When the debris from the Raptor finally stopped raining down from the sky Jack stood to his feet and looked around. What he saw was enormously disheartening. All of his hopes of escape had been pinned on the Raptor and that vessel had been completely destroyed. There was nothing left but an endless black desert, a gray sky, and thousands of small bits of shrapnel.

Lily stood up and put her arm around her husband. “So what do we do now?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know, dear. At this point I am all out of ideas. All of our food and water was on that ship, and you can see what’s left of it. There’s no point in staying out here in the desert but at the same time the city hasn’t exactly been welcoming us with open arms. I think we’re just out of luck.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left all of our supplies on board,” Lily said thoughtfully. “Now that I think about it I guess we did put all of our eggs in one basket. It just never occurred to me that someone might want to attack a starship that had already been ruined beyond repair.”

“That’s probably one of the first things they teach you in Starlight Academy,” Jack quipped. “But it’s too late now, and honestly I don’t ever see us being in this situation again. Things like this rarely happen to people who mind their own business. The fact is, we’re out of supplies – and on top of that we’re out of weapons too. My rifle was in the ship when it exploded.”

“I’ve still got my laser pistol, though,” Lily said. She patted the holster that was strapped to her waist. “So that’s something!”

Jack managed a weak smile. “If only we could eat photons for breakfast we’d be home free!”

Lily kissed her husband. “So what do we do now?”

“Well -” Jack began. A moment later the couple was enveloped in white light. They felt a vague sensation of being transported somewhere. When the light cleared they found themselves in a large room with blue metal walls. The room was filled with bits of machinery and crates of supplies. Standing directly in front of them, however, was a tall, blond girl with amber eyes. She was wearing a red Starman uniform.

Jack looked around, startled. “What just happened?”

“I am so sorry!” the Starman said. “I really am. When I fired that missile I had no idea that you and your wife were on board. I am so glad you got out of there before it hit. I feel terrible about it. You could have been killed!”

Lily looked at the Starman in surprise. “Are you Alice Montaine?”

The girl nodded. “I’m afraid so. I have a bad feeling the two of you don’t think very highly of me right now. I know I haven’t treated you very well, but I honestly never meant for any of this to happen. Things just kind of spiraled out of control.”

“Where are we?” Jack asked.

“You’re in a maze of twisty passages that are deep beneath the planet’s surface,” Alice explained. “This particular room is about a mile underground. The only way down here is by transporter, and even then it isn’t easy. When I saw the two of you run out of the Raptor I realized I had just destroyed all of your supplies and almost killed you in the bargain. So I immediately transported both of you down here. It was the least I could do.”

Lily turned to her husband. “How could she see us from way down here?”

“She’s got Starman equipment,” Jack whispered. “She can probably do all kinds of magical things.”

“Oh,” Lily replied.

Jack spoke up. “So why exactly did you fire on the Raptor?”

“Did you repair the ship?” Alice asked.

Jack nodded. “I sure did. Spent all afternoon doing it, too, just to watch all of my work go up in flames. Literally.”

Alice winced. “I’m sorry. You see, the Raptor has self-healing capabilities. I thought maybe the ship had repaired itself and was about to contact the authorities. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Rachel explained that to us,” Jack said. “She kind of filled us in on what’s been going on.”

“Ah,” Alice said. She paused. “Rachel probably isn’t too happy with me right now. I can imagine what she told you.”

“I doubt she cares very much anymore!” Lily replied tartly. “You just blew her up. There’s nothing of her left.”

“She was just a machine,” Alice said dismissively. “That’s all. She became a hindrance to the mission and so she had to go. But you do realize I had no choice, right? I didn’t want to destroy my own starship but what else could I do?”

“What about not destroy it?” Jack asked. “I hear that has been known to work wonders.”

Alice glanced at the equipment that was scattered around the room. She then looked back at Jack. “Do you have any idea what I’m trying to do down here or how important all of this is?”

“Why don’t you tell us?” Jack replied. “I’ve got all day.”

“Look. There is something evil in that chamber down the hall. I have got to destroy it before it gets loose. Someone out there is trying to free it, and I just don’t have the time to mind my manners and be civilized about this. There just isn’t time! When Caedmon Starlight wouldn’t loan me Tharsos I had to steal the Third Treasure. There is nothing else that could possibly crack the protective barrier.”

Lily gasped. “You wanted to borrow Tharsos?”

“Exactly,” Alice said. “That is exactly what he said. Nobody understands! Mankind hasn’t been attacked for so long that they’ve forgotten all about security. We think everything is going to be fine and dandy just because it’s always been fine and dandy. We can’t imagine that somewhere out there somebody is trying to kill us all. Since nobody was willing to take the threat seriously I had to do what was necessary. I had to save you people from yourselves.”

“You tried to kill us!” Jack exclaimed. “Twice, in fact!”

Alice shook her head. “You don’t understand. I had no choice! I really thought the wormhole barrier would go down when Eagle City lost power and allow me to transport the Treasure out of the museum. I didn’t plan on involving any innocent bystanders! When the shield didn’t fail, though, I had to get some help and that’s where you came in. And when you wouldn’t cooperate I had to twist your arm. I didn’t like doing it but I didn’t have a lot of time.”

“You took my wife hostage!” Jack screamed.

“But I didn’t hurt her. I just had Rachel put her in stasis. My plan was to return her to you after I finished my work here on Lemura. I was going to keep my word but you didn’t give me a chance! Then when you showed up I had to put you in stasis as well. I didn’t mean you any harm.”

“Do you know how many times we almost died?” Jack shouted. “Thanks to you we were on that starship of yours when you tried to blow it to pieces. We would have died right then and there if it hadn’t been for that escape pod.”

“I couldn’t help it! It wasn’t my fault. Rachel was about to contact the authorities and put an end to the mission. I had to stop her! I wanted to save you but in the heat of battle there was no way I could transport you off the ship. It was just a bad situation.”

Jack started to reply but his wife silenced him. “So what happens now?” she asked.

“I’ve got to finish the mission,” Alice said. “I came here to destroy that chamber and that is exactly what I am going to do. If they want to arrest me for it afterward then so be it, but I’m not going to stand idly by and watch the planet I love destroy itself. The reason I transported you two down here is so I could apologize for what’s been going on and give you some supplies.”

Lily nodded. “We appreciate it. You did kind of destroy everything we had.”

“I know,” Alice said. “And after all this is over I promise I will take you both home. But for now I’ve got to get back to work. I’ve transported a few crates of supplies to a building in the city above. It has everything you need to survive for another week. By then I’ll be done and will pick you up and head home.”

“You have a ship?” Jack replied, surprised.

“Of course. The last time I was here I left a shuttlecraft behind. It has a wormhole drive and can easily get all three of us back to Ahmanya.”

“Wait a minute,” Lily interrupted. “You want to beam us back into the city?”

Alice smiled. “I know in the past it’s given you some trouble, but with its power supply destroyed I don’t think it will try anything else. It’s not a bad place to be, really.”

“Ok,” Jack said slowly. “But -”

Alice pressed a small button on the arm of her suit. Immediately Jack and Lily were encased in white light. They felt a strange sense of motion. When the light dissipated they found themselves on the ground floor of a small building on the outskirts of the city. In one corner of the room were a few crates.

Jack froze, and then shook his head. “Wow. Well, that was interesting.”

“I don’t trust her,” Lily said flatly. “I just don’t like this at all.”

“In her defense, she did just give us supplies. She could have left us in the desert to starve. But I know what you mean. She does seem a little unhinged.”

“What really bothered me is that she kept saying she didn’t have a choice! Everything that happened wasn’t her fault. That doesn’t give me a good feeling about the future. What if she just ‘doesn’t have a choice’ but to leave us here? What if she decides we are interfering with the mission? After all, we’re the only ones that know she stole the Third Treasure! She could always blame the whole thing on us.”

Jack’s blood ran cold. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Maybe she hasn’t thought of it yet either. But what happens when she does? Do you really trust someone who tried to kill us twice?”

Jack sighed. “One thing at a time. Let’s see what’s in these crates she gave us. We can then go from there.”

The couple began prying the tops off of the six crates that were in the building. After the crates were open they made a complete inventory of everything they contained. A half-hour later they had their answer.

“I see food, and water, and more food, and more water,” Jack announced. “And that’s about it. No soap, no climbing gear, no weapons, no lawn ornaments – not even a change of clothing.”

“And no way to call for help,” Lily finished. “We won’t starve, but she’s pretty much forcing us to sit tight and let her finish her work.”

“Yup,” Jack replied.

“Rachel seemed pretty convinced we shouldn’t let her do that. She seemed to think that destroying the planet was a bad idea.”

“True. But honey, what are we going to do about it? Offhand I don’t see how we can use salted pork and kidney beans to bring Alice Montaine to her knees. At the moment she seems to have the upper hand. I think we’re just going to have to wait and see if anything develops. Maybe this city will come back to life and do something we can use to our advantage.”

Since it was almost nightfall Lily went ahead and fixed ham sandwiches for dinner. As Alice had not provided a portable stove they were forced to eat them cold. “I don’t see any more pancakes in our future,” Lily replied, sighing.

“Or another good night’s sleep,” Jack pointed out. “We have no bed, no sheets, and no sleeping bag. Just the nice, hard ground to keep us company.”

“I wish we could call for room service,” Lily grumbled.

Jack laughed. A few hours later the couple drifted off to sleep. Neither of them slept well on the hard steel floor, however, and both awoke early the next day.

The day proved to be uneventful. Lily was not too keen on doing any more exploring and Jack agreed that it was probably best to just stay put. A thorough search of the building revealed that it was a simple, small one-story structure in fairly good repair. The building was located on the extreme outskirts of the city. To the north of the building was the rest of the town and to the south was nothing but unending desert.

The day dragged on. With nothing to occupy their time each hour seemed like an eternity. After lunch Lily had finally had enough. “We have got to find something to do, Jack! I don’t care what it is but I just can’t sit here any longer. I’m going to go crazy!”

“I hear you, dear. But what do you have in mind? I’m all out of suggestions.”

Lily sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I could think of something.”

An hour later, just before sunset, the couple heard a noise in the distance. Jack and Lily both rushed outside to see what it was. The noise gradually grew louder and they soon realized that a small spacecraft was approaching the city from the west. After a minute the ship had come close enough for them to see it high overhead.

“Do you think that’s Alice?” Lily asked.

“Could be, I guess. But what would she be doing? I wasn’t expecting her for a few more days.”

As they stared up in the sky they noticed that the ship had started losing altitude. At the same time it changed its flight path and appeared to be heading in their direction.

“I think it’s going to land right next to us!” Jack exclaimed.

“Wonderful! All we have to do is attack Alice, grab the ship, and leave. She won’t know what hit her.”

“That easy, huh? Do you know how to pilot a spaceship?”

Lily looked at her husband. “You mean you don’t?”

“Of course not! I repair transporters for a living. I don’t know the first thing about flying! Do you know how expensive flying lessons are?”

The conversation was cut short when the ship came in for a landing. As Jack had predicted, the vessel came to a stop about a hundred feet away from them. The ship was a very small craft that was obviously intended to transport just one person. Given the size of its engines, however, Jack had no doubt that it was capable of wormhole travel. As shuttles go, that’s definitely a top-of-the-line model, he thought.

In the side of the craft a door opened and a person in a red Starman uniform stepped out. To their surprise, however, it was not Alice Montaine. Instead it was a tall, elderly gentleman with thinning white hair.

The man approached them, smiling. He extended his hand. “Hello there! It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Joe Taylor.”

A few hectic minutes later Jack and Lily emerged from the underground plaza and made their way back onto the street. The explosion had temporarily dazed Jack, but with the help of his wife he was able to make it up the stairs and to the surface without incident. So far they had not been followed, but neither of them let their guard down. Lily continued to hold onto the glowing blue cylinder and Jack gripped his rifle, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

“That could have gone a lot better,” Lily remarked.

Jack nodded. “Sure. But at least we got what we came for! At least, I hope we did. If it turns out that cylinder is not an energy cell then we get to do that all over again.”

He took a moment to survey the area before they moved on. All around them were towering skyscrapers, ruined from extreme age. There was not a sound to be heard anywhere. The metal frames of the buildings that surrounded them emitted a blue light that matched the rays coming from the cylinder that Lily was holding. Overhead the weak sun was hidden by a bank of gray clouds. Jack saw nothing that looked dangerous.

“Let’s head back -” he began, and then he heard a whistling noise in the distance. Jack grabbed his wife and they dove for cover in a nearby building. As soon as they got inside a large shadow appeared in the street behind them, completely blocking out the sun.

Jack peered out the door of the building they were hiding in and looked up. Overhead was a large vessel of some kind. The underside of it was made of a smooth, blue metal. “I can’t believe it,” Jack muttered to himself. “That ship is at least the size of four city blocks! Where does this planet hide all this stuff? First robots, now ships…”

Jack aimed his rifle at it and fired. The white bolt shot harmlessly through the ship and struck a skyscraper on the other side. With an enormous pow the massive building exploded! There was a brilliant flash of white light, followed by a shockwave that rattled the entire block. Pieces of metal flew everywhere.

Lily’s eyes widened. “Jack!” she screamed. He followed her gaze and saw that the explosion had carved an enormous hole out of the building about five hundred feet off the ground. The hole had damaged the skyscraper’s structural integrity and the top half of it was beginning to collapse. With an enormous groan Jack saw girders begin to snap like toothpicks. The upper portion of the building then leaned over and crashed into a neighboring structure. Both buildings then tumbled to the ground in a mighty roar. A huge cloud of dust appeared, pushing shards of metal down the street at high speeds.

By the time the dust settled down the ship could no longer be seen. It had simply vanished. Jack shook his head. “I can’t believe it! It was just an illusion – like that annoying alien that keeps popping up everywhere. It wasn’t real! Who do they think they are?”

“Please stop firing that weapon,” Lily pleaded. “Suppose the top of that building had fallen on us instead of its neighbor. Where would we be?”

Jack shook his head. “I know, dear, I know. But you can hardly expect to destroy an alien mothership with a hand-held laser pistol!”

“But the ship wasn’t real,” Lily pointed out. “There was nothing there to destroy!”

“That robot was real, though,” Jack replied. “The ship could have been real. How was I to know?”

Lily sighed. “Let’s just get out of here. Nothing good ever comes of being in this city.”

Jack and Lily stepped out onto the street. The way forward was blocked by debris from the fallen building, so the couple took a series of side-streets to go around the obstruction. After they were on the other side they began the long hike back to the desert.

After ten minutes had gone by and nothing else had happened Jack breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess they’ve had enough,” he said quietly. “Maybe they’ll leave us in peace now.”

At that moment Jack heard a crunching noise behind them. He whirled around in time to see a huge cloud of dust and debris form a few blocks behind them, not far from where they used to be. Jack frowned. “How many buildings did we destroy, anyway? Did I miss something?”

“Maybe the collapse of those first two weakened the foundation of another structure,” Lily suggested. “None of these buildings look very safe. It might not take much to knock them over.”

As the dust settled there was suddenly a blue flash of light, followed by a loud crack. Before the echoes from the sound had even died down the the city suddenly went dark. All of the buildings simultaneously stopped glowing and the shield that protected the city vanished.

Jack grimaced. “Please tell me that wasn’t my fault.”

“I’m pretty sure it actually was, dear. After all, you were the one that decided to start shooting at everything in sight!”

“I didn’t quite mean to destroy the city’s power grid,” Jack said ruefully. “But maybe something good will come out of this. It’s just possible that the city will leave us alone now and stop sending giant killer robots after us.”

“Let’s not stick around and find out,” his wife suggested.

“Agreed,” Jack replied.

The couple resumed their hike. The sun was directly overhead by the time they reached the Raptor. “At least the ship is still here!” he said cheerfully. The two of them boarded the ruined starship. When Lily began walking toward the stairwell, however, Jack stopped her. “I know it’s lunchtime, but would you mind if I went ahead to the computer room and got things going? I’m not very hungry and I’d like to get a start on things. Connecting that blue cylinder to the ship’s computers is not going to be easy.”

Lily shrugged. “Go right ahead. Is there anything I can help with?”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry, dear. I mean, I love you and all but without a degree in electronics there’s just not much you can do.”

“What if I keep a lookout?” Lily asked. “It might be nice to have some advance notice that we’re about to be attacked. So far we’ve just assumed that nothing on this planet means us any harm, but I’m not sure that’s a valid assumption anymore. Not after you blew up their city, anyway.”

“True,” Jack said thoughtfully. “They may get a little testy about that. Do you want to borrow my rifle?”

Lily shook her head vigorously. “I don’t even want to touch that thing. I wish you’d get rid of it, Jack. It’s dangerous.”

Jack laughed. “That’s the whole idea behind weapons, dear! They’re supposed to be dangerous. But I get your point.” Jack took the blue cylinder from his wife and headed into the rear of the ship, while his wife dusted off a chair and sat near a gash in the ship’s hull. From where she was sitting she had a clear view of the surrounding desert, but it would be difficult for anyone outside to see her.

Jack made his way to the room that housed the ship’s computers and scoured the area for tools. After he found everything he needed he started working. An hour later he was interrupted by his wife.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

Jack looked up from the computer that he had just dismantled. Parts lay strewn all over the ground, and the blue cylinder was now connected to a maze of wires. “Kind of slow, actually,” he replied. “I’m pretty sure this thing is producing power but I’m having a terrible time extracting it. And that’s just the easy part! After I find a way to get the energy out I’ve still got to convert it into something that won’t fry every piece of machinery in this room. It’s not very easy.”

“You’ll get it,” his wife said confidently. “No intruders have approached us, by the way, so we’re good there. Are you getting hungry?”

“Come to think of it, I am,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Do you think you could fix me a sandwich or something?”

“Sure,” she replied. “I’ll be right back.”

Jack watched his wife disappear and then turned his attention back to the job at hand. Twenty minutes later Lily returned bearing sandwiches and a drink. Jack thanked his wife, ate the meal, and then returned to work.

After lunch Lily resumed her guard duty. Three hours later, however, she walked back into the energy room. This time she found Jack staring intently at the blue cylinder.

“Any luck?” she asked.

Jack sighed. “I’m not sure. So far this afternoon I’ve ruined almost a half-dozen power transformers. Apparently I’ve found a great way to destroy perfectly-good machinery. This thing excels at that.”

“Well, that’s progress!” Lily said encouragingly. She found a chair in the corner of the room and sat down. “Mind if I watch the fun? It’s kind of boring outside.”

Jack sighed. “Guard duty is supposed to be boring, dear. If it’s not boring then that means aliens are invading, and that’s a bad thing. The more boring it is the better.”

Lily shook her head. “That’s easy for you to say – at least you have something to do! I just have rocks to look at. Do you know how exciting it is to stare at rocks for hours on end? And it’s not like these are pretty rocks, either. They’re black. They’re ugly. They’re not the least bit exciting. They don’t even have anything interesting to say.”

“I don’t know that this is going to be much better,” Jack replied. “I’ve yet to meet a power transformer that was a good conversationalist. But you’re welcome to stay and watch if you want! I won’t make the love of my life leave the room and go do something else.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling. “So what are you doing now?”

“I’m about to plug in the cylinder again and watch it burn out another transformer,” Jack said. “Are you ready?”

Lily nodded. Jack gritted his teeth and carefully set the blue cylinder down inside his makeshift connector. Instantly the transformer hummed to life!

Jack looked at a power meter that he had connected to the circuit. “Ok, wait for it…”

Without warning the room suddenly came to life! The handful of unbroken lights that dangled from the room’s ceiling began glowing. Many of the computers in the room were damaged, but the undamaged ones powered up and started to boot. Rows and rows of tiny orange and green lights began blinking.

“Wow!” Jack exclaimed. “I can’t believe it. It actually worked! This must be my lucky day. But how long will it hold, I wonder?”

Lily stuck her head out into the hallway. “It looks like the lights are on in a few other rooms too! At least, the lights that are still intact.”

Jack nodded. “So that’s good. The next question is -”

He was interrupted when a holographic figure appeared in the room. The figure was of a woman slightly shorter than him, with short red hair, green eyes, and a stylish orange uniform.

Jack groaned. “Please tell me it’s not another hologram! I am so tired of dealing with holograms today.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “I apologize for your inconvenience, Jack Rossman. Is there any way I can help?”

Jack gasped. “It talks!”

“Of course,” the woman replied. “My name is Rachel. I am the computer for the starship Raptor. Or, perhaps, the former starship. The few sensors I have left indicate extensive damage.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Lily replied. “My name is Lily.”

Rachel nodded. “I know. I apologize for the role I played in abducting both of you. I did not realize what was going on until we reached Lemura. I then attempted to remedy my mistake but by then it was tragically too late.”

“Too late for what?” Lily asked.

Rachel looked at her sadly. “Too late for many things, I am afraid. Too late to stop Alice Montaine from stealing the Third Treasure. Too late to return you to Eagle City. Too late to contact the authorities and let them know that they have a dangerous problem.”

“Wait a minute!” Jack exclaimed. “Hold on. Who stole the Third Treasure?”

“Alice Montaine did,” Rachel replied. “You see, some time ago she came to believe that the weapon that was used to destroy the First Races is hidden inside a secret chamber on this planet. She also came to believe that someone was trying to break into that chamber and steal the weapon – presumably so they could use it against mankind.”

“Who are the First Races?” Lily whispered.

“I’ll explain later,” Jack replied. “Let her finish.”

Rachel continued. “Alice brought this information to Caedmon Starlight, but instead of acting on her recommendation he told her to study the problem further. All of this I knew. What I did not realize until too late, however, was that after Caedmon rejected her advice Alice decided to take matters into her own hands. She tricked Mayor Seaton into giving her access to the computer systems that guarded the Third Treasure, and she used that access to plant a virus in each system. That virus brought Eagle City to its knees, shutting down its defenses and allowing her to steal the Third Treasure.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Jack said. “Everyone in town saw Alice board the Molly and chase the thief that had stolen the Raptor. Besides, the creature that forced me to transport the Third Treasure out of the museum was a black alien shadow, not a human.”

Rachel shook her head. “That creature was Alice in an Ahmanyan invisibility cloak. She had adjusted it to give off the appearance of a shadow in order to conceal her true identity. Disguising her voice was not hard. It is true that she boarded the Molly, but like many ships of its class the freighter had a wormhole transporter. It was a simple matter for her to transport herself into your work environment and then transport back to the Molly.”

“But someone stole the Raptor!” Jack protested. “We all saw it happen.”

“Nobody stole me,” Rachel replied. “I did not even realize I had been reported stolen. Alice simply contacted me and told me to leave immediately for Lemura. She said something had come up and she would meet me there. When your wife appeared on board she claimed that she was a spy and asked me to keep her in stasis, so I did. When you came after her I assumed you were a spy as well and placed you in stasis with her. I am deeply sorry for this misunderstanding. I take full responsibility for it. I should not have been as trusting.”

“I just can’t believe it,” Jack repeated. “When did you find out the truth?”

“It was when the Molly entered orbit. I immediately detected the Third Treasure on board her ship and realized what had happened. I contacted Alice and told her that I was going to report her to the authorities. Instead of surrendering, however, she opened fire on me. I returned fire in hope of disabling her ship and recovering the stolen artifact. When I saw that Alice had transported off the ship I destroyed it so she would be trapped on the planet and unable to escape. Sadly, her last salvo destroyed me as well. I was not able to call for help.”

“So what do we do now?” Lily asked.

“Panic,” Jack said. “I think this would be the perfect time to panic.”

Rachel looked at Jack curiously. “Why is that?”

“Lots of reasons! Let’s see.” He started ticking reasons off on his fingers. “We’re trapped on an alien planet. The planet is trying to kill us. The only other human being on this planet is a rogue Starman that kidnapped both of us. And there’s no way to call for help. Do you want me to continue?”

“You have to stop her,” Rachel said. “You must recover the Third Treasure. That artifact contains some very dangerous information. Alice may be planning to use that knowledge to destroy this entire planet.”

“But Alice is alone here, right?” Jack asked. “Surely she needs more than just a crystal ball to do some real damage.”

“She may be alone but she is not without supplies. On her previous trip here she established a base camp deep below the planet’s surface that she stocked liberally with supplies. She has enough claytronic material with her to produce almost any of the machines that are recorded within the Treasure.”

Jack whistled. “Oh boy. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse! Do you have any other wonderful bits of news to add to this conversation?”

Rachel nodded. “I do. Someone on this planet has noticed that I am now operational again and has fired a guided missile at us. It will strike us in less than thirty seconds.”

Jack’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”

“Run!” Rachel shouted.

Before Jack could respond Lily was already out the door and down the hall. Jack raced after her but to his surprise he could not overtake her. It took them less than ten seconds to leave the ship. Once outside Lily ran out into the desert, as far away from the vessel as possible. Jack followed after her as fast as he could go. He had almost caught up with her when he heard a whistling noise behind him. “Hit the ground!” he shouted.

His wife dove onto the desert floor and Jack followed suit. Seconds later he heard an enormous explosion. His head was buried in the ground but he could feel a searing heat behind him and knew that a huge fireball had just gone up. The sound from the blast temporarily deafened him.

Jack rolled over and looked at the ship. What he saw did not surprise him. “It’s gone,” he said softly. A giant crater now sat where the battered hull of the Raptor used to be. The blast had tore the starship into shrapnel and scattered its tiny pieces all over the desert. There was nothing left of the once mighty vessel but small shards of metal.

Jack and Lily were in the weapons room of the Raptor, searching it for clues that might reveal the identity of the being that had recently visited it. Their search was interrupted by a noise in the distance. The sound began as a whisper but it quickly rose in volume until the ship itself began to shake. After a hair-raising minute it gradually faded away until it had entirely disappeared.

Jack turned to his wife. “Did you hear that?”

“Are you kidding?” his wife replied. “Do you think I’m deaf? How could I have missed it?”

“What did it sound like to you?”

“It sounded kind of like energy,” Lily replied slowly. “I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what it sounded like to me. If energy had a sound that would be it.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “That’s what I thought too. It kind of sounded like some big machine suddenly roared to life. I could be wrong, but I bet something was just turned on – and since this room is still dark I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this ship. My guess is -”

“The city,” his wife finished.

“Right.” Jack swung the rifle over his shoulder and looked around. “Well, I think we’re done here. My bones tell me we have work to do elsewhere. Are you sure you don’t want one of these portable cannon-like things? It might come in handy.”

Lily shook her head. She picked up one of the small laser guns and a holster, and tied it around her waist. “No thanks. I’ll stick with something that looks reasonable and sane.”

Jack smiled. “All right. So shall we be going? I’d like to find out what caused that noise.”

“Sure,” his wife replied. “I’m right behind you.” The two of them left the weapons room and headed back to the stairwell. They then walked up to the third floor and carefully made their way out of the ship. Once they had reached the planet’s surface they started hiking toward the city. The city could not be seen from the crash site of the Raptor, so there was no immediate way to tell if their theory was right. All they could do is keep walking.

Lily spoke up. “You know, dear, most reasonable people would want to run away from strange noises on alien planets.”

Jack shrugged. “I suppose. And I bet those reasonable people would go on to lead long and happy lives. But we need a power source to get the Raptor‘s computers going again, and as it turns out I am fresh out of power sources. My bones tell me that somewhere a really big machine just got turned on, and I have a feeling that a really big machine would probably have a power source of some kind. All we need to do is find out what it is and we’re in business.”

“Right,” Lily agreed. “Because it can’t possibly be difficult to connect an alien power source to modern electronics. Why, you can probably get a converter cable at your local convenience store.”

“One step at a time,” her husband said, grinning. “First let’s find that power source. Then we’ll worry about finding a way to use it. No sense in borrowing trouble.”

The couple walked to the crest of a small hill. When they reached the top they froze in their tracks. In front of them, past the hill, they could see the city they had fled from the day before. Today, however, the city had changed dramatically. The formerly desolate city was now encased in a glowing blue field of some kind. Through the semi-transparent field they could see that the buildings themselves were emitting a brilliant blue light that could easily be discerned in the daylight.

Jack whistled. “It certainly didn’t look like that yesterday! What do you think happened?”

“There are three options that I can think of,” Lily said. “Either we’re responsible, or someone else is responsible, or it just happened on its own and is a wild coincidence.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “Personally, I’m going to go with the wild coincidence. That’s the one that makes me feel the most confident about what we’re about to do. C’mon, let’s go down and check it out.”

Jack grabbed his wife’s hand and the two of them started walking toward the city. When they were right in front of the field his wife grabbed him. “Hold on a minute. Did you see that?”

“See what?” he asked.

“Look!” his wife said, pointing. A breeze was blowing along the ground, stirring up little clouds of gritty black dust. Once the clouds were formed the wind gently pushed them along the ground. When the dust came into contact with the blue field, however, it simply vanished.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Now that is unusual. You don’t suppose that would happen to us if we walked into it, do you?”

“It’s possible, don’t you think?” his wife asked. “I mean, isn’t that the whole point of force fields? To keep out unwanted things? And don’t you think we just might fall into the category of ‘unwanted things’?”

Her husband thought a moment. He then bent down to the ground, picked up a small rock, and threw it at the city. When the rock came into contact with the transparent blue shield it simply vanished in a flash of light. Jack then removed one of the tasteless food rations from his pocket and hurled it at the shield. It passed through effortlessly.

“So it doesn’t just destroy everything that it comes into contact with,” Jack remarked. He slowly extended his hand toward the field.

Lily grabbed it and pulled him back. “Are you crazy? Do you want to lose your entire arm?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” Jack asked. “I’ll touch it slowly and gently. If anything goes wrong I’ll stop. It will be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Uh-huh,” his wife said. “Unless when you touch the field it vaporizes your entire body. Then I’ll have to save the planet by myself. Plus, I’m pretty sure your life insurance doesn’t cover ‘death by alien force field’.”

“You’re probably right. But I think my accidental death and dismemberment insurance would cover it. I seem to remember asking my employer about that when I signed up for benefits.”

“Fine!” his wife said, stepping back. “Have it your way. But if it kills you don’t come and complain to me! I warned you.”

Jack smiled. He then slowly reached his hand out and touched the blue field. To his enormous relief his hand easily passed through it without harm. Gathering courage, Jack walked into the field and effortlessly breezed right through. After he had safely reached the other side he turned and looked at his wife. “See? I told you it would be fine! It didn’t even damage my weapon. Come on! It’s a long hike to the city center.”

Lily cautiously walked through the shield. Once she was safely on the other side she shuddered. “That was terrifying! How do we get into these situations?”

Jack laughed. “It comes from leading an exciting life on the frontiers of space, exploring places where saner people would never go. This is high adventure, dear!”

Lily smiled. “Just don’t let it go to your head, dear. When we get home you’ve got a desk job to go back to. Don’t get any crazy ideas about changing careers.”

“We can talk about that when we get home,” Jack agreed. “Right now I think we’re still trying to save civilization.”

The couple began jogging toward the center of the city, where the tallest buildings were located. They were still sore from their exertions over the past several days, but much of the initial pain had dissipated. Having a few good meals and a good night’s sleep had worked wonders for both of them.

After a while Jack started noticing that the city was actually almost unchanged from the day before. Aside from the glowing buildings and the protective blue shield nothing else was different. The city was still empty and the buildings were still ruined shells of their former selves. Jack was about to point this out to his observant wife when suddenly a person materialized in front of them.

Jack immediately stopped. His wife grabbed him. “Do you see that?” she hissed.

Her husband nodded but said nothing. The man that was standing in front of them was almost a foot taller than Jack. He looked very much like a human and was dressed in a long, flowing white robe and appeared to be an elderly gentleman with short white hair. What drew Jack’s attention the most, though, was that the man had six fingers on each hand – four normal fingers and two opposable thumbs.

The man smiled at them and started speaking in an alien language. Jack frowned. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m afraid I’m not getting any of that. Do you speak any other languages?”

The figure’s expression did not change. He continued talking as if nothing had happened.

“Do you realize what that sounds like?” his wife whispered.

Jack shook his head. He waved a hand in front of the stranger’s face but the man did not respond. “Nope, I don’t. It sure doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.”

“Nonsense!” his wife replied in a low voice. “You heard that same language yesterday, in the basement of that building. Remember? It’s the same thing – words that sound like breaking glass!”

“Wow! I’d forgotten. You know, I think you’re right.” Jack picked up a small piece of metal from the ground and threw it at the man. It passed effortlessly through him.

Lily put her face in her hands. “Jack! Are you out of your mind? What if he hadn’t been a hologram? Whatever possessed you to throw a rock at an alien on a hostile planet?”

“It wasn’t a rock, it was a piece of metal,” her husband pointed out. “And besides, the guy wasn’t responding at all. I had a feeling he wasn’t actually real. I think he’s a recording of some kind.”

Lily sighed. “So what do we do now?”

Jack looked around. The center of the city was still an hour’s hike ahead of them, but there were sizable buildings on either side. “Why not explore one of the towers right here? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“But what about the alien?”

Jack shrugged. “For all we know he might stand there and babble on for hours. We can’t understand what he’s saying and standing here listening to him isn’t going to change that. There’s no point in hanging around.”

“But don’t you want to know what he’s saying?”

“I suppose, but as it turns out I don’t speak many unknown alien languages. It’s a lost cause. We’d be better off moving on to something that is not a lost cause – like locating a power source.”

Jack held onto his wife’s hand and the two of them walked into the nearest skyscraper. After they entered the building they searched the ground floor. Sure enough, at the rear of the building was an elevator shaft, and not far from the elevator was an old stairwell.

“Look at this!” Jack exclaimed, as they opened the door and walked into the stairwell. “It goes down into a basement. Are we in luck or what?”

“Don’t most tall buildings have basements?” Lily asked.

“Probably, come to think of it. Isn’t there some structural reason for it? Maybe tall buildings have to have a large basement to stay balanced.”

“Aren’t you confusing a basement with a foundation?” his wife asked.

“Maybe. I forget. I guess taking that engineering class in school wouldn’t have been such a waste of time after all. Oh well.” The couple quickly descended the staircase. When they got to the lowest level Jack spotted an airlock door with a glowing control panel beside it. After thinking back on his experience with the airlock yesterday he walked up to it and pressed a button. The door opened.

“Are you sure we should do this?” Lily asked, as she followed her husband into the airlock. “You remember what happened last time!”

“Do you have an alternate plan?”

Lily shook her head. Jack pressed a button on the inner control panel, and the door they had just stepped through slid shut. The inner door then opened.

To their surprise the inner door did not open into a room filled with holoscreens. Instead, through the opening they could see a balcony that overlooked a giant plaza that stretched for hundreds of feet. The balcony extended like a catwalk around the entire open area, circling it.

Jack walked over to the balcony and looked down. The opening extended for eight stories below them and four stories above them. Each floor had its own balcony and a series of crisscrossing staircases connected the floors to each other. The entire room was lit with a white light that appeared to have no obvious source.

“It looks like a giant mall,” Lily said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Or at least it used to be,” her husband commented. “I bet at one time there used to be fountains and trees and other things in here. Now it’s just a big empty room. There aren’t even any decorations!”

“Not entirely,” his wife corrected. She pointed to the level below them at a giant glowing holoscreen.

Jack looked at it and squinted, trying to see what it was displaying. He frowned. “Why doesn’t this planet have anything other than holoscreens, Lily? Where are the filing cabinets? Where are the ping pong tables? Where is the fine cuisine? What kind of giant city only has computer screens, of all things?”

Lily shook her head. “Maybe that’s all that survived. Or maybe the city is just a giant computer. Or maybe aliens just have poor interior decorating skills. Regardless, I think if you want to read that display you’re going to have to actually go down there and look at it.”

Jack laughed. The couple made their way to the nearest staircase and walked down it to the lower level. They then made their way along the balcony to the giant holoscreen.

Jack studied it for a moment. “It’s clearly a map. I can’t make out any of the writing, but it’s definitely a map of this area. Do you see anything that looks like a power source?”

Lily studied the map closely. She glanced over the balcony to the floor below, and then looked back at the map. Lily then reached up and touched one of the buttons on the screen.

Jack’s eyes widened in shock. “Hey there! You told me we weren’t supposed to be pushing buttons.”

“But I knew what that one was going to do,” Lily explained. “This screen is now showing a map of the lowest level of the plaza. These buttons tell the map to show a different floor. My guess is that if there’s a power source nearby it’s probably at some protected location, like a lower level. So I pressed the last button. As you can see, the map has changed.”

Jack nodded. “It does look like there’s something below this area. But how do we get there?”

Lily pointed to a stairwell on the display. “That’s our ticket! Let’s head there and see what we find.”

As Jack and Lily turned to go they saw the alien materialize in front of them. It began talking to them in the same tone that it had before. Jack waved his hand in front of it but it did not respond.

“There’s still nobody home,” Jack remarked. “Nothing to see here. Let’s go!”

The couple made their way down flight after flight of stairs and finally reached the ground floor. Jack followed his wife as she led him to the staircase she had found on the map. They then walked down the stairs to the basement.

At the bottom of the stairwell was a large door made out of blue metal. Jack look at the symbols surrounding the door and smiled. “I don’t need a crash-course in alien languages to know what that says. That door has ‘danger’ written all over it.”

As Jack walked up to the door the alien appeared directly in front of him for a third time. This time the alien appeared agitated.

“I don’t think he wants you to go in there,” Lily said.

Jack once again waved his hand in front of the alien’s face. The alien did not respond. “It’s still just a recording. Until we’re connected to a live person I think ignoring him is all we can do.” Jack walked up to the door and tried to open it but it did not budge. The giant metal door was locked.

“I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Jack sighed. He took a step back and aimed his rifle at it.

Lily grabbed his arm. “Don’t even think about it, Jack! For all we know that could destroy the entire building. Let me open it with my pistol.”

Jack nodded and stepped out of the way. Lily aimed her hand-held laser pistol at the edge of the door. She pulled the trigger and in a swift move she sliced the door open. After releasing the trigger Lily walked up to the door and pushed on it. The door fell over onto the ground with a loud clang. As soon as the door hit the ground the holographic person disappeared.

Jack smiled. “Nice work!” Lily nodded and placed her weapon back in its holster.

On the other side of the door was a long, wide hallway with a metal floor, a metal ceiling, and frosted glass walls. Every hundred feet the glass walls were interrupted by a glass door. The hallway continued on far into the distance.

Lily spoke up. “I may be wrong, but I think this parallels the street above us.”

“Could be,” Jack said. “Maybe this is some kind of corridor that runs under all of the buildings.”

As they walked down the endless corridor they peered through the frosted glass. The glass was difficult to see through but they could tell that on the other side of the glass were rows and rows of giant machines. The machines appeared to emit a blue light.

Jack walked up to one of the glass doors and opened it. After stepping through to the other side of the frosted glass he walked up to the nearest machine to get a closer look. The giant machines were a maze of complicated tubes, wiring, and readouts, all of which were covered in alien symbols. All of the machines appeared to be slightly different; a few were only ten feet long while others were several times that size. What most struck Jack, however, were the glowing blue cylinders that each machine was centered around. Each cylinder was approximately three feet long and was made of some type of transparent material. Within it was a bright blue fire.

“What do you think all of this is for?” his wife asked.

“Beats me,” he replied. “If I was a Starman I could wave some magical gadget in front of it and find out that it replicates snack foods, or something. All I know is that it’s big, it’s complicated, it’s alien, and it seems to draw power from those blue cylinder things.”

“That blue is everywhere,” Lily commented. “This city has blue walls, blue buildings, and a blue force field. Whoever built this city must have really liked that particular color.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Would you have any objections if I tried to remove that glowing blue cylinder and took it back to the Raptor?”

Lily shook her head. “Go for it. That looks like the only removable piece of the entire machine. If it’s as light as it looks you should be able to carry it. But what do you think is going to happen when you remove it? What if someone complains?”

Jack laughed. “I’m not really frightened by ancient holographic recordings. I think we’ll be fine.”

Jack carefully studied the machine for a moment. He then reached over and opened some clamps. “I like this! Easily removable. Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Jack placed his hands on the cylinder, grabbed it, and pulled. After a brief struggle it popped out of the machine. To his relief the cylinder continued to glow after it had been removed. Jack turned to his wife, smiling in triumph. “Well, that went -”

He was interrupted by a warning siren. The white lights went out and a pulsing orange light filled the room. The siren continued to wail.

Lily suddenly screamed and pointed. About three hundred feet away there was a metal door embedded in the wall behind one of the machines. This door had just opened and a giant robot was in the process of stepping out of it. The robot was vaguely humanoid, but what most struck Jack was that it was at least eight feet tall and was carrying what looked like a large, dangerous weapon. As they watched the robot’s head swiveled in their direction. When Jack saw what was about to happen he grabbed his wife and yanked her back behind the machine. A moment later the robot fired!

The blue bolt from the robot’s gun just barely missed them. It struck the glass wall behind them, shattering it into a thousand dangerous shards. The entire hundred-foot pane of frosted glass fell to the ground, scattering pieces everywhere.

Jack quickly handed his wife the blue cylinder he was carrying. He then unslung the rifle from his shoulder, jumped out from behind the machine, and fired it in the robot’s general direction. To his surprise the rifle did not send out a searing laser bolt. Instead, a brilliant white projectile shot out of the gun. The projectile missed the robot by about two feet and smashed into the wall behind it.

When the projectile struck the wall there was a fantastic roar and a brilliant flash of white light. The entire area erupted in flame and smoke. Since Lily was behind a machine she was protected from the blast, but the shockwave caught Jack and launched him across the room. He flew through the broken glass wall and was thrown down the hallway. His laser gun went flying and he crashed painfully onto the ground.

As the smoke cleared Lily ran to her husband’s side and helped him off the ground. Once he was on his feet she picked up his rifle and gave it back to him. Jack stood up and took at look at the damage. He could not believe what he saw. The entire area where the robot used to be was simply gone. The wall was gone. The door was gone. Even the machines that had been near the robot were gone. There was simply nothing left. The surrounding ceiling and floor were badly charred.

Jack looked at the devastation in disbelief. “What on earth was that?”

“I don’t think we want to know what your gun fired,” Lily said. Overhead a warning siren continued to wail.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jack urged. He nodded toward another metal door in the far side of the hallway. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this city likes us anymore. Let’s take that door topside and get out of here.”

Lily grabbed the blue cylinder and nodded. “I’m right behind you!”

After Neal laid down for a short nap in his and Uncle John’s own cubicle, he joined the other miners for the Friday Evening Feast.

The miners on Eros had developed the tradition over the years of celebrating the end of the hard work week on Friday evening with a big meal followed by tall tales and card games. They all looked forward to it throughout the week and it was a bright spot in their schedule. Unfortunately, Hanna was rarely able to come to the meal since her grandfather required her for the evening Shabbat service.

Neal had gone a few times with her to her Shabbat ceremony on Friday evenings. In Hanna and her grandfather’s little home in the cylinder, Granddaddy Gazer would be sitting on a padded chair with a shawl pulled over his head, and in front of him their electric candle menora, a candle holder with seven electric candles. He would nod to Hanna, who would reverently move to the menora and slowly turn it up to full brightness. Granddaddy Gazer would bow his wrinkled head and murmur in Yiddish and Hebrew.

Then he would say, “Read from the Tanakh, Hanna,” and Hanna would step forward and read from a scroll in Hebrew, often from Isaiah, she told him later. Neal didn’t understand the soft muttered words, but he had seen the deep reverence in the face of Granddaddy Gazer. He leaned deeply forward as though God himself were speaking words to his most humble servant. And, Neal reflected, he supposed maybe God was.

Tonight, however, while Hanna was in the apartment with her grandfather preparing for the Shabbat, Neal was sitting next to Uncle John. They were eating in the Dining Area, located in the topmost ring of the living cylinder.

Neal took a drink of coke from a cup and tried to decide if his battered stomach was hungry or not. Tonight it was grill cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, with a side of humus for some pita chips. Neal grabbed a grill cheese sandwich off the serving plate and eyed it for a minute. The bread was fluffy from being baked at low gravity, and the cheese was a bacteria yeast-culture brew mixed with artifical ingredients. Only once in his life had Neal had the luxury of tasting real cow-milk cheese, a type called Cheddar. A supply freighter docking at the station had some extra cheese that Granddaddy Gazer had bought Hanna, and she’d given a precious slice to him. It tasted slightly funky to Neal, who was used to his half-artifical cheese. But he was still glad he’d tried it. Neal dropped the grill cheese sandwich on his plate and sighed.

“Not goin’ te eat yer foodstuffs?” MacHardy asked. The great burly man was sitting across from Neal plowing his way through a large pile of sandwiches. His plate and the table around it looked like a battle field. Perhaps Grummel’s clumsiness came from somewhere, Neal reflected, looking at the crumbs sprayed and scattered around MacHardy’s plate.

“My stomach’s not feeling so well,” Neal said, poking his grill cheese sandwich ruefully.

“Ahe! Yeh, I well remembe’ my first fight,” said MacHardy. Neal’s eyes widened, feeling immediate pity for whoever had crossed fists with MacHardy. “He wus my neighbor, a boy named Bren,” said MacHardy, leaning his giant elbows onto the table and speaking between mouthfuls. Neal was a little distracted by a crumb stuck in the long frizzy beard of MacHardy. The crumb bounced up and down as MacHardy talked.

“Thet’ rascal of’a boy had kissed Suzy, the prettiest gir’ in the place,” said MacHardy, furrowing his bushy red eyebrows.

“Vat’s wrong wiss that?” Dirk asked. Dirk and his wife Anna, from Germany, were seated next to MacHardy. They were a lively young couple in their late-twenties. They had landed two years before on the asteroid as a dating couple looking for engineering work. Uncle John had insisted they have separate apartments if they were dating, but Neal knew that generally they lived together. His Uncle John strongly disapproved of that, but had decided not to take further action besides occasionally urging them to marry. “If they were Christians,” he said, “we would certainly have to reprimand them. But God calls us to keep the Church pure, not the world, Neal.” Neal liked Dirk and Anna very much. Sometimes Dirk would have him over to their apartment to play video games on his virtual simulator, and Anna would bake hot cookies.

Dirk was smiling at MacHardy and he turned to wink at Anna. “It’s not too great a sin to kiss a prehtee girl, is it?”

MacHardy slopped his grill cheese sandwich into his soup and chomped another giant bite out of it. “What was wrong wid’ it was thet she was me own girl!” he roared, spraying some additional crumbs in the general area around his plate. “Me own girl, me fair Suzy, only for me own lips to be kissin!” He howled in anguish at the memory and stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his great mouth.

“Wahl, don’t ye know, after I heard all abouts it, I merched straight up over to his house and told him to come out fer a fight. He come straight out his door and we lit into it right ther’ in front of his house. Thet’s how mad I were, I didn’t even keer if his mum saw us or no.”

Several miners at nearby tables were turning their heads to grin and try to catch MacHardy’s tale of woe.
“We traded punches beck and forth for nigh’ unto two hours afore the fight wuz ended,” he said, rubbing his beard daintily with a napkin and missing the crumb on it.

“Two hours?” asked Dirk, amazed. He hadn’t learned much about miners and their tall tales yet. Neal figured if MacHardy told it at two hours it was more like two minutes.

MacHardy turned twinkling eyes to Dirk and nodded solemnly. A miner somewhere guffawed and MacHardy shot a scowl in that direction.

“How did it end?” Neal asked.

“Wahl,” said MacHardy reluctantly, “I cain’t say as thet I won thet particoo’lar fight. I ended et’ like you did, Neal me boy, with two fine shiners and an aching tummy.”

Neal’s eyes widened as he imagined what sort of person it would take to beat MacHardy in a fist fight.

“So did this, this Soozy, leaf you?” asked Dirk, very interested.

“Wahl, thet’s the strange thing about weemun,” said MacHardy, sitting back and stretching. “I lay in me bed thet evening with me eyes and stomach achin’ from Bren, and my backsides achin’ from me mum fer fightin’. But wurst of all was the achin’ in me heart. For I fig’ered Suzy would be out smoochin with that rat named Bren now thet I’d lost. But whut did I hear but a knock at me door, and Suzy coming in with a plate of cookies what she’d made for me her’self! She didn’t say a single word to me, jes’ sat there and fed me cookies one after t’ other. And it weren’t Bren who got a smooch,” he said, picking up another sandwich and winking at Dirk.

“Was that the same Suzy whom you later married?” asked Uncle John.

“It were indeed, Uncle John,” MacHardy said happily. “Grummel’s own mum.” He grew more pensive. “So many years an’ I still miss her at moments.” Uncle John reached over and patted MacHardy’s large arm awkwardly as a tear rolled down MacHardy’s cheek. The other miners all pretended to go back to their own meals and conversations.

MacHardy wiped a large thumb across his eyes and sighed loudly. He took up another sandwich dripping with soup and stuffed it into his mouth as though to stuff away his sorrows. One of the hatches in the ceiling clanged open just then and Neal looked up to see Grummel start descending the ladder, and then behind him Mrs. Silver in her red space suit. Neal was turning back to his drink when he caught a glimpse of MacHardy. His large hand was frozen in mid-air, holding a dripping sandwich. His mouth hung slightly open, showing giant teeth in the middle of chewing. His blue eyes glazed slightly as they slowly followed Mrs. Silver down the ladder.

“Who’s thet?” he choked to Neal. “Is thet the new lady stranger?”

“Yes,” said Neal, laughing until the pain in his stomach made him groan.

　

Uncle John was leaning over Mirk, who was groaning groggily on the infirmary cot, blood oozing from his broken nose.

“Well, you all are a sight,” was all he said, though Neal could see worlds more going through Uncle John’s quick mind. Uncle John had bristly black hair and a goatee and round glasses on his nose. He was a thoughtful, sharp man with keen peering eyes and an uncompromising Calvinist faith of German heritage. It was only appropriate he be a miner for he was a man made of steel.

After stopping the bleeding from Mirk’s nose, Uncle John crossed his arms and stood up to his six-foot height.

“Who wants to tell me what happened?” he said. They were silent for a minute.

Mirk looked sullen. After a moment he pulled himself off the cot and stumbled out of the room, cloth plugs hanging out of his nose. Uncle John watched him go, a certain anger sparking in his eyes. He turned back to Neal again.

“Cornelius Van Til Washer, tell me exactly what happened.”

Neal felt some of his anger returning. “It’s Mirk. He looks at…” He looked at Hanna and changed his mind.

“He hit Hanna in Tai Ji so I asked him to fight after class.”

“And you beat him up?” asked Uncle John, mixed emotions crossing his face. Neal hesitated, looking at Hanna.

“I fought him,” he hedged, wanting to keep Hanna out of it.

“Meshugenah!” Hanna snapped at Neal. She turned to Uncle John. “Uncle John,” she said Several people at Providence called John Washer Uncle John since he was the leader of the small community and took a personal interest in everyone’s lives. “Uncle John,” she said again, more clearly, “Neal and Mirk were fighting, and Mirk was trying to clank Neal’s magboots from fifty feet up. I beat up that nudnik Mirk. I’m sorry.” She huffed at herself.

Uncle John looked amused for a moment, then thoughtful, then sober. He looked at them both carefully. “The Bible teaches us that ‘The wrath of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God’.” He handed Neal a fresh ice pack. “Giving way to your anger, no matter how justified, never brings a good result. And that is not what Jesus taught us. “Turn the other cheek, he said, not the other fist.”

“An eye for an eye,” put in Hanna, stubbornly.

Just then a short and balding old man in the doorway cleared his throat. They jumped and turned to look at him. It was old Jacob Gazer, Hanna’s grandfather. He had sparkling mischievious old eyes and a wrinkled face. What white hair was left on his receding forehead sprung up in all directions from under his yarmulke like fire. “Nck nck nck, Hanna,” he said, shaking his head and pointing a short plastic stick at her. “Don’t talk like a shiksa! Does not the 25th chapter of the Tanakh’s holy Sayings teach us, ‘If your enemies are hungry, give them bread, and if they are thirsty, give them drink?'” Hanna hung her head.

Neal spoke up. “Granddaddy Gazer, in class Mirk hit her unfairly, and she did nothing in return. I was the one who asked to fight him.” Mr. Gazer’s old eyes went wide and he nodded his wrinkled head thoughtfully. Neal muttered, embarrassed, “And then she had to rescue me from Mirk.” A smile snuck across the old man’s lips.

“Well,” he said to Hanna. “I didn’t know I’d raised such a Zionist. Am I to suppose that rescuing Neal from Mirk is the reason that Mirk has a broken nose?” He peered at Hanna. Hanna giggled for a moment, then blushed and looked down. “Oy, yes, granddaddy. I broke his nose.”

“Then we will just have to go apologize to this goyim,” said Grannddady Gazer, taking her hand. A look of horror came over her strong features. “No!” she gasped.

“Now, don’t kvetch about it, little klopper,” he said, peering up at her. “The Shabbat is almost here and we must hurry.”

Uncle John put his hand on Neal’s shoulder. “Grandfather Gazer is right,” he said. “You both must apologize.”

Neal felt his heart sink down into his aching stomach. But there was nothing to be done. He looked at Hanna who grimaced back at him and then set her jaw.

They marched out of the infirmary. Neal briefly considered making a run for it, but looking at the muscular shoulders of Uncle John in front of him he gritted his teeth and kept trudging.

Neal’s mother had died in childbirth on the asteroid, and his father had passed away in a mining explosion when Neal was five. Since then his father’s brother, Uncle John, had raised him as his own son. Uncle John had never married, but to him the mining community of Providence was his family, as it was Neal’s.

They exited the tunnel into the main lobby and each switched off their boots and floated headfirst down the hatch into the Living Cylinder well. The hatches were turning around them as they continued all the way down a hundred feet to a hatch near the bottom marked BRUT. Granddaddy Gazer took his short rod and knocked on the door. After a moment it slid open and a voice farther inside, “Come in.”

Granddaddy slowly turned, helped by Hanna, and went down the hatch into the living quarters. Hanna followed, then Uncle John and Neal. As Neal stepped off the last rung onto the floor of the room, the 1/2 Earth Gravity of the living cylinder made his stomach and bones ache with a sudden pang. He groaned and leaned over. It was a crowded room, about ten by twenty feet with the floor curving up on two sides. Mirk was lying on one of the two beds, pale and angry. Mr. Brut was standing by him, looking calmly at the assembled crowd. Granddaddy Gazer clicked his stick out into a cane. He leaned on it and motioned Hanna forward. She stepped up to Mirk’s bed and stared at him. She had trouble opening her mouth, but finally got it out without gagging. “Mirk, I’m sorry for breaking your nose.” Neal straightened as best he could and looked at Mirk. Mirk’s hair was greasy and tousled on his pillow, but his eyes were sharp coals.

“Mirk…” Neal’s head swam, and the words seemed to escape him. He blanked out for a moment, searching for words. He decided to stick to basics. “I’m sorry for fighting.” That was near enough to the truth, though a part of him was willing to fight Mirk again at the drop of a hat.

“And I’m sorry if I was disrespectful, Mr. Brut,” put in Hanna. Uncle John twitched an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn’t heard about their disastrous science class yet.

“You are a spirited young lady, if a bit foolish and naive,” Mr. Brut said. Granddaddy Gazer squeezed his cane but said nothing. “I doubt that I will attempt teaching class again any time soon, until you are a little more willing to be educated. But I hold no hard feelings. As for Mirkus, well well, it is survival of the fittest out there, and I would say he made a foolish choice to engage in a fight he couldn’t win. Perhaps he will learn some lessons from this,” he said.

Neal felt stunned. Survival of the fittest? For a moment Neal even managed to feel sorry for Mirk.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” said Mr. Brut, “I have some numerical statistics I need to analyze.” He nodded to the group, and walked to a desk covered with papers and sat down.

They all stood staring for a moment at Mirk.

He rolled over with his back to them and turned his face to the wall. Granddaddy Gazer poked Hanna gently and she hurriedly started up the ladder.

Jack and Lily Rossman stepped into the ruined hulk of the Raptor. The missing hull plates allowed large amounts of light to enter the ship’s third floor. What the light revealed, however, was not encouraging. The rooms immediately next to the hull were trashed. Much of the floor was missing, making walking treacherous as a single slip could send one plummeting down to the second floor. The walls were bent out of shape and the rooms were empty. It was a depressing sight.

The couple managed to pick their way through the debris and shattered metal and make it into the inner hallway. There was still some natural light that managed to enter this part of the ship, but much of the area was cloaked in darkness. Lily removed her flashlight from her emergency kit and turned it on.

“Good idea,” Jack said.

“This is awful,” Lily commented as they surveyed the damage. The holoscreens that dotted the walls were cracked and broken. Large portions of the ceiling were ripped apart, exposing duct work and wires. The floor was bent out of shape. Pieces of doors were strewn about the hall, as if a hurricane had ripped through the hallway and yanked the doors off their hinges.

“Let’s find that stairwell and go up to the top,” Jack suggested. “That’s probably the most intact area of the ship.”

Lily shook her head. “I disagree. I say we search the ship thoroughly, starting here and working our way up. There’s no sense in skipping areas just because they don’t look promising. You never know what you might find.”

Jack shrugged. “Sounds good to me. Lead the way, dear!”

Lily turned and looked at him. “How did I become the leader of this expedition?”

“You’ve got the flashlight.”

“Ah,” Lily sighed. “Silly me.” She began carefully making her way down the hall.

The third floor had a surprising number of rooms, but nearly all of them were trashed. The room where they had been held in hibernation was a complete wreck. The stasis tables had been ripped off of the floor and thrown into the wall. Jack could not find a single piece of intact equipment in the entire room. Many of the other rooms were in the same condition. Whatever important equipment they might have held was now damaged beyond recognition.

After deciding that the third floor was a total loss they made their way to the stairwell and climbed up to the fourth floor. That floor proved to be more intact. The third door that Jack forced open led into a spacious bedroom.

Lily cheered when she saw that the room was largely intact. The bed had been turned over and slammed into one of the walls, but it was largely undamaged. By working together they were able to put it back into position.

“That’s sure going to beat sleeping on a metal floor!” Lily exclaimed. “And there are sheets! I’m so excited.”

Jack was surprised. “You want to stay in the ship tonight?”

“You’d better believe it! Where, exactly, did you expect us to make our camp? Back in the city of horrors? Out in the countryside? As you said yourself, our options are kind of slim.”

Jack shrugged. “Suits me.” He walked over to an overturned dresser and tried to set it up again as Lily attempted to pry open the closet door. When the closet door suddenly gave way Lily cheered again. “Clothes!” Lily exclaimed. Her face beamed. “And they’re women’s clothes, too.”

Jack glanced over to his wife. “But they’re all crumpled on the floor! They must have gotten knocked around when the ship crashed. Aren’t they wrinkled?”

“At this point I don’t care how wrinkled they are. They’re clean and are about my size. I can live with that! I can finally put on something that is a little more suited for hiking in cold, dimly-lit deserts.”

“Looks like we’ve got more clothing in here,” Jack grunted. He had managed to set the dresser back up. He sat down on the bed and rested a minute as Lily went through its contents.

“Alice has pretty good taste,” Lily said thoughtfully. “Pretty rich tastes, too. These are expensive, high-quality brands.”

“Do you think she’ll mind you borrowing her clothes?” Jack asked.

Lily shook her head. “I’m not going to worry about that right now. If we run into her I’ll ask. Otherwise I’m going to assume she doesn’t mind.”

Jack smiled. “You don’t see anything there that I could wear, do you? Did she have any pants or anything?”

His wife laughed. “You’re at least ten sizes and a hundred pounds larger than her! I bet you’d even have trouble putting on her socks. Don’t even think about it.”

“Shall we keep looking?” Jack asked.

“You keep looking,” Lily said. “You’ve got a flashlight. I’m going to stay in here, straighten the room, and change.”

“Don’t you want to get cleaned up first?” Jack asked. “There’s probably a shower here somewhere. You’ve been complaining all day about wanting one.”

Lily shook her head. “You can’t seriously believe that it would still work.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe not. But what if we find water and soap? Are you really going to turn that down? Or what if there’s a comb somewhere?”

His wife paused for a moment as her eye caught sight of something on the floor. A strange look came across her face. “I don’t know, Jack. Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe we’re too caught up in ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked, surprised.

“Think about it. We are stranded on an alien planet that is probably thousands and thousands of light-years from home. There’s a good chance that nobody knows we are here. We’re almost certainly the only human beings on this world. There’s also a good chance that an evil being lives here that just stole one of the galaxy’s most prized secrets, for a reason we don’t know. And what are we doing, Jack? Are we trying to save civilization? Are we trying to defeat the forces of evil and save the day? No, we’re not. We’re looking for soap and water and better breakfast food.”

Jack looked at his wife in surprise. “You’ve been complaining all day about how miserable you are and how badly you want to get home! It wasn’t ten minutes ago that you were freaking out because you thought we would be stuck here forever. What happened? Did I miss something?”

Lily walked to a corner of the room and carefully picked a picture frame off the floor. The glass in it had shattered but the picture was still intact. Lily held up the picture so Jack could get a good look at it. “Do you see that?” she asked.

Jack nodded. “Sure do. It looks like Starman Alice, standing next to some girl.”

“That’s not some girl – that’s her sister! Don’t you see the family resemblance? You might be a good leader, honey, but you are awful when it comes to noticing things.”

Jack blushed. “I guess. But that’s what I have you for, dear. We’re a team you know.”

Lily continued. “Look. Here’s the point. This girl Alice had a family. A sister. And probably other relatives too. But she risked her life to come here and fight that evil monster. I don’t know if she succeeded or not. Maybe she managed to escape before the Molly was destroyed. I don’t know. But I do know she thought it was important enough to leave her family behind and put her life on the line.”

Lily looked her husband in the eye. “If she’s dead, Jack, that means that the only people left to finish her mission are the two of us. We may be the only hope that humanity has! If that’s true then we’d better get moving.”

“But we have no idea what she was doing here!” Jack protested. “We’re completely clueless. We’re not trained for this and we’re definitely not heroes. I’m just a technician and you’re an accountant. I’ve taken exactly zero hours of combat training. This mission is way beyond our skill level.”

“Sure. I guess. But who else is there? Maybe we’re not Starmen. Maybe we’re not Kathryn and Joe Taylor. But we may be all there is.”

Jack sighed. “I guess you’re right. Maybe we do need to do something about whatever it is that needs something done. Tell you what. Let’s finish exploring the ship and see what our options are. Once we know what tools we have available we’ll go from there.”

“That’ll work!” Lily replied. “Let’s do it.”

It took the rest of the day to finish going over the upper three decks. Jack was pleased to discover that there was actually a great deal that was salvageable. The rooms that housed the ship’s food supplies were largely intact, and the ship had a great deal of water on board as well. Lily was happy to discover that the ship did have soap and other toiletries.

In one closet Jack found a whole variety of wilderness survival tools. “Look at this! I see rope, climbing gear, electric lanterns, batteries, canteens, portable stoves, the works. Alice could have lived for months on this planet. She had everything she needed – even tents!”

Lily removed one of the lanterns and turned it on. When she saw that it emitted a bright, warm light she turned off her flashlight and put it back into her emergency kit. “This will certainly keep us going for a while,” she agreed.

Jack yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired. What would you say about having dinner, getting cleaned up, and going to bed? We can always search the bottom two decks tomorrow. They’re not going to go anywhere.”

“Ok,” Lily said. The two walked to the ship’s pantry, which was connected to a small dining room. Lily looked at the supplies thoughtfully. “The galley might not be working, but I bet we can use that portable camping stove to cook with. Why don’t you go get cleaned up while I cook dinner?”

“But I don’t have anything to change into!” Jack complained. “What am I supposed to do?”

Lily shook her head. “You could at least wash your face, dear. And shave. And maybe comb your hair. And wash your hands. Do you want me to make a complete list?”

“I get the picture,” Jack grumbled. “I’ll be back.”

A half-hour later he returned, feeling much better. When he entered the ship’s dining room he was surprised by what he saw. Lily had set a table with plates, silverware, glasses, and a portable lantern. Sitting on the table were plates stacked high with food. Lily was just pouring water into the glasses when Jack walked up.

Lily finished filling the glasses and set the pitcher down. Her husband walked over to her and kissed her. “I can’t believe you actually fixed pancakes!”

“And bacon!” Lily pointed out. “And cinnamon toast, too. I couldn’t find any orange juice, though, so we’ll have to make due with water.”

“That’ll work fine!” Jack said. “Thank you so much. This looks wonderful.”

The two sat down to eat. Jack was surprised at how hungry he was. “I guess those ration things aren’t as filling as I thought.”

“Maybe they’re actually meant for aliens,” Lily suggested. “By the way, what are your thoughts about the Raptor? Do you think you’ll be able to get any of her working again?”

Jack leaned back in his chair and relaxed. Now that his stomach was full he felt much better. “The bridge is a total loss, of course. The engines are largely intact, but given the ship’s massive structural damage it would be foolish to even attempt flight. So I don’t think there’s a point in trying to repair them.”

“What about communications?” Lily asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Jack replied. “The problem is I’m not very familiar with how interstellar communication works. For all I know that machinery might be largely intact and I just haven’t recognized it. There are so many wires and machines on board this ship that it boggles the mind. So my idea is to try to get the computer up and running. Maybe it could help us out.”

“Do you think that’s even possible?” Lily asked.

“I’m going to try and find out!” Jack said. “The computer core is housed in the center of the ship. It’s extremely well protected. The room was damaged in the crash but computers are something I know how to fix. I think I might be able to patch it back together again – enough to get by, anyway. The real problem, though, is going to be power. From what I could see the room that houses the power plant was totally destroyed. There’s nothing in there that can be salvaged.”

“So what are you going to do?” Lily asked. “Can you use the energy cells from flashlights?”

Jack laughed. “I’m afraid not, dear. I have a feeling we’re going to have to find a power supply somewhere in the city, and then somehow tie it into the ship.”

Lily paled. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It’s got to be done!” Jack replied. “But we can cross that bridge tomorrow. Right now I just want to get some sleep.”

Lily nodded. After they were done eating Jack washed the dishes while his wife got cleaned up and changed. The couple then went to bed. Tomorrow’s another day, Jack thought as he drifted off to sleep. Perhaps things are finally starting to look up for us.

Jack and Lily slept in the next morning. The sun was high in the sky before the two finally got out of bed. When they saw the time they ate a quick meal and then headed to the stairwell.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Jack cautioned his wife. “There can’t be much left of the first two floors of this ship. We may have a very difficult time trying to work our way through.”

The couple entered the stairwell and walked down a flight of stairs. When they got to the second level Jack suddenly froze. The stairwell door leading to the second floor had been forced off its hinges and was carefully laid against a wall. From the stairwell he could see that the second floor was filled with debris, but someone had already cleared a pathway through it. The floor was covered in footprints – footprints that had clearly been made by someone after the ship crashed.

“Were you down here last night?” Jack asked his wife.

“Of course not!” she replied. “Were you?”

“Nope. But somebody was.”

Gathering up all his nerve, Jack grabbed the flashlight and stepped through the doorway onto the second floor. He flashed the light up and down the hallway. Sure enough, someone had cleared a path through the debris. At one point the visitor had used a weapon of some kind to cut a hole through a wall that had collapsed into the hallway. The trail ended at an open door.

Jack began walking down the path. His wife grabbed his arm. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “I’m not.” He resumed walking down the hallway, following the path that had already been cut. When he got to the end of the path he found himself standing in front of an open door. Jack shone his light inside the room. He gasped when he saw its contents.

“Weapons,” Lily said aloud. His wife was standing behind him. “I see lots and lots of weapons.”

Jack whistled. “You’re not kidding.” The walls of the room were lined with shelves, crates, and gun racks. He saw everything from a small laser pistol to crates of explosives to giant, menacing rifles.

After shining the light around and making sure that no one was hiding in the room the couple walked inside. “It looks like someone has cleaned the place up,” Lily remarked.

Jack had to agree. The weapons had obviously been banged up in the crash and covered in dirt, but someone had neatly put them all back into boxes and onto shelves. On a few weapons Jack could see fingerprints that had been left behind.

Lily pointed to a gun rack on the wall. “I see what they came for.”

Jack nodded. The rack had room for ten large rifles, but only nine were there. One of them was missing. Jack walked over and removed one of the weapons from the rack. It was a large, black rifle with a huge barrel and a shoulder strap. “What do you suppose this is?” he asked.

Lily looked at it. “It kind of looks like a laser rifle but it’s much too big. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”

“It’s got the Starlight Enterprise symbol on it,” Jack remarked. “Maybe it’s a special weapon only for Starmen.”

“I didn’t think Starmen carried weapons,” Lily said.

Jack shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe they do when they’re on dangerous missions.” Jack slung the weapon over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

“Let me put it this way,” Jack said. “We need energy to start the ship’s computer, right?”

“Right.”

“So we’re going to have to make a trip into the city, right?”

Lily paused. “Yeah. We are.”

“Do you really want to go back there unarmed?”

“Not really. But neither of us have even seen that weapon before! We have no idea how to use it. Why not take one of these laser pistols? They look a lot easier to figure out.”

Jack shook his head. “Whoever was in here left the smaller guns behind and took the biggest weapon in here. I’m guessing there was a good reason for that.”

“Who do you think was in here?” his wife asked.

“I’m hoping it was Alice Montaine,” Jack replied. “If not then we may have a problem. A really big problem.”

The next morning Jack was the first one to wake up. As he slowly came to his senses he opened his eyes and yawned. He had spent the night trying to sleep on the cold, metal floor of a ruined building and had little to show for it. The night had not been a comfortable one. He felt tired.

“Oh, the pain, the pain of it all,” Jack muttered. Nearly every muscle in his body was aching. He stiffly stood up and attempted to stretch. “That’ll teach you to go on a four-hour hike! I was definitely not prepared for that much exercise.”

Jack glanced around the room. Their flashlights and emergency survival kits were lying a few feet away from them, right where they’d left them the night before. Jack noticed that his wife Lily was still asleep. She was usually an early riser but the previous day’s activities had exhausted her. I’m afraid we’ve got another long day ahead of us, Jack thought to himself. Let’s hope the Raptor is nearby. I don’t know how much more of these long hikes we can take.

After deciding to let his wife sleep a little longer he stepped outside and looked around. The weak sun had risen and filled the city with a tired gray light. All around him for miles were giant skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes. The buildings were in various states of disrepair. Many of the structures on the outskirts of the city were little more than a battered frame, but towards the city center there appeared to be structures that had fared much better. I wonder if these are any supplies in this strange town, Jack thought. We’ll have to do a little looking around as we hike through the city. At least it appears to be deserted! I don’t see any evil monsters lurking in the shadows.

Jack walked back into the building and saw that his wife was still asleep. He walked over to her and gently shook her awake. “Honey? I think it’s time to get up. We need to be going.”

His wife slowly stirred. “Must we? Can’t I stay in bed a little longer?”

“You’re not in bed,” Jack pointed out. “You’re lying on the floor on an alien planet.”

Lily’s eyes flew open. She sat up and then grimaced. “Oh. I remember now. No wonder I’m so sore. Why didn’t you bring a sleeping bag or something? Even a pillow would have been nice.”

Jack smiled. “The next time this happens I’ll be sure to bring adequate supplies. It’s not all bad, though. If we can make it to the Raptor we might be able to find all the supplies we could ever want. I bet they’ve got real beds there.”

“And working showers, I hope,” Lily grumbled. “I feel awful. That gritty black dirt is all over me and I feel like I haven’t showered in a month. And my hair is an absolute mess! Do you realize I don’t even have a comb?”

“The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll reach civilization,” Jack said. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“That would be wonderful,” Lily said dreamily. She stood up and stretched. “I think I’ll take some homemade wheat pancakes, with lots of syrup and butter. Don’t forget to add a side of bacon, a fried egg, a piece of cinnamon toast, and a nice tall glass of orange juice. That would hit the spot!”

“Boy, it sure would,” Jack replied. He opened his emergency survival kit and rummaged through it. “Unfortunately, all we’ve got are these ration things. Unless there’s a restaurant nearby I doubt either of us are going to be seeing pancakes today.”

Jack removed two rations from his kit. He gave one to his wife and took the other for himself. His wife opened the vacuum-sealed bag and removed a small square of a black substance. She sighed. “Are you sure there’s nothing else to eat?”

“I’m afraid not,” Jack said. He removed his ration from its bag and bit into it. He chewed it for a while and then swallowed. “It’s not so bad, really. There’s probably lots of vitamins and nutrition in it. It’ll keep us from starving.”

“If you say so,” Lily replied. The two of them finished their meal and then shared a bottle of water. After they were done with breakfast they left the building and started hiking down the street.

The hike was much easier than it had been the day before. The roads that led through the city had cracks in them, but no deep pits like they had encountered in the desert. To Lily’s relief there was very little black sand and no sign of the eerie blue lights. The only sound was the wind whistling through the giant buildings.

“Which way do we need to go?” Lily asked.

Jack consulted his compass. “I think if we stay on this street and keep going in that general direction we should pass through the city and come out on the other side. The Raptor shouldn’t be too far from that.”

“Do you think we’ll have trouble finding it?”

Jack shook his head. “I doubt it. I bet when it landed it made a huge gash in the ground. There’s probably a trail of debris out there that will lead us right to her.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“What do you mean?”

Lily paused before replying. “Well, I was kind of hoping we could use her to get off of this planet. As in flying her back into space and to the nearest spaceport.”

Jack laughed. “Honey, her flying days are over. Did you see what she looked like as she fell to the surface? There’s no way she could ever reach space! That’s just not going to happen.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Lily asked. “I don’t see any other spaceships lying around! As I recall the Molly didn’t survive either.”

“We’re going to call for help,” Jack replied. “All we have to do is make it to the ship and use it to send out a distress call. Somebody will then come and rescue us. It’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” Lily replied.

The couple continued walking down the long, wide road. Jack noticed that the buildings were growing larger as they approached the center of the city. There’s a lot of skyscrapers here for such a tiny place, he thought. The city can’t be more than fifteen or twenty miles wide. We should easily be able to cross it before it gets dark again – even if we’re still sore from yesterday’s hike.

Lily suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. “Who is feeding our dogs?”

“What?” Jack asked, startled.

“Our dogs! We left them at home, Jack. Who is taking care of them?”

“Um, your parents, probably,” Jack replied. “I’m sure our disappearance is all over the news. I bet the next day they found out that we were missing and have taken care of everything for us. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I can’t help it,” Lily said. “They’re going to be so worried! They’re not going to understand.”

“We’ll get in touch with your parents as soon as we can and let them know we’re safe and sound,” Jack promised.

“Oh. I guess they’ll be worried too,” Lily said. “But what about your job?”

Jack sighed. “We can think about that when we get back to Eagle City. Right now we kind of need to focus on our own survival. One thing at a time, dear. One thing at a time.”

For the next hour the couple continued to walk down the city streets. Eventually the hike became too much for Jack and he came to a stop. “I am worn out. Can we stop for a minute? I need a break.”

“Me too,” his wife replied. “All of my joints are killing me.”

Jack looked around. “There’s a building over there. Want to go inside and get out of this cold wind?”

“Sure,” Lily replied wearily. The two walked into the massive structure. As they walked inside Jack looked up at it. The building towered high above them. It looks at least a hundred stories tall! Jack thought. I wonder what it was used for.

Once they were inside they entered what appeared to be a lobby of some sort. The ceiling was easily forty feet high. There was no furniture anywhere to be seen.

Lily plopped onto the ground and groaned. “Would it kill them to provide a chair or something?”

Jack shrugged. “There could have been chairs here a long time ago. Maybe they just disintegrated over time, and all that survived was that blue steel.”

“That doesn’t help us very much,” his wife replied.

“Is that an elevator shaft?” Jack asked, pointing. He walked over and took a closer look at it. The elevator doors had long since disappeared, but Jack could see a dark shaft stretching high above him and down below him. What he saw at the bottom of the shaft excited him the most. “Come look at this!” he exclaimed.

Lily wearily stood up and walked over to her husband. She gingerly stuck her head into the shaft and looked down. Her eyes widened. “Is that light down there?”

“Looks like it!” Jack said excitedly. “I wonder if there’s a way to get down there?”

“I don’t recall seeing any rope in that useless survival kit,” Lily commented.

“No, but don’t most buildings have a stairwell beside their elevators?”

“Sure, back home they do. But what do we know about alien planets? Maybe they didn’t believe in climbing stairs.”

Jack scanned the room. He spotted a door to the left a few feet away. He rushed over to it and pulled it open, only to be disappointed. “It’s just a closet,” he said, sighing.

“But what about that door?” Lily asked, pointing. To the right of the elevator was a door with a small opening for a window in it. Jack walked over and pulled it open. “Eureka!” he shouted. “I see stairs!”

Lily walked over to him and the two entered the stairwell. Sure enough, a flight of stairs led up to higher levels and down to lower levels. Jack leaned over the railing and looked up. “It looks like they go up forever,” he commented.

“Probably. But do they go down?”

Jack turned his head and checked. “Wow. I see at least five or six flights below us! It looks like there is some kind of light on the lowest level.”

Lily frowned. “Are you sure that we should be checking this out? Aren’t we supposed to be on our way to the Raptor?”

“This won’t take long,” Jack promised. “I just want to see what’s down there. We might find something that’s actually helpful.”

Lily sighed but said nothing as her husband started walking downstairs. After a moment she followed him. The two walked all the way down to the lowest level. There, just as Jack had predicted, they saw a faint white light.

“It’s coming through the window in that door,” Jack said, pointing. At the bottom of the stairwell was a door that looked like a functional airlock. Beside it was a small control panel. The panel appeared to be on and functional.

“That’s quite a door,” Lily said. “Looks like it’s closed pretty tight.”

“Maybe it’s preserved whatever is on the other side,” Jack said thoughtfully. He walked over and pressed one of the buttons on the panel. When it did nothing he pressed another button. All at once the airlock made a hissing noise. The doors parted, revealing a small room just beyond them. At the far end of the room was another set of airlock doors.

“Cool!” Jack said. He walked into the room.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Lily asked dubiously.

“I don’t see why not,” her husband answered. “Don’t you want to see what’s on the other side of that door?”

“Not really,” Lily replied. “But I guess I’m about to find out anyway.” She walked into the room and stood just behind Jack. After she was safely inside he pressed a button on the inner airlock, and the door behind them slid shut. After a moment the door in front of them slid open.

Jack gasped. The doors had opened into a large, well-furnished room. A white light seemed to permeate the room, coming from no obvious source. Holoscreens dotted the walls, and there were a few desks and chairs tastefully positioned around the room. The floor was covered in some sort of carpet material and the walls were a gentle white color.

Jack was the first one to step into the room. “I don’t believe this,” he said.

His wife followed him when something caught her attention. She went over to a nearby screen and looked at it carefully. “Hey, Jack, come here! This one has got some kind of writing on it.”

Jack walked over to her and stared at it. “Boy, it sure does! Only that’s not any language I’ve ever seen. Do you even recognize those symbols?”

“Nope. Can’t say that I do.”

As Jack studied the screen he noticed that it had evidently sustained some damage at some point. Occasionally the screen would flicker and there were parts of it where the picture had faded. Jack reached over to touch one of the buttons on the screen but his wife grabbed his hand.

“Don’t even think about it,” she hissed. “You are not going to start randomly pressing buttons on an alien planet. You have no idea what is going to happen.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jack conceded.

They suddenly heard a noise behind them. It sounded almost like a series of chimes. Jack whirled around but saw nothing. “Is anyone there?” he asked nervously.

Lily grabbed his hand and pointed to the floor. “What is casting that shadow?” she asked.

Jack stared in the direction she was pointing. On the floor was a long, black shadow – but there were no nearby objects that could be casting it. As they watched the shadow began to move in their direction.

“Ok, it’s time to go now!” Jack shouted. He and his wife ran toward the airlock. Jack slammed his hand on the close button bu t nothing happened.

“Oh, this is bad, this is very bad,” Jack said. The shadow continued to approach them!

“I told you we shouldn’t have come down here!” Lily hissed. Jack began randomly pressing all of the buttons on the control panel. None of them did anything.

When the shadow got ten feet away from them it stopped. All at once a noise filled the room.

“What is that?” Lily asked.

“It almost sounds like a language,” Jack said. “I don’t think it’s Ahmanyan, though.”

“I don’t like it,” Lily said. “It sounds like somebody is breaking glass. Or dropping plates onto the ground. The sounds are all sharp and pointy.”

All at once the lights in the room went dead. The shadow was lost in darkness, and the airlock doors slid shut. Jack slammed another button and the doors that led to the stairwell opened. Jack grabbed his wife’s hand and the two of them raced up the stairs, out of the building, and onto the street.

Once they were outside Jack stopped for a minute, panting. “Let’s not do that again,” he said weakly.

“You know, if you had listened to me in the first place -”

A noise suddenly drowned her out. Something that sounded like wind chimes began to ring in the distance. The noise appeared to be coming from everywhere but had no obvious source.

“Oh boy,” Jack said. “We’ve done it now! We’ve got to get out of here.”

Jack and Lily began running down the street. They both panted heavily. “We’re never going to make it,” Lily complained. “We’re at least an hour from the other side the city! We won’t be able to keep this pace up for long.”

“Look at the buildings!” Jack hissed. “They’re glowing!”

Sure enough, the blue steel of the buildings had started to glow in the daylight. The glow was an uneven flicker, but it was noticeable.

“I thought it only did that at night,” Lily panted.

As suddenly as it started the sound of chimes stopped. The city became completely silent and the glow disappeared.

Jack stopped and tried to catch his breath. Lily caught up to him and stopped as well. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We could panic,” Jack said, as he struggled to breathe. “Or maybe just try to get out of this city of nightmares as soon as possible.”

“That works for me,” Lily replied.

After a moment’s rest the two of them resumed jogging toward the outskirts of the city. Over the next several hours they continued to intermittently hear strange noises in the distance. Occasionally Lily thought she saw a shadow, but whenever they looked there was nothing there. By the time they made it to the other side of the city their nerves were completely frayed.

“Our imaginations are killing us,” Jack panted as he stopped again to rest. “Everywhere I look I think I see something.”

“Unless it’s not your imagination,” Lily replied. “We don’t know what’s out there. I’m sure that the shadow being brought the Third Treasure to this planet for a reason. I doubt it was just for entertainment purposes.”

Jack groaned. “I am so sore. When we get home I’m going to settle down in a chair and not move for a week. I have had it.”

“Then let’s keep going,” Lily said. “The Raptor has to be somewhere nearby. Right?”

Jack struggled to his feet. “Right. It shouldn’t be far from here. Once we get there we’ll be home free.”

After an exhausting walk the couple finally made their way out of the city. The natural depression in which it was located extended for some distance beyond the city limits, making room for a large tract of smooth land before the ground gave way to the black desert.. Fifteen minutes after passing the last building Jack began to notice bits of debris on the ground. He reached over and picked up a torn piece of metal. It had red paint on it. Jack smiled despite his weariness. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen on this planet so far! The ship must be somewhere nearby.”

They continued walking. A bit further on Lily noticed a long scar in the ground about a hundred feet to their right. The gash continued on toward the north and was almost twenty feet deep. When she saw it she pointed it out to her husband. “You don’t think that was made by the Raptor, do you?”

“Why not?” Jack asked. “I can’t think of anything else it could be.”

Lily frowned. “That’s a pretty deep gash, Jack! I thought starships had landing gear. It looks like whatever made that hole just plowed into the ground out of control. Are you sure there’s going to be a ship left to find?”

“Something must have made that scar. Let’s follow it and see what it is.”

To Jack’s surprise the scar extended for almost half a mile. As they approached the end of it they could make out a red starship that had embedded itself in the ground. From a distance the ship looked mangled, but as they approached it they saw that it was a complete wreck. The Raptor was almost unrecognizable. The wings were gone and the body was badly battered. If they had not already known that it was a starship they would not have been able to tell what its original form was.

Jack and Lily walked up to the wreck. Jack saw the look of dismay on his wife’s face and tried to think of something encouraging to say. “At least it’s not a total loss, dear. The outside looks pretty rough but the interior might not be so bad. I say we try to find a way to get on board and see what we can find.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Lily asked.

“Do we have a choice?” Jack replied. “Do you know of any other way off this planet?”

“Ok,” Lily sighed. “After you.”

Jack climbed over the dirt and debris that surrounded the ship. The hull plating had been ripped away from much of the vessel, allowing fairly easy passage inside. Jack eyed the ship before they entered it. “It looks like the lower two levels are buried in the dirt, if they still exist at all. The other three levels look ok, though. My guess is that the top level is the most intact.”

“Isn’t that the level with the bridge?” Lily asked.

Jack nodded. “It is. The only problem is that the bridge is at the front of the ship. I don’t think that part of the ship exists anymore.”

“How encouraging,” Lily replied. “There goes any hope of sending out a distress call! Do you have any other bits of good news?”

Jack bit his lip. He didn’t quite know what to say. The loss of the bridge was devastating but he couldn’t bring himself to give up. “I know it’s a setback, dear, but let’s not panic. We’re still alive and that’s a blessing right there. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

Lily grabbed her husband. “No, seriously. Listen to me, Jack. That ship is a total loss and you know it. If the bridge is gone then how are we going to call for help? And even if by some miracle we can find other communications equipment on board, how are you going to get power to it? That ship was the only hope we had and it’s now scattered in pieces all over the ground. What are we going to do?”

“I’ll tell you one thing – we’re not going to despair. Losing hope is not an option. And we’re not going to give up either. I say we get on board, see what the situation is, and go from there. The Raptor is a Starman-class starship, after all. You never know what you might find tucked away in a corner. The game’s not over yet.”

Mr. Lin had gathered their weightsuits and put them away. He walked the three younger children out, followed by Hanna, leaning on Grummel’s arm. Neal and Mirk in their regular graysuits pretended to follow them into the tunnel, then stopped and faced each other for a minute, not speaking any words. Neal had never felt such rage coursing through his veins. He felt strong, on fire. “You will never touch Hanna again,” he said at last, through clenched teeth. Mirk laughed spitefully. “One day she will be mine,” he said in his nasally voice. “And you will too. You don’t know who you are messing with. Then you will have to stand and watch — I’ll hit her whenever I think she needs it. And since she’s a stupid Jewish girl she will probably need it often.” Neal was speechless at the outrageousness of Mirk’s words. He stood stunned for a moment, trying to unravel Mirk’s words. Then suddenly he felt a clumsy fist against his jaw and fell backwards, his boots still magneted to the ground. He lay for a moment, seeing red. Then with a calm chill he swung himself back up to a standing position. Mirk was standing, angrily staring, his parted hair flopping down one side of his face. He put his fists up in waved them at Neal. Neal leaned down suddenly, feeling drunk with adrenaline, and turned off his magnet boots. Mirk mirrored him. They stood lightly on the floor, tapping and floating slightly off of it.

On earth the “star children” as kids born off earth were called, had a definate disadvantage. Some could not even stand up on earth, and even those with extensive weight training could only managed a tiring walk. But here on an asteroid, they were a different creature. They could dance and swim through the weightlessnes in ways earth kids never dreamed about.

Neal kicked off the ground lightly, floating up twenty feet to grasp a steel beam above him. Mirk likewise kicked off into the air, grasping the next steel beam over. Suddenly in a sinuous swimming stroke, Neal soared off his beam toward Mirk, twisting his body in a strange grace. Mirk pushed off as well, head first for Neal. In mid-air Neal suddenly uncoiled his body in a lightning kick that would be impossible in earth gravity. The kick stunned Mirk back against the steel girder behind him. He lay against it, gasping. Neal spun in mid-air, catching the rock-netting with a toe and pushing off firmly towards Mirk. Mirk suddenly clicked the electromagnets on his boots, which clung to the side of the steel-iron girder behind him. As Neal flew into his face, Mirk stood quickly straight out from the girder, both his fists straight out, into Neal’s face. The sudden double blow stopped Neal in mid-air and knocked him slowly backwards, seeing flashes in his eyes. He knew he would have two black eyes in the morning for all to see, but he was beyond caring now. Suddenly he felt Mirk fly under him and grasp him from behind, dragging him against the rock-netting on the sloping dome roof. Mirk gave Neal another sharp right hook to his jaw that left him gasping for a moment, then Neal felt himself being pulled higher along the rock roof, probably fifty or sixty feet above the ground now. Neal felt Mirk fumbling with his boots.

“Neal! Watch out!” shouted Hanna from below. Neal looked down groggily to see Hanna on the ground hurriedly turning off her magboots. Mirk had grabbed the weight setting on Neal’s left boot and was trying to press it to the maximum weight of ten gravity’s, which would yank Neal to the ground below and at least break his leg if not worse. In a desparate effort, Neal kicked his left foot backwards towards a metal girder eight feet away. As the boot magnet powered up suddenly, he was yanked to the girder and stuck to the side, Mirk staring furiously after him. Suddenly a mass of black-haired fury burst onto Mirk from below, wildly slamming Mirk against the netted dome roof and savaging him with a series of vicious punches and elbow blows that seemed to flutter like a hummingbird’s wings. After a moment, Mirk floated unconscious in the air, and she turned to Neal, who was groggily turning off his magboot. “If I needed to defend myself, I could have done it myself,” she shouted in Neal’s face. He couldn’t understand the anger in her voice, but his head was a bit blurry. She grabbed the unconscious Mirk in one hand and him in the other and pulled them both downwards to rest on the ground of the gym. Then Neal saw Grummel. The great giant was crouching in the tunnel doorway, his hands to his face, crying and snuffling. Hanna beckoned to him and he wiped his eyes hurriedly and came out. “Don’t be so stupidly verklempt!” Hanna ordered him crossly. “Here, help me take Mirk to the infirmary.” Grummel lifted Mirk with red eyes and tried not to look at anyone. They made a sad troop, then, Neal with bruises already darkening around his eyes, Grummel still sniffling, holding a lifeless-looking Mirk, led by a fierce-looking Hanna to the infirmary.

　

Neal was rescued from his misery by Grummel, who floated like a meaty blimp up out of the Living Cylinder’s circular hatch.

“Let’s go,” said Neal, leading the way down one of the several corridors out of the lobby cave.

They walked a long ways through the tunnel and several open airlocks until the tunnel slowly began to rise to one of the upper chambers in Providence base. This was a large upper chamber, with a rock roof supported by steel beams and netting. Whenever a meteorite hit Eros, the whole asteroid would shake slightly, and in the minimal gravity rocks only loosely held together and would sometimes shift. Fortunately, in minimal gravity there was little danger of being crushed by a heavy rock–you could easily push it away from you. But the netting on the roof helped keep them in place just in case. A large square air processor sat on one wall, where it monitored the oxygen levels in the large chamber and warned them of any dangerous leakage. In that case, they would evacuate to a sealed emergency chamber in the wall and suit up.

The chamber itself was the largest underground place in the base, perhaps two hundred by two hundred feet square. The miners often used it for recreation, since any balls they threw here wouldn’t fly off into space and be lost forever. At this moment, however, a small Chinese man was standing in the middle of the field. Around him were three younger children, and strewn on the ground in front of him were four blue weight-suits.

“Weight suits on, sank you,” he said. “Where is Mirks?”

“He might not be here today, Mr. Lin,” said Hanna.

“Oh yes, I am!” said a nasally voice behind them. As they turned around Mirk marched up to them with the strange robot steps that magnetboots encouraged. He glared furiously at Hanna but said nothing.

Neal unzipped his light gray spacesuit and stepped out, standing in his underlayer skin armor, a light plasticized full-body layer that was the last safeguard between the vacuum of space and a body. Picking up one of the blue weightsuits on the ground, he stepped into it and turned for Grummel to help zip him up. Then he turned and helped Hanna zip hers the last few inches she couldn’t reach herself. When they were all suited, they each put on a soft padded helmet without a face plate.

“Weights on, set to One Earse’ Grawe’ty,” said Mr. Lin. Neal pushed the Weight Up button on his left shoulder until it read “1”. The flexible suit was filled with uni-pole electromagnet surfaces, which uniformly pulled the whole body downwards to the metal core of the asteroid. Neal’s body felt twice as heavy as it normally did in the living cylinder. He strained to lift his arms and move his legs.

“Now,” said Mr. Lin. “We begin.”

Mr. Lin began a series of Tai Ji movements, his limbs flowing fluidly like water through a series of actions.

The three younger children and the four teens followed his movements as best they could. They had only been studying Tai Ji in the past year since Mr. Lin arrived at Providence. He had arrived as a common miner, but had worked so diligently that he was already the manager of Post 4.

Mr. Lin would also sometimes cook Chinese food for the community, if they could encourage him with enough praise. Mr. Lin had a weakness for “gaining face” which they all used as best they could to taste his dishes.

“Oh,” Hanna would start out innocently on a given day. “You know who is the best cook here, Neal? I think it’s your Uncle John and his stew.” “No,” Neal would shoot back. “Surely it’s your Granddaddy. His bio-lamb kebabs are to die for.” At that point, still pretending to be oblivious to Mr. Lin nearby, Hanna would say, “Well, you know, Mr. Lin isn’t such a bad cook either.” “Mm, I don’t know,” Neal would reply with a straight face. “I think he could make some improvements on his Gung-bao chicken dish.” Usually this would result in Mr. Lin disappearing into the kitchen and a large Chinese meal that night. As penance for their mischief, Hanna and Neal would always compliment his cooking until he nearly burst with pride.

When Uncle John had found out Mr. Lin’s skills in Tai Ji and martial arts, he asked him to teach the younger folks. “It will help improve their muscle and agility skills,” he said confidently. So the community had purchased five adult weightsuits (one for Mr. Lin) and three smaller suits for younger children.

As Neal swirled his hands forward in large circles, his mind wandered to Mrs. Silver and her dream. It was strange. He had to admit he didn’t mind the attention–she had said he was the one glowing like a star, she had come knowing only the asteroid and his face. But no, he didn’t want to get stuck on himself. And besides, trusting dreams was weird, unbiblical.

He groaned suddenly as they stretched their left legs far to the left and did a half-split. Hanna was doing hers flawlessly. She stuck her tongue out at him. He ignored her and pondered. God did send a dream to the apostle Paul. It was not only Abraham who had visions and dreams in the Bible. Could it be that God could still act in such direct ways today? That would be exciting. Would God ever talk to him more directly? He felt doubtful.

“Neal,” said Mr. Lin, “Your ‘Part de Wild Horse’s Mane’ needs to be more smooze. Imagine you are holding a large ball and roll it in you’ ams. Den’ repeat and pretend you are parting de’ wild horse’s mane.”

Neal worked on the movement until Mr. Lin nodded and moved on to another student.

What could the dragon in the dream be? Neal wondered. Aliens? A space monster of some sort? Maybe a giant wave of meteorites or gas? Maybe it was foolish to even wonder. Maybe Mrs. Silver just had eaten too much bio-sushi the night before and dreamed a dragon. But then… she dreamed of him. She saw his face. She saw their asteroid… She had probably seen a picture of Eros before. It was a reasonably well-known asteroid. But his face? Had his face ever been on the media? He didn’t know. He didn’t think so.

Mr. Lin was going through the twenty-four forms again of the Yang Tai-Ji Quan style. Neal stopped and watched in admiration at the flawlessly smooth bends and foot shifts, the ever-circling arms and hands– sometimes mesmerizingly liquid, other times moving in sharp bursts of energy that shocked and stunned the watcher. Neal remembered himself and went back to imitating the master as best he could.

“Pat de’ high horse,” Mr. Lin said as he extended his hand straight, his body perfectly balanced, and patted the air. “Kick wid’ right heel,” he said, bending and kicking out a powerful burst. “Box ears!” he said as he pulled smoothly back from the kick, bringing his two fists around and in to almost touch each other. “Turn and kick wid’ left heel!”

Neal lost himself in the physical actions, flowing smoothly from one into the next. Sometimes he just wanted to forget everything else and live in the moment, in the action of the tai-ji.

“Not too bad, Mr. Washer!” said Mr. Lin, watching Neal. Neal realized he had continued doing the forms when everyone else had stopped. He stopped also and stood up.

“As you know,” said Mr. Lin, “‘Dese exercises are to help you de’welop good muscles and balance in heavy grawe’ty, and strength. But al’dough Tai Ji Quan is used for exe’cise and relaxation, it is also a fighting practice. Watch.”

Mr. Lin went through the forms again, this time not peacefully and contemplatively, but in bursts of power and speed. He began stepping, blocking, spinning and kicking in a dazzling pinwheel of smooth motions. When he finished they all clapped, and he clapped politely with them, nodding his head.

“It’s not’ing,” he said modestly. “Now I want you to work in pairs. Imagine ‘dat you are fighting. Go gent-ly but try some moves on each o’der.” He moved to help the younger three children.

Mirk avoided Hanna and Grummel and came to Neal. They faced each other. “You try the ‘Parting Wild Horse’s Mane’ first to block some jabs,” suggested Neal. “I’ll do what I want,” snapped Mirk. He leaned forward and whispered: “You religious people think you can always order others around.” “I didn’t say anything!” protested Neal. Mirk crouched and went into a left heel kick. Neal wasn’t ready for it, and it caught him square in the stomach. “Ooof!” he said, falling backwards, hard, onto the ground. He wasn’t used to weighing so much, and it hurt. He struggled to pull himself slowly up, and was surprised to see Mirk dancing around him as though he had energy to burn. Neal stood heavily upright and dropped into a crouching stance. As Mirk came in for a jab, Neal spun his arms in a blocking circle, knocking them out of the way. But to his surprise, Mirk quickly flashed his arms again and landed two painful blows on Neal’s stomach, faster than Neal could react in his heavy weightsuit. Mirk turned again and kicked, connecting painfully with Neal’s leg, then coming in close for two fist punches to his face. Neal was stunned, falling on his knees under the blows. A sudden rage came over him and he swung his heavy arm clumsily at Mirk, who jumped back easily. Suddenly Neal had a suspicion. “You’ve turned your weight down!” he shouted at Mirk. Mirk quickly reached his hand up to his left shoulder and pretended to study it, while pushed the weight button up. Mr. Lin came over. “What’s going on here?” he asked. He approached Mirk and looked at his shoulder weight which said “1” in the earth gravity LCD. “Mirk,” said Mr. Lin. “I didn’t see everything. What happened?” “Nothing,” said Mirk. “We were just trying out some moves and Neal couldn’t block them.” “Go more easy,” Mr. Lin said as he turned away to explain to Grummel how to apply a blocking motion to one of Hanna’s play punches.

Neal was filled with a rage he never remembered feeling before. His face and stomach screamed with pain and indignation. “Whatever, Mirk!” he said. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against me if I didn’t have this weight suit on!” “Want to bet?” asked Mirk in his nasally voice. “Anyway, doesn’t your Jesus tell you to ‘turn the other cheek’? Why don’t you practice now?” Mirk suddenly stepped forward and heavily slapped Neal across the face. Hanna and Grummel heard the slap and turned at the last second to see Neal’s face spin to the side. He turned back to Mirk, blind with anger. “Meet me here ten minutes after class,” he hissed between clenched teeth, “and we’ll see who talks big then.” “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” said Mirk. He turned to walk away. “Don’t run off and be chicken now, like your dad was,” he said over his shoulder. Neal lunged forward at Mirk, trying in his weightsuit to punch at him. Mr. Lin saw and ran over. “Neal! What you do!?” He pulled Neal back off Mirk. Mirk said, “He tried to punch me! He’s been trying to harass me all day!” Mr. Lin pulled Neal up. “Neal! This is not acceptable! Please do not attend class for de’ rest of the week until you can learn some patience and self-control!” “But!..” exclaimed Neal, “He hit me first!” “I’m afraid I did not see that,” said Mr. Lin. “But no matter what someone does to you, you must exercise self-control at all times.” He stared carefully at Mirk, who looked uncomfortable. “Be careful, Mirk,” Mr. Lin said. As he walked away, Neal muttered to Mirk, “I’ll be here.”

[Author’s Note: a day after writing the past two paragraphs, I realized I want to re-edit this later. In the match-up Mirk will purposely pair with Hanna, and in the fight he will hurt her. This makes sense, since in his mind she disrespected and shamed his father in class. Also, I think it is a more believable motivation for Neal to be angry enough to demand a private fight after class.]

CHAPTER 4: Dream of a Dragon

“Are your classes always this interesting?” a melodic voice asked. Neal had forgotten even about the strange woman.

Neal, Hanna, and Grummel all turned to look at her. She sat, a smile twitching at one side of her lips.

[more comments]

“My name is Hannah Silver,” she said.

“That’s my name!” blurted out Hanna.

“Yes indeed,” said Hannah Silver. “And I’m very honored to share such a good name with you.”
She shook Hanna’s hands warmly.

“You were, perhaps, a little disrespectful in your comments to your teacher,” she said.

Hanna looked down for a moment. “Perhaps I was,” she said.

“But you were standing up for truth,” Hannah Silver said. “And that’s a rare and courageous thing. I can sense you are a special woman. And you used your head.” Hanna sat up a little straighter.

“And you are Neal, and you are Grummel,” she said, shaking both hands with each of the other two in miner fashion.

Neal and Grummel shook her hands, trying to take her in.

“Please, Miss Silver,” said Hanna.

“Actually, it’s Mrs. Silver,” said Hannah Silver, a shadow of sadness crossing her face. “But you may call me Miss Silver, it sounds better.”

Hanna nodded. “Please, Mrs., um, Miss Silver, how did you know Neal’s name when we first met?”

Mrs. Silver smiled brightly. “Why, I saw him in a dream and an ainjell told me his name!”

“What was the dream?” asked Neal.

Mrs. Silver’s large eyes glowed at him as she laid her hand on his shoulder. “You were a star in my dream,” she said.

“Like a’ movie star?” asked Grummel.

“No,” said Mrs. Silver, “Like a space star.”

She sat down and they sat in a small circle around her. Mrs. Silver held both Neal’s hands in her own and stared into his eyes. Neal felt uncomfortable.

“In my dream,” she said, “I saw this asteroid, this very asteroid. In my dream, the asteroid was singing.”
“Singing?” said Hanna. “What was it singing?”

“It was humming a psalm,” said Mrs. Silver. “As it turned it sang over and over again: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and even I, a rock, shout out His praise.””

“Oy! That’s beautiful!” whispered Hanna.

Neal felt Mrs. Silver squeeze both his hands. He leaned backwards, trying to put a little more space between them.

“Whut happen’d then?” asked Grummel.

Mrs. Silver’s face grew cloudy. “As I watched the asteroid, a cold chill came over me. Then, like a nightmare, I saw a huge dragon’s head approaching from the deepness of space.”

“A komodo’ dragon?” asked Grummel.

“No,” Mrs. Silver said, “Much uglier and more terrible. It’s jaws opened wider and wider, wide enough to swallow Jupiter and all the asteroids around it.”

Hanna’s eyes were wide. Neal managed to retract his hands from Mrs. Silver’s emphatic squeezes and put them in his pockets. She stared at each of their eyes.

“Then,” she said, waving her hands, “As the gigantic jaws closed slowly over it all, I saw a bright star begin shining. But it wasn’t shining out in space, it was shining on the surface of this very asteroid.”

Her face glowed with excitement. They waited a long minute, staring at her.

“Is that it?” asked Hanna.

“Yes! Isn’t it wonderful!?” exclaimed Mrs. Silver.

“How did you know the star was Neal?” asked Hanna.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Silver. “Well, I did fly towards the asteroid, toward the star, and as I got closer, I saw it was a boy, excuse me, a young man, standing there, shining like a star. And when I came closer to him I saw his face–Neal’s face!” (Here she grabbed Neal’s arm with both her hands, since his hands were still firmly in his pockets.) “And a voice spoke to me and said, “Go, find Neal and help the people there.” So when I woke up from my dream, I prayed about it. Then I searched the computer for a matching asteroid, packed my ship, and came here.” She smiled brightly.

“Why do we need help?” asked Hanna.”And what was the dragon?”

“I don’t know, my dear,” Mrs. Silver said. “But God certainly does!”

Neal looked at his watch. “It’s almost time for Tai Ji practice,” he said. No one moved. Grummel was nervously twisting his great hands together, staring at Mrs. Silver. Hanna’s brows were furrowed. Neal stood up and walked to the ladder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s not spoil two classes in one day.”

He started climbing the ladder, and Hanna stood up and followed him. When they were out in the circular hallway floating up to the surface, she put her hand on his shoulder.

“What’s with you?” she asked. “You still don’t like her?”

Neal shrugged as they pushed up the hallway to the exit door at the top.

“She’s too emotional,” he said. “She makes me uncomfortable.”

“I’m a little emotional,” said Hanna, threatening to punch him as they floated up.

“No, it’s different,” he said. “It’s like she’s…like she’s from a different planet.”

“She is,” said Hanna flatly.

“No, you know what I mean.” They pulled themselves out of the entrance hatch and into the lobby, settling slowly onto the ground.

“Do you not believe in dreams, you schmendrick?” asked Hanna, bending to turn on her boot magnets. “Didn’t God speak to Abraham in a dream? Are you better than Abraham?”

“Of course God spoke to Abraham in a dream,” Neal protested. “He was the father of a great nation. I just don’t think God does those kinds of things anymore. We have the complete Bible now…I mean, from the Christian point of view.” He often felt uncomfortable talking about the New Testament with Hanna, who generally believed Jesus was a lunatic or at best an unorthodox teacher.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “So God writes the New Testament for you Christians and then stops communicating with us.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to communicate anymore,” said Neal. “We just need the Bible.”

“So if I write you a letter I don’t have to talk to you anymore?” she asked tartly. “Well, maybe I’ll just try that.”

There was a moment of silence inside the escape pod. Jack looked at his wife tenderly. Poor girl. I don’t blame her at all for not wanting to go out there. Even inside the pod he could hear the wind whistling. He knew it was going to be cold outside, and on top of that the landscape was the most unwelcoming sight he had ever seen.

Jack sighed. “Look, Lily. I know this isn’t exactly a vacation paradise. I realize that luxurious resorts are few and far between out here. But we don’t have a lot of options. If we want to get off this planet we’ve got to get to the Raptor – and since there doesn’t seem to be a subway station nearby I think we’re going to have to walk.”

“I guess,” Lily replied grumpily. “Does this miserable excuse for a spaceship have any supplies we can bring with us?”

Jack looked around. Secured under his seat were two small bundles labeled “Emergency Supplies”. Jack grabbed one and opened it. “Hmmm. Here we go! Looks like we’ve got water, some rations of some sort, a compass, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, and a couple flares. That’s about it.”

“That’s not much. How long do you think the food will last?”

Jack removed a small sheet of paper from the kit and glanced at it. “Two days, it looks like.”

“Two days?” Lily exclaimed. “You mean they give us two days to get rescued? What are we supposed to do in two days?”

Jack shrugged. “Keep in mind it takes a while to starve after you run out of food and water. We have a little bit more than two days, I think. Maybe five.”

“Oh, well that makes all the difference in the world, then!”

Jack laughed. “It’s not so bad. I have some idea where the Raptor went down and it shouldn’t take us anywhere near five days to get there. If the ship is still intact we may be in luck – I bet it’s got all kinds of supplies! Those starships are designed to spend years exploring planets like this. It’ll have everything we need.”

“What else do those instructions say?” Lily asked. “Does it explain how to survive on alien planets?”

“I’m afraid not, dear. I imagine whoever wrote this thinks that if you own a Starman-class starship you probably already have more survival skills than you could ever need. The only thing this guide explains is how to use the escape pod in the event of an emergency.”

“That’s kind of useless! What does it say?”

Jack read the page and then turned it over and read the back. “It says you push the big yellow Launch button and the pod will do the rest.”

Lily shook her head. “And they had to print instructions to tell you that? Isn’t it kind of obvious?”

“Well, you never know. For all we knew the Launch button could have launched missiles or something. We just got lucky.”

“I wouldn’t call being stranded here lucky, exactly,” his wife replied. “But I guess we’d better get moving. It’s probably getting late.”

Jack opened the door in the back of the pod and the two carefully stepped outside. “You know, that’s a really good question. What time it is here?”

“Who knows?” Lily said. “The sun is not near the horizon, so I’m guessing we’ve got at least a little bit of daylight left.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jack said. He made sure that they were both carrying their wilderness survival kits and had not left anything important in the pod. He then removed the compass from his kit and consulted it.

“Well, it looks like we’re in luck,” Jack announced. “This planet has a magnetic field so we can use this to guide us. The compass claims that north is that way,” he said, pointing.

“Which way is the city?” Lily asked. “You said the ship went down near the city, right? That’s something we should be able to see from quite a distance.”

“It’s northwest of here, more or less. If we head in that direction we should be ok.”

“Let’s hope it’s more, and not less,” Lily replied.

Jack smiled. The two of them began hiking over the desert landscape. As Jack had feared the sun provided very little warmth and the atmosphere was cold. A gentle wind occasionally blew, stealing the warmth from their bones. Black, gritty dust covered the rocky ground like sand. When the wind blew it stirred up the dust and formed little black clouds that slowly settled back onto the surface.

The couple was able to cross the desert at a fairly rapid pace. Jack was badly out of shape and had to ask Lily to slow down after the first hour. “I just can’t take this,” he complained.

“I told you you needed to start exercising!” Lily replied primly. “If you’d taken my advice you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I wasn’t planning on launching a career hiking across alien deserts, dear. That never crossed my mind.”

“But it never hurts to be prepared.”

A bank of gray clouds leisurely floated overhead. I wonder if it ever rains here, Jack thought. Neither of them had seen any signs of water or plant life. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but rough, broken terrain that was scarred by giant, cracked rocks.

After the second hour Lily started getting tired as well. “This black dirt is getting all over me,” she complained. “It’s in my shoes, it’s on my skirt – it’s awful. I’m never going to be able to get it out of my clothing! I was dressed for a night out on the town, not a hiking trip.”

“I think we’re making progress, though,” Jack said. “I bet we’ve covered at least a couple miles, if not more. I can’t even see the pod anymore.”

“Are you sure we’re not going in circles?” his wife asked. “These broken black rocks all look the same to me.”

“Positive,” Jack replied, with more assurance than he felt.

Lily looked up at the sky. “The sun is getting a lot lower. I’d say we only have a couple hours of daylight left.”

“I noticed that,” her husband replied. “Either the days are really short or we got here late in the afternoon. I’m still hoping we’ll make it to the city before nightfall. I’d feel better if we were in a building of some kind instead of out here in the open. It’s just creepy out here. What’s with all these little bits of broken metal on the ground?”

“Beats me,” Lily said. “What gets me are the lights, though. I hate them. It’s like they’re looking at me or something.”

“What lights?” Jack asked. “You’ve been seeing lights?”

Lily turned to her husband in surprise. “You mean you haven’t noticed the little blue lights that are all around us? How could you possibly have missed them? Look over there in that pit. Do you see them now?”

Jack looked where his wife was pointing and gasped. Inside the dark hole he could see little blue sparks appearing in midair and then vanishing in an instant. The sparks were no bigger than a pinhead. Sometimes they would persist for a few moments and gently float in the air before they faded back into nothingness.

“I’ve been watching them for the past hour,” Lily explained. “They’re easiest to see in the shadows but they’re actually all around us. They’re just so faint that it’s hard to see in the daylight.”

“If you can call this daylight,” Jack muttered. “That’s the lousiest excuse for a sun I’ve ever seen. I bet there are moons that give off more light than that.”

“Probably,” Lily said.

Now that his wife had brought the blue lights to his attention Jack started noticing them everywhere. They were hard to see at first – just little sparks that appeared and vanished. But as time went on he began to see entire clouds of them here and there, hidden in the countless shadows that covered the ground.

“Where do you think the lights are coming from?” Lily asked.

“It’s probably just alien swamp gas, or something,” Jack replied breezily.

“Don’t you need a swamp to have alien swamp gas?”

Her husband shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently not! The lights have got to be coming from somewhere.”

“But wouldn’t it require a lot of energy to generate all of those lights?” Lily asked.

“Probably,” Jack said.

“Then where is that energy coming from? The only things I see out here are rocks, black sand, bits of broken metal, and gloom. Lots and lots of gloom. But nothing that looks like an energy source.”

“I don’t know, dear. If my high school geography teacher ever lectured on Lemura I completely missed it. That might have been one of the lectures I slept through. Geography was never my strong point.”

Lily laughed. “No, it sure wasn’t. You have many fine qualities, my husband, but that is not one of them.”

“Does it seem to you that the lights are moving in some kind of pattern? It’s almost like – ” Jack paused, searching for the right words. “It’s almost like they’re trying to form shapes, or maybe letters. Do you get the idea there is some sort of meaning in the lights?”

Lily shook her head. “They just freak me out, Jack. That’s all I can say. There is something unnatural about them and I don’t like them and I want to go home. Right now.”

“Me too,” Jack agreed.

They continued hiking for another hour. By this point the pod was three hours behind them.

Lily was the first to speak up. “Is it just me or is it getting colder?”

“It’s getting darker too,” Jack said. “I think the sun is about to go down.”

Lily nodded. “I’m starting to see more lights now. As the shadows get longer the lights seem to multiply. They almost look like little insects now. It’s as if they grow stronger when the sun goes down.”

“Just like vampires!” Jack quipped.

“That’s a comforting thought!” Lily replied. “This planet could be a vampire paradise, couldn’t it? You’ve got it all – darkness, rocks, cold, and a lifetime supply of depressing gloom. What more could an up-and-coming vampire want?”

“But you don’t have any victims!” Jack pointed out. “Any vampires that lived here would starve to death.”

“Unless all the life forms on this planet are invisible,” Lily teased. “Or at least, invisible to us. Or maybe they’re made of pure energy, like the monsters in the movies.”

Jack frowned. “What does that even mean – ‘pure energy’? How could something possibly be made out of energy? Energy is just the potential to accomplish work. I could understand a being made out of electrical batteries, maybe, but -”

“Look!” Lily exclaimed. The couple had just climbed over a small ridge. To their surprise the ridge was actually on the cusp of a deep valley. Far below them, in the valley, was the city they had been seeking. It was nestled in the heart of a long chain of hills and was apparently built in some sort of natural indentation.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief. “And none too soon. I bet if we hurry we’ve got just enough time to scamper down there and enter the city before it gets dark.”

Lily looked at the city and frowned. “I hate to bring this up, but now that we’re here I can’t say the city looks very inviting. All I see are skeletons of ruined buildings. It looks pretty old and rickety to me.”

“Would you rather spend the night out here in the open?” Jack asked.

“I’d rather spend the night at home in my own bed, if it’s all the same to you! But seriously. How do we know the city is safer than the countryside? Have you ever been there before?”

“Not exactly,” Jack said. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I studied electronics and wormhole mechanics in college, not survival strategies. But my gut feeling is that in the city we’d at least have some shelter. Out here we’re pretty vulnerable to whatever comes along.”

“What if that evil shadow being lives in the city?” Lily asked.

“Do you think it’s from this planet?” Jack asked.

“It would certainly fit in here! I bet it would be right at home. For all we know that city could be filled with a whole army of shadow beings.”

Jack nodded. “True. Very true. But it’s also possible that there is food and water in that city. There’s even a chance that Starman Alice is down there. The doubt and uncertainty cuts both ways.”

His wife looked surprised. “You think the Starman might still be alive?”

“Could be! After all, the Raptor had a transporter on board – I saw it on the map. It’s entirely possible that the Molly had one too. She might have beamed off just before the ship exploded. If I was her and I was still alive I would definitely head for that city.”

Lily laughed. “You’ve never had a day of Starman training in your whole life, Jack! How do you know what she would do?”

“Call it a hunch. After all, if your starship was stolen wouldn’t you want to get it back? Wouldn’t you make a beeline for it the moment your feet touched the ground?”

“Makes sense to me,” Lily said. “So what are we going to do? Are we going to avoid the city or go down into it?”

“I say we head for the city,” Jack said firmly. “I have a good feeling about it.”

“All right,” his wife replied. “I’m right behind you.”

It took them the better part of an hour to reach the outskirts of the city. By the time they finally climbed down the mountain it was pitch black. The planet had no moon, and the only light was from a handful of stars that shown in the sky. Jack was no expert in astronomy but the relative emptiness of the night sky gave him the feeling he was very far from home.

“I hope these flashlights hold out,” Jack said aloud. “I have a feeling it’s going to be tough to find new batteries for them.”

“Didn’t they say on the news that the Raptor had just been overhauled? Surely that would include checking the escape pods as well.”

“Would you think to replace batteries in flashlights?” Jack asked.

“No, but I’m not a Starman. Thinking of things like that is part of their job.”

Jack frowned. “That brings up another great question. How old is this food in our packs? You don’t suppose it’s already gone bad, do you?”

“I doubt it,” Lily replied. “I didn’t see any dates on the packaging, but it looks like it’s some kind of awful sealed food that will last until the stars burn out. I bet someone has written a scientific paper proving that our rations can never go bad under any circumstances.”

Jack laughed. “That’s a comforting thought! Say, have you noticed that the blue lights are gone?”

Lily nodded. “As soon as we started down into this valley they disappeared. I haven’t seen any of them since, even in the deepest shadows. But have you noticed that the buildings are glowing?”

“Yeah, I have. But sadly, they’re not glowing bright enough to replace our flashlights. The metal is just glowing here and there, in little fits. It’s acting like an engine that can’t quite get started. It is the weirdest thing.”

“I guess it matches the rest of the planet then! I’ve seen nothing but weirdness ever since we arrived. But where are we going, anyway?”

Jack stopped. The two of them had been walking down a street that was paved with some sort of unknown black substance. The street was filled with cracks and gashes but there were no plants or weeds to be seen. Around them were giant skyscrapers that had been reduced to nothing but their blue metal frames. The city was clearly extremely old. It’s been a very long time since anyone has lived here, Jack thought to himself. I get the feeling they weren’t expecting any visitors.

Aloud he said, “Do any of these buildings actually have roofs? Maybe we can find a somewhat intact one and stay there.”

Jack and Lily walked down a few more blocks, searching for a structure that had weathered the passage of time reasonably well. They at last settled on a short building three stories tall that still had its blue steel walls, floors, and ceilings intact. The couple carefully walked inside.

“I suppose we’d better explore the whole building before settling down for the night,” Jack said.

“That would be a great idea,” Lily replied. “Not that I would feel any safer, really, considering where we’re at. But at least we’d know something about the hotel we’ve picked.”

Jack located a battered stairwell in the rear of the building. The couple used it to access and explore all three levels and the roof. After a half-hour of searching they realized that the structure was entirely empty. There was nothing inside – not even so much as writing on the walls.

“Where do you want to make camp?” Jack asked.

“The first floor,” Lily said without hesitation. “If something goes wrong in the middle of the night I don’t want to have to run down a flight of stairs.”

“Works for me,” Jack replied. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

“Or a long week, or month, or however long it’s been,” Lily said. “We’ve kind of lost track of time.”

“True. Say, do you want to eat something before turning in?”

“I’m not really hungry,” Lily replied. “Something about darkness and unending gloom has taken away my appetite.”

Jack smiled. “Things will get better, dear. We’ll find a way home. Just give it time. Tomorrow will be another day.”

Lily yawned. “Are you sure there aren’t any sleeping bags in those emergency kits?”

“Positive,” Jack said. “There’s not even a blanket.”

“I am definitely writing a strong letter to whoever designs those kits the moment I get home,” his wife grumbled. “That kit is totally useless! There’s no sleeping bags, no soap, no shampoo, no source of running water -”

Jack leaned over and kissed his wife. “Goodnight, dear.”

Lily sighed. “Goodnight.”

Jack Rossman awoke with a start, feeling cold and a little bit sore. He opened his eyes and was surprised that he still couldn’t see anything. It took him a moment to realize that the room he was in was pitch black. Jack carefully tried to sit up, but the entire room suddenly shook and he felt himself falling. A moment later he smacked into the tiled floor.

“Ow!” he yelled. “Somebody could have told me I was lying on a table, you know!”

“Is that you, Jack?” a feminine voice called out.

“Lily?” Jack replied.

A moment later the room was flooded with a dim red light. As Jack looked at the machinery that furnished the room he realized where they were. “This is a stasis chamber, Lily! Someone put us in suspended animation.”

“Where are you?” she called out. Jack carefully tried to stand up as the room continued to pitch and shake. He finally spotted his wife, who was lying on a stasis table near the end of the room, clutching the sides of the table for dear life. Jack hurried over to the table and gently helped his wife get up.

“Jack!” she exclaimed, hugging him. The room pitched again and Lily held on to him tighter. “What’s going on?”

“I think we’re on a ship,” Jack said uncertainly. “My guess is that something bad is happening. The ship must have lost power, and when the power went out we were released from stasis.”

“So where are we?” Lily asked.

“Let’s find out,” Jack suggested. With his wife holding onto his arm he carefully made his way toward the only door in the room.

“I have a better idea,” Lily said. “Let’s try to find a way off this ship. I don’t care where we are as long as it’s not here.”

“That works too,” Jack replied.

The two of them made it to the door. Jack carefully opened it and looked around. A long hallway extended to his left and right, but there were no people in sight. Aside from the dim red emergency lights he could see nothing of interest.

“Which way do we go?” Lily whispered.

“I have no idea,” Jack said. “So let’s just pick a direction and see how it turns out.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Lily replied, as the two of them carefully stepped out into the hallway.

“Me too,” Jack answered. “But at least the ship has stopped moving. Maybe our luck is improving.”

“It can’t get much worse,” Lily replied.

As the two walked down the hallway Jack suddenly noticed a dim holoscreen embedded in one of the walls. He walked up to the screen and waved his hand in front of it. The screen feebly came to life. When Jack read the glowing columns of information his eyes widened.

“Look at that,” he whispered. “We’re on board the Raptor!”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Lily said. “How do we get off?”

Jack frowned. “Let me see if I can pull up a map.” He gingerly pressed a button. Immediately the entire ship shook, and they heard a horrible grinding noise coming from somewhere below them. The noise sounded like two massive pieces of metal being forcefully ripped apart. An emergency siren began to sound and a voice spoke over the ship’s intercom system. “There has been a hull breach on decks one and two. Please evacuate the lower decks. There has been a hull breach on decks…”

Jack immediately jumped back from the panel. “I did not do that! I had nothing to do with that. That was totally a coincidence.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Lily replied.

“But it’s impossible! I just pushed the button labeled ‘Schematics’. How could that possibly result in a hull breach?”

“Isn’t a hull breach where the ship starts venting air into space?” Lily asked.

“I think so,” Jack replied.

“Aren’t we on the lower decks?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said thoughtfully. “We might be.”

“Doesn’t that seem bad?” Lily asked.

Jack glanced back at the holoscreen. To his relief it was displaying a map of the starship. He studied it, frowning.

“Well?” his wife asked.

“It doesn’t have a ‘you are here’ flag,” Jack complained. “Do you have any idea how big this ship is? Trying to find our location -”

He was interrupted by the sound of metal forcefully striking metal. The horrible shriek made them both cover their ears.

“- is getting more important by the second!” Lily screamed. “What is happening?”

“I don’t think we want to know,” Jack said nervously. He pointed at the screen. “The stasis chamber is right there, so we must be about here. My guess is we’re on deck three.”

“You mean we’re only one deck up from the two levels that are now a vacuum?” Lily shrieked.

“I think so,” Jack said.

“So the hull breach could spread and we could die at any moment.”

“I don’t think hull breaches are contagious,” Jack replied.

Lily shook her head and looked at the map. “There. Do you see that? The third door down the hall from us is a stairwell. We can take it up two flights and then down this hallway to a shuttle bay. The map claims there’s a shuttlecraft there.”

Jack snapped his fingers. “You’re right! Now that you mention it I do remember seeing a shuttle. That could work!”

As the two started running down the hallway Lily turned to Jack. “How could you possibly have seen the shuttlecraft? And how did you get here, anyway? And how did I get here?”

“Can we talk about that later?” Jack puffed. He yanked open the stairwell door and the two began running upstairs.

“I want answers now,” Lily replied. “You can talk and run at the same time.”

“Ok,” Jack shouted. The intercom system overhead was still blaring a warning about a hull breach. “Here’s what happened. The black shadow thing kidnapped you and told me that it would kill you if I didn’t help it steal the Third Treasure from the museum. However, after I did what it asked the shadow thing disappeared with the Treasure and didn’t give you back to me. So I followed it here and was knocked out the moment I got here. I woke up when you did. That’s all I know.”

“You stole the Third Treasure?” Lily shrieked. “Are you totally out of your mind? Do you know what they’re going to do to you when we get back home?”

Jack yanked open the stairwell door and the two ran out onto the fifth floor. “Everything that goes on in that room is recorded, Lily. I’m sure the authorities will review the tapes and realize that I had no choice. Surely they won’t press charges.”

“You hope,” Lily replied.

“Which door was it again?” Jack asked.

“Follow me,” Lily said. She took Jack’s hand and the two ran down one hallway and then another. Lily stopped in front of a door with a sign on it that read ‘Shuttle Bay Two’.

“Very nice,” Jack replied. He looked at the door and frowned. “Hmmm. I don’t see a doorknob anywhere. This looks like some sort of electric airlock door.” He tried pressing the airlock controls beside the door but nothing happened.

“Figures,” Jack said. “With no power I guess the ship can’t open doors.”

“Let’s be thankful that it’s protecting us from our own stupidity,” Lily replied. She was standing a few feet away from Jack, looking out a window. “Come take a look at this.”

Jack walked over to his wife and peered out. The window offered a beautiful view into the shuttle bay, and Jack gasped when he saw what was on the other side of that door. Half of the room was simply not there anymore. The entire rear wall and most of the floor was now open to the vacuum of space. Jack could even see part of a planet in the distance. The room was empty.

“Oh boy,” Jack said weakly. “This is so not good.”

“I’d call that a hull breach on deck five,” Lily said.

A moment later the hallway filled with light! The holoscreens embedded in the walls all came to life at once, and a gentle hum could be heard in the distance. The ship’s intercom changed its message. “Normal power has been restored. The ship’s computer is now online.”

“Well that’s good,” Jack replied.

“This ship is under attack,” the voice continued. “Damage reports are being assessed. An emergency alert is still in progress. Please stay in your cabins while I continue to engage the enemy.”

“Ok, so maybe that’s not good,” Jack said weakly.

Lily grabbed his arm. “Look!” she hissed.

Out the window Jack saw that the scene was starting to change. The planet that they could see through the enormous gashes in the hull was starting to move out of sight. “The ship must be turning,” he said.

“I know that, you lunkhead,” Lily replied. His wife pointed to the far right and Jack saw that there was another ship in space. He immediately recognized it. “Isn’t that the Molly?”

“Looks like it,” Lily replied. “That must be the ship that we’re fighting.”

“Oh boy,” Jack said. “That’s terrible! The news guy said that the Molly was an unarmed bean freighter. This ship is going to tear it apart! The Starman doesn’t stand a chance.”

“You mean there’s actually somebody piloting the ship out there that is trying to kill us?”

“Alice probably has no idea we’re on board,” Jack said quickly. “I bet she thinks she’s only fighting the evil shadow of doom.”

“So who am I supposed to root for?” Lily asked. “Do I want her ship to get blown up, or ours?”

Jack swallowed nervously. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the shadow will surrender. That’s always a possibility.”

As they watched they suddenly noticed that a small projectile from the Molly was rapidly approaching them. Jack was horrified. “Missiles! That’s not fair. Where did she get missiles? Bean freighters don’t come equipped with missiles!”

“We could have been in stasis for weeks or months,” Lily pointed out. “We have no idea what’s been going on.”

“Oh, we have some idea,” Jack replied. “My guess is the evil shadow being is somewhere on board this ship and Alice is engaging it in battle so she can recover the Third Treasure.”

Lily grabbed her husband. “We’re about to be blown to pieces by a warhead, Jack. Can’t you think of anything better to ponder over in the last few moments of your life?”

“Maybe she’ll miss,” Jack said weakly.

As it became clear that they had only seconds left Jack suddenly saw something out of the corner of his eye. “Look!” In an instant something crashed into the Molly, causing it to violently explode. They heard no sound but saw a brief flash of fire and then the vessel simply wasn’t there. Pieces of debris were scattered in all directions and began drifting apart in the expanse of space.

Jack freaked out. “Alice was on board that ship! Did you see what just happened?”

At that moment the missile struck the Raptor. There was a thunderous explosion and the couple was knocked off their feet. Metal could be heard tearing apart and the entire ship shook from the blast. Within seconds the hallway went dark and the red emergency lights came back on.

When the explosion had subsided Jack looked at his wife. “At least we’re still alive,” he said.

He was interrupted by a voice over the intercom system. “There have been critical system failures on all decks. Evacuate the ship immediately. Free fall to Lemura is imminent. The ship must be evacuated. There have been critical systems failures…”

“We’re alive for now, you mean,” Lily said. “Where’s Lemura? I’ve never heard of it.”

“My guess is it’s a planet we’re about to become very familiar with,” her husband replied.

Jack ran over to the holoscreen and waved his hand in front of it. When the screen weakly glowed to life he brought up the map again. “Maybe we can stay alive for a bit longer. Look. This is shuttle bay two, right? So surely there’s a shuttle bay one somewhere.”

“There sure is!” Lily said. “It’s right there, on deck one. Or what used to be deck one, before there was a hull breach.”

Jack grimaced. “Ok, let’s switch to plan B. Do you see the emergency escape pods there on deck five? Maybe they’re still intact, and maybe we can take them to the surface.”

Lily nodded. “It looks like they’re right down the hall from us. Let’s go!”

The couple raced down the hall toward the escape pods. “Jack?” Lily said.

“Yes?” her husband replied. He was panting heavily as he tried to keep up with his wife.

“Do you think that evil shadow thing is still on board the ship?”

“I sure hope not,” Jack said fervently.

“But if he is, wouldn’t he be going to these same escape pods?”

“There are pods on other levels, dear.”

“But the bridge is on this level,” Lily pointed out. “If I was an evil space being in battle with a Starman that’s where I would be headed.”

“We’ll cross the evil space being bridge when we come to it,” Jack replied. They quickly whipped around a corner. “The pods are just down there.”

Jack and Lily raced to the spot the map had indicated. To their immense relief they saw five two-man escape pods embedded in the wall. Jack relaxed a bit. “Looks like they’re all intact.”

Lily opened the door to the first pod and the couple rushed in. After Lily closed the door behind them Jack powered up the pod. Without hesitating he pressed the Launch button.

With a quick jolt the pod was blasted away from the ship. Through the window Jack could suddenly see a planet loom far below them. He felt the pod begin to turn.

“This is awfully cramped,” Lily complained. “I’ve seen closets bigger than this.”

“It’s not meant to be a luxury cruiser,” Jack said. “All it needs to do is get us from the ship to that planet down there.”

“What?” Lily screamed. “You didn’t tell me anything about landing on an alien planet! Are you out of your mind?”

“It can’t be helped,” Jack protested. “These pods don’t have a big life support system. There’s only enough air in here for a couple hours. We’ve got to land on the planet. There isn’t anything else we can do.”

“Look at that thing! Are you sure you want to land on Lemura, or whatever it’s called?”

Jack looked on the planet. A horrible feeling crept over him. The planet looked like something out of a nightmare. Deep gray clouds obscured part of the surface, but the part that was exposed was chilling. The ground appeared to be solid black, with patches that glowed an evil blue hue. It was the least inviting world Jack had ever seen. Even looking at Lemura from orbit gave him a bad feeling – and the planet was rapidly drawing closer.

“How do we know we can breathe in that atmosphere?” Lily demanded.

“We don’t,” Jack said.

“And what happens if it is as toxic as it looks?” she asked.

“Then we die, I guess,” he replied.

“This is the worst date night ever,” she complained. “You are not ever going to work late again.”

“I think we’ve got other things to worry about right now,” Jack commented.

As the pod continued to fall toward the planet below Jack suddenly caught sight of the Raptor. The giant red starship was plummeting toward the planet, but at a much faster rate than their pod. As it passed by they both got a good look at it.

Jack whistled. “Please don’t tell me we were on that ship.”

“I’m pretty sure we were,” Lily replied.

“I asked you not to tell me!”

The Raptor was badly damaged. Much of the hull plating for the lower decks was simply gone, and the plates that were still there had large gashes in them. The ship’s wings were mauled and had long scars and gaping holes. I can’t believe we got out of that alive, Jack thought. It’s a complete ruin now. The insurance company is definitely going to declare that vessel a total loss.

“What do we do now?” Lily said, interrupting his thoughts.

“Wait, I guess,” Jack replied. “Just wait and see what happens next.”

“If our luck doesn’t start improving I don’t want to know what happens next.”

Jack sighed. “It could be worse, dear. At least we’re still alive! And we haven’t seen that evil shadow being. That’s something.”

“I guess you’re right,” Lily replied. “I just wasn’t planning on spending the evening dying on an alien planet.”

“Let’s just see what happens,” Jack said. “One crisis at a time.”

For the next hour the couple sat in silence, exchanging only an occasional word. Lemura continued to grow larger. When they at last entered the gray atmosphere and began their landing approach Jack suddenly pointed to a tiny object far below them. “Look at that – and that!”

“What?” Lily asked, squinting.

“The Raptor just moved! I mean, it shifted its position. It’s falling, but it’s controlling its fall. I think it might be trying to land!”

“Do we care?” his wife asked.

“You bet we do. That ship has got all kinds of long-range communications equipment on board. If it lands intact we might be able to call for help.”

Lily was aghast. “You mean to tell me that we can’t call for help using this pod?”

“Well, sure, but only to other people on the planet. The pod doesn’t support long-distance calls. It’s just a last-ditch we’re-all-going-to-die escape pod. But the Raptor is different.”

“So where is our last, best hope landing?” Lily asked.

“It looks like it’s headed for that city over there,” Jack said.

“What city?”

“That one,” Jack said, pointing to a small area on the planet’s surface.

Lily frowned. “That’s a ruin, Jack. It hasn’t been a city since before time began – if then.”

“Fine. But that’s where it’s going.”

The conversation was interrupted when the pod started shaking. Lily grabbed Jack’s arm. “What’s that?”

“Atmospheric turbulence,” Jack replied. “It’s ok. It’s all part of the plan.”

“Then let’s find a new plan,” Lily said.

Jack glanced down at the control panel. “It’s almost over, dear. Just another ten minutes and we’ll touch down.”

By now the Raptor had disappeared, lost in the thick atmosphere of the planet. The city was out of sight as well.

“We’re not landing near the Raptor, are we?” Lily asked.

Jack shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ve tried to change the course but the computer won’t let me. I must be doing something wrong.”

Lily sighed but said nothing.

As they got closer to the ground the shaking slowly stopped. Jack closely monitored their fall and was pleased to see that the pod was gently breaking their descent. A few minutes later the pod touched down onto the surface.

Jack breathed an enormous sigh of relief. “I can’t believe it! Look at that, dear. We made it! And check out these readings – the atmosphere isn’t toxic!”

Lily squinted out the window. The rough, black surface of the rocky planet extended in all directions as far as she could see. Veins of some blue mineral glowed eerily among an endless stretch of gray, gritty sand. A white fog clung to pits in the alien surface. Overhead gray clouds slowly drifted through the sky, occasionally blocking the light from a small, weak sun.

“Do you really mean to tell me that it’s safe out there?” Lily asked.

“It looks ok to me,” Jack said. “We’ve got oxygen, carbon dioxide – all the good stuff we need. And the gravity is more or less what we’re used to.”

“So what do we do now?” Lily asked.

“Hike to the Raptor, I guess.”

Lily’s eyes widened. “You mean leave the pod? And go out there? Are you out of your mind?”

* * *

Neal’s komodo was weary and slowing when he reached the great cleft on the bottom of the asteroid. As he turned his eager lizard down the slope to their home, he saw a gray door in the wall of the valley below him open and Hanna come lounging out.

“Okay, okay, smarty,” said Neal over the radio, to the sound of laughter.

When he made it headfirst down the hill to the door, he guided his lizard through it and inside two airlocks and down a dirt hallway to an open lighted cavern. There Grummel was standing next to a stall, holding the door open.

Neal’s lizard slithered into the stall and Neal climbed stiffly off it.

“Here now,” said Grummel, squeezing his massive form into the stall and helping Neal unclip and unseal the spacesuit-harness from the nine-foot-long komodo. Grummel pulled the opened suit off and hung it on the wall then leaned over to pull off the lizard’s texaglass helmet last.

“Watch it there,” he said to Neal, who took two healthy steps backwards as Grummel placed his large hands on the grip of the helmet and pulled it off the giant monitor lizard. It shook its head as he did so and hissed at him, but it was too weary to cause any of its normal trouble.

“Here now, Izzy,” Grummel said, lovingly stroking the back of the panting lizard which stood eyeing him suspiciously. Grummel opened the feed trough with its smelly bio-fuel and scooped out a generous clump of the slimy brown substance for Izzy.

The lizard licked its yellow tongue towards the stuff, smelling it, then after a moment inched up to it and began eating away at it. Grummel watched the lizard eat with glowing eyes, and for a moment Neal was afraid Grummel might try to plant a kiss on the back of the lizard. But Grummel straightened his seven foot mountainous body and came back out of the stall. Hanna was leaning on a closed stall door, pulling off her helmet and shaking her wild tangle of hair free of her suit collar.

“Your dad told you to mind your schooling,” she informed Grummel. Grummel groaned.

Just then a door on the other side of the cavern opened and a shorter boy with a parted mop of hair and sharp features leaned in.

“You are late to the lesson,” he said in a somewhat nasally voice.

He eyed Hanna appreciatively, then glared at Neal and Grummel.

“My dad said if you don’t get in there right away he’s going to assign extra homework.”

Grummel jumped at the word “homework” and hurried to the door, Hanna and Neal trailing somewhat less hurriedly behind.

They walked down a corridor, and then another until they came to a main lobby. In the metal floor of the lobby a wide green circular door opened down into the living area cylinder.

They each turned off their boots and grabbed a handhold by the door. Neal floated headfirst down into the cylinder in front of the others. It was a round green hallway going down into the asteroid a hundred feet, and along it various hatches opened in all directions, all turning in circles around them.

Neal drifted fifty feet down to one marked “Classroom” and grabbed the handle. Instantly he was on the merry-go-round, spinning around Hanna and Grummel. He slid the hatch open and clambered down a ladder into the room. It was a smaller room, only ten by ten, its walls hung with posters of animals, chemical compounds, and Terra.

Standing in front of a large monitor on the wall stood Mr. Brut, a tall German man with glasses. He was Mirk’s father. Mirk was sitting in his chair as though he’d been there all day, glaring at the others coming down the ladder, his eyes following Hanna.

“Stop it, Mirk,” murmured Neal, pushing his shoulder as he walked past. Mirk grabbed his shoulder as though it was broken.

“Ow!” he said, gaining Neal a stare from Mr. Brut.

“Let’s all be seated, please,” said Mr. Brut.

Just then the hatch above them slid open again and a red-haired woman poked her head down. It was the stranger.

“Hi!” she said. “Captain said I could come and watch the class. Is that all right?”

Mr. Brut looked up at her and nodded. “But of course,” he said.

She came down, without a helmet but still in her bright red astro suit. Sitting in a chair next to Neal, she put her hand on his arm and stared into his eyes. Her eyes shone like two intense green emeralds. She studied him for a moment, and Neal squirmed inside.

“You are the one in the dream,” she said.

“What dream?” Neal asked quietly.

“Let’s begin class,” said Mr. Brut to the group.

Everyone inched their chairs to face Mr. Brut, who was standing next to a large monitor, adjusting his tie. Mr. Brut was the only person on the asteroid who wore a tie, since ties were long (they hung to the knees) and were likely to be caught on turning parts. But Mr. Brut, being a scientist, would not wear anything else. In fact, Neal reflected, he didn’t think he had ever seen Mr. Brut without a tie.

“Today we are doing further studies into the komodo dragon,” Mr. Brut said. “Grummel, I believe you are first to report your findings.”

Grummel rumbled himself to a towering standing position, accidentally knocking Hanna’s chair over.

“I’m vera sorry,” he said to Hanna.

“No problem,” said Hanna, getting off the floor and setting her chair back up.

“Ahem,” said Grummel, wiping a bead of sweat off his wide forehead. “I read that komodo dragons is some of the only creatures whereat the woman of the lizards can bear

He wiped his forehead again with his great paw and peered at his paper.

“The only problem is that all of her eggs will be male dragons, which if she is all alone, means her youn’ must mate with…” Grummel turned red and stared around.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mr. Brut, “They must mate with their mother.”

Grummel turned even redder.

“Howbeit,” Grummel continued, “This process can be likely to de-grade the genetics of the ensuing lizards and is not recommended.” Grummel turned to the others.

“Thet’s why I made sure Ol’ Jack had time with each of the lady lizards,” he said earnestly.

Hanna laughed loudly. Neal noticed that the strange woman only leaned forward, listening in fascination to Grummel.

“Thank you, Grummel, for that first-hand perspective,” said Mr. Brut calmly.

“Mr. Washer, if you please…” Mr. Washer was Neal, although every time he heard it he still expected his uncle, John Washer, to peer out and reply.

Neal stood up and cleared his throat. “Komodo Dragons originally came from the island of Komodo in Indonesia,” he said. “The local people often believed the dragons were the departed spirits of their dead relatives and would sometimes offer them goats. The dragon was first discovered by westerners in 1910 by Lieutenant van Steyn van Hensbroek, who had heard rumors of large lizards. The largest komodo on record weighed 370 earth pounds.”

The strange woman gasped at this. Neal glanced at her than back at his paper.

“The average komodo weighs 150 earth pounds and is between 6 and 9 feet long,” he finished.

“Thank you, Neal,” said Mr. Brut. “Mirk, what do you have for us?”

Mirk brushed his hand through his parted hair and stood up proudly. “The Komodo Dragon’s gums are thin and its sixty serrated teeth tear them easily, so its saliva is often mixed with blood.”

Hanna made a face.

“This is provides a perfect environment for growing dangerous bacteria in its mouth,” he said.

“Dragon breath,” Neal muttered to Hanna, who giggled.

“In the wild,” Mirk went on, scowling at them, “Dragons eat carrion and hunt prey, giving them toxic saliva which can cause deadly infections in its bites.”

“That’s why we give ’em thet bio-fuel,” interuppted Grummel, “So as their bites are less dangerous.”

“Well,” said Mr. Brut, “We give them the bio-fuel, Grummel, because we don’t have any goats on hand to feed them. But yes, we also monitor the feed mixture to reduce toxicity.” Grummel looked proud.

Mirk continued, “Komodo Dragons are quite intelligent. They are picky hunters. One of their favorite delicacies is baby goat. Komodos have been observed jumping out and scaring the mother goat in order to cause her to miscarriage.” Mirk smiled broadly, then finished. “The Komodo Dragon evolved four million years ago from the same ancestor as the dinosaurs.”

“Well, Mirkus,” said Mr. Brut, “That’s not exactly right. It descended from its Varanus ancestor 40 million years ago in Asia, and then migrated to Australia, where 4 million years ago it completed developed into its current form. Scientists speculate that it grew so large in order to be able to eat pygmy elephants.”

Neal felt he was supposed to say something. But it seemed he never had exactly the right thing to say. Hanna’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Hanna?” sighed Mr. Brut.

“God created the lizards, Mr. Brut,” she said. Neal never failed to be amazed by her boldness. Or her directness.

“Science says otherwise, Ms. Gazer,” he said. “All the best scientists in the solar system agree that we evolved through a process of random natural selection.”
Hanna’s hand remained up. “But don’t some of the best scientists, such as Kim Darjeeling, think that life and DNA is too complex to have been only an accident?” she asked. “Don’t they think that perhaps some alien visitors first brought seeds of life to earth and nurtured the early forms of life?”

Mr. Brut cleared his throat. “Many cientists certainly don’t rule out the option of other life-forms having been involved in the process,” he said. “However, science deals in reality, Ms. Gazer. We do not resort to fantastic metaphysical explanations.”

“You are calling God a fantastic metaphysical explanation?” Hanna asked, her voice rising.

“Have you ever seen God?” Mr. Brut asked. “Do you know where he lives? He is a very comforting notion to some who are afraid to face the vastness of the universe by themselves and want rules and meaning.”

He clicked the monitor and typed a few words. A quote came up on the screen. “As for me, I agree with Bertrand Russell’s view on man.” He began reading the quote to the class.

“That his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of the universe in ruins.”

Mr. Brut jutted his jaw out and raised his hand with earnestness: “….Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

children without any males at hand. Thet’s called….parth…eno…genesis”

Mr. Brut began to look angry. “Listen, young lady, when you have a doctorate degree as I do, you can speak to me on these matters. But until then, you must listen and respect me!”

Neal winced inwardly as Hanna put up her hand yet again. “Sir, in the Tanakh it says, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.'”

Neal wondered whether he should climb under his chair or run for the ladder.

Mr. Brut became deadly silent. He stared at Hanna for a few moments. “I can see this class is useless,” he said. “I offered my time generously to aid in your education. But since you refuse it, I will not waste my time further. Mirkus, come.” Mr. Brut closed his folder, dragged Mirk to the ladder, and began climbing, his long tie and long coat dragging on the rungs as he left, slamming the hatch door behind him.

There was a long silence.

 

 

(Copyright, 2009, Daniel Routh)

Alice was furious. “How could my ship have possibly been stolen? Was nobody guarding it?”

General Bradley shook his head. “We’ve got a whole army out there, Starman. There is no way anyone could have gotten past my men. It is not possible. We would have seen them long before they reached the airfield.”

“Apparently not,” Alice snapped. By now her starship was almost out of sight. “Somebody is on board my ship, and I am not happy about it. And I have no doubt that the thief has the Third Treasure with him. So much for containment!”

“Our space fighters are already on her tail,” the general said. “Once they are in range they will force her down. They are probably already closing the gap.”

Alice shook her head. “I very much doubt it, sir. The Raptor is easily the fastest ship on the planet, and her engines had just been completely rebuilt. As soon as it gets into space I bet it’ll engage its FTL drive and be gone. Do you really think those dinky fighters can possibly catch it then? I mean, c’mon! Your ships were already in the air and the Raptor still passed them by so quickly that they might as well have been motionless. It’s already too late.”

The general frowned. “One way or another we will get back your ship. The thief has already made a critical error. Starman-class ships come equipped with extensive security measures and are easy to locate. The armed forces of Ahmanya most certainly has starships that are capable of tracking it down and overtaking it, no matter where it might be hiding.”

“Fine,” Alice said. “And while you’re filling out the paperwork to get all that done I’m going to commandeer that freighter over there and chase it myself. If I can contact the AI on board my ship then maybe I can shut the whole thing down.”

General Bradley looked at her in surprise. “You want to requisition the Molly? Whatever for? That oversized piece of junk is used to carry a half-million tons of lima beans between Earth and Mars. It’s like sending a garbage truck to chase down a race car.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Alice replied. “Right now it doesn’t have a half-million tons of yucky vegetables on board. Do you know how fast that class of freighter can go when it’s empty? All that power would be pushing an almost negligible amount of metal. I bet the result is really something.”

“That ship is fifteen hundred feet long!” the general exclaimed. “Do you know anything at all about flying cargo vessels?”

“Let’s have this conversation later, shall we? Just let the Incorporated Bean Farm people know that I’ll get their ship back to them as soon as possible.” With that, Alice took off running across the spaceport.

The general sighed. “Kids these days. I don’t know what the world is coming to. She’s actually going to give chase in an unarmed bean freighter. What, exactly, is she going to do when she overtakes the Raptor – wink at it? Charm it back home with her winsome ways?” He shook his head, and then ordered one of his men to let the IBF know what had happened to their ship. When that was done he sighed. “Enough of that. Let’s get some real pursuit ships into space, shall we?”

Alice quickly made her way to the enormous freighter, and then climbed the long ladder that led up to the ship’s airlock. Once on board she made her way to the bridge, where she found a couple crewmen lounging around. Alice told them that there was a national security emergency and that she had authorization from the military to commandeer their vessel. The crewmen grumbled but eventually cleared out, leaving her alone on the Molly.

After they had left the ship Alice removed a small silver disc from one of her suit pockets and placed it into the bridge’s navigation terminal. A moment later the main viewscreen came to life. On the screen a picture of a young man appeared. Alice sighed. You’re not nearly as advanced as Rachel, but you’ll have to do. Let’s get this over with.

Aloud she said “Bob, get us out of here as fast as possible. Use the emergency liftoff sequence to get us into space. Once we have left the planet I want you to locate the ship that is broadcasting this signal and catch up with it. Do whatever is necessary to overtake it.” As Bob fired up the massive engines Alice gave him the information he needed. The Molly slowly lumbered off the ground, but once it was in the air it gradually started to pick up speed.

Once they were in space and had a lock on the remote vessel Alice spoke up again. “There is one more thing. I need you to contact General Bradley on this frequency and let him know that we’ve got a lock on the Raptor. Tell him to follow us, and that if my math is correct we should be able to knock it out of hyperspace in about thirty minutes.”

Alice looked at the holoscreen and saw that the gap between her and their quarry was starting to close. I’ve got a bit of work to do before we catch up with you, she thought to herself. This is the tricky part.

* * * * *

The David Foster Spaceport was in a state of utter chaos. Irate passengers were forming long lines in front of the ticket booths, demanding to know when they would be able to get to their destinations. Other passengers milled around, not allowed to leave the spaceport but not knowing where else to go. Little children glued themselves to the windows and watched in fascination as tanks rumbled over the runways, looking for an intruder that had apparently just stolen one of the fastest ships in space. News cameras recorded both the chaos and the the epic chase and broadcast it live for all of civilization to see.

In the sub-basement of the spaceport, far away from the agitated masses of humanity, was a large suite reserved only for employees of Stryker Transportation. The suite was a quiet, out-of-the-way work environment for the small team of people that kept the spaceport’s wormhole transporters functioning. In the heart of this sanctuary Jack Rossman was trying to calm down his wife Lily. The two of them had been married for only three weeks, and were just about to go out for the evening when the army closed down the spaceport.

“I can’t believe this is happening!” Lily repeated. “I just can’t believe it. I told you not to work late! And now look what’s happened.”

“It was only an extra half-hour!” Jack protested. “I didn’t know that aliens were going to pick this evening to invade. It’s not like that happens all the time.”

“But the fact is if you’d left on time tonight we wouldn’t be stuck here. We’d be out of this mess, having dinner at the Lizard’s Watering Hole like civilized beings.”

“Probably not, actually,” Jack replied. “Didn’t the news guy say that the entire city was without power? It’s probably just as big a mess out there as it is in here. There just aren’t any good places to be tonight, dear.”

Lily sighed. “Whatever. Any place would beat being cooped up in here.”

Jack smiled. The two of them were holed up in the suite’s server section, which was a large room that contained the actual hardware that transported people via wormholes. The passengers themselves were received and processed at special terminals upstairs, but the actual machinery was all located in this one room. The transporters did not have to be in the same place as the passengers, a fact that was a constant source of joy to Jack. He enjoyed maintaining the complex equipment and had no desire to get involved with customer relations.

His wife had arrived at the office an hour earlier, intending to go out with Jack. Since he was tied up at work she joined him in the back room and waited impatiently for him to clock out. When the spaceport was locked down, however, there was nothing they could do but stay there and pray that the lockdown ended soon.

Lily turned her attention back to a large holoscreen that was mounted on the wall. Jack had tuned it to a local news station and the two of them had been watching events unfold.

“Do you think they’ll be able to catch the thief that stole the Third Treasure?” Lily asked.

“I doubt it,” Jack replied. “The Molly might be fast, but the Raptor is a breed apart. All Starlight Enterprise ships are fast, but that one is a Starman-class ship. It’s got features you can’t even imagine.”

“I bet,” Lily replied. “Hey, can’t we just use one of these transporters to beam ourselves out of here? I mean, why not?”

Jack looked at his wife and shook his head. “First of all, individual wormhole transportation is incredibly expensive. That’s why most people travel by trains – the cost is prohibitive for ordinary mortals like you and I. Second, we are definitely not allowed to use these things as our own personal toys. If we want to use them then we can buy a ticket like everybody else. That’s company policy.”

“But it’s technically possible,” Lily pointed out.

“So is getting fired,” Jack replied. “I’ve only been at this job for six months. It’s a good job and I’m very fond of it! I’d like to keep it a bit longer, if you don’t mind.”

“I suppose,” Lily sighed. “But I’m getting hungry. Isn’t there something we can do?”

Jack thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, there are some restaurants upstairs in the concourse. I bet they’re still open. If you wanted I could -”

Jack was interrupted by a flash of light. His blood ran cold. Somebody just transported directly into this room, he thought to himself. Jack slowly stood up. He looked around the room but he couldn’t see anyone. He and his wife appeared to be the only two people around. “Hello? Um, is anyone out there? This area is for employees only.”

Lily suddenly let out a shriek! Jack whirled around and saw that behind her an area of complete darkness was slowly materializing. It appeared to have no well-defined shape; it was simply a three-dimensional shadow. It reminded Jack of a black hole. It’s as if a part of spacetime had simply vanished, he though.

The shadow spoke. Its voice was very gravely, as if it was coming from far underground. “Which of you works here?”

“I do,” Jack said nervously. The voice had unnerved him, and he found it hard to concentrate. “But this area is off-limits.”

“Then we will pretend I was never here,” the shadow replied. An ill-defined area of blackness reached out from the shadow and handed Jack a piece of paper. “I need you to transport the object at this location into this room.”

Jack looked at the coordinates and frowned. He glanced up at a map hanging on the wall. “This is for a location on the west side of town. In fact -” His eyes suddenly widened. “In fact, it’s a location within the Ahmanyan museum! Why, you’re the thief, aren’t you?”

“I would get moving if I were you,” the shadow replied. “You don’t have much time.”

Jack shook his head. “Forget it. I’m not going to help you steal the Third Treasure.”

“Then we’ll do this the hard way,” the shadow said. In a brilliant flash of light Lily disappeared.

Jack couldn’t believe his eyes. “My wife! What have you done to her, you fiend? Where have you taken her?”

“That is not your concern. If you want her back then you will do exactly as I say. Failure to fully comply may result in… something unfortunate. And do not try to get cute with the transporter. I have abilities you are not aware of.”

Jack swallowed. This is the worst date night ever, he thought. I have got to get Lily back. This can’t be happening. Can it? How can this be happening? Why me?

Jack sat down at his desk and brought up the controls for one of the wormhole transporters. After placing the unit on manual control he carefully locked onto the foreign object.

Jack frowned. “This isn’t going to be easy. The shield is still in place, and that’s not an easy thing to override.”

“But you can override it,” the shadow replied. “Stryker Transportation teleports people to locations within the shield all the time as a normal course of business. That is why I came here. You have the tools necessary to reach inside the shield and retrieve my prize.”

Jack bit his lip. He knew this was a terrible abuse of his authority, but he felt like he had no choice. I’ve got to get Lily back. I’ve just got to. I can’t leave her in the clutches of that monster. Taking a deep breath, Jack keyed in the necessary information to unlock the shield and allow the transport to take place. After making sure that everything was exactly right he nervously activated the transporter. There was a brilliant flash of light, but nothing appeared.

“I don’t understand,” Jack said, with panic in his voice. “I know I locked onto something. I know I did! But where is it?”

“It is there,” the shadow replied. A moment later an object suddenly popped into view. A large, crystal sphere was sitting in a box on a platform about twenty feet off the ground. Jack couldn’t see it very well from his desk but he recognized it immediately. “The Third Treasure,” he whispered. “You had it cloaked!”

“Exactly,” the shadow replied. “With the cloak engaged no one could see it. When I was unable to get it out of the museum I simply raised it off the floor so the guards would not bump into it and then came back for it later. It was quite simple, really. All I needed was your help. I appreciate your cooperation.”

With that, the shadow and the Treasure disappeared in a white flash of light.

Jack screamed. “Wait! No! Don’t leave! What about my wife?”

Working quickly, Jack pulled up some additional tools on his holoscreen. Stryker Transportation had a legendary reputation for safety, and had installed state-of-the-art equipment to monitor all local wormhole activity. In the unlikely event that something went wrong it was able to find out where the errant passenger had accidentally been transported – even if it was not the one that had done the transporting.

Jack pulled up the logs and found the recent transports that the shadow had made. His eyes widened when he realized that it had beamed in from a location in deep space and then beamed out again. Judging by the distance between the entrance and exit points Jack realized that the ship must be in hyperspace.

“I know we can do this,” Jack muttered to himself. “Hang on there, buddy. Let’s get this done.”

As he worked at the console he suddenly noticed something. Hey, that’s odd! Lily and the shadow beamed onto the same ship, but apparently the Treasure was transported somewhere else. He thought a moment. I’m going to go after my wife. The Treasure can wait. All I need to do is get on that ship. I’ll find Lily, make it to the ship’s transporter, and then beam us both back. Won’t take but a minute.

Jack nervously locked his equipment onto the transporter on board the distant starship. He knew he had to act quickly as the ship was rapidly getting out of range. Jack swallowed. Here goes nothing, he thought to himself.

He pressed the button. Instantly he was enveloped in a white flash of light. A moment later he found himself in what appeared to be a large cargo bay. Crates were stacked neatly against the walls, and a large shuttlecraft sat in front of him.

As he started to turn around he suddenly felt something knock him off his feet. Jack slumped to the ground, unconscious.

* * * * *

“We’re almost there,” Alice whispered. The Starman was on board the bridge of the Molly, in hot pursuit of the Raptor. The Molly had been chasing the fleeing starship for the past twenty minutes and was beginning to close the distance.

Alice glanced at the holoscreen and saw that a small fleet of police cruisers were closing in as well. They’re at least five minutes behind me, though, she thought to herself. Aloud she said “How’s it coming, Bob?”

“I have completed the modifications,” he said. Alice smiled. Like many modern starships, the Molly had claytronic systems – machines that were built out of programmable matter. This was done so that on-board devices could be completely reconfigured in the event that an upgrade became available. Since the very atoms that made up the devices could be changed programmatically it was possible to rebuild all the components of a machine by simply assigning it a new pattern. For ships that spent decades trekking through space this could dramatically minimize downtime and maintenance costs, saving companies enormous amounts of money.

Alice used Bob to programmatically replace some of the ship’s machinery with something more useful. Bean counters are out, and advanced weapon systems are in, she thought to herself. This is going to be fun.

“We are now in range,” Bob announced.

“Wonderful,” Alice replied. “It’s about time, too.” The Starman reached over and pressed a button on the holoscreen. Immediately the Molly began emitting disruptor waves. Normally the disruptor shield was used to keep vessels from forming wormholes, but with a few modifications it could be turned into a directional weapon that could knock a ship right out of hyperspace.

The weapon was quite effective. Within seconds after the weapon was fired the ship dropped out of space. Alice quickly stopped the pursuit and pulled up beside it. That ship isn’t going anywhere, she thought to herself. I bet those engines are completely fried! That’s a nasty weapon – powerful, but messy.

A few minutes later the police cruisers dropped out of hyperspace as well. When the holoscreen said that she had an incoming call Alice accepted the communication. The head of a uniformed police officer appeared on the screen.

“I’m Captain Friday,” he said. “That was a nice piece of work back there! I don’t know if we would have been able to catch up to it or not.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Alice said, sighing. “Do you realize what we’ve done?”

The captain shook his head, puzzled. On the screen Alice saw an aide come up to him and whisper something in his ear. His eyes grew large and he double-checked a nearby holoscreen. “Surely not!” he protested.

“I’m afraid so,” Alice sighed. “There’s no doubt about it. We’ve been chasing a decoy, Captain – a small probe cleverly built to give off the same trace signal as the Raptor. There’s no telling where the real ship is!”

Starman Alice Montaine calmly reached inside her red suit and pulled out a small, thin flashlight. She pressed a button on its side and the flashlight emitted a powerful beam of white light. The light was so bright that it illuminated the far wall with a blinding glare and forced the room’s occupants to shield their eyes. After adjusting the intensity of the light she quickly scanned the room.

“Sorry about that,” Alice said. “I’m used to making my way through very large, dark rooms on alien planets, so I had the intensity turned up a bit higher than normal. Is everyone ok?”

“So far,” Mark replied. He backed away from the dining room table and walked over to his wife’s side. “But I’m going to guess that someone, somewhere, is in trouble.”

“What just happened?” Stenafi asked.

“Let’s go outside and see,” Mark replied.

“But how do you know it’s safe?” Alice asked.

“I don’t,” Mark replied simply. “But there’s one way to find out.”

Alice handed him the flashlight and he led the way out of the house and into the yard. Once they were outside Alice was struck by the stillness of the Ahmanyan night. I can’t believe how dark it is, she thought to herself. There were no lights in any of the neighboring houses, and all of the streetlights were dead. Normally the glow from Eagle City would be easy to spot but tonight there was only darkness. Overhead the stars shone brightly but there was no appreciable moonlight.

“It’s too quiet,” Alice said at last. “Something is definitely wrong.”

“I’d say the city has lost power,” Mark said thoughtfully. “There’s no telling how long the blackout will last. I can’t recall the last time we had a city-wide power failure. Something pretty big must have happened.”

Stenafi spoke up. “Can you go downstairs and start the generator? While you’re doing that I’ll go to the panic room and will find out what has occurred.”

“Of course, dear,” Mark said calmly. “Alice, do you have another flashlight?”

“Um, yes, I do carry a spare,” Alice said. “Wandering through dark places with just one light source is a terrible idea, you know.” She took her backup flashlight out of another suit pocket and handed it to Mark’s wife, who turned it on and walked back into the house.

After making a quick check of the grounds to make sure nothing was out of place Mark walked into the house and down to the basement. Alice followed behind him. “I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but am I to understand that you have a generator?”

“Once a Starman, always a Starman!” Mark quipped. “One gets used to always being prepared for the worst. Most of the time it makes no difference, but every now and then it makes all the difference in the world.”

The basement of Mark’s house was filled with tools, boxes, and a lifetime’s worth of clutter. Mark carefully threaded his way past stacks of old magazines to a large object tucked away in the corner. The machine was roughly the size of a large crate and was partially covered with an old white sheet. Mark removed the sheet and gazed at the dusty generator fondly. “This ought to do the trick. I just hope it starts – I haven’t fired it up in a while.”

Alice stared at the generator and frowned. She could see that the battered device was long past its prime and at least as old as she was. “You know, I don’t think I recognize that model. Is that really a portable fusion reactor?”

Mark laughed. “Goodness no! Those are a whole lot larger – and far more expensive. Besides, I just need to power my house, not the entire city. No, this just runs on hydrogen. It’s based on something Montezuma Vly built for me many years ago. It should be able to power the house for at least a couple days. Hopefully by then the crisis will be past.”

The mayor dusted a small panel on the front of a generator and pressed a grimy blue button. The panel came to life, emitting a faint green glow. Mark tapped a series of commands into the panel and the machine began humming. “Looks like it’s about time to refuel!” Mark commented. “But it should last long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” Alice asked.

“Long enough to see what’s going on,” Mark replied. “I think the machine’s online now. Can you crawl over that junk and throw the fourth switch on the wall over there?”

Alice peered at it through the darkness. “You mean the one with the red tag on it?”

“That’s the one!” Mark affirmed.

Alice gently crawled over the pile of junk that was stacked in the corner. She made her way over a large mattress, and then past a broken table and a girl’s bicycle. When she finally reached the far wall Alice flipped the switch. Immediately the basement filled with light!

Mark smiled. “Thanks. Now let’s go upstairs and see what my wife has found. Her equipment should be running now that we’ve got power.”

Alice extracted herself from the corner and followed Mark back upstairs. “So you have an emergency response center right here at the house?”

“Not really, but you’ve got the right idea. As the mayor I try to keep an eye on how our fair city is doing. I’m not as young as I used to be, though, so I’ve put together a few tools to give me an edge. The system my wife and I designed isn’t really tied into anything official, so I’m hoping whatever brought down the city will not have affected us. If nothing else we should at least be able to find out if we’re being attacked.”

Alice nodded and followed Mark to a small room in the back of the house. To her surprise she saw that a wooden panel in the wall of the den had slid away, revealing a small, concealed room. “Very nice,” she commented.

“I built that myself, you know. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Mark entered the room first and Alice followed. Stenafi was already seated in front of a large holoscreen. Mark walked up behind her and peered over her shoulder. “So what have you found, my dear?”

“The good news is that we do not appear to be under attack,” she said quietly. “I don’t see any signs of bombing or unusual air traffic. However, it does look like much of the city has lost power. The system tells me that there was an explosion at the power plant, and the resulting damage has apparently forced it offline and taken out a large portion of the power grid. I have not been able to reach anyone at the plant so I do not know what caused the explosion.”

“That’s amazing!” Alice said. “Where are you getting all of this information?”

“From orbital satellites,” Stenafi explained. “Years ago Starlight Enterprise put a constellation of defense satellites in orbit. They are still there, although they are beginning to age. They, of course, were not affected by the outage.”

“At least the city’s defense shield is still up,” Mark said. “Nothing can beam in or out of the city. That’s still secure, at least.”

“But how is that possible?” Alice asked. “I thought the power plant was offline!”

“The shield is actually on a separate power grid,” Mark explained. “It has its own source of energy. When King Izmaka gave that system to us we decided to isolate it in case something like this happened.”

“A wise precaution,” Stenafi commented.

“So if anyone wanted to beam out of the city without being detected they’d have to go to the spaceport and use one of the transporters there,” Alice said thoughtfully.

“Right,” Mark replied. “The spaceport is beyond the city limits. Based on the data on this screen it doesn’t look like it’s lost power.”

“They could also use the trains,” Stenafi pointed out. “Grand Central Terminal has its own power supply as well, which it uses to power the tracks and the wormholes that connect it to distant planets.”

“But that is easily secured, right?” Alice asked. “I mean, I’ve got to think that a maglev station is far easier to lock down than a giant spaceport with thousands of aircraft constantly coming and going.”

“True,” Mark said slowly. “What are you thinking, Alice?”

“The Ahmanyan museum is located downtown,” Alice replied. “It’s without power. That means that, at this very moment, nothing is guarding the Third Treasure. That is not a good thing.”

Mark turned to Stenafi. “Can you reach the police or the military base?”

“Not over the normal communication channels,” Stenafi replied, as she worked at the screen. “There appears to be something wrong with the communications links. But I am trying to route a message through our satellites. I should be able to make contact soon.”

Alice spoke up. “Maybe all of this is just a coincidence, but I have a hunch that it’s not. I think it’s very possible that whatever was trying to access that chamber on Lemura has followed me here. These system failures may be the result of sabotage. If that’s the case then we’re in big trouble.”

“What do you propose to do?” Mark asked.

“I’m going to go to the museum and see what’s going on,” Alice replied. “It may already be too late to stop the theft, but I’ve got to find out.”

“I will remain here and coordinate the efforts,” Mark replied. “When we can reach the military I will have them send soldiers to lock down the spaceport, the train station, and the museum. According to your theory all three are likely targets.”

Stenafi spoke up. “Even if the theft has already occurred we may still have a chance to get it back if we act quickly. The Third Treasure is easy to trace. It gives off a vibrant form of energy that my people have learned to detect over long distances. The signature is almost impossible to hide. If it has been stolen the thief will have to take it off the planet quickly or else we will be able to find it.”

“Wow,” Alice said. “I didn’t know that.”

“That’s really good news,” Mark said. “Where can we find that detection equipment?”

“I will attempt to contact Imlah Taltahni,” Stenafi replied. “I am sure that someone in our hidden refuge will have the tools we need.”

Alice spoke up. “Not to interrupt, but may I borrow your car? I’ve really got to get going.”

“Of course,” Mark replied.

“One more thing,” Alice said. She hesitated. “As you know, the Raptor was not able to detect the alien being that was on Lemura. It appears to have a very effective cloaking device.”

“True,” Mark said. “If that creature is here then it could prove very difficult to detect.”

Alice nodded. “That’s why I would like to even the playing field. My suit does come equipped with an Ahmanyan cloaking device. I realize that the cloak is to only be used in emergencies, but do you have any objection to my using it tonight?”

Mark smiled. “I am not your supervisor, Alice. Do what you think is best.”

“You are my mayor, though,” she pointed out. “Eagle City is my home.”

“You have my full support to do whatever is necessary. But you’d best be going.”

Alice nodded and raced out the door. As she disappeared Mark turned to his wife. “You know, there is one other thing to think about. I wonder if she realizes – ”

“- that she might be the real target?” Stenafi finished. “She is the only other person in the city who has been to Lemura. Yes, that occurred to me. I just hope she is careful.”

“Me too,” Mark said softly.

* * * * *

The Ahmanyan Museum of Natural History was sprawled across several city blocks in the western part of Eagle City. The enormous building was constructed out of giant blocks of red stone, all of which had been mined from a nearby quarry. The building was designed by a team of Ahmanyan architects to demonstrate the best that their culture had to offer, and the result was a structure full of beauty and grace. Nowhere could one find a sharp corner or an ugly angle. Everything was symmetrical and elegant, full of curves and color. The building almost looked organic, as if the stone was a living thing that had simply grown out of the ground.

Outside the building that night a dark shadow walked down the street, eying the building carefully. The figure noted with satisfaction that there were no lights to be seen. A few people had left their apartments and were milling about in the streets, but there was no sign of chaos or police officers. The city appeared to be confused but not unduly alarmed. Neighbors were chatting with each other and the laughter of rowdy children could be heard in the distance.

The shadow quietly walked up the giant stairs and over to the museum’s entrance. Normally the giant doors were well guarded but it knew that tonight the security systems were dead.

The shadow waited outside the doors. A minute passed, and then other. Finally it happened – a guard inside the building opened the door and stepped outside. As the door began to close behind him the shadow slipped past Ralph Paddington and stepped into the unguarded museum.

Inside the museum was completely dark. There was no one in sight. The shadow had no problem making its way through the vast lobby and to the lower level, where the Eight Treasures were on display. Taking no heed to the exhibits that were around it, the shadow made its way to the real prize – the transparent case that held the Third Treasure.

The Third Treasure was a crystalline globe roughly three feet in diameter. The semi-transparent sphere pulsed in the darkness, giving off an ever-shifting array of vibrant colors. Through the transparent material one could see complex crystals that appeared to sub-divide into infinity. The pattern was eternally changing. The object almost appeared to be alive, as if it was a living sun.

The Treasure was enclosed in a transparent case made of thick layers of atomeron. Moving quickly, the shadow removed a thin square of metal from the pack it was carrying and unfolded it into a rectangular sheet. With the press of a button the sheet lifted rose up and hovered about two feet off the ground. The shadow then picked up the atomeron case that contained the Treasure and, groaning with effort, gently placed it onto the levitating platform. With the quick push of another button the platform and Treasure disappeared – cloaked, invisible to the eye.

Walking quietly, the shadow pushed the invisible platform toward the door. As it approached the lobby of the museum it saw that a crowd of military officers had formed a line just outside the doors, blocking the exit. It quickly realized that there was no way it could possibly get the platform, as large as it was, through that group of soldiers without being seen.

The shadow paused as it tried to decide what to do next.

* * * * *

Outside the museum Starman Alice Montaine rushed up the stairs and toward the military officers. As she approached them she turned off the cloaking device on her suit. When she suddenly appeared out of thin air everyone jumped, and soldiers quickly spun around and aimed their weapons at her.

“Oh, it’s you!” one of the men said. He approached Alice. “Stand down, men. My name is Colonel Mitchell. Mayor Seaton told us you were on your way. We got here as quickly as we could.”

Ralph Paddington approached Alice with a look of wonder on his face. “Was that a genuine Ahmanyan cloak? Amazing! I’ve heard of them, of course, but I’ve never actually seen one. I’m quite impressed.”

“Later,” Alice said curtly. “What is the security situation like? Is anyone inside the museum guarding the treasure?”

“I’m not sure, ma’am – we just got here,” the colonel replied. “You’re the head of security at the museum, Ralph. What’s going on? Is anyone inside?”

“No, no, the building is quite empty,” Ralph explained. “I wouldn’t even be here myself but I ended up working late! I had an exhibit to finish. But patrols? Oh no. We don’t have anyone that actually patrols inside. We have machines for that. They’re much more effective.”

“Then let’s get moving!” Alice barked. “We didn’t come here to stare at each other. Colonel, if you could have some of your men join me I’d like to go inside and see what is going on. I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

Colonel Mitchell nodded. “Winters – Torres – McKinney – go with the Starman. The rest of us will set up a perimeter outside.”

“I think I’ll stay out here,” Ralph said nervously. “You can let me know what you find. I’m allergic to hostile aliens, you know. It runs in the family.”

Alice nodded and led the team of soldiers through the front door and into the museum. It was pitch black inside. The Starman reached inside her suit and realized that she had given away both of her flashlights.

“Does anyone have a light?” she asked.

All three soldiers nodded. “What are your orders?” Winters asked.

Alice stopped to think. “The Third Treasure is in the basement. Have your lights out and be scanning in all directions. Be alert for anything unusual and suspicious. But don’t do anything that could destroy the treasure.”

After their flashlights had been turned on Alice led the soldiers downstairs to the exhibit that housed the Eight Treasures. Starting at the beginning of the room, the soldiers performed a thorough examination of the entire exhibit. It did not take long to verify that the Third Treasure was definitely missing.

“Are any of the other treasures taken?” Alice asked sharply. A quick search revealed that they were all intact. Alice touched a button on her suit and a small holoscreen appeared in the air. She used it to quickly established a direct line of communication to the suit radio that Colonel Mitchell was carrying.

“The Third Treasure is gone,” Alice reported. “We’re too late.”

“Then we will switch to recovery,” Colonel Mitchell replied. “There is a chance the Treasure might still be on this planet. Given its size and the difficulties involved in transporting it the thief may have hidden it somewhere else in the museum, or perhaps stashed it nearby. I’ll alert the mayor and will have my men conduct a thorough search of the grounds. If the Treasure is still here we’ll find it.”

“Excellent,” Alice said. “Since you have this area covered I’m going to head to the spaceport and see what I can do there. If the thief is trying to leave town in a hurry there’s a good chance that’s where he will go.”

“I’ll let the mayor know,” Colonel Mitchell replied.

* * * * *

Alice pushed the mayor’s electric car to the limit and managed to reach the spaceport in less than five minutes. I’m so glad the museum and the spaceport are on the same side of town, she thought to herself. Trying to fight through traffic in the dark would have been a nightmare.

It did not take her long to locate the security forces that Mark Seaton had dispatched. By the time she arrived a large group of soldiers had already formed a perimeter around the spaceport. Several armored tanks were already in place at the various entrances to the spaceport, and Alice saw more of them patrolling the runways. There were even space fighters patrolling the air. Wow, that was fast, she thought.

Alice walked up to the perimeter and spoke to the nearest soldier. “I’m Starman Alice Montaine. Who is charge of this group?”

“General Bradley,” an officer replied. He pointed in the direction of the long runways that crisscrossed the spaceport. “He’s over there.”

Alice crossed the perimeter and jogged over to the general. “What’s the situation?” she asked.

The general looked at her and frowned. “First, ma’am, may I see your credentials?”

“Of course,” Alice replied. She removed a small piece of plastic from the inside of her suit and handed it to the general. He held it up and looked through it. The piece of plastic looked blank but a human touch immediately brought it to life, revealing the seal of Starlight Enterprise and identifying Alice as a Starman.

General Bradley nodded in satisfaction and handed the card back to her. “The mayor told me you would be coming but I had to make sure, of course. Everything has been locked down tight. We’ve completely shut down the spaceport. For the past five minutes no ships have landed or left and we’re going to keep it that way.”

“Have you seen any signs of anyone?” Alice asked.

“We have not,” the general replied. “There are a lot of people here, of course, and there is a lot of ground to cover. There is also a fair amount of confusion among the passengers that are stranded in the spaceport, but that is to be expected. But we have not seen anything that looked suspicious. My men have already started searching the grounds. If the intruder escapes it will not be through this spaceport.”

The general was interrupted by a loud roar. He turned around just in time to see an enormous red starship launch off the ground and soar off into the sky at a breakneck pace. By the amount of noise it was making it was clear that the ship had just made an emergency takeoff and was attempting to reach its maximum speed in a very short amount of time. The space fighters flying overhead immediately banked to intercept the starship, but it was already moving far too fast for them to catch.

General Bradley immediately snapped to life. “Who authorized that ship to leave? No one is allowed to take off! That means no one! Whose ship is that?”

Alice stared at it, open-mouthed. “That’s my ship, general – it’s the Raptor. It’s just been stolen!”