."
The boy reached out his other hand and placed it against the chamber's transparent shell. "Bye, Mom. We'll come back for you. I promise."
Danziger raised his eyes and looked once again at the barely recognizable features of the woman and felt grief wash over him. Within days of one another he had lost the two women in his life who meant more to him than he ever knew. Eben Sinh had been his friend, his lover, his confidant and her presence in his life had spanned light years as well as kilometers. Her freely given friendship had been a comfort to him as he struggled to define his place in the order of things on this strange, but awe inspiring planet.
Devon Adair, the woman in the cold sleep unit, was an enigma to him, and, now, probably would always be one.
There was a time not too long ago when he might have spoken the same words to her that her son had just uttered, a time when he could have sworn she might have answered him in the same way. The attraction to one another had been there, and everyone knew it! The verbal sparring and challenging they'd practiced had been a sounding board for them. A way to test the other, to see how far they could go, how much they could learn, how long they could go before the barriers fell and drew them together.
It wasn't meant to be, however. Reality had a way of bursting bubbles, and when reality reared it's head for John and Devon, they'd both made choices, and those choices did not include one another.
Uly pulled his hand back and sniffled, and John bent down to lift him into his arms and let the boy cradle his head on his shoulder. Danziger ruffled his hair gently and muttered reassurances. As he did so he reached and placed his palm against the crypt, too.
"I'll miss you, too, Adair," he said, his strong voice low and respectful. "I don't know why, but I will. All we ever did was get on each other's nerves. How the hell did we ever stay friends for so long?"
He shook his head slowly as he lowered his hand. Too bad, Adair, he thought, I think we might have let something get away from us.
Danziger smoothed his hand over Uly Adair's head. "You ready to go, kid?"
The boy turned his face toward him but kept his head on his shoulder. He nodded. "Yes. I know she would get really mad at us if we stayed here and didn't keep going like she wanted us to. We'd better go. She's not strong enough to be sick and mad at us at the same time."
"You're right, Uly, absolutely right." He turned slowly and walked away from the crypt.
Alonzo Solace was standing silently at the foot of the ladder leading up and out of the grounded ship they were in. He stepped aside and nodded at the ladder. "Go on up. I'll power down to safe mode and set the alarms."
"Okay. Thanks, Lonz."
"No problem. You did good, Uly. She'd be extra proud of you today for being so grownup and brave."
Danziger started up the ladder and handed Uly to waiting arms reaching for him from the top. Even so, when he climbed out of the ship, the boy returned to clutch his hand again. They walked together to the short line of vehicles packed and loaded and ready to continue the journey to reach an almost fabled land called New Pacifica.
John's daughter, True, looking worried, was sitting in the passenger seat of the dunerail. "Is everything okay, Dad?"
He smiled and nodded and lifted Uly high, to seat him atop the folded tents stacked across the ‘rail's rear seats. From his perch in the center of the stack, Uly's legs dangled between the two front seats.
Danziger walked around the rail and surveyed the subdued group of people waiting in the other vehicles. Two more one passenger ATVs like the one he had prepped for Uly soon after crash landing on the planet, had been built from scrounged parts found aboard the Bennet ship. No one had to walk now if they didn't want to.
Alonzo was out of the ship, now, and he and Cameron were activating the perimeter lasers that would protect the ship until they could return for Devon.
Danziger stopped for a moment and looked beyond them, to the simple grave marker not far from the ship where the body of Eben Sinh had been buried. The wooden cross used to mark her gravesite was just visible from where he stood. Good-bye to you, too, E, he thought. I'm going to miss you most of all.
"All set!" Alonzo's voice called out and broke his reverie.
"Let's go then," he answered, and got into the driver's seat of the dunerail. He looked at True. "Everything all right with you, sweetheart?"
She looked back at him with a small smile. "Yes, I'm fine. I miss Eben, though. We knew her almost as long as Alex and Les. I miss all of them."
"So do I," John told her. "But losing them wasn't their fault or ours."
"I know. I just wish we could come back for them some day, like Devon, and wake them up, too. Especially E."
"I know how you feel." He started the engine of the dunerail and the vehicle lurched forward, as if impatient to move. He reached back and tugged one of the small legs hanging beside his shoulder. "It's time to go, kids, but we'll be back as soon as we can."
The vehicles started to move and Ulysses Adair rested his arms on the dunerail's awning bar in front of him. Resting his chin on his arms he closed his eyes and imagined himself being lifted high and then unceremoniously flipped onto John Danziger's backpack the day after they crashed onto the planet. In spite of his sadness he smiled. If he couldn't have his mother with him, he couldn't think of anyone else he'd rather have taking her place than John Danziger.

CHAPTER 1

"We've been on the road for eight weeks. Each day when we stop for a midday break, I watch my fellow travelers and, recently, I've noticed most of us have stopped looking back in the direction we've come every time we halt the vehicles to rest. What it was we used to look back to see, I don't really know. I tried to avoid doing it myself because it made me think, much more than I already was, of the two members of the group we had to leave behind. It was a habit I see the others have let go, too, somewhere along the way. I know it's a good sign, but I also know that looking ahead doesn't mean anyone has stopped thinking about the place where our two friends are each entombed in different ways. The gap left by the two women, Devon Adair and Eben Sinh, has not been filled, and never will be; but, at least, we are learning to see beyond the gap and live life more normally once again. At least as normally as we can now that we know death and illness are bigger foes to the security and peace of mind of the group than Terrians, kobas, grendlers and ZED units have ever been..." Julia Heller, M.D.

Reaching the western edge of the dry valley beyond the mountain range that had been their winter home, the Eden Advance group had decided it was time to turn south/southwest and begin the last of leg of their journey to New Pacifica. After crossing the long stretch of bare, arid country with little water and less shade, the travelers were once again entering an area of trees and tall grasses, hills and steep prominences. Not that the change was abrupt. For the past ten days, over kilometers of travel, the landscape had slowly changed to a more lush and green setting, though areas of "badlands", as Yale called them, still cropped up here and there. They were getting fewer and farther between, however, and the bright green of mid spring was everywhere. A few trees still held small splashes of color but most springtime blooming was beginning to fade away.
The scouts, Alonzo Solace and Jake Baines, roving ahead of the main body of the group, chose an area to camp for the night at the base of a hill bare of trees. The view to the south was of a vast, wide glade, uninterrupted for, perhaps, five kilometers where a line of uneven hills formed the horizon. To the north was the high, long mesa they were skirting, the top of which was marked with uneven lines of trees and precariously leaning, rocky protuberances the like of which they had never seen before.
Alonzo sat casually in the seat of the cobbled together ATV he drove and looked to the northwest at the strange looking features on top of the plateau. The trees were bent at odd angles and some were almost barren of leaves, and even the rocks looked as if they'd been pushed a little off center. There was a gap in the trees a little farther to the west with some of the sorriest looking excuses for trees he'd ever seen. The twisted trunks and branches looked like gnarled fingers pointing toward the sky. Upon seeing the gear feed Alonzo had sent back to the group, Yale had surmised they might be subject to windstorms, and he'd shown them holos of weirdly shaped trees from Earth that had been twisted and turned by the winds coming from the oceans thereby. If that was the case, this hill beside the proposed campsite would make a fine lookout point to watch for approaching storms during their stopover.
He looked east and thought he could just make out the vehicles bringing the rest of the group to rendezvous with him. Maybe it was them, maybe it was just trees, either way he liked the view better than the one to the north. It was a lot friendlier, less odd. He decided to stay where he was and wait for them. Breaking out his canteen, he took a long drink of water and then climbed out of the ATV to stretch his muscles and look around for Baines.
His fellow sleep jumper was in the habit of soaring his ATV over hills whenever he was safely out of sight of the larger group, most notably out of John Danziger's sight, the man in charge of vehicle maintenance - in charge of everything now - who took his job very seriously. More than once, Baines had overturned his little vehicle and Alonzo had to help him get it upright. Thanks to the design of the little ATVs, he was never hurt, but it sometimes irritated Alonzo that the man was taking so many risks in the name of having a little fun.
Alonzo spotted the other vehicle coming towards him from the south at a rate of speed he couldn't determine, but it was definitely tossing back grass and causing a dust trail whenever it hit bare soil. In spite of his momentary irritation, he had to laugh at himself as the other ATV barreled toward the hill. It wasn't as if Alonzo hadn't done the same thing more than once in the early days of the group's westward trek. He just didn't do it before witnesses...well, not human witnesses, anyway.
He sat down on one of his ATV's wheels and waited for Baines to head right up the side of the hill. A few minutes later, the other vehicle skidded to a halt nearby and Jake Baines, smiling widely, jumped out of the driver's seat.
"I found the water source our scanners picked up at midday," he announced. "Six, six and a half klicks down, there's a spring coming right out of the ground into a shallow basin and a stream flowing from it almost straight south."
Alonzo nodded. "I guess that explains the thin line of trees going off that way."
Baines agreed. "Yeah. They're hugging the banks all along the way, or at least as far as I could see."
"Well, the others will be here soon," he said and pointed his thumb to the east.
The other man nodded. "You sure you want to camp here?" He pointed to the north. "That tableland gives me the creeps. I feel like something is watching us from up there."
Alonzo laughed lightly. "Probably grendlers. I'll bet they've been watching us every foot of the way from the crash site."
"No, that's not what I meant. I know the grendlers are out there. This is something different."
"It's just strange looking, that's all, man. I was just thinking about it myself. You know. Wondering what might have caused the damage. Yale says the wind can do that kind of twisting damage to trees."
"Lonz, we've been skirting that plateau for three days now and the wind hasn't been strong enough to mess up your hair."
"Maybe not down here, but who knows what's going on at that altitude? We're looking at land almost six hundred meters above the meadows we're traveling."
"Maybe, but I still say I feel like I'm being watched."
"You aren't going to lock yourself in the transrover again, are you?" Alonzo teased.
Baines gave him a disgusted look. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"
"Something like that."
"Well, at least I know it was me Bess was daydreaming about that one time."
"Ha! You do not!"
Baines grinned. "How do you know I don't?"
They spend the next few minutes in a good natured argument over one of the group's most intiguing subjects.

The dunerail trundled along through the tall grasses of the meadow with True Danziger taking her turn riding atop the equipment stowed in the back seat of the vehicle. Her chin resting on her arms folded along the canopy bar, she was ready to nod off when something atop the funny looking mesa to the right caught her eye. Sitting up straight and fighting back a yawn, she made herself concentrate on something very unusual among the already oddly slanted trees silhouetted against the sky high on the plateau. A wide gap was becoming visible in the tree line, and the few small, stunted looking trees growing in the gap looked very familiar for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Digging her father's jumpers from a bag beside her, True lifted them to her eyes and took a long hard look at the gap. Some of the things were definitely trees, She could see leaves on their branches, but the taller, twisted things were devoid of leaves of any kind, and through the jumpers they definitely looked like something familiar that shouldn't be there.
After a few minutes of studying the things - they were getting clearer to see as the dunerail moved along and the gap widened from the changing perspective - she lowered the jumpers and looked down at her father behind the dunerail's steering wheel. Uly Adair, the other passenger in the vehicle, was asleep, or close to it, in the other seat.
"Dad?" she called softly. She held the jumpers close to his shoulder. "Will you take a look at the gap in the trees up on the mesa for a couple of seconds? The things sticking out of the ground with the small trees growing around them - well, are they what I think they are?"
John Danziger turned his head and found himself looking directly at his jumpers. He looked past them at the plateau and immediately saw the spot True was talking about. It was ahead of them yet, but clearly evident, and there, a little off center in the gap from this angle, were some of the strangest looking tall trees he'd ever seen. In fact, they looked kind of like. . .
He turned on the auto pilot and grabbed the jumpers. He stared at them much longer than his daughter did, and when he finally lowered the jumpers, he went on staring without them. What in the world. . .?
"Well?" True asked. "Are they trees or not?"
"They have to be whether they look it or not, True, but you're right. They are unusual. They look like they've been burned, though. Maybe that's why they're black in color, but they can't be anything but trees, sweetie."
She looked at him doubtfully. "I guess so," she said, though her tone suggested she clearly didn't agree.
"When we get farther along we'll take another look, okay? Maybe at the camp Lonz and Jake found we ‘ll be able to get a good look at them. Alonzo said there was a high hill beside the campsite. We might be able to get a better view." He handed the jumpers back up to her.
"Okay." She spent most of the remaining drive to the campsite watching the gap widen and give a steadily better view of the objects. With some smug satisfaction, True noticed her father kept looking up at them, too. She had a feeling she was going to be right about what they really were, and if she was - well, she found it first.

True to his word, after camp had been set up and the group was relaxing while the kitchen detail prepared the evening meal, Danziger accompanied his daughter on a climb to the top of the high hill dominating their campsite.
The gap in the trees on the plateau was closer and more could be seem of the oddly out of place trees sticking out of the ground. This time after a long look through the jumpers, John finally lowered his hands and looked at True.
"I know what it looks like, and I'm not saying that's what it is, but I think you might be right. I'm going to go check it out tomorrow, " he told her. "I'll take an ATV early in the morning and see if I can get close enough to know for sure."
"I want to go with you, Dad! I saw it first. Why can't I go with you?"
"Because one person can travel faster alone. If it turns out to be trees, I'll have to try to catch up with the rest of you by afternoon. That means no stops except when absolutely necessary. It'll be hard driving and I don't think you can take it."
True frowned. "But, Dad..."
"No," he told her sternly, waving a finger in her face. "You keep going with the rest of the group, but keep an eye on the plateau. If I find what you think it is, I'll fire a couple of flares and call you over gear and you can make the announcement to the others. After that, the whole group is going to turn and follow me. They'll want to see for themselves, so you'll get there soon enough. If not, I'll be back by late afternoon."
"Why can't we tell them now and just all of us go?"
"It might be a false alarm, honey. Everyone seems to be in pretty good spirits now, but if it turns out to be just trees, the disappointment might be enough to make everyone sad again. I don't think we can take another disappointment, do you?"
Her shoulders slumped. "No. I guess not."
"Then let's go back down and see if it's time to eat. Sure smells good from here."
"Okay." She looked up at him and pointed her finger at him. "Remember. You said I get to tell everyone. You call me on gear and I get to tell everyone, right?"
He smiled down at her. "I swear."
"All right. Good enough."
"What!? You're not going to make me swear on the souls of every Danziger who ever lived or who will ever be born? You're just going to take my word for it?"
She smiled at his teasing. "I gotta learn to take your word some day. Might as well be now."
"Well, thanks a lot!"
"No problem, Dad."
"Come on, race you back down the - hey, wait a minute! At least let me finish what I was saying first!"

The problem came from Julia later that evening when Danziger told the group around the fire of his plan to run a recon to the tableland. She flatly refused to hear such a ridiculous idea, standing her ground before him and looking him straight in the eye.
"Look, it's not as if it's going to make a big difference," John tried to point out. "I'm just going to make a wide swing in the direction we're already going. Even if I don't catch up with you until nightfall, the main body of the group won't have lost any time. It'll just be me taking a little detour."
"What if something happens to you, or the ATV?" Julia countered. "Someone will have to go after you."
"I can fix the ATV, and I can take care of myself."
"I know you can, but no one should go off alone, especially not you. That was your idea remember? Two scouts out together at the same time?"
"All right. Matt will go with me. Okay, Matt?"
Walman looked up from his seat on an overturned crate and shrugged. "Sure."
"We need both of you here with us in case something goes wrong with one of the vehicles. Splitting up the group isn't a good idea - that was also your idea, John."
"So Matt won't go. I'll take Zero."
Julia glared at him. "Matt, Zero - it makes no difference. You're just saying this to get me angry, aren't you? I hate when you do that!"
"I'm not kidding, all right? I'm curious. I want to see what the formation on the hill actually is. If it's natural I should be able to tell through the jumpers long before I reach the plateau. I'll just double back. If it isn't natural - well, hell. Are you going to sit there and tell me you won't want to make the same detour to see it for yourself?"
"John, please don't do it. There are penal colonists, more ZEDs, who knows what else out there? If it's something convicts have built they might still be there and you'd be walking right into their territory. We can't lose anyone else, especially not you. We can't take another loss."
"Doc, if that thing isn't a natural formation it has to be checked out. If it is, we can forget about it and just keep going."
"What do you think it is?" she asked, crossing her arms and waiting for an answer.
"That's my point. I don't know. I'm going to head out and see. I can't ignore it."
Julia stared at him for a long time. At last she spoke. "Maybe I should go with you in the dunerail."
"No, you're needed here. I'll take Zero with me on one of the ATVs."
"I think I should go with you."
Danziger looked at Alonzo, but the pilot was enjoying this and just smiled at him, shaking his head as if to say "Don't get me involved!" John cocked his head to one side and looked back at Julia. "One person can travel faster and farther alone."
"Then, one more time: Don't go. Please, John."
He winked and patted her shoulder. "It has to be checked out."
"Send Zero alone on an ATV."
"No. It's the ops chief's duty to take the big risks first."
"It is not! You're not building a station here, Danziger. You're going out into the unknown for a reason you won't reveal."
"Same difference."
"No, it isn't!"
" It's just a recon, Julia. A day-long scout."
"Fine. I'm going with you, then. We'll take the dunerail. That's it. End of discussion." She waved her hands in an ‘out' gesture and whirled around and marched straight toward her tent. "We're going to need our rest," she called over her shoulder. "I suggest you get to bed soon, too."
"Julia..."
She stopped and swung around. "End of discussion, and don't try sneaking out alone in the morning. I'm going to tell Zero, you leave with me or not at all."
She changed direction and went straight over to talk to the robot.
Danziger gave Alonzo a hard look, and pointed a thumb over his shoulder at Julia. "Did she just Adair me?"
"Like a damn pro!" Alonzo told him and the group around the fire joined him as he broke up laughing.

CHAPTER 2

Three hours into the drive across the meadow, Julia could have sworn they were standing still. If she looked over her shoulder she was sure she'd see the rest of the group right behind them, just starting on their drive westward.
The tableland just didn't seem to be getting any closer.
Danziger seemed to be all right with that fact, though. Every once in a while he would put the dunerail on auto and take a long look through his jumpers at the tree line on the mesa.
After numerous short bouts of small talk, she couldn't stand it any longer. She wasn't going to be able to tough it out, she had to know. "What is it you think you're seeing, John?"
He was looking through his jumpers again and he waited for a while, looking at the high ground, before lowering them and answering her question.
"I helped build both the ship that brought us to this planet and the colony ship still on it's way. I know every part of each ship, inside and out. Those tall, bent and twisted trees in the gap in the tree line look like one of the sensor arms from the Roanoke. I think a piece of the ship is up there on the plateau."
Julia stared openmouthed at him. "Oh...John...that can't be, can it? Surely it broke into pieces and burned in the atmosphere! Right? I mean, Alonzo used to talk about it. He said it would have all burned during entry, only tiny pieces reaching the ground."
"Any other craft, maybe, but Adair went all out for her ships. She and her son would be flying in the Roanoke, after all. Plus, she was never going back to the stations so her personal fortune was there to be spent. The hull was designed to withstand high magnitude meteor impacts. The alloys used to coat the hulls were made of ceramics. And don't forget, we don't know how many of the sixteen cargo pods broke free during the last moments we were on board. If as few as two stayed attached, they could have helped deflect a lot of the heat from the body of the ship. The cargo pods were built to withstand the heat of planet fall. For all any of us know, the body of the ship could have made it through the atmosphere before the ceramics burned away and it could have hit the ground nearly intact. Personally, I doubt it, but I do think we'll find a section of a sensor arm up on that plateau. Either way, there might be something to salvage."
"But, how can it be here? We came to land so far away."
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because we were thrown clear of the ship and the ship itself fell straight down, more or less. The escape pods were probably cast well away from any impact area for safety. I mean, it wouldn't do to have the passengers touch down safely only to have the fiery remains of the ship impact nearby and incinerate them. Right? Hell, I don't know, I'm just guessing."
"Why didn't you tell Alonzo or Baines about this?" Her voice was still hushed.
"What if they're just trees bent and broken by the wind as Yale says?"
"But you don't think they are!"
"I suspect, I'm taking a wild guess, I'm winging it, Julia! Do you really think Solace and Baines could take the disappointment if I'm wrong?"
She was silent for a while. "No, I don't," she had to admit. "They're going to kill you, though, if you're right."
"Hey, it was their ship, they had design input, I just built it. If they don't recognize a piece of it, is it my fault?"
She laughed. "Alonzo won't see it that way."
"I'll deal with him later if I have to. Besides, True was the first one to see the similarities. She spotted it first and they never even noticed."
Julia raised her jumpers to her eyes. "What is it you keep looking at?"
"I'm watching how it changes position in relation to the other trees and rocks around it. The sensor arms are pretty big, maybe six cargo pods in length. If we're looking at trees we should be able to tell before long, but if there is a sensor arm somewhere behind the real trees, it'll start to drop out of sight while the small trees stay where they are."
"Got it."
"Of course, they could still be just a couple of very tall trees farther back on the hill."
"What makes you think they aren't?"
"I worked on the Roanoke for over four years. I built all four, and I attached two, of the sensors. Like my daughter, I know a sensor arm when I see one."

It was well past midday when John and Julia reached the base of the high plateau. Over time, rocks and boulders from higher up the slopes had rolled down and settled into a ring around the base, and small trees and bushes were growing between them in thickets stretching up the side of the slopes. The hillside itself was just that - a steep hill, but one the dunerail could climb if they could find a break in the rock and brush around the bottom.
"Well," Julia said, after finishing the last of her meal. She stood looking up towards the top of the hill. "This is no plateau, or mesa, as we've been calling it. It's just a very big hill, almost a mountain. The bare dirt and the color of the vegetation made it look like it had a high, striated wall from the distance."
"And it was twice as far away from the route we're taking as we thought it was. It's probably closer to a thousand meters high. The dunerail can make it though. At least it isn't straight up." He stopped to stow the box containing their food in the back seat. "We can do things two ways, Doc. Either we split up and look for a break in the rocks while the rail recharges or we both go in one direction. Your call."
"We stick together."
"You sure? We can cover more area separately, save a little time."
"We stick together."
He shrugged and started rummaging in the back seat again, muttering to himself as he did so.
Julia turned and looked at him, shading her eyes from the sun as she did so. "What was that? I didn't quite catch it."
He straightened up, a mag pro in his hands. "I was just saying a feeling of deja vu washed over me like a wave of chlorine."
She couldn't help smiling. "I always thought Devon had the right idea. Cracking the whip around you is the only way to keep your attention. You have an irritating habit of thinking yourself invincible and right all the time."
"Because I usually am."
"In your dreams, Danziger."
"Ha. Speaks the woman as anxious to get up this hill as I am."
"It doesn't mean you're always right. Just, maybe, this time."
He sighed loudly. "One day I'm going to meet a woman who doesn't think the greatest sport in two solar systems is to make John Danziger feel like an idiot twenty four hours a day. Sorry thing is, I've gotten so used to being face down in the dirt that I probably won't know what to do with her when I find her."
Julia laughed and went around the dunerail to get the canteens and a small bag of her first aid materials, should they need them. "I guess you're too confident in yourself, John. It just makes a woman want to knock you down a peg or two. Speaking from personal experience, trying to work with you can be as irritating as hell. Do you want to know what really bothered Devon about you? The ops team didn't start listening to her until you did. The colonists long ago accepted her as their leader, but after the crash she found herself trying to lead a group made up of fifty percent ops crew, and none of them accepted her leadership until you did."
"I kind of figured that. She wasn't real subtle about her anger and hurt feelings in the beginning. That woman had one hell of a sharp tongue."
"Can I ask you why you let her be the leader of the group, instead of taking it for yourself? You could have, you know."
He nodded, watching her fill their canteens. "I know, but she wanted it more than I did."
"That's it!?"
"What?"
"Just, she wanted it more than you?"
"That, and I had my own kid to worry about. After I thought it over, reaching the comm dish was the best chance my daughter had to leave this place. If it meant following Adair, that's what I would do to be certain my kid survived. Besides, she thrived on the pressure, and I never did."
She gaped at him. "Could have fooled me."
"Like you said yesterday - we aren't building a ship here, Doc." He pointed to the east. "Let's try that way. I've been looking at the area below the gap all day and haven't seen a break anywhere. I wonder where all the debris came from? Maybe we'll find something over there."
"Okay. Let's go."

The break in the rocks and foliage they found some time later was the first indication there might be water on top of the hill. At some time in the past a torrent of water had rushed down the hill and swept away anything in it's path. An ugly scar marked the hillside all the way to the top, a three hundred meter wide gash of bare rock from which all soil and plants had been stripped away to a depth of seven meters. It continued across the flat ground of the meadow for several hundred meters before losing it's force and spreading out.
"Where have we seen this before?" Julia asked with a sarcastic smile at Danziger. "It reminds me of the holo Yale showed us of a flash flood. The water came down a hillside and left nothing in it's wake. Not even the hill."
"Yeah," John agreed. "Let's get up there."
"Uh huh."
Though they considered it, walking up the gash was out of the question, even though climbing the rocks would have been easy considering how often they'd done so during their travels across the planet. They didn't want to leave the vehicle behind. They decided to drive the dunerail at a westward angle up the hill and try to end up in the gap they'd been looking at all day. While Julia went back for it, John cleared away some of the smaller rocks and vegetation to form a pass.
Nearly an hour later they crested the hill at the extreme left side of the infamous gap and they were greeted by a sight as unexpected as it was breathtaking. They would never forget it as long as they lived.
The hill was, in fact, the edge of an eroded volcanic crater several kilometers across and the almost perfectly circular caldera was filled with water - but the beauty of the lake was completely lost on the duo. Their attention was riveted to a beauty of another kind - a manmade thing of beauty to two grounded space travelers.
A second catastrophe, an impact in this spot had occurred a split second ago, in geological terms. The ship that had brought them to this planet, their ship, as intact as it could possibly be, (impossibly be!)rested in the water close to the eastern shore of the lake. It's huge, blackened mass was partially covered by the wind tattered parachutes of at least three cargo pods. Still connected to the ship by some miracle and reaching for the sky was the twisted, blackened remnants of one sensor arm, just as John had imagined it.
Julia sat behind the wheel of the dunerail, transfixed by the sight ahead of them as they bounced and rambled toward the shore of the lake.
"Vehicle, stop!" John ordered from the passenger seat and, when it did, climbed out of the dunerail to stare at the end result of his quest. "Will you look at that? She made it down!"
Julia got out, too, and stood and stared. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware she'd almost driven the dunerail into the lake, so surprised was she by the sight of the ship on the ground, but all she could think about now were the implications of the great thing before her. She looked across the rail at John.
"You were right," she said, and ran around the front of the vehicle to throw her arms around his neck. "You were right! You found the ship!"
He whooped and swung her around in a circle, both of them laughing like children. "Right, hell! I was looking for a piece of the sensor arm!"
"But you found the ship!" she shouted into his ear again.
"We found the ship!" he corrected. "Alonzo's goin' to marry you on the spot as soon as he gets here!"
"I told you there was a good reason for me to come along!"

After waiting impatiently for most of the day to hear from her father, True Danziger was startled by the sound of his voice in her ear when the call finally came. Walking behind the transrover with Uly and Yale, she was thinking of climbing aboard the big vehicle and taking a nap, but her father's voice caused her head to turn quickly to the north. Two bright specks of light, flares, hung in the sky above the plateau. She flipped the eyepiece of her gear into place.
"What did you find, Dad?" she asked excitedly.
"Are you ready for this, True girl?" he answered with a smile. "Take a look."
He turned his eyepiece away from himself and she saw a blur of trees, rocks, water (water?), and something enormous she couldn't identify at first. True heard Julia's voice telling John to stop and focus. The picture being sent to her sharpened, and she screamed. Then she was running as fast as she could to the head of the small caravan.
Yale and Uly, startled by her reaction, watched her with consternation.
"What's going on, Yale?" the boy asked.
Yale turned on his gear unit and winced as the sharp pitch of True's excited voice met his eardrum. He gave Uly a small shove. "Let's go find out," he said and began to run after the other child. Uly streaked past him.
"Alonzo! Alonzo!" True called. "Stop! Put on your gear! Everybody put on your gear!"
Hearing his name being called, Alonzo swung his ATV in a tight U turn and barreled toward the little girl waving at him.
"Put on your gear and look, Alonzo! My dad found your ship!"
"My ship?" he repeated as he skidded to a stop alongside her.
On the lip of the extinct volcano, Danziger and Dr. Heller listened and laughed as the excitement among the rest of the group escalated with each person who joined the gear conference.
"John! Is that really it? The ship?" Alonzo's voice exclaimed over the gear.
"Stay cool, okay?" Danziger cautioned. "Yes. It's the ship and in better shape than it has any right to be, but she's never going to fly again, pal. Got that?"
"Oh, man! Oh, man!"
"Lonz? Jake?" he pressed, getting no reply. "You two understand?" He glanced at Julia. "Maybe you'd better talk to them."
She nodded. "Right." She walked a short distance away to switch to a private gear frequency.
"Yale? Can you hear me?" John said, still looking at the ship with his gear optic feed sending it's image to the others.
"Yes, John. I hear you quite well. What a spectacular find you two have made."
"You can say that again. Yale, stop the group right where you are and set up camp. Don't try to follow us today, start out as early in the morning as you can. We drove without taking any breaks and it still took us this long to get here. You should reach the hill by evening and we'll tell you where to set up a camp then. For now, put Zero, and only Zero, on one of the ATVs and tell him to get over here as fast as he can. There is a cargo pod here he should be able to enter. We can start salvaging whatever is inside it as soon as you arrive."
"I understand, John," the older man said. "How many cargo pods came down with the ship?"
"Near as I can tell from the ‘chutes, only three didn't break away. One is still attached to the ship, and I'm guessing two were thrown clear on impact. They're either in the water or on land somewhere close by. Chances are they've been looted if they hit land."
"Danziger. . . I notice the parachutes deployed even though the cargo pods were still attached to the body of the ship. Is that correct?"
Danziger was silent for a moment. "That's right," he confirmed quietly. "They definitely did."
Yale sighed audibly. "I shall send Zero immediately."
"Thanks. I'd appreciate it."
There was a brief silence as both men considered the implications.
"John, can you tell which cargo pods they are?"
"No, not from here. We'll try to get to the ship tomorrow and get a look at the one still attached."
"All right. I'll send Zero on his way while the others are preoccupied with your video feed."

It was nearly dark by the time Danziger and Heller could power down their gear and begin to think about setting up a campsite of their own. The others had been reluctant to let them go, and were now in pretty much the same fix as the two on the crater lip were. Night was falling and tents still needed to be erected.
It took only a few minutes for Heller and Danziger to fashion a simple but functional lean-to from the materials stored on the back seat of the rail. There was plenty of wood around to build a campfire in front of the lean-to, both for the light a fire provided and to deter any wild life that might be in the area from trying to investigate the campsite while they slept later. With dried fruit and meat for their meal, they didn't need the fire for cooking. Perhaps the rest of the group could see it from the meadow.
John and Julia ate quietly in the dunerail as they watched the ship fade from view as the sun set. The moons would not rise until an hour or two after sunset and until then the ship and the lake were lost to sight in the glare of a lumalight.
"John, what was the last conversation you had with Yale about? Something about the parachutes?"
He took a drink of water and looked at her for a long time.
"Are you going to answer me or just stare like that?"
"I don't know if I should tell you. It might be better to wait until tomorrow."
"Better for me or you?"
"You. I'm pretty sure I won't get any sleep tonight because of it."
"I have enough sedaderms for both of us if it comes to that."
He sighed. "All right. Okay." He leaned his head back against the seat and looked at the stars. Still, it took a while before he began. "When we found the third escape pod. . . Well, I didn't tell Devon, or any of you, everything I learned from Les and Alex. Firestein was still lucid enough to tell me who made it aboard the pod before it launched. Julia, at least twelve people didn't make it off the ship." He shifted position and glanced at her for a moment before looking back at the sky. "There are twelve bodies inside that ship out there. From the look of it, one or more of them lived long enough to tap into the programming for the cargo pods still attached to the ship and instructed the chutes to deploy as usual after entry. Those parachutes were only meant to open automatically if the pod was released from the ship. The release command activates the programming. There's no way those chutes out there could have opened unless someone changed the programming and told them to."
Julia looked horrified. "Doesn't Baines know this?" she said softly.
"I didn't tell him. He was asleep in the tent you'd sent down when I talked to Les. Remember what it was like back then, as a group? We were all still fighting with one another over small stupid things. So I wasn't sure if the Martins, if Morgan would be safe if I told anyone we lost twelve crew and colonists because Morgan took the first pod for himself."
"You've known this all along?"
"What good would it have done to tell anyone? It was bad enough I had to know twelve of the people I worked alongside for six years had burned to death in the ship. Do you think Morgan would still be alive if I had told the rest of you?"
"I. . . I don't know." She looked in the direction of the craft in the water. "That's why you and Yale want Zero here ahead of the others. So he can go inside the ship first."
"Of course. Whatever he finds won't be pleasant."
In the following silence they each avoided looking at one another. After a time, Julia seemed to collect herself.
"We'd better get some rest, Danziger. Tomorrow is going to be a tough day." She climbed out of the rail and pulled more of the materials from the back seat. "There is more than enough old parachute silk here. We can use it to sleep on. The ground will still be hard, but not as bad as it could be."
John turned in his seat. "What else is back there? Anything useful?"
"Just the med supplies I brought."
Her shoulders fell and she looked at him helplessly. Her expression seemed to crumble. "Oh, god, John, I didn't bring nearly enough medical gear with me! How can I examine the bodies? How are we going to get them out?"
He reached between the seats and grabbed her wrist gently. "Worry about it tomorrow, okay? Who knows? We might find medical gear in the cargo pod out there."
"It's been in the water over a year, John. Do you really think there will be anything salvagable in it?"
"As far as I can tell, yes. The ship's floating, right? Unless this is a shallow impact crater, and I doubt that, the pod is still water tight." He pulled his hand back. "Can you handle that stuff yourself? I want to talk to the kids before I try to sleep."
She nodded. "Sure. Go ahead."

It didn't take long for either of them to say their good nights to their own particular loved ones at the larger camp, and Julia was grateful when Danziger relayed the news Yale had sent most her medical equipment on ahead with Zero.
After moving the dunerail to a position where it was directly across the campfire from the opening of the shelter, she and Danziger settled into the lean-to for the night, adding enough wood to the fire to keep it burning for hours.
Sleep didn't seem to want to come in a hurry despite how tired they were from the drive.
"John, can I talk to you?" Julia finally broke the long silence between them. They were bedded down alongside one another, their heads close to the fire.
He looked over at her. "No, I think since there are only the two of us here, we should be as silent as possible. Preserve the pristine environment in any way we can."
Julia gave him a look of mock disgust, but he wasn't aware of it. He had closed his eyes. "I'm serious, Danziger. I've wanted to talk to you about something for a long time."
"This isn't about Adair, is it? I've already told you she and I made. . ."
"This is something else." She rolled onto her side and rested her head on her arm.
"All right. What?"
"Well, it goes back to when the group found out I was working for the Council and they left me behind. Later, Alonzo told me when the group was deciding the matter, you and he were the only ones who refused to vote. Was that because of what happened between us, you and me, after the crash?"
"Maybe a little," he admitted, "but it wasn't all of it. I was in the military for ten years, Julia, I knew mind conditioning when I saw it - especially when yours started to unravel. I knew what was happening wasn't all your fault. That, and you were a part of the group. I couldn't take a hand in voting anyone out of the team."
"Lonz said later, too, it was the way you treated me when he brought me back that helped make becoming a part of the group again a lot easier than it could have been. You acted as if I'd never been gone."
"If you recall, Doc, you kept me from blowing up by making Adair get the ZED's worm bullet out of me."
She laughed shortly. "That didn't take much doing. She would have ripped it out with her bare hands if she had to. I mean, you'd have thought it was Uly who'd been shot the way she worried about finding you."
"We're not talking about Adair, here, remember?"
"I know. Sorry."
"Well, to be honest with you, Julia, I went on reconnaissance that day because I thought it was going to be a tough sell for you to rejoin, and I just didn't want to see it." He gave up pretending to try to sleep and raised both hands to lace his fingers behind his head. "I was already angry with everyone, and I didn't think I could handle watching them try to vote you out one more time. I doubt if I'd have had any friends left afterward if it had happened that way."
"I've always wanted to thank you for doing what you did, but I never knew how to go about saying it, so I've tried to do it in other ways. It did, it does, mean a lot to me."
"You're part of the group, Julia. Always have been, always will be. You know what happened with us after the crash had more to do with being glad to be alive after facing and overcoming so many challenges than anything else. Besides, Alonzo hadn't turned on the charm yet."
She smiled. "Actually, he had, but it happened anyway. I could see what happened to Uly affected you as much as it did me. I needed someone to share that with. Plus, you believed in me. You trusted me to be able to keep the group together while Devon and Yale were preoccupied. I was always glad it happened then before anyone had a chance to really find their niche in the group, because after you stood up to Devon about letting the group vote on major issues, I could see she was interested in you and trying not to be. I think you were the first man to ever yell at her in her whole life and be right about what you were saying. And you were a good father. After we started to travel she started pulling you away from the rest of us."
"She was never really interested in me, Julia. She might have been attracted, against her better judgement, but her better judgement made sure it never went farther than that."
"Did she tell you that, or are you deducing it on your own?"
"We talked."
"Then she lied."
"Why would she lie - even when she knew she was going to die?"
"John, she knew about you and Eben and how far back your history went with one another. She watched you grieve for E, just as you watched her grieve for Shepard. You stepped back and gave her space after Shepard, maybe she was stepping back and giving you space after E died."
"We talked before Eben died, Julia. Before any of us started getting sick."
"She knew about E since the day you quit. She lied to you, even at the end. She was letting you go so you wouldn't grieve for her."
Danziger drew in a deep breath and, finally, turned to look at the doctor. "Is that what you're trying to do, Julia? Make me grieve for her?"
"You should, John. You can't hold it in forever."
"I'm not holding anything in. Take my word for it, I've had my moments. I haven't been taking my turns on the ATV to scout ahead just for the good of the group. I've had my moments." He turned to look back at the stars.
For some reason Julia couldn't comprehend her eyes were full of tears. "Good," she said, wiping her face. "I was worried about you." She turned onto her back and looked at the stars, too.
"I didn't want True and Uly to see me," John continued. "I don't want them to be any more frightened than they already are. I don't see happiness in True's eyes anymore when I come back from a scout. I see relief. I'm just trying to put the happiness back in my little girl's eyes."
Julia sat up and turned to him. "John, don't put too much meaning into this. Just accept it for what it is."
She leaned over him and kissed him.

CHAPTER 3

Danziger woke early in the morning. The air was chilly, the fire was a small flame slowly licking its way to the middle of a thick log, and the sun was only a hint on the horizon. He didn't have to look to find out what the weight on his arm was. He carefully pulled it out from beneath Julia's head and rolled out from under the folded parachute material serving as a blanket. Using the warm water in the coffeepot, he wet a section of shirt sleeve and washed up quickly, letting the chill air bite his skin as the water quickly cooled. Only when he was dressed did he look at Julia, still fast asleep, to be sure she was comfortable.
Oh, man!? I'm not that far gone, am I? Why didn't I see that coming before it hit?
He stoked the fire, adding some wood and getting the flames roaring. Julia moved slightly, still asleep, and he kept his eyes on the fire. Deliberately he brought another thought to mind.
Springtime. Hah. The nights and mornings were just as chilly as winter sometimes.
So why the hell wasn't he feeling the cold?
Julia awoke some time later, saw Danziger was gone, and quickly sat up and looked around. It was full daylight and the hilltop was alive around her. She could hear John talking to Zero some way off, their voices barely audible above the sounds of nature close by and the lapping of the water against the shore. The box in which they carried their food was placed nearby on her side of the shelter, along with a container of water and a pack with clothing in it. Yale had certainly thought ahead.
She washed and dressed, then, famished, had a meal of dried fruit and meat. When she finished, she crawled out of the lean-to and stood up, uncapping her canteen as she straightened. She looked around for John and Zero.
The back seat of the dunerail was loaded with supplies which she was sure Zero had brought with him during the night, but the ATV was not here.
It suddenly occurred to her the two of them might have gone to the ship and left her behind. Julia spun around in a circle and moved a few quick steps toward the lake to get a better view of the shore.
"Danziger!" she called, and in the same instant she saw the ATV appear out the trees and bushes far along the shoreline and bounce along with just the zero unit inside it as it moved toward the ship. A moment later she saw the figure of Danziger moving through the trees as he walked back toward the camp.
Of course he wouldn't do that to her. The tension left her body and she went back to the lean-to and climbed into the passenger seat of the dunerail and took a long drink from her canteen. It would be a while before he got back. Plenty of time to think about matters and explain to herself what happened.
Matters? That was a laugh. She made herself say it: to think about the night before and what had caused the kiss that wouldn't quit.
Julia laughed shortly at that, surprising herself that she could laugh at all. She'd done a number of things that had surprised herself the last few days.
Behind her back, far to the south, she knew the rest of the group was on their way to the crater lake, probably had been since sunrise. She knew Alonzo well enough to bet on that, and besides which, both times she spoke to him the evening before there had been a light in his eyes she hadn't seen since the first hours after she'd wakened from cold sleep and gone in search of him on the bridge of the Roanoke. Finding the ship had reignited something inside him, the something that had vanished when he thought he'd been responsible for his ship being lost. Not even the news of Alex Wentworth's sabotage had been able to quell his guilt over abandoning his ship.
John knew it would happen and tried to keep Alonzo's emotions in check, and though she tried, too, Julia knew it wouldn't be so easy to do this time. Whatever fueled the drive, the ambition, the desire to be a starship pilot - to explore space and never grow old - whatever it was that made Alonzo and Jake Baines choose sleep jumping as their careers. . .it had come back with a vengeance yesterday.
It was called hope. And the two of them had welcomed it back into their lives like lost souls sighting home after a long time away.
As if that wasn't enough to contend with, Julia wondered how the group would take the news when Danziger told them of the people who'd been trapped inside the ship as it fell, of the person or persons who'd tried to save themselves by re-programming the cargo pods to release their parachutes.
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. She couldn't look at the ship anymore.

Somewhere behind her John's voice, carried on the wind, reached her in a garbled form. She climbed out of the rail and looked around.
"Danziger?"
She dug into her pocket for her gear. "Danziger?" she called out. "Where are you?" She put the gear set on her head and her fingers searched for the power up switch. "John? Are you there?"
For once he had his gear on and answered her almost immediately.
"Yeah, Julia. What's up?" His optical unit was in place. Julia could see he was walking through a sparsely wooded area with limited underbrush. Behind him, the sun was almost hidden by the trees, but now and then a ray from it would halo his hair.
"What are you doing? I heard you shouting just now."
He looked a little embarrassed, but over the gear channel's feed she couldn't be certain. "Just sent Zero ahead to the ship. We went down to the base of the hill to set a beacon for the others, showing them where to stop and leave the transrover. When I get back to camp we'll take the dunerail and follow Zero."
"Have you talked to the others yet?"
"Yeah. They were on their way before full sun up. I saw the transrover's lights when I got up this morning. Zero got here during the night and waited for us to wake up."
"Oh." She paused to consider that. "Anything I can do?"
"Uh. . . Start breaking camp. Let's go to the ship. Zero is going to see if he can get to the cargo pod."
"What do you think the chances are of finding tools or vehicles in it?"
"Pretty good, I'd say. Devon said each one had at least one vehicle of some kind in it. Maybe another Zero unit." He didn't sound too happy about that. "Hard to say without a manifest. Something we never had to begin with."
"Maybe Zero will find one on the ship. If the interior didn't reach flashpoint we might find a lot of things - besides the . . . you know."
"Hmm. Maybe. I'll be there in a little while." He moved aside his optics and his gear unit went off.
Taking down the shelter was not a big job, untying and folding the materials was all it took. Julia threw a few handfuls of dirt on the fire. She rinsed her hands and poured the wash water over the embers to be sure it was out. Satisfied it was, she climbed into the dunerail to wait. The camp was still shaded by the trees but the sun was higher in the sky now and the dunerail was dappled in shade and light. This was truly a beautiful spot.
The ship, which had seemed so beautiful yesterday, was the only blemish on the scenery. She wished it wasn't so, but knowing what was inside chilled her to the bone. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it.

"Julia!"
She heard her name being called and opened her eyes, and was surprised, because she didn't remember closing them. Still absorbed in her reverie, Julia stood and called out, "Over here!" before it clearly registered in her mind the voice was that of a woman, and a very familiar voice it was, too.
A smiling figure was walking towards her from the west and Julia caught her breath sharply when she recognized the young woman. She stood frozen as the apparition of Eben Sinh neared the dunerail and walked around it. Shouldn't a ghost walk through objects in her way? Julia thought wildly and took a step backwards.
The ghost of Eben stopped walking and leaned her head to one side, giving her an exasperated look. "Oh, come on, Julia," it chided. "I thought you'd be one of the few in the group who wouldn't get scared and run away if you saw me. Where's your scientific curiosity?"
The apparition stopped in front of the dunerail and lifted one foot to rest on the front fender. The boot made a soft clang as it touched the metal.
Julia stared at the boot, then raised her eyes to look at the face of the other woman. "Eben? Is that really you?"
The ghost laughed. "Of course, it is! I wanted to talk to you before John gets back."
"How...? Oh, my god, how can this be?"
The other woman lowered her leg and slowly walked forward, holding her hands out. Her feet made scuffing and crackling sounds in the dirt and stones and dried grasses on the ground. She stopped in front of the doctor, still holding out her hands.
"We're not on Earth anymore," she said gently. "Please. Don't be afraid. Take my hands."
Julia stood frozen.. This had to be a dream. Definitely a dream She was having a Terrian dream because. . . Eben Sinh simply could not be here!
Not only that, but, oh god, Julia thought, this has happened before!
Julia stared at the hands held out before her for a long time before she could will her own to reach out and touch them, first tentatively , and then, with astonished curiosity. She looked up and Eben smiled at her. She touched the face of the young woman, her hair and her clothes.
"I don't know how I do it," Sinh said with a rueful smile. "I just know that for a short period of time, if I really concentrate hard, I can be as real as I used to be. Wishful thinking, perhaps. I know I'm dead, or my body is, anyway, but the rest of me is still here."
"Eben, how is this possible?"
"That's what I came to talk to you about. I'm to tell you, to remind you, this isn't Earth and it isn't the stations. This is a living planet and you should keep that in mind, first and foremost from now on. Start thinking like a citizen of this world. You've seen enough strange things in your short time here to know that anything is possible. I'm proof of that, wouldn't you say?"
Julia felt a wave of sorrow come over her. "I'm sorry, Eben. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. . . I didn't know until it was too late."
Eben shook her head. "Don't be, Julia. I have a purpose here. I don't know what it is yet, but I know I died to make a difference. Wherever it is I am at now, the dream plane - well, it's wonderful. Don't be sorry for my sake. I chose to be here." She drew in a deep breath. "We'll talk again, Julia. I have to go. I'm still learning to hold this form and I can't stay for long. I'll see you."
With those words the image of Eben Sinh vanished and Julia opened her eyes. She was standing in front of the dunerail and she was alone at the campsite. Even so she could hear Eben's voice in her head, though she didn't remember the apparition saying anything more to her.
"The Mother is worried about Uly. He misses his mother, and in spite of his genetic changes and his strong bond with the Terrians, the Mother is worried he might lose his ability to communicate with them. She doesn't want to lose him as a link the way she lost Mary. He must be allowed to contact them physically. Not just in dreams. Alonzo can help. Julia, remember this."
And then she remembered why those words were in her mind.

Danziger came out of the trees and saw that Julia had been busy. The lean-to was dis assembled and the dunerail was packed with all the materials they'd used for camp. Julia was standing at the front of the rail and facing the lake.
"Hey!" he called and almost stopped short in surprise himself when the doctor jumped and spun around, her eyes wide and mouth open as if to scream.
She relaxed, looking a trifle embarrassed as she tried to sound annoyed. "Danziger! Don't sneak up on people like that!"
He smiled, not wanting to laugh out loud. A startled Julia he could take, but an angry one? Not this early in the day.
"I told you I was coming."
"Twenty minutes ago!"
"Five minutes," he corrected. He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "I was right back there when we talked."
She was about to protest, but she didn't want to tell him about her dream. She would let it go until she could think about the odd message the ghost of Eben Sinh had brought to her. Instead, she indicated the campsite with a sweep of her arms.
"All packed. We can be on our way."
Danziger shrugged. "Okay."
They both climbed into the dunerail, but when John reached to manually activate the engine, Julia reached out and clasped her hand over his wrist.
"John, we need to talk about last night," she said, looking and sounding apologetic. "Look, I don't. . . I don't know why. . ." She gestured helplessly with her other hand.
"You don't know why it happened?" he asked. "Hell, I do."
She looked at him sharply and opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his other hand to stop her. "It happened because we're alive, Julia. It might feel like we died with Eben, you trying to save her, me watching her ebb away, but we didn't. Sometimes it feels as if we're back there, suspended in time with Devon, but we're not. We're alive. Something inside of us - I don't know what - decided it was time to give our brains a clue. We're still among the living, Julia, and I haven't felt this good in months. It's time to get rid of the guilt and the sorrow and get on with life. I don't know about you, but I'm more than ready."
Damn if he didn't make sense. Julia smiled and nodded her head once. "I think you're right."
"Well, you say that with such enthusiasm. Now I don't know what to do with myself."
She laughed. "Let's go after Zero."
Danziger started the engine. "That's what I want to hear. The old pioneering spirit Devon said we all had in us."
Julia settled back in her seat. "I thought we weren't going to be talking about Devon," she said over the sound of the vehicle' tires moving over the ground.
"Why not? It's time to stop talking about her in the past tense. She's still a part of the group."
Swinging the dunerail around in a circle, Danziger aimed for a path through the trees and they were on their way.
Julia took her personal gear log out of her pocket and put on. She leaned back in the seat, turning her head slightly away from Danziger and she began to speak softly into her log.

As Danziger drove the dunerail through the woods, I looked toward the lake and, through the trees, I saw the ship that had fallen into it. I thought of, and marveled at, the extraordinary luck that helped keep it intact through it's deadly fall from the sky. It was the same luck that led Danziger and me to it's resting place when the group could easily have walked past it - when I could have easily persuaded him to let it go if I'd tried hard enough.
That same stroke of luck put us on this lakeshore for one night away from the rest of the crew. One night when the two of us could help one another face life again as confident and determined individuals. From going through the motions and forcing ourselves to live from day to day, we have wakened from our grief and cast aside our guilt and we have found the reserves of strength within us that will take us to the ocean, and that will help us both welcome Devon Adair back into our midst. And she will be rejoining us soon. I know it." Julia Heller, M.D.

CHAPTER 4

The main group stopped for a midday meal and took a few extra minutes to let the vehicles recharge even though they all wanted to be immediately on their way. Baines and Solace were far ahead of them, a reflection of sunlight in the haze was all that could be seen of them as they pushed farther and farther ahead. In the excitement of the day, no one really noticed the oddly subdued manner of the Martins.
When the solar collectors were sufficiently charged and the group resumed their travel, the couple hung back with the sentry bringing up the rear, and followed behind the ‘rover.
"Morgan," Bess said, slipping her hand under his arm, "we've faced this situation before and we were able to get through it. These are good people. When they learn the truth, I can't imagine any of them turning away from us."
"Us? Of course not us!" He looked at her with uneasiness. "It's me they'll start to judge again! You can intervene all you want, but they'll never blame you. They know I was the one who took the pod. I told them so, remember?"
"Things have changed. All of us have changed."
Morgan rolled his eyes. "Bess, we were lucky the first time! Danziger didn't know about the– about the– He didn't know anyone was left behind. Do you really think it would have been the same if he'd known when we told them then?"
"I'm not going to second guess the past, Morgan. I'm talking about now. I believe in these people and I'm sure you're worried about nothing."
"Twelve dead people are not nothing! They're people who died because of what I did. Doesn't that get through to you at all, Bess?"
She gave him a stern look. "Of course, it does. I'm not saying there won't be anger or reproach, Morgan. I'm saying afterward these people will forgive and forget."
There was a pause. "How long afterward?"

The dunerail alternately weaved between the trees or skirted them altogether whenever the beach sand along the lake was wide enough to allow passage. After a while Julia stopped making notes and tucked away her gear. The glimpses of the ship looming closer and closer were far too amazing to ignore. Whenever they left the trees and had an unobstructed view she couldn't take her eyes from the craft.
She had never really looked at the ship when it was in dock at the stations, and while coming aboard in the shuttle her mind had been on other things, certainly not on the ship. Ships were the mode of travel among the stations and she never really took notice of the exterior of the vessels she'd flown aboard, only the interiors. Ships were commonplace, nothing special.
On land, Roanoke was so big it was almost frightening in it's size, and it was getting bigger with every meter as they approached.
Julia tried to keep her attention away from it and her mind off what she knew to be inside.
"Danziger?" she said. "I don't want you to think taking me along on scouts is going to become a habit. Just because my being here was a life altering experience for you this time, doesn't mean I'm going to come along every time."
"Life altering–? What the hell are you talking about?" He gave her a quick, frowning glance, not wanting to take his attention from the trees for too long.
"You said that after last night you were feeling better than you have for months. I heard you yelling around in the woods like a kid this morning. So I just thought I'd better tell you." She didn't look in his direction or she'd laugh, she just followed his reactions out of the corner of her eye.
He looked at her again and made a sound that might have been a laugh - it was hard to tell over the sound of brush, sticks and leaves being crunched under the dunerail's wheels. "Well, you're awfully full of yourself today. We found the ship, Heller! Remember? That might have a little something to do with it, don't you think?"
"Okay. If you say so."
"I'm not getting into this with you."
"Okay." She sat up straighter in her seat. "Okay."
He glanced her way one more time, though.

Danziger stopped their headlong pursuit of the ATV only twice. Once when they reached the rift in the ground where water had poured over the banks and rushed downhill, taking everything in its path with it. The foot of which was where they had found a way up the high hill. The beach sand had filled in the top of the broken area and they crossed a small downward dip with only a few bumps on the rocks sticking out of the sand. Tire tracks from the ATV showed Zero had done the same.
The second time was when it became apparent Zero had reached the area of shore nearest the ship. His tiny white form walked stiffly toward the beach.
John got out of the dunerail and watched. He snapped on his gear. "Zero, can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir, I can."
"Stop on the beach and give me a three sixty visual." He swung the optics in front of his eyes. "Damn! I wish we brought a monitor with us."
"Yes, sir." The robot stopped moving a few steps later and began a slow, counterclockwise turn in place. The ship appeared as a black wall devoid of features directly in front of him, but soon the rippling surface of the lake appeared, and the blackness moved out of sight. From Zero's point of view they could see the water and distant shorelines, the gap in the treeline where they had made camp, the approximate area where Danziger and Heller thought they were now, then a long glimpse of the woods between them and Zero.
The ATV came and went from sight, more trees and, all of a sudden, both Julia and John yelled, "Stop!"
Zero complied immediately. Just off center of the video feed he was transmitting was a large, dark, square shape tucked in among the trees.
"Zero, is that a cargo pod?" Danziger asked.
"Negative. It is a dwelling."
"A what?!" the two of them said at once.
"It is a dwelling."
"Give us a close-up view," said Danziger.
"How can you be sure?" said Heller.
The perspective changed and the dark shape in the trees grew larger, but the image did not show the "dwelling" more clear in any way. The shade from the trees, thicker in that region of the wooded area, was not giving up it's secrets.
Julia was shaking her head. "That can't be, can it?" she asked in a low voice. Then, raising her voice. "Zero, what makes you think it's a building and not a cargo pod?"
"I am scanning power readings coming from the dwelling and a power source outside the dwelling itself."
"Why didn't you tell us before?" she asked.
"The readings are in powered down mode. I did not pick them up until I aimed my scanners directly at the dwelling."
"Okay, Zero," Danziger said. "Do what we planned for you. See if you can reach the ship and get to the cargo pod. We'll be there in a few minutes to check out the. . . The dwelling." He looked at Julia. "That explains why we didn't pick them up on our scans either."

Against all probability, the structure in the trees was indeed a thing built by beings and not something natural. And, it was not among the trees at all, Danziger and Heller discovered, but in a shaded, small clearing and alongside it was a solar collector much like the one the group used to power their lasers and equipment. It was a storage facility, one of many such snap-together units that had been packed into the cargo pods for use by the Advance team after they arrived at G889 to begin work building the colony. And the door was locked.
Julia didn't know whether to laugh or curse, but, thankfully, Danziger still seemed to be feeling the effects of the last eighteen hours. After staring at the lock in disbelief, he motioned her back a few steps and blew the door open with the mag-pro. It flew open on its hinges and hit the inner wall with a thud. Inside the dark interior of the storage unit the unmistakable sound and flicker of medical bioscanners glowed faintly.
"What is this? Danziger, I need a luma–" She got no further. She'd no sooner stepped over the threshold than the inside of the small building was flooded with light.
Though dim, perhaps from low power, a motion detector must have activated the lights. Whatever they might have thought would be inside, they certainly didn't expect to find five stasis chambers lined against the left wall, all operating within normal parameters. A single zero unit, in shutdown mode, stood at the end of the line of chambers. There appeared to be lines running from it's chest area to the floor. Along the other walls were gray lengths of material covering what appeared to be stacked freight.
The doctor rushed to read the life signs on the displays, glancing inside the chambers at each occupant. "I don't believe it! They're actually alive! Slow but steady. . . everything! Heartbeats, respiration." She gave Danziger a look of wonder. "The chambers are experimental, John! We were bringing them to perfect, to work the bugs out on animals or plants. Not humans. Well, volunteers, but only after experimentation." She knew she was babbling and made the effort to stop. "After extensive experi . . mentation."
Danziger was looking at the people and nothing else. They were in various states of undress with bandages or synthetic skin covering their flesh. "These two are crew. I know them. Don't recognize her or him. Colonists. That one is crew, too. They're all injured."
"I can see that! Burns, I'd guess," Julia answered, looking from one to the other as if trying to decide what to do. "If they were on the ship it most likely would be that, you know. Burns."
"Yeah." Danziger looked around, brushing his hair back as he did. "How the hell did they get off that ship?"
"I don't know!" she answered. "You tell me! You said you spent four years building the ship. How could anyone survive the heat and the crash?"
He shook his head slowly, still looking around the interior. "They couldn't have. The ship was shaking so badly it had to be breaking apart. We thought it was breaking apart. With all the pods gone, they would have– They would have– They must have made it to the lander! The ship out there is still in one piece, so if they were able to get the lander away –"
"The lander?"
"The landing shuttle you and the rest of the Advance team were going to use to be brought to the surface." Danziger turned to look directly at her. "Come on, Doc. Why do you think Baines and Solace are in such a hurry to get here? They know about the shuttle. It was supposed to be the primary vehicle for the ground team to travel place to place on the planet."
Julia nodded. "Of course. I don't know why I didn't think of it. They think they're going to find it here." She started to look around the interior, too. "Well, there must be a record somewhere. Whoever erected this shed and put these people into the chambers must have left a message. Alonzo is going to want to know what happened to it; who took the lander."
A single gear chip lay under a draped cloth that also covered a stack of small crates, on top of which was a small com unit similar to the one the group used. The message was short and simple. When Danziger hit the power switch and placed the chip in the unit's slot, the face of the Eden Advance crew's warrant officer, Britt Navarro, appeared immediately on the screen. Her blond hair was tied back away from her face, which was bandaged along one side and showed reddened areas across her forehead and the uncovered cheek and jaw. She was wearing a crew jacket over what appeared to be a dirty and torn jumpsuit. Part of her neck seemed to be bandaged, too.
Always by the book, Danziger thought. Never out of uniform. He looked at Julia. "Navarro was a sleep jump veteran. Good head on her shoulders. Whoever is with her has a chance."
Julia nodded.
The image on screen was saying:
"I am Britt Navarro, warrant officer aboard the Eden Advance ship Roanoke. It has been nine planetary days since we reached the surface of planet G889. I speak for the survivors of the ops crew of the Eden Project's advance ship, and for the members of the Eden Advance Team who didn't make it off the ship in the escape pods. Twelve crew and advance members were unable to reach them before they were jettisoned from the Roanoke. We were on our way to the lower decks to prep the lander and load personal items when the alarms went off. We could see the chaos on the decks above us after the ship started to shake. We wouldn't have been able to make it back up to the main decks. We were closer to the lander so I took it upon myself to order everyone with me into the shuttle. While we were powering up the engines, a couple of the mechanical engineers from the crew and some of Advance were worried we wouldn't be able to launch ourselves before we hit atmosphere. We heard over our gear that the cargo pods were not being jettisoned and were pulling the ship down. The five people you see in the stasis tubes volunteered to try to reprogram the codes to release the parachutes on the stuck cargo pods in the event the ship was to make it through the atmosphere in a stable enough condition to allow us to jettison the lander. They were inside the shuttle bay at the comp consoles through most of the ship's fall and they were badly burned by the rising heat. Fortunately the ship held together by some miracle and the interior didn't get hot enough to ignite. It was uncomfortable, but not what we expected. Some of us were able to get them back into the shuttle, suffering minor burns from touching surfaces in the bay in doing so. Whatever those five did, it worked. By the time the shuttle was ready for launch, the ship was through the atmosphere and the pods still attached to it were able to slow our descent just enough to give us a few seconds to launch the shuttle. We think the shuttle's engines might have helped slow the ship's descent somewhat, too. We were tossed around, but someone had the presence of mind to hit the auto-landing cycle of the shuttle before we crashed. We had a hard landing, but the craft stayed intact and we suffered only minor injuries. We did what we could for the injured, while those of us who were in better shape explored outside the lander. We came down about two kilometers east of this structure. We decided to call the sunrise east and the other directional points as they do on Earth. We found one cargo pod on land, another was in the water and a third is still attached to the ship. Seven days ago we got the nearby cargo pod open. We found some emergency rations inside, no doubt meant for Advance until they could start growing crops. We also found medical equipment and some enclosing chambers one of the colonists says are experimental stasis tubes. We have five people with severe burns on their hands and other burns on their bodies. We've been treating them with synthflesh from the med supplies, but we are running out of it fast, and it doesn't appear they are getting better. We decided two days ago to clean their wounds as best we can and bandage them with what supplies we have left and put them into the chambers. We built this storage unit for the tubes and we're going to power it with a solar collector one of the advance team crew knows how to erect and operate."
The image on the screen paused for a moment, as if to gather her thoughts.
"It took us four days to get the lander's com equipment to work. The craft has damage somewhere we haven't been able to locate. We immediately picked up signals, nine in all, some to the south of us, more to the east and southeast of us. The ship is dead, no signal, and we were able to silence the blips on the nearby pods. Over the last couple of days we've lost the signals to the east of us. They all went out one by one over a course of many days. We're still getting two steady signals from the southeast., and a very strong one is coming from the south. Gower, one of the colonists believes it to be the com dish which, he said, was supposed to be released first to provide a beacon for aiming the cargo pods when they were released and for the shuttle to follow down. We have no reason to believe it wasn't. As I said, the shuttle is damaged, so we talked it over and decided to try to fly to the com dish. Looking for the escape pods, whose signals we might not be receiving anymore, would take us farther away from the dish, and with no beacons to follow we might search in the wrong places. We're going to leave the stasis pods here and come back for them later. There is no room aboard the shuttle and no way to power them inside a cargo pod. We used the lander to pull the one out of the water. We're going to take as much as we can from the pod on the ground, the one we've been living in, and pack it into the second one. The building materials will stay here. We'll carry it beneath the lander and try to reach the com dish. If we can do it, we'll be back for the five who saved us, and then the pod still on the ship. We're hoping the escape pods came down safely. If they did, then we figure the people in them will know to look for the com dish signal, too, and try to reach it. If at all possible, when we're finished we'll try to fly the lander east, in the direction we heard what could have been the escape pod signals and look for survivors, or more cargo pods. We're leaving a damaged zero unit behind with all additional information we can think of. It will be hooked up to the tubes to monitor them and open them if anything happens to the structure while we're gone. We are leaving tomorrow, the tenth day since we made it to land. The five in the tubes are Stockwell, Mason, Hernandez, Lynch and Austin. The seven of us who will try to reach the com dish are Holden, Weigman, Kauffman, Gower, Vergos, Beach and Navarro."
With an audible intake of breath, Navarro deactivated the recording and her image disappeared. The monitor went dark.

Danziger hesitated only a moment before he started for the zero unit. "Tell you what. I'll hook up the zero and you look at whatever information he has. I'll go out and see how our zero is doing."
"One by one the signals to the east went out." Julia stood watching at the static flicker on the monitor. "I wonder what they thought."
He shrugged and spoke over his shoulder. "Don't know. Must have been when we stripped the pods for parts. We took a lot of wiring and power units from ours and the one the Martins had, not to mention the cargo pod we found."
"John, they left and never came back."
"You heard Navarro. The lander was damaged. Maybe they couldn't risk getting it back in the air." He was busy with the zero's interface panel. "Hand me the monitor cable, will you? I'll send the zero's data directly to the desk unit."
Danziger finished what he was doing and approached the doctor's still form. She was looking at the monitor, standing still with her arms crossed at her waist. From behind, he gripped her upper arms and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Don't lose it on me, okay Doc? I'll talk to Yale while I'm outside. You find out if there is anything you can do for these five, and if there isn't, that's okay. They're alright where they are."
She nodded her head, and spoke in a low voice. "I know. But when we leave they'll have to stay behind. We can't take them with us either."
"You're always jumping ahead in the story, Heller. Just this once, take things as they come."
"I know, I know. Use my imagination."
He patted her shoulder. "What a good idea. See you later."
She sat on a box close to the com setup and listened as Danziger left the shed and walked away from it. Some things were easier said than done. It was too easy to feel an empathy for the people who had come to land here. Julia remembered all too well the first few hours after her own group found themselves in a similar situation.
Well, there would be time to think about it all later. There were things she had to do now. She reached into her pocket for her gear unit and remembered she'd left it in the dunerail. She'd have to call Alonzo and tell him the news. She wasn't going to let Danziger handle all of the difficult parts when talking to the others. He'd handled them for too long as it was. Getting up from the box, she followed John outside.
Danziger went as far as the edge of the lake before stopping to snap on his gear and beep in a private channel to Yale. He looked upward at the ship to see if the robot was making any progress reaching the cargo pod. He didn't hear Julia behind him when she approached the dunerail and grabbed the jacket with her gear in its pocket.
"Is Morgan with you?" Danziger asked as soon as Yale answered his call. "What have you told him? Anything yet?"
"Yes. Last night after we stopped and set up the camp, I took the opportunity to talk to him and Bess at that time." The older man sighed deeply. "I found it difficult. They were stunned, as you can imagine."
"Yeah, well, things have changed. Tell Morgan to put on his gear. I need to talk to him."
"Of course."
When Morgan's image replaced that of Yale on the gear channel, Danziger lost no time in getting to the point.
"No one died on board the ship, Morgan. Everyone got off," he said and paused. "Everyone got off."
Julia listened and watched through her gear; saw the fear on the face of Morgan Martin turn to disbelief, to relief, to joy and then to nothing as he put his hands over his face and knocked his gear off his head.
Never taking her eyes off Danziger, she made the call to Alonzo.

Alonzo kicked the ground and raised his fist helplessly before swearing under his breath and stalking off across the grassy meadow in frustration. Behind him Baines sank to the ground beside the ATV and leaned his back against it, raising his face to the sky.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn!" Solace shouted at the clouds. "This can't be happening!"
Oh, it wasn't that he was cursing those who took the shuttle for saving their own lives. He was too disheartened for that. He'd been so sure the shuttle would be there.
It had been a long shot from the beginning, but seeing the ship in the water as close to whole as it would ever be again, had been electrifying to the two men. They had realized at the same instant that if the ship was down in one piece, the landing shuttle would have to be in it's docking port. From that moment on, nothing could have stopped Solace and Baines from reaching the site of the fallen craft in as short a time a possible.
The shuttle would have been their salvation. Assuming it was undamaged and not underwater, they might have been able to get it working and been in the position to reach New Pacifica in a matter of days.
Alonzo walked back to the ATV and sank to his knees in front of Baines. "Well. . ."
"Yeah." Baines looked at him. "I heard."
He had the grace to look embarrassed by his outburst. "It never once entered my mind that not everyone made it to the escape pods. We waited. . . we waited that extra few seconds and the passageways were empty. I thought I was the last one out." He drew in a breath. "I was at the hatch. I saw the ship hit atmo. I thought it was burning."
"Lonz," Baines said softly. "Britt Navarro might still be alive."

"Hey, come on, Julia, be sensible. The old snake charmer is almost here. We can't be doing this." Yet even as he tried to not follow her toward the shelter, he knew once begun only a change in their circumstances was going to end it. The trouble was, the change was not arriving fast enough.
"There's plenty of time," she told him over her shoulder. "That was a nice thing you did for Morgan. I can see everything so clearly now. Why you've been so hard on him. Why you've never tried to settle things with him. In spite of all of that, you did a good thing, John. I'd even call it a noble thing."
He made a ‘come off it' gesture with his hands and head. "I told him the truth. You want to get all crazy over the truth, fine." He stopped in the doorway of the storage unit knowing he was going to continue inside, but making the effort to stop to ease his own conscience. After all, once begun. . .
"I'm talking about all of it," she said. "Not just what you did a minute ago, but how you kept the secret for so long. In spite of what you might have been feeling about Morgan - and I never understood why your antagonism toward him lasted for so long, until now - you protected him. Don't deny it!" She moved her hands upward and laid them on his shoulders. "That's exactly what you did."
Once begun. . .
Julia stayed on the padding made of fallen fabric, eyes closed, letting her respiration and heartbeat return to normal. She could hear Danziger getting dressed. Chicken! she thought, making herself smile. As if he couldn't take the old snake charmer if it ever came to that. Which it wouldn't. There would be no more opportunities for them once the others–
Wait a minute!
She opened her eyes and sat up quickly. "Danziger, did you call me a snake?"
Amusement immediately flashed into his eyes, but he tried to look nonplussed. "Just give me a three step head start. That's all I ask."

CHAPTER 5

Coaxing the little ATV up the steep incline of the hillside was almost as slow as walking. Alonzo sat on the back and tried not to fall off. The little ATV was one of those cobbled together from spare parts from the Bennett ship, and its suspension system left quite a bit to be desired. He was waiting until they got closer to the top of the hill before jumping off and running the rest of the way. He had to see for himself how his ship had come down, see for himself it was indeed a burned out, useless hulk. Until he did he knew that little ray of hope in his heart would continue to dream of flying again. No matter what John or Julia said about the condition of the ship he wanted there to be hope. Hope of some kind. Any damn kind.
When he couldn't stand it anymore, Alonzo leaped from the ATV and scrambled up the hillside toward the trees at the top.
"Alonzo!" Baines yelled. Unable to follow, he had to choice but to keep going at an angle toward the gap in the trees just ahead. Freed of half the weight it was carrying, the little vehicle lurched ahead and the whine of the motor rose with its speed.
"Should have jumped off earlier," he said to himself, knowing Alonzo was too far away to hear.
The ATV flew over the remaining distance and he turned hard to face the lake. He roared past the stand of trees and skidded to a halt at the lake's edge, not knowing he was almost exactly where the dunerail had stopped the day before.
Baines stared above the rippling surface of the water and saw only the ship. From somewhere to his right he could hear Alonzo screaming at the top of his lungs, the sound carrying clearly on the wind. Baines' full attention was on the ship lying in the water, two of it's engines submerged, the other two partially above the water. It was canted at almost a forty five degree angle, the lone sensor arm bent by the heat of atmospheric entry and pointing straight upward at the sky. The supports and struts for the sensory equipment that used to be there were bent, twisted and curled back on themselves and looking very much like gnarled tree branches - even from a vantage point this close.
To think someone lived through the fall, he told himself. After a few more moments of silent staring, Baines turned the ATV toward the trees and went to look for Solace.

Alonzo was sitting on the top edge of the narrow beach ringing the lake, his feet just inches above the wet sand where the shallow waves lapped continuously. If he heard the ATV approach he gave no sign of it.
Getting off the ATV, Baines moved to stand beside his friend.
Alonzo waved his hand sharply at the ship. "It was the sensor arm. I thought it was still in position. From the gear feed it wasn't clear it was off by forty-five degrees. I was hoping the engines were dry. With engines there's power. . ."
"Yeah. If it's water tight the two partially under might be okay."
"What good will it do?" Alonzo demanded angrily. "No power, no landing craft."
Baines leaned down to pat the other man on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's find Danz and Julia."
"Yeah." Solace got to his feet but stood staring across the distance at the ship for a long time. When he turned toward the ATV his face was set in anger. Baines knew exactly what he was feeling.
It's no good, though. Waste of time to be angry, he thought. Danziger said it would never fly again and he was right.
The remaining distance to the site of the ship seemed to take forever to cross, but at last the dunerail came into view just ahead on a grassy space next to the beach. Not far away, Danziger was sitting on the ground much as Alonzo had done, but he was watching the progress of Zero and not actually staring at the ship. He was chewing on a ration bar and a canteen lay on the ground beside him.
The two men left the ATV and walked toward him. He looked in their direction and pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Storage shelter is through the trees," John said. "Julia's there with the survivors. Navarro's message is there, too."
"How's Zero doing?" said Baines. "Making any progress?"
Danziger sighed. "Slow, but, yeah. He's placing ropes so we can climb after him. We found a lot of cord and stuff in the shed. I took a lot of it out to him."
"What are you waiting for? Let’s follow him!" Alonzo asked. "There might be a flight vehicle in there!"
"Also might be nothing but melted building materials inside. I'm not going up until I know the pod is accessible. No one is going until then."
Without another word, Solace spun on his heel and stalked away into the trees.
John grunted. "He's not taking it too good is he?"
"He still had his hopes up. Hell, so did I. I still do."
"What about Navarro? Solace say anything?"
"He wouldn't talk about her. I brought it up, he shot it down."
Danziger barked a laugh without humor. "Time is catching up with the sleep jumper." He got to his feet. "Well, now that you two are here, I'm going to drive up the shore and see if any of the two higher engines have water in them."
"I'll go with you," Baines said. "I was thinking about that myself."
Danziger nodded and moved his gear into place. "Okay. We'll take the rail. Julia? Baines and I are going to drive around the lake and see what condition the engines are in. Shouldn't take too long."
"Alright. But keep your gear on and check in," Julia's image told him.
"We will."
"Where's Alonzo?"
"Coming your way."

In the cool shade of the trees, Alonzo stopped walking. He didn't hear Baines following him, but he turned to look to be sure. He saw him getting into the dunerail with Danziger. Alonzo let out a heavy sigh and felt tears fill his eyes.
Damn it! he thought. This isn't about Navarro! Pull yourself together. This isn't about Navarro at all. The ship, for god's sake. It's the ship...
His emotions weren't listening to his rationalizations. He put a hand out to a nearby tree and sank to the ground beside it. Leaning against it, he let himself feel relief flood over him and with it a quick flow of tears. He was regaining control and the episode didn't last long. Some part of his brain was telling him it was losing Adair and Sinh, it was moving on without them that was getting to him. The guilt and eventual acceptance of being alive without them, and now this latest disappointment - he told himself all of that was why he was letting Britt Navarro's fate get to him. Of all things to affect him at this time of his life! He wiped at his face and pushed away from the tree, balancing on his knees before rising to his feet. He was in control again.
Alonzo thought he'd put all of that behind him when he'd learned to accept his fate on G889. He'd assumed Britt had died when the Wentworth virus swept through the crew in the last of the escape pods. He'd accepted it and buried it when the Terrians showed him how to live. He'd started over.
"Apparently not," he muttered to himself, taking deep breaths and looking around carefully. The shed was a short distance away and the dunerail was gone from the beach area. Well. . . He stayed in the cool shade for a few minutes longer, getting himself together, before continuing to the shed.
Julia was beside the chambers holding the four survivors from the landing shuttle. With her gear in place, she was busily recording everything she could about the four and the operation of the stasis tubes. She greeted him with a smile and raised a hand, index finger extended to let him know she was almost finished.
Alonzo stopped at the foot of the nearest tube and waited, looking around the interior of the storage unit. He wondered what was in the crates and boxes piled against the wall opposite the stasis tubes. A zero unit was connected to a com screen at the far end of the shed. He went over and sat down on the small box that had been placed there. He stared at the floor and listened while Julia spoke softly into her gear, making a record of her observations. It made him wince to hear the extent of their burns and injuries.
After a while, he decided to listen to the message from Britt Navarro, and he turned to the comscreen, found the power and waited while the screen lit up. The message started automatically, and he was momentarily shocked by the physical condition of Navarro. She'd been hurt, perhaps burned herself, yet did her best to keep attention on the others in her group. Not once did she mention her own injuries. He listened, barely aware that Julia had stopped talking when the message began.
When the image of Navarro faded, he turned off the com unit and turned away. He leaned forward on the box, elbows on knees and hands clasped in front of him.
"Alonzo?" Julia asked. She turned back her gear mike and stepped around the end of the stasis chambers, taking a couple of steps toward him. He was clenching and unclenching his fists and shaking his head slowly. "Alonzo? What's the matter?"
He said nothing.
Frowning, Julia's curiosity turned to concern. She'd seen this behavior from him before - immediately after the landing of their pod.
"Alonzo?"
"They didn't come back, did they?" he said more to himself than to her. He waved a hand at the stasis tubes. "These people are still here." He jumped to his feet, clearly upset. "Can't this planet ever give us a break? They might have died after all, Julia! They probably are dead! Look at Navarro, how she tried to cover up her injuries. I thought she got off the ship and died with the others in the third pod. Then I hear she's alive, but now everything points to her being dead for a year anyway!"
"Alonzo, there is every chance–"
He turned to glare at her. "None of them knew how to fly the lander!" he said. "O'Neill and Yale were trained to fly it - no one else! Baines and I trained them ourselves. They were going to teach the other colonists after we were gone. These people took it and saved themselves through sheer luck and guesswork! They were lucky to make it to land at all."
"Well, so were we all," Julia pointed out. "Two of the pods were overloaded, carrying far more than they were designed to safely bear. We were lucky the excess weight didn't cause them to break apart on impact."
"You don't understand!"
"What don't I understand? That you're angry the warrant officer and some others saved their own lives by taking the landing craft you were hoping would still be here?"
Alonzo stared at her for a second and then turned away, pretending to look at the stasis tubes. He felt embarrassed that she had come to know him so well, that she had hit upon the truth so easily. He knew it was selfish of him, even heartless to be so angry at desperate people who only wanted to live.
But he had just wanted to fly again. Of course, Julia knew that.
"Alonzo, we've just come through a difficult time as a-"
Alonzo whirled around. "What do you know about it, Julia?" he said, his anger talking loudly and clearly. "With your preprogrammed life laid out ahead of you? What do you know about having to abandon your skills and training? What do you know about feeling like a failure everyday of your life?"
Julia pulled the gear from her head and stared at Alonzo, and all of a sudden he came to his senses and bit back his anger. She could see that, but she wasn't about to let it go.
"What do I know about feeling a failure? What do I know about something that far below a, a . . . chromotilt like me? Is that what you're asking? Okay, I'll tell you what I know about it! In case it has slipped your mind, Mr. Solace, the leader of our expedition, the person paying us to be here, the mother a young boy who probably cries himself to sleep at night from missing her - that person isn't here with us sharing in this fantastic experience because she is dying and I have no idea how to save her! She is in a cold sleep tube getting farther and farther away from us because try as I might I can't seem to find a cure for her. Day after day, no matter what I do, there is no way I can help her! Is that failure enough for you? If it isn't, how about this? You can fly away eventually when the colony ship arrives. The lander being gone is nothing, you still have a way out. I don't! I cut my ties to the Council, in case you've forgotten. I abandoned the directives they gave me, and now I'm an outcast. I can never go back to the stations even if I wanted to! Any message Eve may have sent back to the Council will get there long before the colony ship returns. Do you think they'll welcome me back with open arms? The Council has a long memory. Even if everyone I knew is dead by then, I'd still be arrested for treason. Within hours of my setting foot on the stations again, I would disappear and no one would ever know where I was taken."
Looking pointedly at him, she spread her hands exaggeratedly. "Well? Is that failure enough for you?"
The two of them stared at one another for a long, silent time. Alonzo was the first to drop his gaze, and he only closed his eyes for a moment as he rubbed a hand over them. In that moment Julia rushed out of the small shed and disappeared into the trees.
Well, he certainly blew that one high and wide.
Alonzo sat down on the box again and held his head in his hands. He hadn't meant to get so cruel, but damn it, she just didn't understand. The lander would have been their salvation. With it they could have flown to New Pacifica and located the com dish in days instead of months. Their trip would be over and they could start getting ready for the second ship.
Oh. . . The second ship. The one that would take him home. . .the same one that would leave Julia behind.

There was no one on the lake shore. The lone ATV was parked half on the grass and half on the beach, and a trail of bent grasses showed where the dunerail had gone with Baines and Danziger aboard.
Of course, she was right about how the Council would react, but it was the first time Julia had ever put the thought into words either orally or mentally. They'd already tried to kill her once. It meant nothing to them that she was aboard the sabotaged Advance ship. She was meant only to come in handy if the Eden Project colonists miraculously survived all the traps set to stop them. Fortunately for all involved, Alonzo was right about one thing. Due to her genetic manipulation she was a doctor first - and the Council hadn't realized that.
After a few minutes watching the waves gently come ashore and letting the sound soothe her, Julia turned and slowly walked back to the shed. Before she reached the open doorway she could hear Britt Navarro's voice speaking her report.
Stopping just outside the entrance, she heard the last words of the report and saw Alonzo reach forward and restart it. The young, pretty, blond woman began her tale anew. When her image faded out at the end, Alonzo lightly touched the screen with the fingertips of one hand, tapping the surface once or twice.
"Did good, kid," he said in a quiet voice. He flicked off the monitor and bowed his head, looking at his hands as he clasped and unclasped them above his lap.
Julia slowly withdrew from the door and walked away. At the ATV, she climbed into the seat and leaned back, closing her eyes and thinking back to the days and weeks before the launch of the Eden Project ships. She tried to remember all she could about the warrant officer, Britt Navarro.

When Danziger and Baines returned from their ride along the lake shore, she was still there. Alonzo hadn't come out of the storage shed.
Baines told Danziger he wanted to listen to the message himself, and he ambled off through the trees.
Alonzo was not in the shed. Baines went inside and saw the stasis pods, and recognized the people within them. After listening to the Navarro message, he, too, was suddenly hit with the realization that no one had come back for them. Unlike Solace, he didn't feel anger in reaction. He felt sadness. After all these people went through, the risks they took to save themselves and the others in their group, the five of them might well be the only survivors. He went outside and found the other man near the solar collector. A gap in the trees on the north side of the small structure offered a view of part of the lake. Alonzo was standing beside one of the wires holding the collector steady.
Stopping next to him, Baines said, "Danziger and I drove up the shore a ways. Two of the engines are on the waterline. Doesn't look like we'll be able to get to them. The lander bay is underwater. Mechanisms are probably stuck fast."
Alonzo stared straight ahead. "Never get a break, do we?"
"Do we need one? We've been making our own and doing okay."
A derisive sound came from Alonzo. "So even if the lander was inside, it would still be lost to us, eh?"
"Looks that way. Hey, the main group will be here soon, Danziger is going to go down the hill and meet them. Show them where to make camp. Julia's going with him."
Alonzo finally turned and looked in the direction of the ship. "I'm staying. I'll wait for Zero to reach the pod, then I'm climbing after him. No matter what Julia or Danziger say."
Baines nodded, putting his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. Me, too." He started walking away. "I left my gear on the ATV. I'll go tell them we're staying." He stopped and spoke over his shoulder. "I might have spoke too soon about Navarro."
Alonzo drew in a deep breath, audible to Baines despite the distance between them. "The kid did good, though, didn't she, Jake?"
He smiled. "Yep. Sure did."
"Think she made it? They made it?"
"I hope so."
Alonzo nodded. "Me, too."

Danziger got behind the wheel of the dunerail and waved as Baines went into the trees toward the storage shed. Julia waved, too, then gave John an overly bright look.
"Let's go," she said. "I'm all set."
"No, you're not. Something's bothering you. What is it?"
She raised her eyebrows and gave him a patient look. "Nothing important. Let's go meet the others."
He started the engine and angled through the trees away from the ship. They had almost reached their campsite of the previous night before Julia finally spoke.
"I've been thinking about Navarro. Whether they made it to the comdish. I don't remember her much. Just she was young and seemed to know her job. I spoke to her briefly when the pharmaceutical supplies were being loaded. Did you know her well?"
So that was it. In some way Alonzo hadn't been discreet about the subject of the warrant officer, and now Julia's concern was jostled awake.
"As much as I knew all the ops crew," he answered. "She was young but she was a sleep run veteran. She made about a dozen eighteen month to three year jumps. She was the W/O on the two jumps I made. Comet hauls, getting water for the stations. Knew her job. When I started putting together the crew I hoped she would be available for this project. Would have begged, borrowed or stolen to get her if she wasn't."
"I suppose all of you got to know her well during preparation. Alonzo, too."
"I can't speak for Alonzo. Ask him about it."
"Well, I mean generally speaking. As fellow Eden Project crew members went."
Danziger made a noncommittal noise and swung the dunerail sharply away from the lake and stopped. They'd reached their campsite. Looking over the side of the hill to the open land far below, they could see in the distance the transrover and the other ATVs leading the way toward the spot where they left their marker.
As John reached for his jumpers, he looked at Julia. "Alonzo can answer that a lot better than I can."
She took the jumpers he handed her and raised them to her eyes. "We had an argument. He was angry, and one thing led to another. He said something. . . Well, something he shouldn't have said."
"Ah," Danziger said in a knowing way. "It'll pass. It's not like you never argued before, right? By tonight he'll be sorrier than hell. You'll work through it."
Julia was silent. She wasn't so sure. She had no idea so much anger and frustration lurked under so thin a surface in Alonzo. Not since their first days on the planet as he wallowed in guilt and anger and pain, had she heard such callousness from him. ". . .you're preprogrammed life laid out ahead of you? What do you know. . (about) failure?" The words still stung. How could he think such a thing? She had given up so much the day after she was abandoned, and he returned for her, and took her back to the group. Before she could brace herself she felt tears brimming in her eyes and gliding over her cheeks like rain. She put the jumpers in her lap and lowered her head to cry.
Danziger was taken aback for a moment. "Hey, come on. Can't be that bad."
She gripped her upper arms with her hands and shook with the emotion.
He watched her for a second or two, then laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "I wish I knew the right words to say," he told her.
She turned toward him and leaned closer to clutch his jacket and press her face against his chest. He turned slightly toward her and moved his arm around her shoulders, and for the next few minutes he patted her on the shoulder and let her vent her emotions.
Presently she stopped and wiped at her face. "Maybe. . . you'd better get us to the bottom. . . of the hill," she said, hiccuping a little. "There's some. . .thing about being on this very spot. . .that seems to make me want to cry."
Danziger had to laugh shortly. At least she still had a sense of humor. "Yeah. No more stopping or camping here."
Julia pulled away slightly and reached up to place one hand on the side of his head and pull him closer for a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."
Why he didn't pull away to let it end there, John wasn't sure.
It took a few seconds to get his bearings and he lifted his arm over her head and grabbed the steering wheel, stepping on the accelerator pedal and sending the rail forward in a lurch. He looked at her and just nodded his head.
This has been one twenty four hour period for the books, man, he told himself. Is it ever going to end?

It would be another hour or so before the transrover reached the base of the hill, late afternoon, Bess Martin thought from her seat beside the passenger door. Yale was driving and the children had fallen asleep between the two of them. Anxious to reach the site, no one was walking today. Everyone was crowded onto the back of the vehicle or perched along the sides. She was in the cabin to help control the overly excited children. Making them play a word game with her had put them to sleep after only a few minutes. When Yale seemed preoccupied with what they would find ahead, Bess amused herself with studying the approaching hillside with the jumpers the children were playing with earlier.
The section of sensor arm was disappearing behind the foreground trees, and like everyone else, she would look at it and wonder how she missed recognizing it. Like so many of the others, she and Morgan had embarked and disembarked from the ship numerous times during the two weeks before the scheduled launch. Initially, they had gone aboard and just looked around the ship. Morgan said it was because he wanted to know every inch of it before the flight. She had used the opportunities to meet the crew and other passengers. At one point she remembered watching some of the cargo pods being put into place, but she'd never really noticed the rest of the ship. It was just a ship, and after nearly two years on the stations she'd seen so many.
She'd just lowered the jumpers when a glint of sunlight on a shiny surface caught her eye for just a second. She quickly raised them again and looked at the clearing high on the hill ahead of them. There it was!
"Yale," she said excitedly. "There's the dunerail! Someone's coming to meet us."
"Yes. I saw the reflection."
Bess leaned forward, elbows on the vehicle's dashboard to steady her hands. "It's John and Julia," she said with a smile. "They probably can't pry Alonzo and Jake away from the ship."
Yale's amusement showed in his voice. "I don't imagine they can." He swung his gear eyepiece into place. "I'll contact them and tell them we'll be at the base of the hill in just over an hour."
"No!" Bess said, glued to her jumpers. "Let me do it. I haven't talked to either of them since before they left." She turned to look at Yale. Her eyes wide and mouth open in surprise.
"Alright," he agreed, keeping his eyes on the terrain ahead of them, unaware of her stunned expression.
Not at all sure of what she'd just seen, she slowly put on her gear and fiddled with it unnecessarily until she thought an adequate amount of time had passed. Figuring Danziger would not be wearing his unit nor even have it turned on in his pocket, Bess flicked on hers and spoke Julia's name.
Immediately the doctor answered. From the background image, Bess could see the rail was in motion, and the doctor seemed to be doing her best to appear glad to hear from her. They talked for a few minutes. As Bess turned hers into a powered off state, she leaned back in the seat and thought about what just happened on the hilltop.
Behind Julia's smile and pleased expression was the hint of weeping in her eyes. What the kiss she'd witnessed between Danziger and Heller had to do with that, Bess couldn't even guess, but she was definitely going to look into it!
She settled back more comfortably and turned her head to look out the window and smile to herself. After weeks of half noticing what was going on around her, of missing Devon Adair and Eben Sinh, of wondering if and when life would ever return to normal again, the life she was worried about had sneaked up behind her and kicked her in the ass.
She couldn't stop the giggle from issuing from her throat. "I think we're going to be alright, now, Yale. Don't you think so, too?"

Chapter 6

Cameron, Mazatl and Baines stood side by side on the grassy bank of the lake and watched the tiny figure of Zero, a splash of off-white color against the blackened hull of the ship, as the unit carefully and slowly made it’s way toward the cargo pod hanging beneath the only surviving sensor arm on the outer hull. He was accumulating the remnants of burned material, possibly soot, from the ship and he was becoming harder to see as the sun moved to throw this side of the ship into shadow.
It was midafternoon and they stood in a false twilight area created by the mass of the ship, even though the sun was just slightly to the west of zenith.
It was hard keeping their attention on the progress of Zero with Alonzo restlessly pacing back and forth on the sand a few meters in front of them. Every now and then Solace would look up, note the robot’s position and begin ranting at the lack of progress. It did no good to point out that five minutes or less had passed since the last time he stopped and looked.
Normally Mazatl and Solace got along fine, but at the moment, Mazatl wanted nothing more than to yell at Alonzo to stop acting like he was the only one affected by this turn of events, to go do something useful so sane people could monitor Zero’s position. Not that it would do any good, but he’d feel better afterward. He had to figure Solace was upset because of the uncertain fate of the other survivors and that he wasn’t thinking rationally. It was pretty obvious he had been counting on finding the lander in good condition. Now he probably had his hopes set on a smaller flying vehicle of some kind being inside the pod.
The headlong rush by many members of the group to get to the top of the hillside and see the ship didn’t seem to surprise Danziger or Heller when the main part of the group reached the camp marker. The two gladly relinquished the dunerail so the first group of people could make the trip to the top. Cameron, Denner, Magus, and the two children joined Mazatl to visit the site of the Roanoke’s landfall.
It was spectacular. Yet. . .
Here was Alonzo muttering about never getting a break, and all Mazatl could see was the biggest break of all sitting in front of them. What were the odds, anyway, that the ship would be spared a fiery death by quick thinking crew members trying to save themselves? And then having it land in a big old puddle of water?
Amazing.
Mazatl himself was drinking in the sight of the enormous craft he had helped build. They had done it right, from the designers and engineers to the construction crews and fitting teams. Somehow they had built a behemoth that had survived atmospheric entry and a crash landing. “Can you believe it?” Magus’ voice spoke softly to no one in particular. She stopped beside the three men while Denner and the children walked a short way down the beach to look at the ship without having to deal with Alonzo’s muttering.
Cameron turned to glance at her. “I left a couple of packs in one of the men’s rooms. I wonder if they’re still there?”
She laughed lightly. “If it was mylar it probably melted and stuck everything together.”
“Damn. I had some Earth cigars and Scotch in one.”
“So did the commander,” she said. “I saw him bring a crate aboard after Devon was settling in.”
Mazatl crossed his arms. “According to Navarro’s message the inside of the lander bay never reached flash point. I doubt if the rest of the interior did either. If we can get in we might be able to salvage some personal goods, but most liquids probably burst their containers as they heated up.”
Magus patted Cameron’s arm and turned to walk away. “Well, I’ll leave you two to dream of contraband. Di and I are going to take the kids back down the hill to eat something, and let the others come up.”
For a short time the sounds of True and Uly protesting their return to the bottom of the hill echoed across the water and through the trees.
Alonzo glanced their way briefly, but quickly returned his attention to the ship. “How much longer can this take?” he asked no one in particular.
Mazatl gave Solace a weary look and went after Magus. “I’ll go with you,” he said, lengthening his stride to catch up to her. “If no one else wants to come up, I’ll bring the rail back with some food we can prepare up here.”

Something was happening here that Julia couldn’t quite figure. Bess Martin, instead of urging Morgan to go with her to the top of the hill to see the ship as Julia would have expected, had shown little excitement about the Roanoke and had chosen to wait to make the trip. The doctor could see that, although relieved by this, Morgan was also acting a little puzzled by Bess’ insistence that the other members of the crew go first to see the great discovery.
Instead of charging ahead, Bess was almost single handedly making camp. While Morgan tossed tents and packs to the ground from the transrover, she was cheerfully dragging them away to places around the site where they could be opened or erected when the others returned. Throughout it all, Julia could swear Bess was watching every single move she and John were making since coming down from the hilltop.
It was ridiculous, but Julia just couldn’t shake the impression and the guilty feelings associated with it. After all, Bess couldn’t possibly know anything. Whatever happened on top of the crater rim was between herself and Danziger, and she was dealing with it. Besides, she had something more important to be worrying about. She still needed to talk to Danziger and Yale about Ulysses and what the Mother had told her through her dream of Eben Sinh.
It would be best to do it soon, before Zero found a way into the cargo pod or the ship itself. There would be no time after that.
For his part, Danziger merely concluded the Martins had stayed behind because Morgan was fearful of going to see the ship along with the crew members who’d known the people in the stasis tubes. It would be a typical Morgan reaction, and a normal Bess response to back him up, to be the buffer between her husband and the others.
He thought little more about either of the Martins as he and Yale talked about the condition of the ship and it’s survivors. It whiled away the time as they began positioning the laser defenses around their new campsite. His mind was on what they might find in the cargo pod and inside the ship itself - if they could enter it. They were due a break in their misfortunes. That’s all he wanted. A break, a little luck to go with the fact that he was feeling better about life than he had in weeks.
The campsite was in shade, a kind of twilight made by the hill as the sun sank low enough to be lost from sight. Beyond the hill and it’s shadow the flat, grassy prairie was still aglow with sunlight.
“Hey,” Bess called to Julia. “Do you think we should build a fire, or wait for the others to come down from the ship first? I’m not on meals this week, but I’ll be glad to get something started.”
Julia, looking up from her work, moved her shoulders in a shrug. “Whatever you think is best. Aren’t you and Morgan going to see the ship before nightfall?”
“Oh, I don’t think the others will return before then. But that’s okay. They have more reason to want to see it than we do.” She looked toward her husband at the big vehicle. “Our memories aren’t exactly pleasant, in spite of everything we’ve discovered today.”
“Well, I can understand that. I’m sorry if you’ve had a hard time recently.”
Bess smiled and folded her arms across her waist. “We’ll make it through to the other side. How about you? Seeing the ship for the first time must have been a shock for both you and Danziger.”
Julia frowned and put her head to one side. “Yes, it was. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so amazing, yet frightening at the same time.”
Bess nodded, looking toward Danziger and Yale who were talking about something as they erected the perimeter lasers. “Finding the ship has kind of awakened all of us, dragged us out of the fog we’ve been in since we had to leave Devon behind, and after losing Eben. I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot of odd behavior among ourselves as we adjust to how things are, and as we try to move on.”
Julia turned her attention back to her work. “You could be right, Bess,” she said with a sigh and tried to focus on her instruments.
“Uh, huh. Learning to live again can be an experience that changes the attitudes of some people. Especially if they’ve been unhappy but never realized it.”
The doctor’s frown came back. “Are you and Morgan having trouble dealing with what we found at the site of the ship?” she asked, looking at the other woman.
Bess’ eyes widened. “Oh, no! No! We’re fine. I was just speaking in general terms.” She shrugged and gestured with one hand. “Well, you remember. You said almost those same words to all of us after the crash when Morgan and I met up with the rest of you.”
Julia looked up again. “Well, at the time I was talking about learning to live outside the familiar environs of the stations. Here and now, I think we’ve managed to move past survivor’s guilt as far as our feelings about Devon and Eben are concerned. I’m more concerned about false hopes being raised by the remarkably good condition of the ship.”
Bess nodded. “Perhaps that would be worse.” She raised her eyes and looked out over the wide plain they had crossed that day to reach this place. False hopes? What could that have to do with what she’d seen through the jumpers? She tilted her head and looked at Julia surreptitiously. Oh, this was maddening!
Julia caught movement from the corner of her eye, and she leaned forward a bit to look past Bess, to the hillside sloping upward from their campsite. “Looks like some of the others are coming back,” she said. “You and Morgan might get a chance to see the ship today after all.”
Bess turned and looked up the hill as the dunerail barreled down toward the camp. “Well. I guess I don’t have to worry about starting a cook fire. Here come the cooks.”

Cameron had gotten tired of watching Alonzo pace soon after the dunerail left, and he had gone to the shed to look around and see what might have been left behind when the companions of the five in the stasis tubes departed for the com dish. He knew the colonists inside the chambers, but the others he recognized only from seeing them around the ship in the days before final boarding. He decided to poke through the crates and boxes, remembering back to the day a year or so ago when he and three others found a convict’s stash in a cave. There might be something useful in the boxes.
A few minutes of poking around revealed most of the crates in the shed held building materials, tools and what looked to be kilometers of cord and wiring on spools.
He closed the last of the crates and straightened his back, stretching his arms. He should have gone back down with the others. He took a few seconds to look at the people in stasis, then walked out of the shed to return to the lakeshore. Oh, well. At least there was another door to replace the one Danziger almost blew off it’s hinges.
Baines, a little more understanding of what his friend was feeling, sat on the sand above the waterline, and muttered answers to whatever Solace said; but it was only a matter of time before he got tired of it, too.
“Alonzo! Will you shut up and sit down for a few minutes? You’re driving us all crazy. Take a look around, will you? I’m your only friend. Everyone else left.” He began digging into one of his pockets. “Come on, sit down. Have something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll drag you over here if I have to, Solace. Sit down and calm down and, for Pete’s sake, shut up!”
Alonzo sighed loudly, threw his hands in the air and trudged across the sand toward Baines. He glanced at Cameron coming slowly through the trees and lowered himself to the ground beside the other man. He crossed his legs and slumped forward, holding his head in his hands. When he spoke his voice was muffled.
“I really thought the lander would be here. I would have moved heaven and earth to get it out of the ship and airborne, not matter how long it took.”
“I know, man. I felt it, too.” Baines had a small cloth bag of dried berries in his hands. He poured a bit into his left palm and handed it to Alonzo. “Here. Ain’t much, but they’re the sweet/sour ones with the natural folates that Julia is so hyped on. Whatever that is.”
Alonzo took the bag and poured a few for himself. “Please, let’s not talk about Julia. I’m not her favorite person right now. We had a fight. I think I might have made her cry.”
Baines looked at him. “I know.” He tapped the back of his hand against Alonzo’s arm. “Sorry. Julia said to keep in touch when Danz and I left, so I had my gear on, she had her gear on. . . Well, I didn’t listen in on purpose. Just happened.”
Alonzo grimaced. “I should have let it go. I was just so damned. . . I don’t know. What’s another word for friggin’ disappointed? Dispirited? Yeah, that’s better. I think I felt my spirit die for the second time on this planet. This time I don’t think dreams of people from my past will bring it back. First time I just lost my ship, now I lost something more important, maybe for a second time.”
The sound of footsteps approaching from behind caused both men to look over their shoulders, even though they knew who was coming.
Cameron stopped beside Baines and looked down at both men.
“Have a seat,” Alonzo said, and tossed the bag of berries up to him.
“You should have told her about Britt,” Baines said as the third man lowered himself to the ground beside him. “It might have eased the tension. Seeing Britt burned as bad as she was probably didn’t help your state of mind. Julia would have understood. She’s a doctor. She already knows the toughest half of it.”
Alonzo shook his head. “I can’t. If I’d had more time to get used to it, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. She keeps being snatched away from me just when I think we’re going to have time to work things through, you know?”
Baines shrugged, knowing he wasn’t referring to the doctor. “I’m sure they made it, Lonz. They’re probably at the com dish right now wondering where the rest of us are.”
Solace’s head lowered again. “They didn’t come back, Jake,” he said in a low voice. “Britt got all the stragglers off the ship and safely to the ground. She would have come back for these five if she could.” He shook his head slowly. “Something happened. Something bad. She’s. . . dead, anyway. After all this, she dead, anyway.” The pain he felt was evident in his tone.
“You don’t know that!” Baines answered and glared at him. “Man, look at you! You’re making me look like an optimist!”
Alonzo made a sound halfway between a choke and a laugh. “Don’t try to cheer me up, man. I still have to face Julia later and I think she’s going to want an apology. I don’t know if I can give it.”
“Hmmh. You were pretty hard on her.”
“I know, but. . .” he said miserably. “She didn’t get it. She just didn’t get it.”
Baines looked at him. “And she never will until you tell her the whole story about you and Navarro. What was she supposed to do? Read your mind?”
Alonzo looked up at the ship. “After we get inside the pod and the ship. After we see what’s there. Maybe then.”
He lowered himself onto his back and stretched his legs out across the sand. Putting one arm behind his head, he crossed the other over his eyes. He knew Baines would be giving him a disgusted look, and he didn’t want to see it. His thoughts immediately turned to Navarro. Baines was right, of course. He should have told Julia about her a long time ago, but he believed her to be dead from the mutated virus that ravaged the crew members of the third escape pod. Dead was dead and talking about her to Julia wouldn’t have brought her back or made her rest easier. Britt had come into his life, turned it upside down, and left it again without ever knowing she had affected him so profoundly. Now, it seemed, she had come and gone again - and he was more deeply shaken than he’d been initially.

With the children back in camp, Yale decided to give them a quick lesson before they began their evening chores. While the others went about their business, he chose a spot for the lesson partway up the hill and well out of everyone’s way. It was quickly clear that Uly was having trouble keeping his mind on the lessons. Yale was able to gently bring his attention back to the subject at hand, but both the teacher and True could see something was on Uly’s mind. Afterward, True was determined to find out what he was thinking, or worrying about. It had be very interesting to make him not take advantage of showing how much more he knew about Earth history than she did.
When Danziger saw the three of them coming down the hill, he called to the two youngsters to help gather firewood but to stay within sight of camp.
Knowing this was as good as an invitation to explore, True and Uly immediately ran for the small group of trees nearest to the campsite.
“What do you think is going to be inside the ship?” True asked as she slowed to a walk, looking up and down for dead branches to collect for the fire. “I hope we can find some personal stuff.”
Uly kicked gently at a rock, turning it over slowly to see what, if anything, would scurry from under it. Nothing moved. “Something to help Dr. Heller make my mom better,” he said. “The Terrians told me.”
True frowned. “How can the Terrians tell you what’s inside the ship? They don’t know!”
“Yes, they do! They know lots of things.”
“Not about the ship. How can they? Not even the grendlers have been inside it since the crash. My dad says it’s sealed up tight.”
“They just know.” He squatted to dig a rock out of the ground and look it over. “Hey look at this. It has blue lines in it.”
True came closer to look. “That’s the really hard rock. The stuff Yale said we might use to make statues and monuments some day.”
“Yeah. I wish we could find something really new.” He dropped the rock and rose. “Hey! Look over there! A broken branch. Do you have your cutter?”
“Of course. But what I meant was, what do you want us to find in the ship? You know, like stuff you had to leave behind but you wished you could have brought with you.”
They walked to the branch while True dug through her pockets for her cutting tool.
“Oh,” Uly said. “I had a lot of toys and stuff and VR programs. I might like to have some of those. The Opening of King Tut’s Tomb was about all the treasure they found inside it.”
True made a derisive noise. “Judging by what we found in pod twelve, I’ll bet they were all educational like that! I’ll bet none of them were fun like Groundside Agents: Streets of Vice.” “Huh? What kind of game was that?”
She stared at him, open mouthed for a moment. “A really great game about secret agents who get shipped to Earth and Mars and the moon to look for bad guys hiding among the dirtwalkers. The agents had to go in and bring ‘em back dead or alive. All of us kids used to play it in the Quadrant. It was easy to hook up to the neuralnets and have hundreds of people playing at the same time. You could be a secret agent or a bad guy or a wild card. You’ve really never heard of it?”
Uly shook his head and True smiled to herself. Whew! Then her little exaggeration about hundreds of kids playing it would get by. In reality the maximum number of players was just six at a time.
“No,” he said, “but I played Rafting the Great Rivers of Old Earth once. There were six players and we had to see who could get down the rivers without being wrecked by rapids and waterfalls.”
True rolled her eyes. “See? Educational! I bet your mom and Yale were two of the players!”
“Well, yeah, but. . .”
“Well, I had the Groundside Agents program. My dad and Alex Wentworth never found where I hid it, so it’s still in the ship.”
Uly stared at her. “Really?”
“Yeah. I hope it didn’t burn up or melt.”
Reaching the branch, the two looked at it critically.
“Let’s just take the small branches for now,” Uly suggested. “We can bring Zero back to carry the heavier logs.”
Returning to camp with bundles of kindling, the pair walked quietly past the transrover. The wood, heavier than they expected, had them too winded for talking by the time they reached the perimeter of the campsite.
On the other side of the vehicle people were unloading items from the large bed. Not seeing the kids passing, someone tossed a large bundle of something back onto the bed of the vehicle. It hit high on the opposite side and bounced straight up and over the side toward a passing True.
Uly, walking a few steps behind her, reacted instinctively and quickly. With no time to shout a warning, he dropped his wood and reached out to push the falling object away from his friend. The bundle fell harmlessly to the ground behind True, who barely noticed the sound of it hitting the ground.
Uly had astounded himself. True and the falling item were a good five feet away from him, yet he’d been able to reach his arms out far enough to knock the bundle away from her. He hadn’t taken a step towards her.
Turning around to see what the noise was, True saw Uly standing still and looking with wide eyed astonishment at his hands. Seeing his kindling and a tied bundle on the ground, she asked, “What happened? Did you get hit? Did you cut yourself” No answer. “Uly?”
“How did I do that?” he said breathlessly and examined his hands from all angles.
“Do what?”
When he didn’t answer, just continued to stare at his hands, True turned around and ran off to find Julia.

Julia brought the boy to her med tent and immediately looked for the cuts or bruises True was afraid he had gotten. She found nothing wrong with him.
“What happened out there, Uly? True seems to think a bundle fell from the back of the transrover and struck you. Did you get hit by something?”
“No. It wasn’t me that almost got hit. It was True. I . . . I just helped her.”
“You helped her what?”
“I dropped my firewood and helped her not get hit.”
Julia sighed. “Well, that was kind of you, but what made her think you’d hurt yourself?”
After looking at the floor for a few moments, Uly shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I better tell you. I found out I can do this.” Without moving from his seat, he reached for Julia’s gear on the table beside her and brought it to hold in front of him. His arm had spanned a four foot area with no effort. Not wanting to see the expression on her face, he turned the unit over idly in his hands. Julia was alarmed and one hand reached for the corner of her seat behind her, but she managed to keep herself where she was and did not propel herself away as every instinct was telling her to do.
“The Terrians do it all the time,” he said with a shrug. “I can do a lot of the things they can do. It’s getting easier as I get a little older, but it isn’t bad stuff. It doesn’t hurt and it might look funny, but that’s how it is now.” He turned his head a bit to look at Julia.
Gathering her wits about her, Julia grabbed for her diaglove and began to put it on - her fingers fumbling with the fasteners as if she’d never done this before. “Uh . . . Let me take a quick scan of your arms, Uly. You, uh, said you’ve never done this before? It just happened?”
“Uh huh. I dreamed about it a couple of times, but I never really did it before now.”
“Yes, well . . . I’d still like to take a closer look at you, anyway.”
“You don’t have to shake so much, Doctor. You don’t have to be afraid for me. This is what I’m supposed to do.”
Julia looked into his eyes and he managed a reassuring smile for her.
“Tell you what. I’m going to have Yale and Danziger come join us, okay? Since they’re both taking care of you while your mother is away, you should tell them what you’ve told me, too.”

Quickly summoning Danziger and Yale, Julia asked Uly to repeat his story for them. With the two of them watching, she did a thorough examination of the boy, drawing samples of blood and tissue for testing before and after the boy demonstrated what he is newly able to do.
To say the two men were as startled as Julia had been was understating the case badly.
While Julia and Yale studied the physical evidence from the boy, Danziger took Uly outside and had a serious talk with him. Uly admitted he had been having frequent dreams in which he visits the Terrians and talks to the Mother, the planet. The dreams began as soon as they left the valley where his mother was. In the dreams he has been learning how to use his Terrian powers, and while awake, he has been secretly experimenting with moving through the ground.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to do other things the Terrians are able to do,” he said, leaning his head to one side. “I think I learn how to do them in the dreams and then I’m supposed to practice when I wake up.”
Danziger had a hard time keeping the uneasiness he was feeling from showing in his expression the more Uly talked. This was, after all, something to which Devon Adair had objected to having happen to her son. It was something she didn’t understand and, therefore would never have allowed to take place until she did.
Again, Uly assured an adult there was no need to fear for him. The Mother had been waiting a long time to begin teaching him how to use his Terrian ‘gifts.’ While his human mother was sick and away from the group, the planet was taking the opportunity to teach him what he needed to know.
Uly related the information in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it was a natural progression of events. He missed his mother very much and also dreamed about her frequently, but he seemed to understand the Mother’s desire for him to know the extent of his abilities before the rest of the Syndrome children arrived on the second ship.
Danziger knew very well that Devon would fight tooth and nail to keep this from happening were she here.
Knowing he has no choice but to follow Devon’s wishes, Danziger sent the boy away to play and then went back to the med tent to relay this new information, and his feelings about it, to Julia and Yale.
He’d barely stepped inside the opening when Baines’ voice, coming over their gear units, interrupted their concern over Uly.
“Baines to camp. Everyone listen up! Zero’s reached the cargo pod!”

To be continued . . . Thank you for visiting my page at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!

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