Title: Both Sides of the Sun

Author/pseudonym: Karen

Fandom: Space 1999

Pairing: Paul/Alan

Rating: PG13 (slash)

Status: new/complete (posted in sections)

Archive: Yes, archive it.

Feedback: Yes, please

Disclaimers: Gerry & Sylvia Anderson own them, not me. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Alan finds new hope and direction even as Moonbase Alpha breaks away

Warnings: First time. Spoilers for Episodes "Breakaway" and "Black Sun"

Both Sides of the Sun
by Karen

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott


Day 0: Entering black sun's immediate sphere of influence I'm playing the guitar and waiting to die.

Alan would give me a very hard time about that, if he knew. "Playing the guitar?" he'd say. "Like you've no cares in the world. Who are you trying to fool?"

Who, you ask? Well, that would be me, Alan. And in a way, I have to do it simply because he would take me down so over it. I owe it to him, to be me up to the end.

Tanya came in, asking if she could share the music. I don't mind. If she's looking to share something else, I'm sorry. I can't do that. Maybe, if we live... maybe. I doubt it, though.

I wish the commander had let me stay in Main Mission. I know, he was right, there was nothing else for me to do there, but it's not as though there's anything for me to do here, either. I'd more or less planned on making passionate love with Alan and, with any luck, falling asleep in his arms, hearing his heartbeat, and either not waking up at all, or waking up with him. But... the commander had that notion about saving a handful of people. Six, with eight weeks' supplies, in an Eagle, going... somewhere. And I knew the moment I heard the idea that I'd be denied my plans.

Because of course Alan would be the pilot. He not only knows Eagles inside and out, he can fly rings around any other pilot we've got, with one hand tied behind his back and one eye closed. No matter how they chose the six, he was guaranteed to be one of them.

And I wasn't. In fact, the only way I would be would be if we did it by random chance and I got lucky. I'm the quintessential executive officer, and they won't need that wherever they end up. I had to send him away. I did. That he was my lover and I wanted, desperately, for him to survive had nothing to do with it. Nothing.

And then... That Aussie fox, or whatever they have Down Under. He pushed his way in and took all semblance of choice from me. He knew he'd be picked. As soon as he heard about the damned ship, he knew. That look he gave me in Control... he knew I'd known. And he knew I'd do just what I had been doing... finding some way to wonder if maybe I wasn't cheating, maybe if there was some way I'd rigged the choice, some way I was managing to get what I wanted, not what was right. And worrying, too, that he would be worrying about walking away when he'd said he wouldn't... I can do both, and he knows it. Knows me...

Dear God, has anyone ever known me so well? Will anyone ever again, assuming we have an ever again? Because he took it off me, took it all. He confronted the commander and forced the issue, and took it all on himself. "I care about dying," he said. "If anybody goes, I should. Because I'm the one who has the best chance of getting them somewhere."

So everybody stared at him, and then they were all thinking much the same, except without his simple conviction that they were in fact the best. And without his motive.

And now he's gone. I was ready to die with him, but this is better. He won't die. He's quite correct: if anyone can get them somewhere, that mad Aussie is the one. So I can die knowing he's still alive...

And if by some miracle Bergman's forcefield holds, and by another miracle actually does the trick and prevents us from going the way of poor Mike Ryan, then I'll have to go on without him. But I can do that, knowing that he's alive.

* * * * *

"I'll send you a post-card."

What kind of good-bye is that? He came down with Sandra, and stood there and looked at me. And I said, "I'll send you a post-card." There wasn't anybody else there, and if Sandra was still close enough to hear, she wouldn't care... her Mike was dead. She wouldn't have grudged anybody love. And especially not Paul, as close as they are. I could have said "I love you" to him, even silently. Or I could even have said, "See you around, you Pommy bastard"; he knows what that means. But no.

We stood there and looked at each other for what, five seconds? Then I said that, and he gave me a thumbs-up, and... I walked away.

And, God. The look in those eyes.

Those eyes. That Pom. His eyes are so clear, so easily read. He thinks he's so damned taciturn, so English and hard to make out. He's about as hard to figure as a day-old pup. He couldn't even look at me in Main Mission, when I came in and braced the commander about the survival ship. He had guilt written all over him in six-inch letters. What a galah he can be sometimes; it makes me laugh.

Made me laugh anyway.

I think I hate Koenig. This damned survival ship. I couldn't refuse to go. I couldn't. I can get us somewhere, if there's anywhere to get, and I couldn't let six people die who didn't have to, but why in bloody hell did Koenig think this up? Six people... my old dad raises prads and he'd have never thought to have three mares and three studs to start all over again. We might as well have all stayed at Alpha.

I was telling the truth. I was ready to die with them all. And of course it's the truth that I don't want to die if I don't have to. But I'd rather be at Alpha right now, with Paul, seeing myself in his
eyes and forgetting about the bloody black sun. Forgetting about anything but him. Everything but him. For a while, anyhow. With luck for long enough.

I hate that he's going to die. I hate not being there when he does. I hate being the one who lives, the one who walks away. Again. Ah, damnit, Paul. Chook...

I know he's glad I'm not there, but... damn. I know they're all banking on the old prof's forcefield, but I know what a no-hoper that is. I was at the test, so-called. I know not even Koenig and Bergman really think it's going to work. It was just something to do, whistling past the graveyard.

I know he's going to die. And I can't pole on this, because not only are the other five counting on me, but Paul is. Paul is sitting there being brave because I'm not. Not there. I can't let the man down.

Paul... Bloody Pom. What am I going to do, wherever we get, without him?

And why didn't I ever tell him that?

D -217

"Captain, we're landing at Alpha in five minutes."

Alan Carter, Captain, Royal Australian Army, Joint Astronautics Command liason officer to the International Lunar Commission's Moonbase Alpha, looked up at the stewardess. "Okay, thanks," he said. She smiled at him, and he knew why; even he could hear the strong Strine twang in his voice, *okiy, thynks*. Her golden skin and sloe eyes came with a Scots accent you could cut with a knife and she and the co-pilot, another Geordie, had been tossing him looks and giggling together for half the trip. Alan didn't mind that; what he needed to get a grip on was the emotion that was bringing New South Wales out in his voice. The accent was always there, of course, but muted mostly after fifteen years' service around the world—and off of it. The Snowy Mountains tended to surface only when he was emotionally disturbed: angry, passionate, annoyed. And he was annoyed now, and needed not to be.

He took a deep breath and looked out the window, automatically critiquing the approach and landing (overshooting a bit, overcorrecting, three-point instead of four, not too bad, rate him at
3.5...) while he reminded himself that he had, in fact, agreed to come, and that, given he wasn't eligible for flying the Meta probe, this was a chance he couldn't pass up. Even if that careerist bludger Gorski came with it.

Especially as Gorski was here, he reflected. Wouldn't do to let him get his fat ignorant fingers all over the Meta probe... The thud of the walkway's mating with the Eagle's door cued him to pick up his briefcase, but he didn't stand up yet like the rest of the passengers. This was Moonbase Alpha, after all; it would be several minutes before the seals were secured and the airlocks cycled. He looked out the window at the view of a half earth hanging over the lunar horizon until the door opened.

Gorski wasn't there to meet him. He was so glad of that he nearly missed the man who was. That tall, elegant, dark-haired Englishman whose name was on the tip of his tongue held out a hand in the red sleeve of Operations. "Carter? Paul Morrow."

"Of course," Alan said. "Operations, isn't it?"

"That's right," Morrow nodded. "General dogsbody for the commander."

Administrative head and in charge of operations, as Alan remembered. "Sorry to hear that."

Morrow laughed. "Yes, well, somebody has to... Welcome back, by the way."

"Thanks. Where'll they put the luggage?"

"It'll be delivered to your quarters," Morrow said. "Don't worry about it. I thought you might like to see your work section?"

"Yeah, I would. I can find my own way, though, you don't need to come along."

"It's no trouble. And you're out in one of the additions that wasn't here two years ago." He gestured for Alan to precede him through the doorway into the travel tube and apparently recalled why he was holding a commlock. "Oh, sorry; this is yours." He held it out to Alan, who took it and clipped it to his belt. "It's set for your labs, workspaces, quarters, and all general admission areas already."

"Thanks," Alan said; on Alpha, without a commlock you were effectively stuck in whatever room you were in until someone else came along or Computer released all doors to manual.

"Of course," Morrow said, falling in beside him. "Are you back for another tour?"

"Nope," Alan shook his head. "Just for the Meta probe."

"Well, a year then, if you're staying for the whole mission. Are you?"

"I dunno." Alan shrugged. "I'm here to put the ship construction back on track. Do a bit of mission training for the pilots. Don't know if I'll be here after lift off."

"Commander Gorski isn't too pleased you're back."

"Well, that makes two of us."

"You really didn't want to be here?"

"Come on, Morrow, you remember how I left."

The dark-haired man laughed. "Actually, I do... It was something of a ninety days' wonder."

"I suppose it was."

"Carter, you punched him." The Englishman sounded scandalized.

Alan reflected on the circumstances and said, "He's lucky I didn't kick his bloody teeth in."

"Carter!"

"Well, he is."

"You, too, then." That was serious.

Alan looked at Morrow, really looked at him, for the first time. The dark eyes were warm with genuine welcome. "Yeah," he said. "I s'pose. Still, the Meta probe's not really his concern."

"Except insofar as everything here is, no, it's not," Morrow agreed.


D -173

It was actually quite amusing, how very much Gorski did not want to deal with Carter. The commander had never actually told anyone why the Australian JACLO had decked him two years ago, and Carter wasn't any more forthcoming, but clearly the Russian felt an encore wasn't out of the question. *Someday, I'll have to ask*, Paul thought.

That wasn't farfetched, as Gorski's avoidance of the Aussie meant that Paul dealt with him on a near-daily basis. He didn't remember him well from his last tour, but he was considerably more flexible than the last JACLO, even though he was also considerably more annoyed by the way the Meta probe's construction had been bogged down by Gorski's tendency to divert its personnel to Alpha's concerns. A month after Carter had arrived, he had come into Main Mission at shift change with a long list of infractions that "simply must stop, now."

"Look," Paul protested. "I quite understand your concerns, but the fact is I didn't have a chance to eat lunch today and I'm starving. Join me, why don't you, and we can go over this over a decent meal. I'll even spring for a bottle."

"Are there any decent wines up here?" Carter asked.

"I could run to a nice little Côte du Rod Laver," Paul ventured.

Carter didn't blink, merely said, "You didn't say we were being joined by the commander."

That was so matter of fact that it took a few seconds to register and for Paul's automatic negative to dissolve in laughter. Carter joined him, adding, "Just don't call me 'Bruce' and we'll get along fine."

That was true. By the end of the meal they had become 'Alan' and 'Paul'. They had also found something to talk about besides Meta: Rugby Union. Alan's club seemed to be Warratah, though names like Warringah, Southern Districts, and Wallaby also featured prominently in his conversation. Paul, of course, was an Oxford Blue and followed Sussex religiously, despite the extreme unliklihood of his going back there to live in the foreseeable future. The equal unliklihood of Sussex ever facing Warratah made the conversation distinctly unfraught with emotion, and they stayed off of England versus Australia, at least for this evening.

"It's too bad there's not enough room up here," Paul said, "for football. Or interest," he added honestly.

"I haven't played since I was sixteen," Alan said. "Catch me against an Oxford Blue."

"Haven't played myself since then," Paul admitted. "Handball or raquetball nowadays, if I can find an opponent."

"Handball?" Alan's eyes lit. "That's my game. You can always find room for that; all you need's a wall."

They made a date for the next evening, and after that Paul found himself playing the Australian three times a week—and getting beaten as often as not, despite his age advantage. Alan was definitely in shape; he could have probably flown the Meta mission himself. He was certainly capable of running Paul ragged on the courts.

Especially since Paul found himself distracted fairly frequently by the lean body displayed so nicely in old teeshirts and shorts. It was crazy, he told himself sternly time and over again: Alan was here for six months. He was military. He was *straight*. It didn't matter. He just answered himself that looking never hurt anybody, and besides, he and the Australian were friends. Just friends.

He was capable of keeping his emotions under control.

D -145

Alan pulled his chocolate cake to the front of his tray and began eating. Paul, already finished, was leaning forward, elbows on the table, and telling him something about Gorski and the ILC. Alan wasn't interested in the details, but he appreciated the intention, so he was listening, after a fashion. Using skills honed by more than a decade of sitting in military briefings and morning meetings where at best ten percent of what was being said applied to him, he'd set his mind to pay attention every thirty seconds or when some key word was spoken, and thought about something else while Paul talked.

Today he was thinking about Paul. Specifically, he was wondering why other man spent so much off-duty with him. Not that he minded it—Paul was a good friend—but the two of them had almost nothing in common. The Englishman was a decade younger and from another world altogether, not military, not a pilot, a man who treated being on the moon like being in, say, America. But, now that he thought about it, Alan realized it didn't matter that his conversation had, in the past ten years or so, dwindled down to flying and not much else, because Paul didn't let him get away with it.

Oh, sure, he'd listen—even participate—when Alan talked astronautics or jets. But he brought up other topics, relentless as smart ordnance, until he found those they could both discuss with pleasure. They'd gone from rugby and cricket through horses to music and movies... Alan had lost track weeks ago of how many topics had been discarded along the way, but it was truly amazing how many had proved fruitful. He hadn't had real conversations in so long he'd almost
forgotten what it was like. It was good.

Of course, a large part of that was Paul. He was a good conversationalist; for all that he could be the reticent, stoic Englishman when he tried, at heart he was much more, well, chatty.
And he listened well. He could pull things out of Alan that he'd never thought of saying before. Not personal things—although the temptation was certainly there Alan knew once he started that he'd probably not be able to stop, and not only was Paul English enough to keep his private life just that, and so most likely to not want to hear about anyone else's, but he was just too bloody young to be exposed to Alan's demons. Those he kept to himself.

But take last evening: they had sat on a catwalk in one of the Eagle bays looking out at the earth and they had talked for three hours about weather. Just weather. Snow and rain and thunderstorms through the Snowy Mountains and the splendour of a Sussex autumn...lying in bed that night Alan had hardly believed it. They'd chaffed each other the required bit about whether spring properly came in September or May, but then Paul had listened, almost rapt, as Alan talked about the mountain spring—the birds, flowers, torrents of creeks rushing toward the Murray and the Darling. And then Paul's, the subtler greening of the great grey Downs and the birds that filled the nursery rhymes of Alan's childhood... If anyone had told him he'd spend hours talking about the weather—on the moon no less—he'd have laughed.

But what he didn't understand was, why him? Why did Paul make the effort with him?

Then again, did it matter really? Perhaps it was just that he was somebody new and different. Whatever, Paul was good company on a long temporary duty, and Alan wasn't going to quarrel with it or make it more than it was. Or less. At the next appropriate moment he inserted himself into the conversations. "It sounds like nobody on the Commission can actually stand him."

Paul grinned. "I don't think any of them can."

"So how does he keep his job?" That was less a real question and more a complaint.

Paul treated it as such. "I'm beginning to believe he has photographic evidence."

Alan laughed. "That would explain it. I don't know how you work for him."

"Oh, Nikolay Petrovich isn't as bad as he might be," Paul shrugged elegantly. "Compared to Renfrew, he's a dream date."

Alan snorted at that image. "Renfrew I missed."

"Like you missed the Black Death. It doesn't mean much. I'll outlast Gorski, too."

"How many have you seen go?"

"Three, if you count Andersen, though I came up here her last month so I'm not sure I should."

"Oh, count her. It sounds more impressive."

"It will look good on my c.v.," he nodded.

"You're not staying with the Lunar Commission?" Alan asked, surprised.

"Oh, probably yes, but it doesn't hurt to pad the old c.v. a bit," he said. "And I doubt they'll let me extend again. Perhaps I can get a position in Houston."

"Houston? Paul, you wouldn't last a month there. It's twice as bad as Nairobi ever dreamt of being, as far as heat goes. It's damned near tropical... if you don't want to go back to Europe you should try for Baikonur."

"Ah, yes," said Paul. "The desert. A hundred-plus in the summer and under ten in the winter. Thank you so much for your advice."

Alan laughed. "I could say Canberra."

"Yes, you could, and thank you for not," Paul grinned. "But I've read up on Houston and it's quite tolerable for a long part of the year. And for the rest, well—" he gestured at the window. "I *am* used to staying inside."

Alan smiled and finished the last bite of cake. They deposited their trays and left the dining facility.

"What about you?" Paul asked in a desultory manner. "What are you doing next?"

Alan shrugged. The future was something he didn't spend any time on. A hard lesson, to be sure, but he'd learned it: the future didn't exist, you couldn't count on it, and it was an ultimately painful waste of time to plan for it. "I'll go wherever they send me," he said.

Paul laughed a little, his oh-I'm-sorry-I-screwed-up laugh. "I forgot for a minute. Everyone's a civilian up here but you."

"And the probe astronaunts when they get here," Alan nodded.

"When... I can't imagine what it's like," Paul said, his oblique way of asking a personal question, "not having the choice."

"I have choices," Alan pointed out. "I can always resign my commission. But it is, in a way, liberating."

Paul's dark eyes were dubious.

"You're free not to worry about where you'll be in ten years," said Alan. Which wasn't what Paul was asking about. And in fact Alan had once made plans for the classic near, middle, and long term, wondering what he'd do when he made major, planning on being a colonel... And then the other plans, for getting out, for civilian life, the plans for happiness. Not for a long time now. And Alan wouldn't have told him if he had been asking about that, he was just too young. Instead he said, "You don't have to worry about whether you'll be employed. I mean, look at the way I left here, and I'm still a captain."

"True," Paul agreed. He might have said more, but they were interrupted.

"Paul!" Sandra Benes, the petite Bornean data analyst from Main Mission, called to them. They turned; she came out of the recreation room they'd just walked past and walked down the hall to join them. "Alan, too," she said. "You are just the people we are looking for."

"Oh, really?" asked Paul, looking down at her with a warm smile. They made a nice-looking couple, Alan thought, though he wasn't sure she was interested in Paul. "You need an administrator and an astronaut? Or just two bodies?"

"Bodies, of course, though yours are such nice ones," she smiled back. "But you cannot play Cluedo with only three."

"I'm Colonel Mustard," said Alan.

"Oh, Lord," Paul groaned. "I don't have to be Miss Scarlett, do I?"

Sandra and Alan both laughed; it was a hell of a picture. Sobering, she said, "Of course, not, Paul; if we were to do that, we would be in difficulties. Alan and I could not both play," she tapped her own yellow sleeve, "and Ouma could not play at all... and the commander would have to be dead."

"Not such a bad thing."

"Alan," she reproved him while Paul looked on, wearing his 'I'm shocked, *shocked'* expression.

"Back home, he's Mr. Boddy, anyway," Alan said. "None of your Doctor Black nonsense."

She smiled. "Well, here we have an English version. And I am Miss Scarlett."

"Of course you are," Paul agreed at once. "And if I can be Professor Plum, I'm in."

She smiled, turning to accompany them back to the rec room and saying, "That is not a problem." She linked arms with them both. "Come along; we have a murder to solve."


D -129

"You want to go, don't you?" Paul discovered.

"To Meta? Hell, yes," Alan said as though it were a given, like a natural law. Perhaps it was, for him...

"Why on earth?"

"Because it isn't," Alan answered. "On Earth. It's *new*, Paul, can't you feel what that means?"

"But it's not permanent," Paul protested. "It's ephemeral. It's passing through. We'll never be able to make any use of it."

"Does everything have to have a use?" Alan shook his head. "Some things just *are*. And I want to go have a look-see."

"Go and find new and interesting ways to get yourself killed, you mean."

"Sometimes I wonder what you're doing up here. You ought to be back in England, with your roots planted so deep in that green and pleasant land you couldn't be torn up without dying."

Fortunately, his eyes were looking out the window or he might have caught the involuntary flinch that greeted that pleasantry. All he meant to do, of course, was chaff Paul for his conservativism. He didn't know, how could he, how very much Paul wanted to go home, back to the Morrow family estate, the Morrow family... and how very firmly the doors were shut against him. The United Kingdom was a civilized country, its laws were progressive... but you couldn't legislate
tolerance in the human heart. No government ever created could make Anthony David Morrow accept a perverted son..

Paul was proud of his tone when he answered. "Just because my ancestors were devoid of criminal tendencies—"

"*Independent* tendencies, Pommy," Alan rejoined automatically.

"—doesn't mean I can't take a job someplace like Alpha, which is real and settled and permanent."

"And pays well."

"And, as you say," Paul grinned, "pays extremely well. But seriously, Alan, Alpha isn't the new frontier anymore. We've been here going on twenty years now. It's closer, in some ways, to London or Washington or even Sydney than some places in South America are, or a lot of places in Asia. But going to Meta—that's quite the horse of a different color."

The blond shrugged. "Dunno. I s'pose I'm just the type who wants to go and see."

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges — Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!" Paul quoted.

"But some that heard the whisper clear were filled with vague unrest; the breeze had brought its message home, they could not fixed abide," Alan countered.

Paul shook his head. "Sorry, who?"

"Banjo Paterson, you ignorant Pom," he said indulgently.

"I should have known," Paul grinned at him. "Australia's only poet, isn't he?"

D -112

Paul, Alan, and Sandra were eating dinner after their shift was over, making plans to take in the showing of the latest Mel Gibson film—just in from Earthside—that evening when David Kano and his boss, Benjamin Ouma, joined them at their table, putting down their trays and continuing their conversation.

"I fail to see why the UN is even involved," said David, his soft Jamaican accent registering extreme disapproval, rare for him unless someone was attacking the central computer's veracity or usefulness.

"Because," Ouma said, reaching out his arm in its IT-brown sleeve for the salt shaker, "the Indonesians have been repressing the East Timorans."

"But East Timor is geographically part of Indonesia," objected David.

"And Kalimantan is on Borneo," said Sandra. "Surely you do not mean to suggest that Indonesia is therefore entitled to the rest of Borneo? To Malaysia? Or to Brunei?" she added pointedly.

"Of course not," said David. "But Timor is Indonesian."

"And many think Brunei is Malaysian. The difference," she said, "is that when the British left Brunei they signed a treaty with the sultan. The Portugese merely left."

"Because East Timor was never an actual country, like Brunei."

"No," said Alan. "It never got the chance. It was a Portugese colony, and the minute the Porties left the Indonesians marched in and annexed it. It's not *part* of Indonesia; it was just grabbed."

"Yes, but western Timor—"

"Okay, right." Alan obviously regretted having spoken at all. "Let's not talk about it."

"Yes, but, Alan, it makes no sense. I mean, what kind of country can a place like East Timor be?"

"David," Paul said, catching the warning signs from Alan, "why don't we just agree to disagree on the subject and talk about something else?"

"Because I'd like to know why Alan's so set against Indonesia. Or for East Timor, whichever it is—"

"David, don't even get me started on East Bloody Timor," said Alan.

"Now whyever not?" David asked.

"Because I was there twelve years ago," Alan said, and stood up. "And I'd just as soon forget the whole damned thing." He left.

"What did I say?" David looked around.

It was Sandra who answered. "He was a pilot in the Australian army then," she said, her precise tones worried. "Not yet an astronaut, David. And if he was in East Timor twelve years ago, I'm sure he was in the UN Peacekeeping Force, and he may have been in combat. Which I am sure would not be a pleasant memory."

"I'm going to go find him." Paul said.

"Paul?" Sandra half rose.

"No," Paul said, knowing without knowing how. "He won't want anyone, but I'll bring him to the film."

"If you are certain—" she said.

"It'll be all right," Paul reassured her. He wondered if that was more than Sandra's usual concern for her coworkers but then put it out of his mind. Alan didn't seem interested in her, at any rate. Not that he should let that encourage him... Alan was Australian, after all. Wasn't 'no poofting' their national code? And didn't a lot of military men have failed marriages in their background?

He shook his head, dismissing the line of speculation as unprofitable—*aren't you supposed to be keeping your emotions under control, Morrow?*—and went looking for Alan. He found him in the Meta lab, printouts spread all over the desk.

"Hallo," he said.

Alan looked up. His green eyes were unrevealing. "Sorry," he said. "Thought of something."

Paul snorted and sat on the edge of the desk, crossing his legs at the ankle. "Of course you did: how awkward it would be to leave here after decking David Kano."

Alan smiled at that, apparently involuntarily.

"You know him, Alan: I believe officially they call it Asperger's syndrome, but what we called it in my childhood was incredibly tactless and self-centered. I gather you don't want to talk about
East Timor—"

"No. I don't."

Paul shrugged. "But you shouldn't let David's foot-and-mouth disease stop you seeing your illustrious compatriot kick arse all over Los Angeles."

That made Alan laugh and shake his head. "I s'pose you're right."

"Of course I am. Besides, Sandra's worried."

"All right, mate. I'm coming." He swept the printouts in the drawer. "I'm coming."


D -85

*What kind of an idiot am I?* Paul thought as he headed for the gym. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen it happen to others before. The cardinal rule was, Don't fall in love with a straight man.

And he'd broken it. Smashed it into smithereens, more accurately. He had quite willfully ignored every warning sign and twinge until he'd woken up and realized that he had, as the saying went, been and gone and done it. That his day wasn't complete without an encounter with Alan. That he needed to see him to feel grounded in reality. That hearing himself called "you ignorant Pom" in that casually affectionate tone was better than "beloved" in any of his handful of lovers' most caressing voices had ever been.

In short: he was sunk.

So sunk he didn't even care. He would sit on his bed at night and play Bach or Scarlatti because the complex Baroque music was the only thing that adequately reflected the joy simmering inside him, and then fall directly into minor-keyed Celtic or Appalachian folk songs when he considered how Alan would be going back to Earth in a few months, but even then, even when playing 'Man of Constant Sorrow' or 'Ayrshire Lament', he knew he'd hunt out the Australian in the morning for coffee before work... What did Othello say? "Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee!" That was about it.

Sunk? No, not exactly, he decided, opening the locker room door. He always got there early because he didn't think he could handle watching Alan change, just as he always hurried in the shower while Alan soaked his 'aging muscles' (his lovely muscles) for the same reason. No, he wasn't sunk. Sunk implied loss, it implied hopelessness, it implied an end.

He wasn't sunk. He was entirely too gin-fizzed for that. Too full of that joy, on the boil. No. What he was, was riding for a fall. It was going to be a spectacular smash-up when it happened, but for the time being the gallop was too exhilarating to quit.

And at least Alan would be back on Earth when he fell. With luck, they'd stay in touch. At any rate, the blond would never know.


D -37

Sparkman and Warren. The names blinked back at Paul from the Medical Center's critical list like warning lights. Two days ago Geordie Mitchell, yesterday Nance Tucker and Bert Arayano. Dr. Russell had quarantined them; Paul hadn't spoken to her, but Dr. Mathias, her assistant, had said something vague about a virus. Today, one more Area Two worker. And the Meta astronauts.

Paul wasn't a virologist, by any means, but he did rather think there needed to be some sort of contact for viruses to spread. That four Area Two workers were ill made sense, but the Meta astronauts came in contact with none of the nuclear waste workers, and none of the rest of the Meta team was ill. At least, Alan hadn't mentioned it if any were. And given the way he'd trounced Paul at handball the previous evening, he was feeling fine.

What was most puzzling, though, was Russell's recommendation that Area Two be temporarily shut down. For a virus? Paul didn't think that made any sense. People at Area Two worked in space gear, breathing their own air. There couldn't be anything at Area Two allowing a virus to spread. It would make as much sense to shut down the incoming cargo areas where the nuclear waste was unloaded, and she wasn't suggesting that, or quaranting the workers' locker rooms here at Alpha... Just Area Two. And he rather doubted Gorski was going to go for that: nuclear waste disposal was Alpha's main cash cow, after all, what with people on earth so fond of cheap power and so afraid of the genie... and far no one had been able to come up with a fool-proof plan for just tossing it out into space that would appease the SETI folks and not scare the you'll-blow-up-the-Sun contingent.

Ten minutes after he'd delivered the night's reports to the commander, he received the proof of that, as Gorski ordered him to have Dr. Russell in his office as soon as possible. Paul would have
loved to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. The new American chief of medical services already didn't like Gorski's corner-cutting, and the commander didn't approve of anything that might cost time or money. Was she as much the irresistable force as she seemed to think? In Paul's opinion, the smart money was on the Russian, but he'd have covered himself with a little side bet on the Yank. Just in case.

When the cool blonde medico stalked out of the commander's office an hour later, Paul watched her leave with the distinct impression that Gorski had won going away.

"Pavel," Gorski called.

"Yes, sir?" Paul turned.

"Come in here."

Paul went in, the door closing behind him. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm implementing communications protocol Orange," the commander said. He shook his head, sighing. "Dr. Russell has some... alarmist ideas which she can not back up. I don't want her making a, how do you say it, end run around me. All communications with the ILC are to go through this office."

"All?" Paul asked neutrally. "Captain Carter, and the astronomics section as well?"

Gorski blew out a breath and ran his hand over his thinning black hair. "No. Only from the Medical Center, or anything medically related. Understand me, Pavel?"

"Yes sir," he said and went back out into Main Mission to pass the word to his assistant Tanya Alexandrova, wondering just what these alarmist ideas were. And whether he ought to be alarmed.

That feeling grew over the next several days, as more Area Two workers became infected by the "virus"—he felt the quotes were justified by the situation. Especially when Dr. Russell began
consulting with Professor Bergman, and running tests at Area Two. The Cambridge astrophysicist wasn't alarmist, though he was occasionally outré; if he'd had something substantial to report, he would have, but Paul read his outgoing ILC traffic and there wasn't anything in there relating to the medical situation. Still, he consented to run Dr. Russell's tests, and he had taken to walking around looking worried.

Gorski was looking worried, too. Three disposal workers had died of the "virus" and four more had caught it... and all of the affected personnel were incommunicado in the critical care section. Alan was driving Gorski—and Paul—round the proverbial bend over his astronauts (his phrasing); Gorski was refusing to allow the backup crew to begin any training and wouldn't let Alan see the primary crew and wouldn't tell him anything beyond the, as far as Paul was concerned, increasingly suspect virus story.

Which meant Paul had to stick to that, too; he wasn't completely sure Alan was buying it. There was a cynical look in those green eyes that said the Aussie knew he was being kept in the dark, but, thank God, he never pushed Paul for information.

As the days went by, coded communications were flying back and forth between Gorski and the ILC. Paul, feeling increasingly caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, wondered what was really going on, and what would happen next.

What happened was that the ILC sent John Koenig to Moonbase Alpha.

Paul was paged away from an after-game beer. When he got to Gorski's office, the commander was packing up his few personal items in a carrying case. "Ah, Pavel," he said. "I've just heard from Geneva. They've decided to replace me."

"Oh?" Paul was startled. "Did they say with whom? Or why, sir?"

"John Koenig," he said. "So we pass again."

Paul only nodded; he'd be glad to work with Gorski's American predecessor again, but he had told the truth when he'd told Alan he didn't find Gorski that hard to take.

"As to za chem," Gorski shrugged. "They feel I am letting the Meta project slip. I wish Koenig luck with it. I'm not sorry to be away from *that*."

"When is he coming?"

"He is on his way now."

"That's just a bit abrupt, Nikolay Petrovich," Paul said. "They could have given you more notice than that."

Gorski smiled. "You are a nice boy, Pavel Antonich. Have a drink with me." He pulled out a bottle of Stoli. "Na zdorovye! ... Anyway," he went on after he'd drained the glass, "I don't worry about it. I am going to Star City, to take command of cosmonaut training. I'm, what is the phrase, in pig's heaven?"

"It's an American phrase," Paul said, finishing his vodka more circumspectly, "but I believe it's 'hog heaven'." Star City was quite near Moscow, he remembered; Gorski was probably very happy in fact to be going there.

"Yes. Svinoye nebo. What does that mean, actually?"

"I really couldn't say. It's an American saying, and they don't really speak English in America."

"Huh," Gorski nodded. "Well, he will be here in an hour. Perhaps less. I will meet him, but Bergman wants to talk with him."

"Do you want me—"

"No, Pavel, I only wanted to tell you what had happened and say goodbye. You go back to what you were doing. He can talk to you in the morning. You and Carter too most likely." He put the bottle in the carrying case and latched it. "I am sure he will have things of his own he wants done."

"Yes, I'm certain," Paul nodded. "Goodbye, then, Nikolay Petrovich. Good luck at Star City."

"Do svidanya, Pavel Antonich." The Russian offered his hand and then pulled Paul into one of those Slavic bear hugs.

Paul didn't rejoin Alan. The Australian would hear the news soon enough, and he didn't feel like pretending he had no idea why ILC wanted a new man in place. But, as he sat on his bed playing Bach lute suites on his guitar, he wondered what Koenig would do.

D -27

Alan looked up to see Commander Koenig entering. He sent Young off to work on his data and greeted the commander.

"Good to see you again, Alan." Koenig gestured at the view of the probe on the main monitor. "Is she ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah," Alan told him, wondering if anyone read the reports he kept sending. "We can start the countdown as soon as you give the word. Every hour's delay only reduces our chances of success," he reminded the other man.

Koenig walked past him to study the monitor. "How long to get the backup crew ready?"

"Oh, seven days—" Then the words registered, and he turned sharply to demand, "*Backup* crew? What do you mean?"

"How long will it take?"

Alan stared into the cold blue-grey eyes. Koenig had always been an honest man. But he'd been here nearly an entire day without talking to Alan. Like he was avoiding him, or the project. And now he was saying they'd have to go with the backup crew? Just like that? Frank and Eric had missed nearly twelve days with that virus—Gorski hadn't let Mike and Phillip do anything; there was no way they could be ready in anything like time enough to still make Meta. No way to get
any sort of new launch window waiting on them. Celestial mechanics just didn't allow it, it wasn't like putting off your holiday excursion, Meta and the moon weren't standing still in relation to one another. Koenig had to know that. *What in bloody hell is going on here?* he thought. "Well, we can't do it," he said flatly. "I mean, calculations, coordinates—" He broke off. "Come on, Commander. You got a problem that you're not telling me about?"

Koenig said, "Captain, I'm here to get the Meta probe launched. All I want to know is, crew excepted, are you ready to go?"

If that was the way he wanted to play it... "Yeah," Alan said. "We're ready to go."

Koenig nodded once and left. Alan stared after him, seething inside. He looked around at his crew. "All right, then," he said, "you heard the man. Ready to go."

* * * * *

The minute Alan slammed his first serve into the wall, Paul knew he was going to be in trouble. Something had definitely pissed the Australian off. Paul had a guess... Koenig had, after all, been sent to replace Gorski "to get the Meta probe back on track", but Bergman had hijacked him with Dr. Russell's concerns about the alleged virus that had killed waste area workers and laid out the Meta astronauts, and the commander had only paid his first visit to Alan's section, where all the work on the ship and the voyage itself was being done, this afternoon. And Paul, who was himself not privy to everything that was going on down in the Medical Center, was fairly certain that Alan was, still, even more in the dark than he was.

Which was, as he'd have said himself, bloody unfair. And it was no wonder he was so angry. Paul just hoped he could survive the game: Alan had ten years on him, but he was in great shape... *wonderful shape,* he caught himself thinking. *Oh, don't even start thinking like that, Morrow. You don't have that luxury today.*

And he didn't. The match was by far the most physical one they'd ever played; by virtue of not seeming to care if he crashed into walls or not Alan made spectacular shots and saves that racked up points. He also didn't seem to care if he crashed into Paul or not. Somewhere in the third game of the match Alan sent him flying into the back wall and they both ended up sprawled on the floor.

"Alan, for God's sake," Paul gasped, "if you want to kill me, just throw me out an airlock."

Alan glared at him for a moment, then subsided and lay flat, staring at the ceiling. "Sorry, mate," he said, sounding almost sincere.

Paul grabbed a handful of his sweat-soaked teeshirt and fanned himself with it. "What's got your knickers in a twist today, anyway?"

"Everything," Alan said. "Koenig, JAC, the ILC, Dr. Russell, you name it." His accent was very strong, Paul noticed—*yew nime it*. He'd learned that was a bad sign. "You."

"Me?" Paul protested, propping himself on one elbow to stare at the other man with what he hoped was a reasonable facsimile of injured innocence. The sight of the blond pilot lying there with his own teeshirt clinging to him, his shorts-clad legs only inches from Paul's, was a powerful distractor. He tried to focus. "What have I done?"

"Don't lie to me, mate." The edge of anger in Alan's voice sharpened. "You know more than you're saying."

"Alan, I can't tell you everything I know—"

"I'm not asking, I'm just saying, don't lie to me." *Oy'm just syyin', don't loy t'me.* Oh, yes; he was royally pissed off. "You know what's goin' on."

Paul admitted, "More than you. I don't know why Koenig hasn't told you."

"Back-up crew," Alan said savagely. "We can't make it with the back up crew. Not after Gorski refused to let them do any training at all after Eric and Frank took sick. No need, he says, the regular crew will be back in no time. No time, all right."

"Koenig told you the backup crew was going?" Paul couldn't decide if that surprised him or not. One thing he did know was that Dr. Russell wanted to scrap the entire mission. He didn't think Koenig leaned that way, but he did know how Alan would take it.

Not at all well.

Not to mention, there wouldn't be any reason for him to be on Alpha any more...

"Koenig asked how long it would take to get them ready, yeah. I told him we couldn't do with them, and he gets all pissy and asks if I'm ready, 'crew excepted'."

"What did you tell him?"

"What could I tell him? Yeah, we're ready. Fat lot of good it does us, having the bloody ship all built, programmed, fueled and set, with no goddamned crew."

"Alan..." That trailed off as Paul realized there was literally nothing he could say.

Alan sat up and ran his hands through his hair. The movement pulled his damp teeshirt up revealing a patch of ribcage and flat stomach. His green eyes stared challengingly at Paul. "Things are going on I'm not being told," he said. It fell short of being an accusation. No, it overshot it: it was a flat statement of fact. "How the bloody hell am I supposed to get my job done if everybody keeps secrets from me?"

That was pretty unanswerable so Paul didn't try.

"Koenig tells me he's up here to get the probe launched, but he doesn't want my input. And I tried to call Earthside, and JAC referred me to the ILC and nobody there would talk to me. And Russell and Mathias get as secretive as bloody Masons when I so much as ask how're Eric and Frank... Gorski lied, Koenig blows me off, and you don't talk at all...I mean, damn it all to hell, Paul. What do you people bloody want from me, anyway?"

And Paul heard himself say, "I don't know about anybody else, but all I want is you." *What the hell... talk about bad timing, Morrow.*

There was a silence. Alan's eyes were shuttered completely; Paul had no idea what he was thinking. Well, no. He did have an idea. Damnation, he thought and started to get to his feet. Before he could, Alan's hand was fisted in his damp teeshirt and he found himself yanked to the floor.

"You bloody Pom," Alan said, his voice shaking with some strong emotion Paul couldn't identify, "every time you do this. Every time. Get close, then close up. But this—you think you can say something like that and then just leave? Just act as if nothing had happened?"

*Ah, Christ,* Paul thought sadly. "What do you want me to do? I'm not big on self-immolation." He couldn't believe himself. Wry and flip to the end, eh?

"I'd rather," Alan said, not letting go, "you explained yourself."

Paul blinked at him.

And Alan pulled him forward and kissed him.

He was a very good kisser, Paul thought dazedly as he ended up on his back, Alan leaning over him, taking most of his weight on one hand and holding Paul's face gently but firmly with the other. Paul sighed, his mouth opening to the blond man's probing tongue and feeling all his defences melt like ice in sunlight. A very good kisser...

His hands found their way under Alan's untucked teeshirt, feeling the lean body for the first time, pulling him closer. Alan pulled away for a moment, just far enough and long enough to say, "Maybe a little hands-on?"

*Hands on,* Paul thought. *I can do that...* He thought he managed to say so another eternity later; at any rate, Alan chuckled at him before moving in for yet another kiss.

And then, suddenly, Alan straightened, sitting back on his heels with his knees alongside Paul's hips, breathing hard.

"Alan?"

"This is a bit of a public place," Alan said, his Strine accent making it plice. "I think we'd better go somewheres else."

"Oh." Paul was breathing hard himself. "Yes. Yes, you're right."

Alan stood up, offering Paul a hand and pulling him in for another long kiss when they were both on their feet.

Paul pulled away after a moment. "If we're going, we'd better while I still can."

Alan nodded and turned toward the door, then back to ask, with a crooked smile, "Your place or mine?"

"Mine's closer," said Paul, thinking that, and less time for Alan to change his mind.

"Mine's got no neighbors," said Alan.

"Yours, then," Paul said, following him into the locker room where they simply shoved their uniforms into their bags and left, Alan carrying his commlock. They didn't say anything, in the corridors or the travel tube, and Paul's mind was whirling. *No neighbors...* He wasn't sure what that meant; oh, it was true his own quarters were smack in the middle of the senior staff warren, while Alan's were out by his working area, but once a door was locked what did it matter? He kept his eyes on the other man, remembering the kisses, and tried not to worry about potential ramifications. Was this an experiment? A one-off? God, he hoped not; he'd sworn off one-nighters long ago after discovering he really didn't enjoy feeling sleazy... this wouldn't be that, this was Alan... but it could ruin their relationship, make it hard to work together. He didn't know if he could go back to the way it had been. A one-off would be stupid, it would be painful, it would be dangerous, it would be so much better than a never...

Alan shut the door and tossed his commlock onto the table, and then reached for Paul, who very willingly came into the embrace, sliding his hand into that fine dark blond hair as he slid his tongue into the open, eager mouth.

"I'm going to have to get used to this," Alan said after a moment.

"The mustache?" Paul managed to stop himself before he offered to shave.

"I think I've about got used to that," Alan shook his head. "Being the short one."

"You won't notice once we get off our feet," Paul hinted.

"S'pose not," he agreed, and pulled Paul down onto his bed.

God, yes, a very good kisser...

Soon enough, though, Paul's innate greed surfaced. A locked door, a soft bed, a willing partner: kissing wasn't enough. His hands had already found their way back under Alan's teeshirt, but now he disengaged long enough to pull the crumpled garment off and toss it to the floor, followed by his own. He took a moment to satisfy his sense of sight—the lean body filling the promise of the way it moved under clothing, the pale scar high on the right shoulder (find out about that...)—and then touch and taste made their demands and he pulled Alan down next to him, hands and mouth both exploring, and incidentally satisfied his sense of hearing as well as Alan reacted.

He was a bit startled that Alan didn't seem to be as straight as he'd supposed, though he didn't have any complaints about it. *God, no, no complaints,* he thought as Alan regained position, kneeling above him and finding the spot on his shoulder that made him whimper. Alan's hand stroked down his stomach to tug at the waistband of his shorts, and Paul put his own on Alan's back, pulling them together, reveling in the angular strength, hungry for more, growing a bit demanding.

Alan shuddered in his hands, and he said, so softly Paul almost missed it, "It's been so long... God." Paul immediately tossed out his half-formed regrets that they weren't in his room, where he had lube and condoms tucked away, just in case. Even if this turned out to be a one-off, the Aussie's emotion-driven exploration of somewhere he wouldn't want to go back to, Paul needed it to be good for Alan for it to be good for him. And if it wasn't, if it was the start of something that would last (he ignored the question of how long), then they'd have plenty of time to possess each other, time for taking and being taken...

And hands and mouths were enough, were more than enough, to take them both to someplace Paul had never been before, not even in that first dizzying intoxication of Colin. Someplace he wanted to stay.

He ran his hands over Alan's back and wondered how long he could. Alan nuzzled the hollow of his throat and made a contented sound that warmed Paul's heart. Maybe he could stay for a while. The night anyway...

Now that he was rational again, he realized his hand was stroking over more scars. Carefully, trying not to disturb Alan, he raised his head and looked, and bit back a curse.

Apparently, though, he didn't bite it back hard or fast enough. Alan sighed against his throat. "You can ask."

"What happened?" Paul did, quietly.

"East Timor," Alan said. "Bloody Indonesians... never ask me to be nice to one."

"Alan—"

He started to answer, then sighed and shook his head. "Not now, Paul. Maybe never... please?"

"Of course," he said quickly.

Alan pulled away and lay on his back, reaching for Paul, who came to rest on his chest willingly enough. "Never meant to do this again," Alan said softly.

"Do what?" Paul asked, because it was best to take your medicine right away and not let the fantasies get too real.

Alan was quiet for a minute, threading his fingers through Paul's hair. "Letting someone in," he said finally.

"Are you regretting it?"

"No," Alan said, sounding a little suprised. Then, more definitely, he repeated it. "No, I'm not."

"Oh, good," Paul said, relaxing.

"Good?"

"Very good," Paul said, "in fact, excellent." That was half swallowed in a yawn. "Sorry."

Alan laughed softly. "Go to sleep," he said.

Paul woke up once, deep into the night. He was disoriented for only a moment, and then remembered. He raised himself on one elbow, looking. Alan lay close to him, profoundly asleep. His quarters had a window, and the light from the earth spilled in and turned everything it
touched to a cool dim blue. It would be hard to sleep during the long day, even with the pane polarized, but he'd never heard Alan complain. He smiled to himself; presumably a lit room was the least of what he'd had to put up with over the course of his career. Then the smile faded as his eyes adapted enough to see the lines across his bedmate's back...

*East Bloody Timor...I'd just as soon forget the whole damned thing.* Alan's words from more than two months ago came back to him. *You'd just as soon, surely, but you haven't.* Paul reached out but caught himself before he actually touched those scars, thin lines crossing and criss-crossing... his imagination flinched from thinking about that patterning. *Later.* He sighed to himself and lay back down, putting one arm over Alan and closing his eyes.

*A little lower than the angels,* he thought. *We go to the moon like it's down the street. We go to Jupiter, we're going to Meta... and we do this to each other. No wonder no one else wants to know us; we're the yobbos in the neighborhood, aren't we? *To shake off the midnight melancholy he slid closer to Alan, snuggling a bit. Alan sighed deeply in his sleep and pushed closer himself. Paul smiled and rested his forehead on the blond's shoulder and drifted back to sleep.

D -26

Paul woke. He knew at once where he was, but he was alone in the bed. Shaking his head to rid it of morning cobwebs, he heard the shower running. Several months of not looking urged him to his feet, and he pushed open the door to the bathroom. "Alan?"

"G'day," he answered. "I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up."

"I'm awake now," he sidestepped the morning-person problem (later) and pushed back the shower door. "Wash your back?" he offered deliberately.

"Sure," Alan said, after a beat.

Paul stepped into the steamy stall and poured some of the liquid soap on the scrubber and began, more a massage than a washing, really. Alan's muscles were tense as iron under his hands; the water ran off his shoulders and cut rivulets through the lather, streaming along the old white scars that made his skin seem darker than it was. But the longer Paul worked the more Alan relaxed, and the more, oddly, Paul himself did, the more he was able to stop seeing the stripes, stop thinking about their regularity, the pattern that spoke of cruelty beyond his desire to comprehend, and the more he saw only the man under the scars—under his hands—the man who'd survived to be here, now, with him...

"Alan?"

"Don't stop that... what?"

Paul resumed what was now, frankly, sensuous and with any luck actual foreplay. "What happens now?" he asked.

"That probably depends on when you have to be in Main Mission," Alan said.

"I was thinking long-term," Paul said, but he kissed Alan's shoulder.

Alan shrugged under his hands. "I don't really think long term any more," he confessed. "What do you want?"

"You," Paul said.

"That you have."

The gin fizz bubbled over inside. But still—"What about the army?"

"I don't plan on telling them."

"I thought not. But—"

"Paul," Alan turned around, linking his arms around Paul's waist. "You worry too much, chook."

Any answer Paul might have made was lost in the kiss. And Alan was a good a kisser as he had remembered... *To hell with long term,* Paul thought. He turned off the water, and wished he hadn't as the insistent chirp of a commlock—oddly muffled—finally reached them.

"I think that's yours, chook," Alan said, laughing a little.

*Chook?* Smiling like, he was sure, an idiot, Paul grabbed a towel and found his commlock in his gym bag.

"Paul." Koenig looked at him, taking in his damp condition. "Good. You're awake. I was hoping you could come in early. We've got things to discuss."

"Yes, sir," Paul said. "I'll be there shortly."

"Busy day?" Alan asked from the doorway.

"Looks like it," Paul said, glancing up at him. "I don't know exactly—"

"Yeah." Alan smiled wryly at him. "Stop looking so worried. I understand need-to-know."

Paul smiled back in relief and pulled his uniform out of the gym bag. Fortunately the knit material didn't wrinkle easily, and his job wasn't physically demanding; it was still quite presentable.

Alan dropped a towel over Paul's head and dried his hair, then ruffled it. "Go on and hold the place together," he said. "I'll be yapping at your heels soon enough, I reckon. Maybe we can find a nice bottle and unwind tonight, have that talk you're wanting so."

"All I want is you," Paul said. "But that sounds like a good agenda." He pulled on his shirt and zipped up the red sleeve. *After all,* he thought, *it's not so very long-term after all, your going back to earth... Christ, Morrow, what have you done?* But he didn't have time to think about it now. *Later...* He grimaced to himself. *When later finally gets here, it's going to be interesting.* He looked at Alan pulling his own shirt on. *But worth it.*

* * * * *

*He travels the fastest who travels alone...*

Alan pushed his coffee aside and pulled over the latest figures on recomputing the flight path to Meta. He looked at them, but he didn't see them. Instead, he saw big dark eyes, elegant hands, a mouth he could spend the rest of his life kissing...

He'd said, *sworn*, he wasn't doing it again, laying himself open like that. And now this Pom... But he'd let it happen. He'd ignored so completely, so deliberately, every sign and every little warning voice that asked *'why? why is he spending time with you? why does he care?..' *

And you couldn't miss that. Paul's eyes were dark and honest and loving as a dog's. He cared, all right. More than Alan had thought anyone ever could again. And he'd got in. And, not really overnight—what had happened yesterday hadn't really been that sudden or that unexpected, not if he was honest—so not exactly overnight but still of a sudden, there was someone. And Alan knew he didn't want to go back to being only him.

You might travel faster alone, but would you like the journey half as much? Or the destination, for that matter? Good job his subconscious was smarter than he was.

And now he was thinking about Nairobi. Lovely city, Nairobi, but he had no desire to be there a month from now, looking up at the pale moon riding high in the African skies and wondering. Regretting...

Alan looked at the piece of printout he'd been scribbling stick figures and crescent moons on and gave it up as a bad job. Pushing it aside, he activated the commpost beside the desk and put a call in to JAC Canberra, asking for the RAA personnel liason officer.

"Colonel Bridger."

"Nigel? Alan Carter."

"Alan! How's tricks? Alpha holding together?"

"Alpha's fine... I suppose you've heard about the delays to the Meta mission?"

Nigel's eyes flickered. "Alan—"

"Don't fret, mate," Alan said. "I'm not calling about that. I've got that message... I'm calling about something else."

"What, then?" Nigel said in relief. "Anything I can do for you... You're coming back next month; want some leave before Nairobi?"

"Cut me orders to stay up here another year," Alan said. "Meta a go or no."

"Alan," Nigel said, "JAC had someone else in mind, considering Gorski—"

"Gorski's not here," Alan shook his head. "John Koenig is. Give me another year."

"Gorski's gone? A bit sudden that, wasn't it?"

"Hour's notice, I think. I'm not in that loop, though."

"No... ILC top brass keep things close to their vest, that's for damned sure. Koenig? You know him?"

"We've worked together," Alan said. "We get along. He won't mind."

"We've cut orders for Marc Powell—"

"Nigel, you know Powell doesn't want to come here. Nobody wants to come here, you know that." And that was painfully true; ironically, the moon was the last place an astronaut wanted to come, unless he was scheduled to fly a moon-launched mission like Meta. For a JACLO, it was a boring job in a place that tantalized with might-have-beens but was full of, basically, lorry drivers in space.

"Well, now, Alan, you said that yourself; you said you wanted to go to Nairobi."

"I don't anymore. Send Powell. Or Sharif. Or anybody. Look, Nigel: give me another year here and you can send me to Houston."

"Houston?" Nigel repeated.

Alan nodded. He understood the disbelief; he'd resolutely rejected any attempts to send him to America since he joined JAC, which, since JAC NASA in Houston was the main mission control and administrative center, and Kennedy Canaveral one of the four main launch sites, was a nuisance. "Yeah, Houston. I figure I can live with it."

"You know we wanted you in Houston four years ago."

"I know. I'll go. Next year."

"A full five year tour?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, Alan. Can do... In fact, will do and you're not getting out of it."

"Don't want out of it," Alan said, knowing it was the truest thing he'd said in more than a decade, possibly in his whole life.

"Right, then. I'll cut your orders today. Dunno what you've got into up there, and I reckon I don't want to know, but watch yourself."

"I always do." He cut the link and watched the commpost go dark, experiencing a faintly thrilling fear at making a plan again. Paul had just over a year left here, and then he was going to Houston.
ILC's Earthside tours were three years, but if at the end of that, they were still together and he didn't want to stay in Houston, Alan would think of something... If they weren't, if they hadn't lasted, well, JAC NASA and the ILC Houston Center weren't in the same bulding of the complex, they wouldn't have to see each other. If they were, he wondered... he knew Houston was a big city, but it was in Texas; surely you could have horses there. Paul would like that... if they were still together. If. *Bloody hell, I'm thinking about ifs again.*

He shivered slightly. It was a quick plunge, no doubt, but he knew himself well enough to know if he didn't make it, he'd come up with too many good reasons not to: strange waters, too cold, too long since he'd been swimming, *sharks...*

He closed his eyes and shook his head. That wasn't going to come up. They weren't at war, and even if a big war cropped up and he got pulled into it, Paul wasn't a soldier. It wasn't going to happen again. Alan wasn't going to have to be there again when he died... *blood, pain, delirium, beautiful eyes almost not knowing him, broken fingers trying to hold him, broken voice begging him for relief, for comfort, for surcease....*

Alan took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. It wasn't going to happen. Paul wasn't going to die. He just wasn't.

He pulled the printout over again and began preparing his report for Koenig.

*It wasn't going to happen...*

His commlock sounded. He reached over and turned it on, still focused on the schedule modifications. "Yes?"

"Alan?"

It was Paul. Alan felt everything else fade into nothingness for a moment. "Yes?"

"The commander would like you to come over to Main Mission."

Duty reintruded. "Now? I need another fifteen or so—"

Paul shook his head. His dark eyes were grave. "No, you don't. Trust me. Come on over now."

"Oh?" He put down his pencil. "All right. On my way." He clipped the commlock to his belt and headed out of the lab.

Koenig wasn't in his office, but over by Paul's position. Alan headed over there, reading bad news in the men's body language. It was a good thing he'd already called JAC, he thought. "Commander?"

"Alan, bad news, I'm afraid," Koenig said without preamble. "It's time you knew what was going on. Astronauts Warren and Sparkman died this afternoon."

Alan stared at the commander, feeling sucker-punched. "They died?" he asked. "Eric? Frank? Of what? I mean, I was told—"

"You were told lies," Koenig said flatly. "They died of a disease no one can understand. Earth Command wanted you to think it was a temporary setback."

*Bastards.* That was no surprise. The shock had passed; the soldier in him, who knew that men might be expendable but missions weren't, began reassessing. "But the Meta probe—?" he began.

"Forget the probe, Carter," Koenig said sharply, cutting off the monitor which was displaying the ship's graceful shape. "Before we do anything more I'm going to find out why those two men died."

"Yes, sir," Alan said, his mind already occupied with spec changes as he walked back to the lab. Koenig might be ready to forget the probe, but he wasn't. Not yet.

* * * * *

"Paul!"

He looked up to see the commander striding over from Ouma's displays of the last training flight taken by Warren and Sparkman, the Kenyan following him with puzzlement on his face.

"Check out all the figures on Area One for the past ten days," Koenig said.

Paul reached out and toggled the switch. "Sandra? Check ten on Area One, please, and bring it in."

"Right away, Paul."

Koenig said, "Shuttle pilot Collins took us over area one on his way to Area Two. Does he always fly that route?"

Paul folded his arms and said, "Four or six times a week." It was SOP.

Dr. Russell joined them, her expression worried. The commander asked, "It's a turning point, right?"

"It's one of the few constructions on the dark side," Paul explained. "It's a clear landmark for going to Area Two."

"And the probe astronauts?"

"Well, they do their training flights on the dark side, away from Alpha traffic."

"They fly over there regularly," Koenig ascertained.

Paul nodded, adding, "But there is a minimum altitude regulation."

"Yeah," Koenig said softly.

Ouma interrupted. "And that's where the flight recorder blanked out in their last training flight!"

That was news to Paul. He was beginning to really sympathize with Alan: Gorski had been keeping secrets from more people than one, it seemed.

"I had Collins fly low over that area this morning to get a good close look," Koenig said.

And now Collins was in critical condition in the medical center...

"Paul?" Sandra came in from Data Analysis, saw Koenig and said, "Commander, there is a steep rise in heat levels in Disposal Area One. This is impossible," she concluded in her precise accents. "All indications show that the radiation level is normal but the heat continues to rise."

Koenig looked at the printout she'd handed him and then raised his commlock. "Victor? I think we've got a connection, a correlation."

"Right," Bergman said, "I'll be with you."

Koenig looked up at Paul. "Bring in Area One on video."

Paul switched the feed, and Sandra turned on the monitor from the position next to Tanya's. The scene was surreal, like something by Heironymus Bosch out of van Gogh: the huge waste disposal piles glowing red, with bolts of electrical energy discharging like reversed lightning leaping toward the sky.

"That is incredible," said Sandra. "Heat, but still no radiation."

"It's incomphrehensible," Koenig crossed to stand behind her, looking up at the monitor. "Heat without atomic activity."

"Here," Bergman entered Main Mission. "Let's have a look at that." Sandra and Koenig handed him prinouts and he hmmmmd over them.

With a harsh flare of static, the picture went out on the monitor, drawing all eyes. "Burnout. Camera gone," Sandra reported.

"Second camera, please," Paul said, maintaining calm in the face of the nerves manifested by the rest of Mission staff, who were crowding in to look.

That camera lasted about three seconds. "All visual contact lost," Sandra said precisely.

"Paul," Koenig turned to him. "I want an Eagle of the pad for immediate liftoff. We've got to see what's going on out there."

Getting the Eagle ready was easier than getting her a pilot. Koenig insisted on going, though both Bergman and Russell were against it. "I'm not sending someone out there," Koenig said.

"So you're going yourself?" asked Russell. "That's very noble, but it's not very smart."

Paul listened, taking no part, reflecting on how those flat American accents, especially Koenig's, seemed made to carry anger, and wondering if those two had known each other before. Russell hadn't been on Alpha when Koenig had been here three years ago, but their interaction seemed fraught with subtext... He punched up an alternate flight path and refrained from bringing up Alan's name.

Finally, though, Koenig was on his way to Area One. Russell was hovering at Paul's shoulder and Bergman was staring at the monitor. "Approaching Area One," Koenig's voice came over the
speaker. "Check data systems ready?"

"Data systems functioning," Paul acknowledged.

Flares and bolts laced through the vacuum between the storage piles.

"It's getting more active," Koenig reported. "I'm increasing altitude."

Flares reached out and the telemetry from the Eagle skittered all over the place. Paul was very glad that Alan wasn't out there.

"I'm in trouble," Koenig's voice was strained. "You still getting data?"

As Paul answered in the affirmative, Bergman crossed to stand in front of his postion. His voice was low as he said, "The magnetic field's expanding. We can't measure it. Get him away from there quickly."

Paul flicked the Eagle onto remote. "Hang on, Commander, we're going to try to blast you out of there." There was no response from the controls. "Switch to onboard backup systems, Commander. We're losing you." He was peripherally aware of Dr. Russell moving even closer to him, but the backups had come on line and he was too busy saving the commander's life to worry about her concerns at the moment. The further Koenig could get from Area One and whatever was building there before he crashed, the better.

"Backup failing," Koenig said, static crackling through his feed. "All systems out."

Paul tripped two more switches, then said, "Rescue ship, move in."

"I'm at four-nine, altitude three-five. Switching on rescue location beams now; impact ten seconds."

But Area One blew before Koenig's Eagle hit the lunar surface a good twenty klicks away. The brilliant light burnt out the remaining functional camera, and the shock travelled through the moon to shake Alpha like a lunar quake.

Two hours later, with Koenig returned to Alpha in one piece, despite Dr. Russell's manifest annoyance with him, and Area One a blackened slagheap, Area Two was the first, probably the only, thing on everyone's mind. It held 140 times the waste as had Area One; if it went up the same way who knew how much damage it could do. Koenig and Russell were shut in his office, arguing the feasibility of sending out another Eagle, when Bergman came into Main Mission, holding an piece of equipment. "Look at this," he invited Paul and Alan. Alan took the printouts from him with only a cursory glance at the equipment, which could have been anything. While he was reading, the professor was explaining that it was an old magnetic field monitor from Area One.

Alan interrupted. "There was a twenty-fold increase in magnetic energy."

Which could not be good.

"And that was before it burned out," Bergman nodded. "We've been obsessed with radiation. wrong." He headed into the commander's office.

And the upshot of that was, a remotely-controlled Eagle was sent to monitor the magnetic fields in Area Two, an Eagle that crashed when the field surged again.

"Paul," said Koenig in the silence that followed. "Contact Commissioner Simmons immediately. Pass emergency code 'Alpha One'."

D -25 (Sep 13 1999): Breakaway

The attempt to spread the waste from Area Two over a wider area—a slim hope but their only one—was underway. Commissioner Simmons hovered uselessly in the background, getting on Alan's nerves. Not that that was hard; he wanted to be doing something, not standing around in Main Mission monitoring telemetry like any of a dozen other people could do. Listening to Paul's calm voice—"disperse to grid sector six-eight"—helped, but he was still fidgety.

"Alan," Koenig said quietly, "do you have any Eagles left over?"

"No, sir, they're all committed," Alan answered.

"Take Commissioner Simmons's Eagle and see what it looks like from orbit," Koenig said.

"Yes, sir," he said gratefully. He could feel Paul's eyes on the back of his neck as he left.

He suited up as quickly as he could and ran the barest minimum preflight. "Control, Eagle One," he said. Paul's face came up on his screen. "Liftoff completed," he said professionally, ignoring the worry in Paul's dark eyes. "Trajectory computed and programmed. I'll be in orbit in four minutes."

"Right," said Paul, as professionally, and cut the circuit.

From that altitude, the other Eagles weren't visible, but the surging lightning bolts, or whatever you called magnetic bolts, were. He could hear Control—Paul's calm voice—telling the pilots to gain altitude, and then, suddenly, to abort and return home. Less than a minute later, the entire far side was bathed in a light so fierce that he was blinded for several minutes.

When he could see again, the sight that greeted his still flash-shocked eyes was incredible. In the true meaning of the word. He blinked at it four or five times before he had to accept it: the moon
was accelerating away from the earth. He was suddenly aware that he was no longer hearing Alpha... *Paul!*

"Alpha, can you hear me?" Alan kept his voice as calm as he could. "Alpha, do you copy?"

Nothing. "Alpha, I'm not receiving you, but you may be receiving me. The moon is going out of the earth's orbit. That explosion... it has pushed us out of the earth's orbit. Alpha, can you hear me?"

Nothing. He checked the fuel gauges. Just enough to reach Earth if he left now. Just enough... He gunned the Eagle after the moon. "Alpha, are you okay? Alpha, I'm not receiving you. Alpha, what's happening to you down there?" He took a breath and steadied himself. "Alpha, we've lost contact. Can you hear me, Alpha? I'm open on all channels..."

He lost track of how more times he called before, suddenly, Koenig's strained voice came over the speakers. "Carter? Can you hear me?"

"Commander! Thank God you're okay... What's happening down there?"

"Tremendous G forces... We can barely move."

Sure. Acceleration mimicked gravity. God, they must have been flattened...

"Wait a minute," Koenig said. "We seem to be decelerating."

They weren't. But they weren't picking up any more speed. The explosion must have burned itself out and the gravity towers that kept Alpha at near earth-normal were now beginning to compensate. *Thank God, they work either way...*

"Carter? Do you read me?"

"Read you loud and clear," Alan answered.

"Can you make it back to the base?"

"Yeah," Alan said, smiling at the stars. "I can make it. I'm closing
now. I can make it," he repeated.

"Good, Captain," said Koenig. "Get back here as quick as you can."

He didn't bother to unsuit but headed into Ops carrying his helmet. He passed injured people heading for medical but none of them were from Main Mission. When he slipped in through the door in the middle of Koenig's announcement, he was only half-way listening; he already knew that trying Exodus was a fool's gambit. He needed to see Paul, alive and well.

"As we are, we have power, environment, and the possibility of survival," Koenig was saying. "If we were to try to improvise a return to Earth without travel plots, without resources, it is my belief that we would fail. Therefore, in my judgement, we do not try."

If there was more, it faded into nothing at the sight of the tall, slender red-sleeved man standing at the central console and looking at him. They'd made it.

* * * * *

"D'you know what you look like, chook?" Alan said.

"What?"

"A Labrador."

"A what? A dog?"

"Yeah. You've got those worried eyes, and," he touched Paul's face between his eyebrows, "that little furrowed thing going on here. All worried and trying to watch out for me."

"I love you," Paul said simply.

Alan knew what he ought to say, but he couldn't. Not so soon, he excused himself. Instead, he laid his hand on Paul's cheek and said, "I'm a big boy, Morrow. You can't keep me inside. I've got a job, and sometimes it's dangerous, but I know what I'm doing."

Paul sighed, his handsome face still worried, that beautiful mouth, framed by his mustache, marred by those expensive white teeth biting the lower lip. "I know," he admitted, "but, Alan, you can't blame me for worrying about you when God knows what might happen."

Alan wasn't sure what to say, so he said nothing.

"I guess I'm just going to have to become resigned to being scared all the time," Paul said.

"I'm sorry," Alan said. "I don't know how else to be."

"My soldier," Paul said, and Alan relaxed. That didn't sound angry; it didn't even sound regretful. "I wouldn't want you to be otherwise. Just damn well keep getting back, do you hear?"

"Back to you?" Alan said. "I don't know how else to do that, either."

"I'm holding you to that, you mad Aussie," Paul said.

"That's not the only thing you're holding me to," Alan said, half suggestively and half invitingly.

"Hmmmm?" Paul said.

Alan took that as a 'yes'. Paul cooperated enthusiastically enough, but afterwards he stayed awake for a long time. Alan wasn't sure, this was only their third night together, but he thought Paul was
worried about something—*well, honestly, what could he possibly have to be worried about?* Alan admitted. But still... Alan awoke late in the night, alone. He sighed. The Englishman was the type to make himself sick, taking on too much. He'd have to watch out for that...

He closed his eyes again and, with the soldier's facility for sleeping whenever the chance presented itself, drifted off again.


D -24

Tanya had brought coffee around, as she usually did once a day. Paul didn't drink it often, but he took some today; there was an extra cup because Tanya had automatically brought one for Ouma. She blushed as she realized what she'd done, biting her lip. "I can't keep it in my mind," she said. "I keep thinking I will look up and see Benyamin standing there."

Sandra settled in a chair next to the Russian woman. "I know," she said. "It is hard."

Paul decided the hell with it and sat down as well. They could all use a break, and it wasn't as though there were scheduled flights or comms sessions or anything whatsoever. Seeing him join the women, Alan and David did too. It was odd, having them there in Main Mission, but the loss of the Meta probe had left Alan completely jobless for the moment—what did a JACLO do when there was no JAC to liaise for? Koenig had put him to keeping track of Eagles, Hawks, and pilots for the time being. If they were ever to find another world, they'd need all the flying stock they could get.

And David was now senior IT tech, since Ouma was among the—so far—nine fatalities of Breakaway, as it had begun to be called. Paul was sorry for that on several levels; he'd rather liked Ouma for himself, and certainly, though a private person, the Kenyan had been far easier to get along with than the single-minded David. Also, he'd been less prone to treating Computer like some sort of demi-god. Instead, he'd behaved as if the mainframe were a somewhat willful child genius. At the least, he'd thought Computer was there for Alpha, not the other way around.

But Ouma had died, and it was David they'd have to work with now. And Computer wasn't a desktop with a simple OS; its multifaceted AI had an interface few could properly manipulate beyond the routine tasks. Much as Paul sometimes wished for a few more, much dumber systems, he had to admit that now they might all be glad for Computer's complexity.

"Nothing about this is easy," Tanya was saying.

"That's God's own truth," Alan said. "What was that American TV show—'Wagon Train to the Stars'?"

Paul shook his head. "I'm not cut out for this," he said almost without thinking.

"For what?" Alan asked, his green eyes concerned.

"Being a pioneer," Paul said, smiling. "We don't go places in my family."

"The English are always going to other places," David said, "though usually someone else is there."

Paul hunched a shoulder. "I'm not 'the English'. My family stays put and lets others go... The last time anyone in my family moved, it was a Norman making a four-hour jump across the bloody Channel, nine hundred years ago."

"Poor Paul," Sandra said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Just think of it as an adventure, a glorious adventure."

"I don't like adventures," he said. "Adventures are dirty and dangerous."

Tanya smiled half-heartedly, but it was Alan, unexpectedly, who said, "That's what I don't like. You could die—any of you," he added.

"People have died already," David pointed out. Unnecessarily, of course, but that was David.

"Yeah. And they were, you all are, civilians."

"Alan, you don't have to watch out for us simply because you are in the army and we are not," Sandra said. "For that matter, you are not, really, not any more."

Alan shrugged. "But I signed up for it."

"You didn't sign up for this, surely," she said.

Tanya nodded, clutching her coffee cup as if trying to warm her hands. "You could die, too, Alan."

Now it was Alan's answer that came as though he weren't really thinking about what he was saying; they were all, Paul thought, clinically shocked still. "I always walk away," the Australian said.

"Before the crash?" Paul had to ask.

Their eyes met and held as if they were the only two at the conference table. Then, "No. After it."

Something else on the pile marked 'later'. "Well," Paul said, shrugging, "that's luck."

"Oh, yeah; I'm lucky."

"Of course you are," David snorted. "You're here."

"Yeah," Alan said, looking away from Paul.

"Do you know, had it been two days later," David continued, oblivious, "I would have been in Kingston. Home leave. Now I will never see it again."

"I was in Sevastopol eight months ago," Tanya contributed. "My sister got married. She will be having a baby in December. I will never see my nephew."

"What about you, Sandra?" David asked; as usual, when he managed to include others, it was for sharing misery. "When were you last in Brunei?"

"I just came back from Home Leave last month, David," she said, smiling. It was so like him not to have noticed. "I spent a month with my family in Bandar Seri Begawan, and I was happy. But I am also happy to be here, now, alive." She smiled again, a cat in the creamery smile. Michael Ryan was the cause of that, Paul knew. A nice sort of man, if you liked them bluff and hearty... *chacun à son gout,* he thought, looking at his own choice.

"Well, I'd rather be alive than dead," David nodded. "But I'd rather be alive in Kingston than Alpha. Alan's right—I didn't sign on for this. What about you, when were you last home, Alan?"

Alan said, "Just before I came up here I got to New South Wales for a few days, in fact. Things were busy, autumn stock roundups, but I saw my dad and all my brothers. Bry had just moved back from Adelaide, so I know he'll be keeping an eye on the old man... there was always the chance I'd never get back, so I'd stopped thinking of the station as home a long time ago, though."

"I always forget," Tanya said, "that seasons are backwards in Australia. I mean, you came here in April. That's spring on the Crimea."

"April is spring most places," said David.

Sandra answered before Alan. "Much of the world would not agree."

"There really is not that much in the Southern Hemisphere," David shook his head. "Parts of Africa and South America. Australia. Some islands."

"I don't think the Kiwis would appreciate being lumped in with 'some islands'," Alan grinned.

"Let's not be arctocentric," Paul said mildly; the word threw David long enough. "After all, Alpha has no seasons at all."

"What about you, Paul?" Tanya asked. "When were you home last?"

He stopped his first two responses—*last night* and *nine years ago*—and said, "I haven't been to Sussex in so long, I've stopped thinking of it as that. Like Alan. I suppose Alpha was home as much as anywhere."

"You were in the last tour they'd let you have," Sandra said, "or you'd risk being like Bergman... Were you going to London?"

"No. Houston... at least I'd put in for it." He looked at Alan again. So had the Australian. His orders had come in before it all went to hell... That had done a lot to reassure him. He smiled at the thought, then shrugged and said, "I suppose we're all like Bergman now. Alpha is home."

"It's where we're hanging our hats, anyway," Alan said.

"For the time being," said David. "We'll find somewhere."

"I hope so," said Sandra.

They were all quiet for a few minutes, and then Tanya said, abruptly, "I miss green."

"What?" asked Paul.

"Green," she said. "I miss it. Menye khochetsya... there is no green anywhere in Alpha. No green sleeves, no walls, no floors, no green at all. I suppose there is some sound psychological reason for that, but I miss it. The Crimea is very green."

"So's Kingston," David said. "Jamaica is very green, with many trees and much rain."

"Brunei, too," Sandra sighed. "And the birds! I miss the green most, though."

*I've got my green,* Paul thought, looking at Alan's eyes, but he said, "Sussex is green, too; no jungles, but the Weald is a nice forest. My part is the Downs, but they're green, rolling and drifted
with sheepbells... Australia's not green much, though, is it?"

Alan shook his head. "You ignorant Pom," he said, and Paul's heart skipped a beat. "Sure, part of Oz is desert, but New South Wales is as green as you could ask."

"What are the odds any new planet we find will be green?" Paul asked.

David shrugged. "I could ask Computer."

Tanya said, "Chlorophyll is green. But some plants on earth have red or purple pigments that mask chlorophyll. And I suppose there is no reason to assume that alien plants would even have it."

"The red, red grass of home," Paul said experimentally. "It doesn't sound right."

"The kids would get used to it. You do, get used to songs and stories that don't match what you see every day," Alan said.

"That's true. You Aussies did. And I remember a Yank telling me once how startled she was to see an English robin—apparently they've got a robin in America that's got an orange breast, and she always wondered about the 'red-breast' nursery rhymes."

"People adapt," Alan said briskly. "We will."

"If we live," David said.

"We will live," Sandra said firmly. "You will see, David. We have lived so far; we will live on."

That seemed to Paul a good point to end this talk and get everyone back to work, which he did simply by finishing his coffee and saying, "Thank you, Tanya; I think we all needed a break." When he stood up, the others did, too.

* * * * *

"Think again," Alan said again, loudly and with a rap of his knuckles against the desktop.

"What?" Paul looked up at him, clearly only just aware of his presence. His eyes were tired and bruised looking, his skin pale.

"I said," Alan repeated, "if you think you're staying here all night again, think again. You're not."

Paul blinked at him, then looked around Main Mission, at the skeletal night shift. "Alan," he started to say.

"Nope," Alan interrupted. "It's not going to happen. These blokes all have your commlock code; if they need you, they can find you. You need sleep. You won't do Alpha any good staying up till you pass out. Come on."

"Alan," Paul shook his head.

He interrupted again. "Paul, take it from me; I'm a soldier, remember? I've seen crises before. The immediate problem is over, we're settling into long-term crisis management here and you need to
sleep. And you're going to, if I have to arrange it with Bob Mathias."

Paul grinned, though tiredly, at the threat of medical intervention. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"In a heartbeat. When was the last time you *did* sleep, and don't tell me last night because I doubt you got an hour and you probably came right back here when you left."

Paul glanced around, but nobody was close enough to hear, or looked as if they cared, for that matter. Everyone on Alpha was walking wounded, still. They had their own concerns. The Englishman sighed. "You're right," he admitted. "Right now, I'd kill for sleep. But I'm too tired... if that makes sense."

"Makes a lot of sense. Don't fret; come on. I'll make you sleep."

Paul smiled, still wearily, but with a slight gleam in his eyes. "Promises, promises..."

"I keep mine," Alan said, seriously.

"Thank God," Paul said, as seriously. "I need you to."

"I will. Including getting Bob to knock you out if you don't come. Now."

Paul grinned and nodded. "All right, Alan. I'm coming. Besides," he said, walking around the console, "I wanted to ask you what you meant this afternoon."

"Good," Alan said, moving quickly to deflect the questions he didn't want to answer, especially not while Paul was still fragile from Breakaway and not enough sleep. "Because I wanted to ask you something, too."

Paul waited until the door of the travel tube shut behind them before answering, "What?"

"Who walked away from you?"

Paul paused. "What?"

"Who walked away from you?" Alan repeated.

"What do you mean?"

"I said I walk away, and you asked 'Before the crash?' That sounds like someone's walked away from you."

"Oh." Paul sat quietly for a minute, then shook his head. "No one important," he said.

The doors opened onto the corridor outside the now abandoned Meta labs and they stood up, Alan following Paul out of the car. "Really?" he asked.

"Really," Paul answered, starting to walk towards Alan's quarters. "No one I wish had stuck around."

*Yeah, right.* But he let it go. At least Paul wasn't asking him anything. And Paul wasn't in shape for this conversation now. Probably neither of them were, Alan admitted. Everything that truly mattered to him was here, but back on earth were things, people, he'd cared deeply about once and might, now that Paul was making him live again, care about once more. He'd cast them off—cast himself off, more like— but it wasn't that simple, not really. They were still his blood, no matter how far away he took himself. So... tonight he wouldn't talk about anything or think about anything. Except Paul.

And that was easy.

It still scared him, how deeply he'd feared for Paul's life during Breakaway... He hadn't cared about anyone, hell, any*thing*, that much in years. But it was too late to be safe, and safety wasn't that appealing to him anyway. Never had been, if he was honest. Only when someone like Paul (not that there *was* anyone like Paul) was involved did safety have anything to offer.

The door shut behind them—he must be tired; when had they reached his quarters?—and Paul put his hand on Alan's arm. "You're the only one I want not to walk away," he said. "You know that. Don't you?"

Alan touched Paul's face gently. "I know, chook," he said. "And you have what you want: I'm not going anywhere. You, however," he moved his hand and pushed Paul onto the bed, "are going to Nod, PDQ."

"You come, too," Paul said, sounding more like a sleepy child than a grown man.

"Sure," Alan stripped them both efficiently and joined him in the bed, pulling the blanket up over them both. "Now, sleep."

After a few moments, Paul kissed his throat softly and said, "You promised..."

Alan laughed. Then he kept his promise. And when Paul was sleeping, deeply and exhaustedly, he held him and thought, briefly, about the future. Briefly, then *Sod the future,* he decided. *If ever it was pointless to worry about the future, *now* is then.* He ran his fingers through Paul's hair and closed his own eyes. *Get some sleep yourself, Carter, or you won't be any use to him.*

D -23

Another day of learning to accept. Another day of figuring out how little control they had over anything. Two more people dying of injuries sustained in Breakaway, including Commissioner Simmons. Three people unable to accept it; two killing themselves and the third slipping into catatonia. Four, really, because Harawa's attempt to steal an Eagle and fly back to Earth had to fall under not accepting it...

If they hadn't needed the Eagles, Alan said over lunch, they ought to have let the stupid sod go.

"Alan," Paul remonstrated.

"I mean it. What are we going to do with him now? We haven't got a jail, after all."

Paul was forced to admit that was a problem, but, "Koenig and Russell think all he needs is some heavy-duty therapy."

Alan snorted. "Who doesn't?"

"I must admit you have a point about that, as well... I'm losing this conversation."

Alan laughed. "It's not all competition. Besides," he added more seriously, "your career is all about keeping everything running right. Mine's all about what to do when it all falls apart. I've got the advantage."

"That's true." Paul sighed, pushed his food about on the plate, and decided he couldn't face another bite. "You must be in what Gorski called 'pig's heaven' now. God knows it is all falling
apart. 'Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold...'"

"'Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world... my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die'," Alan rejoined.

"To sail beyond the western stars..." Paul smiled slowly at him. "You think we'll find a new world?"

Alan shrugged. "I dunno. Seeking doesn't guarantee finding, but it beats sitting around waiting to die, doesn't it? 'It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: it may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles, whom we knew.'"

Paul found the words coming to his own lips. "'Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are—"

"'One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'"

They looked at each other for a few minutes. Then Paul laughed softly and said, "Well, we're damned sure likely to become 'a name for travelling', though I'd still really rather not."

"I don't remember being asked," Alan shrugged.

"Oh, me, either," Paul agreed. "But we seem to have been drafted. I just hope that the damned ship doesn't run into the rocks and drown us all."

"That would be nice," Alan agreed.

Paul nodded. "I'd best get back to Main Mission. We're still patching up the hull, to continue the metaphor possibly beyond bearing." He stood up, paused, and said, "I thought maybe we could get in some handball this evening? I've a lot of nervous tension, for some reason."

"How extraordinary," Alan grinned. "I'll get us a court."

* * * * *

They both had nervous tension, Paul decided halfway through the first game. Alan wasn't trying to kill him, as he had been four days ago—*only four days ago?*—but he was certainly running him hard all over the court. They did collide once; Paul held the other man in place with a hand in his shirt for a brief moment, saying softly, "I have news for you; if you think this is going to wear me out, you're wrong."

Alan's teeth flashed in a grin, but he didn't answer in words. After all, they'd picked up an audience.

"I can't believe you're letting that old man run you ragged like that, Paul," Mike Ryan said as they finished their third game.

"He's tough," Paul said.

"I can take you, Yank," Alan challenged, "thirteen years or not."

"Please," Paul said, leaning over with his hands on his knees. "I could do with a spot of breather."

"Nah," Ryan shook his head. "Too much like work. Besides, getting physical with Carter's not my idea of fun. If I could talk Sandy into playing, now—"

"She'd destroy you," Paul said. *Especially if she hears you call her 'Sandy'.*

"Yeah, maybe so," Ryan admitted. "But what a way to go... having her deck me would be worth it."

It wasn't as though Paul couldn't empathize, but the conversation was close to getting out of hand. "Did you actually want something, Mike, or did you just come here to add to my humiliation?"

"Actually," Ryan produced some printouts. "I wanted Carter to take a look at these."

Paul caught his breath and watched the two astronauts, whose conversation was too technical for him to care about. *Only four days*, he thought again. *That can't be right.* But it was... even
though he'd been in love with Alan so much longer than that, it was in fact only four days ago that they'd realized it. Almost four days to the hour, in fact. It seemed like a lifetime... of course, he had to admit, even without Alan factored into it, it had been the most jam-packed, as Ryan would say, four days of his life. Not that keeping Alan factored out was easy... or desirable. Paul wanted Alan factored into every day, every part of his life, for the rest of his life.

And that meant, he was going to *have* to get Alan to talk to him. Even stopping asking wouldn't work, because whatever it was had happened in East Timor was too big to ignore... what was that American phrase, an elephant in the dining room?

Ryan took himself off and Alan hiked an eyebrow at Paul. "Want another game?"

"No," Paul said.

"Tension all worked off?"

"Let's just say, I don't want to play any more handball."

Alan laughed. "You have some other way to work it off in mind?"

"I could think of something if I put my mind to it, I believe."

Alan laughed again.

"Alan..." Paul said as they walked from the travel tube to the Australian's quarters.

"Yeah?"

"What you said the other day? Was East Timor the first place you walked away and somebody else didn't?" He figured that was the heart of it.

Alan went all quiet, then shook his head as he opened the door. "No," he said as Paul followed him in. "Actually, it was in Sydney."

"Sydney?"

Alan nodded. "We were in Sydney for a Bank Holiday weekend and there was a smash-up. Mum died."

"My god," Paul said. "I'm sorry."

"It was thirty years ago," Alan said. "And I've still got my dad—still *had* him, anyway, and my brothers."

Paul wasn't sure what to say.

Alan cocked his head and said, "What about you? I never heard you mention family."

Paul paused. "Oh, well..."

"Because you said no-one walked away from you you wanted to stay, and that you hadn't been home in so long it wasn't, anymore..."

"I meant that," Paul said. Exactly how this had become about him instead of Alan, he wasn't sure. Some sort of RAA verbal self-defense course, most likely. Conversational jiujitsu. He made an effort to regain control. "Alan—"

"So, we're both alone in the world? Orphans of the storm, so to speak?" Alan was suddenly very close, and his hands were doing some very distracting things.

"Well, yes, I mean, not quite... *oh*." He gave up, for the moment. "Not exactly alone."

"No," Alan whispered. "Not alone..."


D -22

Another day, another lesson in being out of control and at the mercy of whatever was out here, whatever had flung them onto this journey. If it was God, it was an Homeric god, Paul thought, staring at the intransigent readouts. *As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport...* Lear might have been mad, but he wasn't wrong.

The more optimistic among them, including Koenig, had pinned their hopes on Meta as a new home. Alan had reminded Paul that Meta, just like the moon, was careening through space and offered less as a home, so he hadn't put too much stock in the 'Maybe Meta' answer, despite the regular radio signals they were picking up. After all, any radioastronomer worth the name knew radio could be natural. But nobody had expected what had happened.

"The line between mysticism and science is just that, a line," Bergman was fond of saying. "And we can cross that line."

*But can we get back?* Paul wondered. He finally looked away from the monitor. Alan was nearby, but he was turned and looking out the windows in Koenig's office, at the spattery starfield that Alpha was suddenly in the midst of. Just what the hell had happened when they drew near to Meta, Paul didn't know. It rather sounded like nobody knew. The radio signals had suddenly spiked, and there had been a gut-wrenching moment of acceleration before the towers kicked in and held them at only about three gees—only—and then they had all lost time. The clocks—Alpha's quaintly analog-faced timekeepers, the legacy of a decision by some long-forgotten ILC bureaucrat—had shown a five hour passage of time where no person on Alpha thought more than a second had gone by.

And here they were.

Wherever the hell *here* was. The astronomics department was in pig's heaven (to use the phrase Paul could *not* forget), but they hadn't pinpointed Alpha's position yet. Computer was no help; either it truly couldn't comprehend the question or Kano hadn't figured out how to put it. And two more people had died, outside the tower-generated gravity field they had apparently been vulnerable to ... whatever it was that had happened.

Paul stared at the wonder on Alan's face, the man who wanted to go and see. At least somebody was deriving some pleasure out of it all. As for Paul, he wanted to go to bed and wake up, back in Earth's orbit, safe and happy.

He sighed. He'd settle for just going to bed.

And not attracting the attention of any more cosmic jokers with nothing better to do with their time than swat at a handful of human flies...

D -21

"His name was Colin. Colin Fielding. He was quite charming, a few years older than me and very sophisticated. I thought."

"And you weren't?" Alan asked amusedly.

"Good Lord," Paul said. "At eighteen? Not in the slightest. Gawky would be kind. Painfully shy more accurate."

"Well, you've improved."

"Thanks," Paul said drily.

"So, what happened with this Colin bloke?"

Paul shrugged. "Several people told me, but I didn't believe them. He was on the make, with an eye to the main chance."

"And you weren't main enough for him, chook?" Alan said.

"Not after I told my father I was gay," Paul said. Nine years was enough that he'd gotten over that rejection; well, nearly over it. Come to accept it, anyway, though he still missed his home. Missed it fiercely, at times... well, now he could pretend they were all sorry and missing him. He laughed.

"Funny?"

"Let's just say," said Paul, "Oxford was more of an education than I'd expected. Fortunately my grandmother had left me enough money of my own to finish my degree. Colin hared off somewhere and I never heard from him again. But I can't quite bring myself to be truly annoyed with him. He did introduce me to myself, after all; did me quite a favor there."

"Can't quarrel with that," Alan agreed.

Paul reached out and pushed the blond hair back out of the green eyes. "Nor I." Then he dropped his hand to the ragged scar on Alan's shoulder and said, deliberately, "Alan—"

He pulled away, then stilled. "You want to hear about East Timor." His voice was flat.

"No," Paul said honestly. "I probably don't. But, Alan—I need to hear about it. I love you, and this is important..." *And we are going to talk about it.*

Alan was quiet for a while. Then he sighed and looked out the window, wrapping his arms around his knees. "Okay," he said. "I'll tell you... The Porties moved out of East Timor in '65. Twenty-one years later, things finally got to the point the UN voted to go in. We—Australia—put ground troops into the first PK force. The Indonesians didn't believe the UN would actually go in... which is why there's still an ETFOR on the ground there."

He paused. Paul hadn't wanted a history lesson but he didn't say anything. Alan would have to tell his own way. Besides, he'd been 14 in '86, and not precisely paying attention to foreign news. Not that he wanted to remind Alan of that... so far the decade between them hadn't really come up, and he'd like to keep it that way.

"Anyway," Alan said, "the Indonesians had a bloody great lot of American arms, American advisors. They were ready to take on the UNPK from the beginning of it; s'pose they thought the UN would back down some, hand them half the country. Hell, why not? It worked in Korea, Palestine, Pakistan... Nobody knew what was happening. Peace-keeping, my arse. It was a police action, plain and simple, just like bloody Korea, only they weren't admitting it right off. It was a royal fuck-up." His voice was bitter and every one of his vowels was so Strine Paul had to concentrate to make sure he was getting the words right. He shifted his position slightly, so that his knee touched Alan, but didn't speak.

"I was flying a gunship," Alan resumed. "Ground fire support. Five days in, a couple of klicks west of the supposed FEBA—forward edge of the battle area—the grunts ran into a heavy concentration of Indonesian infantry. They called for help. The Indonesians had bloody Stingers... the Yanks make good stuff, y'know? I was flying a Blackhawk, myself... we went down."

A long silence followed, long enough Paul almost told him to forget it, he didn't need to know. Only the thought that if after thirteen years it was still so hard to say, then he needed to say it, kept him quiet. The starlight silvered Alan's hair, made his skin pale against the crisp sheets; he was a chiaroscuro, remote and still. Paul swallowed and kept silent himself.

Abruptly, Alan began again, his voice now eerily calm, as remote as he seemed to be. "My crew chief was a bloke named Denis Thatcher—very funny we all thought then. Gave him all sorts of hell about it." He tightened his grip on his knees. "Denny and me had been together about eight months then. He was the first man I'd ever loved. The only, till you." A quick sideways glance and he was back to staring out the window. "We were all wrong, of course, from the army's point
of view; he was a sergeant and I was a lieutenant, for starters. And both men. We'd planned on getting out as soon as possible without getting ourselves thrown out... Denny was coming up on twenty years, he'd have had a nice little pension for us to start a bush-pilot business with. We had plans... and then one Stinger changed it all."

Another silence, and then the calm voice started again. "The four of us who could walk were taken prisoner. They tossed us in a cozy little prison camp, just us then. They wanted to know, well," he half-laughed, "anything. And they were a bit... creative in how they asked. We had a real nice kid in the crew, a gunner. Bluey Maddox. Eighteen, very blond... Strung us up and made us watch while they took turns at him, and when they were done, they blew his brains out. I was the officer, so right in front of me... I had his blood all over me. Damned flies. I hate flies," he added almost conversationally. "One of the things I like about Alpha. No flies."

Paul swallowed hard. You read about this sort of thing in history, but you didn't know people it had happened to...

"Still, they do say maggots keep wounds clean... One of the bastards was a right artiste with split bamboo. Like that bloke in the Errol Flynn movie. Liked to lay it on very precise." He shrugged. "After a couple of days, one of 'em got playful. With a rat. And my shoulder. Denny lost it. I still don't know why they didn't shoot him, 'cause he did some damage before they brought him down. But then they beat him three-quarters to death and left him to it. It took five days. At the end... he was broken. When he knew me, he was begging to die." Alan shuddered and his voice faltered. "He never begged in his whole life, but he begged me..." He stopped talking, abruptly, his breath
coming in deep gulps as he regained control.

"Alan—"

"A couple of days later they brought in half a company of Kiwis, and things eased up a bit. Two months later the camp was overrun and we got sent back to Oz. Happy endings..."

"Alan." This time Paul was reproving.

Alan shrugged slightly. "Happy enough. After hospital, they offered me a chance to cross-train into ground attack fighters and while I was there, JAC came around, I applied, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"Alan, look at me."

Reluctantly, he did. Even in the dim room his eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Buried in there had been the closest thing to a declaration Alan had yet managed to say, but this wasn't the time to worry about which words were used. Paul reached out and laid his hand gently on the side of Alan's face, stroking it gently with his thumb. "I am so sorry," he said.

The tears fell, and Paul pulled Alan into a tight, close hold.


D -14

"We need another player," Sandra said.

"How about Mike?" Alan suggested.

"Mike," she said, "has told me that he hates this game, he thinks it is childish and pointless. Which I believe to mean he never wins."

Alan laughed.

"We can play with four people," Tanya said. "It is better with five or six, but four is enough."

"Ah!" The petite Bornean sprang to her feet. "Just the person! Professor!"

The other three looked at each other. Bergman wasn't what they would have called 'just the person', but he came into the rec room in obediance to Sandra's call.

"Yes, Sandra?" he asked. "What can I do for you?"

"Professor," she said, "do you like to play Cluedo?"

"Oh, my," he said, his face lighting up. "I haven't played that game in, well, years. I should love to join you."

"Wonderful, Professor," said Tanya, bringing him a chair. "Paul is usually Professor Plum, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind being Mr. Green, instead."

"Please call me Victor," he said, "and, Paul, no, please. I was the youngest of four boys, and I always was Mrs. White when we played." His nimble fingers pulled the small white piece out of the box. "I used to win often; I shan't change my luck now."

"Right," said Alan. "Let's get set up then."

Bergman took a few moments to read over the rules while Sandra shuffled the cards and filled the envelope, but when they started, he played like a demon. Tanya won the first game (Colonel Mustard, in the Conservatory, with the Spanner), and it was early enough they started another.

As Alan set up the board for the next game, Tanya leaned in a little and asked, "Victor, do you think we will find another planet?"

He shrugged, his mobile features reflecting a mixture of doubt and enthusiasm. "Who can say, Tanya? The universe is a huge place, much bigger than we can begin to comprehend."

"We're not finding one anytime soon," Alan said. "I mean, even granting that whatever happened last week tossed us in the middle of a stellar cluster—"

"Ummm?" said Bergman.

"Space is big. From earth, at light speed it would have taken four years to reach Proxima, and we're not travelling anything like that fast."

"Well, that's true, of course," Bergman said, taking a quick glance around the table and apparently realizing that wasn't news to any of them. "It will doubtless be a long trip. But just think of all the things we'll see!"

"You sound like Alan," Paul said.

"Oh?" Bergman turned those bright eyes on him.

Alan shrugged. "I was merely quoting 'Ulysses' at him."

"Joyce? Or Tennyson?"

"Tennyson," said Alan.

"He wants to sail beyond the western stars," Paul said; a quick glance from Tanya made him review his tone and decide he'd better be more flip and less affectionate.

"Why western?" asked Sandra.

"In European myth—and Alan is European for this purpose—the West is the place where all the good things are, not the East," Bergman said. "But east or west—"

"Home is best," Paul capped the quote involuntarily.

"'Home'," said Tanya unexpectedly, "'is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'"

"'I should have called it something you somehow haven't to deserve'," said Sandra.

"Home is where you hang your hat," Alan contributed.

Bergman laughed, and, after a moment, the others did too.

"I suppose Alpha is home for us all, now," Sandra said.

"We could be in much worse places," nodded Bergman. "And in much worse company."

"Very true," Paul said, adding, in case he was giving himself away again, "even if one of us *is* a murderer."

"Oh, Paul," said Tanya. "It could be Mr. Green!"

D -3

Mike Ryan was up in one of the Eagles, holding his position where the asteroid had imploded. And Alan was as itchy as Paul had ever seen him. He hated someone else doing these things, Paul thought, but he personally was glad it wasn't Alan this time. Watching as that asteroid had been grabbed by an at-the-time-unidentified something, pulled into a new course, and shattered into dust had been disturbing; the thought of it happening to an Eagle was worse; the thought of it happening to Alan was unbearable. He spared a guilty moment's thought for Sandra—Ryan's being Meta probe backup crew had put their relationship on hold, but it was moving along nicely now, to judge by what little Sandra could be persuaded to say and what rather quite a lot Mike didn't mind 'sharing', as the Yanks said. Paul wondered if Mike would like it if he and Alan 'shared', but put that unprofitable thought away and turned his full attention back to the panel in front of him.

Mike's cheerfully American tones came over the speaker. "There's only one thing for me to do, Commander. I'll have to get in closer."

"Negative, Mike," Koenig said almost automatically.

"Sir," Mike protested, "all it has is a lot of gravity. With my screens on maximum I should be all aright. What's the problem?"

Paul looked at Koenig; he was indecisive. *Are all pilots insane*, Paul wondered desultorily, *or is it just astronauts?* Koenig was still hesitating.

"Alpha is headed right into this thing, Commander," Mike said. "We have to find out what it is."

The door opened and Paul glanced over to see Bergman enter, looking worried. He missed Koenig's decision, but apparently it was a go, as Mike—with that cheerful heterosexual assumption that all the world loves him in love—said, "Sandra? Don't go away, I'll be right back."

"I will be waiting," she said softly.

But Paul's eyes were caught on the readings in front of him and he stepped ruthlessly on the Precious Moment. "Commander, his anti-gravity screens: the needle's still in the red."

Alan chimed in, "Confirmed, Commander."

And Bergman called, "John!", his voice urgent.

"Abort, Mike! Abort," called the commander. "Pull out! You're heading right into it. Blast yourself out of there."

"Full...power," Mike's strained voice came over the speakers. "Full... Power."

"Get him out, Alan," ordered Koenig.

"He's accelerating. We can't hold him." Alan's voice was nearly calm.

The explosion was final. The loss of all telemetry merely confirmed it. As Koenig and Bergman, shaken, turned to go into the commander's office, Sandra fainted. Paul knelt by her, but he looked at Alan.

And that night he said, "Damn it, Alan. You can't blame yourself for Mike's death. Bergman—"

"Bergman hasn't got anything to do with it," Alan answered angrily.

"He didn't know it was a, what's he calling it, black sun until Mike was already too close."

"Yeah, if he'd figured it earlier we wouldn't have let Mike get that close. I know that. That's not the point."

"What is?" Paul asked; he thought he knew, but...

"Mike wasn't taking it seriously enough. You heard him; he was flirting with Sandra instead of watching his controls—"

"And that's your fault *how*?" Paul demanded. "He was an idiot, but you didn't tell him to be."

"But if I'd been up there, I'd have been paying attention."

"Yes, I expect you would have done. But Koenig told you to send someone. He didn't tell you to go."

"Paul—"

"Alan, you can't do it all, anymore than I can. I remember you telling me I had to ease off, let other people do their jobs. You do, too."

Alan stared at him, then turned abruptly to stare out the window.

Paul stayed where he was, sitting cross-legged on the bed. After a minute, he said, softly, "I know, I think, what's on your mind. But, honestly, you picked Mike because you thought he was the best man you had to pick. You sent him, and he died. But, Alan, listen to me: you didn't send him to die."

"He's still dead." That didn't sound as bleak as earlier.

"Yes. He is. But it's not your fault. You weren't there to tell him to pay attention. You didn't decide to send him closer."

"People keep dying on me," Alan said, so softly Paul almost couldn't hear him.

"And it's not your fault," Paul said intensely, "because you live. Being in command means this sort of thing happens—Koenig has to live with today, too." He took a deep breath and a chance. "Denny wasn't your fault." Alan stiffened, but Paul kept on going. "That gunner wasn't your fault. Your mother wasn't your fault. Sparkman and Warren weren't your fault. Whoever else, Astro-Five or whoever, they weren't your fault. And Mike's not your fault. You aren't God."

There was a long silence. Paul slid off the bed and came up behind Alan, taking gentle hold of his shoulders. For just a moment, the Australian resisted, then, with a sigh, he capitulated and leaned
back against the taller man. Paul wrapped his arms around him and laid his cheek on the dark blond hair; Alan reached up and put his hands on the arms that encircled him.

"I know you," Paul said after a few moments of standing there. "I know you well enough to know you'll never send someone into harm's way to keep yourself safe, much as I might sometimes prefer otherwise. You have to know that, too, Alan. It is not," he tightened his hold, "your fault."

"It's not that I want to die," said Alan, "especially not now."

"I know that, too."

"But..."

"It's your job, sometimes," Paul said. "I know that, too."

"Mighty knowing, aren't you?" Alan said, as if the conversation had gotten too serious to bear for another minute.

"I went to Oxford," Paul accepted the mood change. Only on television did you alter someone's whole worldview in thirty-five minutes. This might be only a start, but it was a good start. It was enough to be going on with.


D -2

The senior staff was gathered in the commander's office. Bergman and Koenig were still trying to deal with Mike's death. Alan had already moved on—and this time, thanks to Paul, he didn't think he'd revisit the issue in his dreams—and was more concerned with tomorrow than yesterday. He didn't seem to be the only one. Paul waited for a pause and pretended it was a full stop.

"But you think we can avoid it?" he asked.

Bergman launched into a full-bore lecture on black suns and their destructive gravitational fields. It sounded to Alan like a long, a very long, way of saying 'no', so he tuned it out and, safe in the
back rank, looked at Paul instead. The Englishman, standing there politely attentive, with one hand on a hip, hardly looked like the man who had, only a few hours ago, been driving Alan completely out of his mind... *What a way to go.* If he had to die, well, at least he had known Paul...

David Kano decided to add his two cents. "Its force is immeasurable," he said. "Even Computer can not determine it."

Alan looked at him, knowing he was perilously close to laughing out loud. David wasn't as worth looking at as Paul, even objectively, but one look at his lover's dark eyes and he *would* laugh, and that would offend the computer tech.

"But, Professor," Paul was relentless. "You didn't answer my question. Do you think we can avoid it?"

"I thought I did," Bergman said gently.

*Yeah*, thought Alan. *That was a 'no'.*

But it wasn't a death sentence. Bergman did have a plan: using the antigravity towers that stabilized Alpha at nearly one G, he planned to create a force field that would use the black sun's gravity against itself, sheilding Alpha as they passed through. Koenig had stripped all the Eagles of the engines to power the new force shield, and they'd have to scramble to get it fully operational...

David said, disbelievingly, "But... Computer will have to be deactivated for the force field!"

Alan didn't try to stop from snickering this time.

"Yes, well," said Bergman, "it can do with a rest."

"It's a long shot," said Koenig.

*A no-hoper, you mean*, thought Alan.

"But there's nothing else we can do."

*You got that right. Unfortunately.*

D -1

Alan held the hovering Eagle—the last one still operational—above the target and watched as Koenig and Bergman approached ground zero. He was shaking his head at the tactic—it hardly mattered if anyone was there; the commander thought it would improve morale if they survived
and he was probably right, but it was such grandstanding—when Paul's voice came over the primary channel.

"Commander, you've got a full house. We're all with you. Good luck."

"We're all set, Alan," Koenig said.

Alan smiled. "Commander, there's still time to change your mind." He'd hate to fry them.

"If we had any sense, we would," Koenig answered. "Make it good, Alan. Come in as low as you can."

"Well, hang onto your hats." Reflexively he closed his helmet and dove on the screen. At the last possibly moment he began firing and pulled up at the same time. The screen held. He could hear the celebrating over his headset, but he was staring into the black sun, and somehow he didn't feel like joining in.

* * * * *

Dr. Russell left Koenig's office, the set of her shoulders unhappy. Paul watched her go and wondered what was going on her between her and the commander, between them and the rest of Alpha. They had been three hours closeted together—well, as much as you could be in a room as big as that—but she didn't look happy.

And Koenig didn't sound happy, calling Paul to come in. He nodded to Tanya and walked up the three risers into the office. Koenig closed the doors behind him. "Yes, sir?" Paul asked.

"Paul," Koenig said, then paused. "The Bergman force field worked this morning, but the hard fact is, it's probably not going to save Alpha. It's a long shot, very long."

"Yes, sir." Paul had gathered as much from what Alan hadn't said at lunch.

"We still have the one Eagle flight-capable. I've decided to turn it into a survival ship."

"A survival ship, sir?" Paul asked, feeling a sudden hollow inside.

"Yes. Six or eight people, with as many supplies as we can cram into an Eagle—a couple of months' worth, if we're careful... if they're careful—they would be able to escape the black sun if they left in time."

"And go where, sir?"

"That I don't know. Somewhere. Anywhere would be a better chance of living than Alpha will realistically have."

Paul nodded, accepting it. "Which six, sir?"

"I haven't picked them. I don't know if any person could make that choice. I know you're not in IT, Paul, but you can program Computer for a database search, can't you?"

"Yes, sir." *Oh, God...*

"Good. We need Computer to select the best six people to carry on. I've started a list of qualifications... and we'll need three of each sex. Computer will have to sort through the personnel on Alpha, pick out the best six as a whole... And, Paul. No one else is to know
about this."

"Sir, if we're to provision an Eagle, Medical and Logistics will have to know."

"Doctors Russell and Mathias will be in charge of actually provisioning it. Send Mathias a couple of Logistics people who—" He paused.

"Won't ask questions," Paul supplied. "Yes, sir, I can do that."

"Good. No one else is to know," he repeated. "When I've finished with the qualifications, I'll want you to write me a query. We'll run it; Kano doesn't need to know, either. I want to keep this as quiet as we can for as long as we can, Paul. We don't need a panic, or people trying... Well."

*Trying to live.* "Yes, sir. I understand."

"Good... I think we'll be working through the night, Paul."

He managed a smile. "Well, sir, after tomorrow, we'll have all the off time we can handle, won't we?"

Koenig shook his head. "Yes, I suppose we will. Thank you, Paul."

He went back into Main Mission. Working through the night was the best thing about this situation, as far as he was concerned. No trying to keep this survival ship secret from Alan in a one-on-one situation, knowing that Alan would be going.

Knowing that Alan would be walking away.

And that he'd be in charge of making sure that Alan did.

D 0: Approach

"Six hours?" Koenig stared at him as though he had made a mistake. "I thought we had twelve."

Paul refrained from shrugging and answered, calmly, "Six. David said it was impossible to determine the amount of mass available to the black sun in this sector. Its gravitational force increases every minute, pulling us towards it faster than was originally calculated."

Koenig stared at the printouts. "We need more time to get the survival ship ready."

"Well, these figures may be the answer," Paul, quashing his emotions, handed over another printout. "With the force field activated, we might slow down enough to buy the time."

"Paul, I want to save power till the last possible moment." They were already running on low power; the outlying areas were shut down and dark, and it was beginning to get cold. It would get colder.

He was good at this part of his job: the inflexible bearer of bad tidings, the pointer-out of unpalatable truths. "It's either Alpha, sir, or the survival ship."

Koenig looked at him and then nodded, accepting it. "If we have to, we have to. Call Victor, Paul. If he's asleep, wake him and apologize, but tell him we must start the force field now."

Paul nodded. Bergman probably wasn't asleep, despite the time—four in the morning—any more than he, or Koenig, or most of the senior staff was. Bergman was old but he was tougher than he looked.

"And, Paul," the commander stood up. "Have you finished the database query?"

"Yes, sir. It's coded and ready to input."

"Good. Do it, please, and route the answer to my terminal, please."

"Yes, sir." Paul nodded and watched Koenig walk back into his office. He wondered if Koenig was wondering if he'd been as fair and unbiased in writing those qualifications as he was concerned himself about his own translating them into SQL, assuming that Computer's Query
Language could be called Standard. He was fairly certain that Kano, had he been consulted, would have told them no qualifications were necessary, that Computer could pick the best six simply from being told to pick six (*Christ, it even sounds like a state lottery*). But Koenig had painstakingly put in the human side, he'd called it, and almost certainly Dr. Russell would go, not Dr. Mathias...

Just as, almost certainly, Alan would go. *You'll never send someone into harm's way to keep yourself safe*: just a couple of days ago he'd said that. And now... *Ah, Christ, could things get worse?* Because Alan was the best pilot on Alpha. If the survival ship was to have its best chance, Alan had to go. And Paul was very glad about that, but... would Alan be?

*Damn it, Morrow; just do your bloody job.* He shook himself, blamed it on the late hour, and punched in the query, then called Bergman.

* * * * *

They had fixed the faulty gravity tower. They hoped. It had cost them time when it blew. It had nearly cost them Bergman, but the mechanical heart that confined him to Alpha had withstood the electrical discharge better than one of flesh and blood would have, and he was back on his feet, ready for the next attempt to start the force field. The last attempt. If if didn't work this time, they were out of time. All of them.

Paul looked over at the commander. "Twelve minutes to countdown, sir." *And an hour before we launch the survival ship. Which is still a bloody secret. Me and the doctors, Bergman... And even I haven't seen that list. Alan's got to be on it... he's *got* to...*

His thoughts were interrupted by Sandra handing Koenig a paper. "Reports from all service sections."

"Sandra," said Koenig. "About Mike—"

"Please, Commander. No need to say anything." That was a plea, in fact, that he didn't.

Koenig nodded. "Paul, tell Professor Bergman I want him here for the test."

Paul nodded, glancing sympathetically at Sandra.

And David said, "We have less than four hours before entering the black sun."

Sandra listened as Paul made the stand-by announcement for the final force field test. "Paul?" she asked quietly. "What if it does not work?"

"Then all our worries are over," Paul said, maintaining his image in spite of his churning stomach and screaming nerves. It earned him a quick smile.

Koenig said, "Kano, essential services program. Shut down."

For a moment, Paul thought David might refuse. But then he turned and hit the row of switches. Blackness overtook much of the room. "Computer on minimum capacity."

"Now we'll have to think for ourselves," said Koenig.

Even in the dimness by the mainframe Paul could see David wasn't amused. "Ten seconds," he said. "Full power, sir?"

"Everything we have, Paul."

"Five seconds... four... three... two... one... zero."

And the field came on. And this time, it held.

"Take over, Paul," Koenig turned to go to his office to, Paul fervently hoped, announce the survival ship crew.

"What about Computer?" David predictably asked.

"It remains on minimum capacity." Koenig started to turn again.

But it was too late. Paul winced as Alan entered Main Mission. He was clearly pissed off. "Commander, I gotta talk to you."

Koenig braced himself.

"What's this about a survival ship? Somebody going somewhere?" Alan's voice was hostile.

Koenig remained on the step up to his office, increasing his height advantage over the blond pilot. Paul could have told him, that tactic didn't work with the Aussie, even when he wasn't as angry as this. It just exposed your belly... "Somewhere," Koenig said. "Yes."

Alan took a step backward and looked at Paul. He couldn't meet Alan's eyes, couldn't bear them to be accusing him of the truth, of lying; he had to look away. Alan turned to David. "Did you know about this?" Receiving a headshake, he turned again. "You, Sandra?" She too shook her head; she too looked stunned and disbelieving. He didn't even ask Paul... well, he had. And gotten his answer. He turned to Koenig. "I didn't believe it," he said. "Eagle Five is nearly loaded and ready to go and I wasn't informed, Commander." And that was part of it, too; the Eagles were his babies, his turf as the Yanks put it. "None of us were." His gaze was unwavering as he said something probably nobody else on Alpha would have the sheer self-confidence to put into words. "I can't speak for the rest but I care about dying, *how* I die. Staying here on Alpha with everybody—I'd already accepted that. But now there's going to be six or seven lives on that ship—"

"Six," Koenig said, as unwavering.

"Well," said Alan, "I should be one of those six, Commander. Because if anyone can get them 'somewhere', I can."

The words hung in the air, but it was impossible to think of them as fear-bred. Even Koenig, Paul could tell, knew better than that. Koenig knew them for the accusation they were.

"You through, Alan?" Koenig asked.

Apparently he was. Silence held sway in the room. Then Koenig turned and resumed his twice-interrupted walk into his office. Paul looked at Alan again, and this time their eyes met. Paul almost staggered at the force of the emotion in the Australian's green gaze; he braced himself on the console and stared, drinking in the message there and barely listening to Koenig's explanation of why they were sending out the survival ship in the first place.

"Above us once again is the Bergman force field. But ahead of us is still the black sun. The realistic fact which faces us now is that the force field only offers us a slim hope that Alpha will survive beyond the next few hours. A few of us, however, have a chance to escape the black sun. I decided to reserve one Eagle as a survival ship."

*He decided, you Pommy idiot. Not you. I pushed him, he decided, you're out of it. Hear me, Morrow. Out of it...* Paul held on to that message, trying desperately to believe it was true.

"It's been fuelled and equipped with supplies to carry six persons—three men and three women. Perhaps this effort will prove a futile one but I believe it must be made. Departure time is 0800, forty-three minutes from now."

That did penetrate. He scribbled the time on his schedule sheet, adding in stages and constructing a time-line...

"I instructed Central Computer to select the people most likely, in every way, to ensure the survival of mankind in space."

Alan's eyes pulled at Paul again. *He instructed. If there was cheating, he did it.* Paul hoped that was true. Hoped he hadn't somehow overstated qualifications... clung to Alan's belief in his integrity.

"Here are the six names. The men: astronaut Alan Carter—"

Paul honestly couldn't tell how he felt. Numb. Dead already. But glad.

"Flight engineer George Osgood, communications controller Toshiro Fujita. The women: Doctor Helena Russell—" That might have been cheating on Koenig's part, Paul knew. Probably had been. "Data analyst Sandra Benes—" *Oh, good.* "Professor Angela Robinson. This list is final." Koenig cut the comm and walked away to stare out the window at the approaching black sun.

Paul, not taking his eyes off Alan, keyed in his own microphone. "Will the survival ship crew please report to Eagle Departure Area Two in twenty minutes, ready for departure?" Then he
keyed it off.

"Paul?" He turned to see Sandra staring at him. "Paul—I don't want to... can't someone else go in my place."

He put his hands on her shoulders. "You heard him, Sandra. The list is final."

Alan's hand grazed his elbow lightly. "I think I've got a preflight to run, Paul." Their eyes met over tiny Sandra's neat cap of black hair. Paul wished like hell he could hug him, or something... and then Alan was gone.

Paul picked up his timeline and stared at it with eyes that saw nothing at all.

* * * * *

Paul was drinking coffee, trying to warm his fingers on the cup when David came up and said, a little apologetically, "My figures show less than two hours."

Paul made up his mind. "Do me a favor, David? Mind the shop." He left before David could answer. What did it really matter at the moment?

Sandra, Professor Robinson, Osgood and Fujita were waiting in the travel tube to the departure lounge. Paul came in and sat next to Sandra; she looked at him gratefully. Nobody else had come... Paul realized that, not surprisingly, there was a certain amount of resentment that these people were going to get to live. And with only twenty minutes to assimilate it, there wasn't enough time to get over that... Dr. Russell showed up at last, Professor Bergman accompanying
her only as far as the door. As soon as she sat down the travel tube started.

At the other end, they filed off, Sandra and Paul last; Paul stopped in the exitway and Sandra paused, too. Alan was standing opposite them, in doorway of the Eagle, flight-suited and watching, one arm braced almost casually on the hatch. Sandra touched Paul's arm. "It was thoughtful of you to come, Paul," she said, making him feel both good and guilty at the same time... something Alan told him he was far too good at. "You didn't have to," she added.

"I wanted to," Paul said, making himself look at her and smile.

She started a smile but couldn't finish it, reached up and gave him a quick little one-armed hug, and then, head down, hurried aboard past Alan.

Who straightened and held Paul's eyes with his own for several long seconds. "I'll send you a post card," he said finally.

Paul tried to smile and gave him a thumb's up.

And then Alan was gone. Again.

Paul made his solitary way back to Main Mission. Once there he ignored all the looks and took up his position. "Alan," he said, pleased to hear how steady his voice was. "One minute to lift off."

"Right," said Alan, professionally impersonal.

Paul watched the seconds drift by, each one taking an eternity. "Fifteen seconds," he said, and then, "Alan. Good luck."

"And to you," Alan said intensely before backing off and adding, "All of you."

And then he was gone. Yet again. This time for ever.

Ninety minutes later Paul took another turn around the dark and deserted Main Mission. Despite his space suit and the thick fisherman's sweater he was wearing, it was cold. He was cold. But he
thought he'd have been cold if they'd been in the Sahara.

The door opened from the Commander's office and he and Professor Bergman came out. Paul gathered the remnants of his professional self together and said, "Central Computer's deactivated itself. One hundred percent of power facilities are feeding the main generator units. The force field is functioning—"

"Paul." Koenig interrupted, with an odd smile on his face—why not, in the face of such outrageously stereotypical English stiff-upper-lip-and-carry-on idiocy? He'd have laughed at it himself, and Alan would have been rolling on the floor. *God. Alan...* The commander said, "Thank you. But there's really nothing more you can do. You're relieved."

"Very good, sir," he said instead of pleading to stay where he could occupy himself with something. He started to leave, then, moved by an obscure impulse, turned and said, "Well, I never thought it would end this way."

He walked slowly through the corridors to his quarters. He'd almost gone to Alan's, but he'd decided he wouldn't be able to bear that. Besides, though he wanted to be left alone, he didn't want to actually *be* alone. He supposed that was a human thing, not wanting to die alone. He walked past the rec rooms; most of them were full of people playing some sort of game to distract themselves. A very serious poker game involving Smitty and some other tech types with stakes in the thousands; David Kano and Ranjit Singh taking each other on for the last time at chess; a trilingual Scrabble game among four astrophysicists; a cut-throat Yahtzee game... If Sandra had been there, she'd have organized Cluedo. He blinked back tears.

He went into his own quarters. After a moment he decided to leave the door open; he didn't particularly want visitors, but the contact, just the sound of others, would stop him from doing anything like breaking down. He couldn't do that. He wanted to. He wanted to shut the door and cry, but he couldn't. It wasn't done... and Morrows don't do what isn't done. Not usually, anyway.

He snorted to himself and pulled out his guitar. That was the thing, something complicated, Baroque, requiring concentration. He began playing at random, but then his fingers settled into Scarlatti. And yes, it was sort of cheating to play lute on guitar, but so what. And the transcription was certainly complicated enough to occupy much of his mind. The rest of it was, of course, thinking about Alan. *God, let him live.* He closed his eyes, playing by rote, and remembered the past month. Only a month. All of a lifetime...

"Paul?"

He looked up. Tanya was standing in the door, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Mind if I share the music?" she asked shyly.

He shook his head. She came in and sat on the foot of his bed, listening. They didn't speak, only kept each other silent company. He didn't know what she was thinking. His thoughts were simple:

*Alan. Be safe, soldier mine. Please...*

* * * * *

Alan headed the Eagle away from the black sun at full speed. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was his job. His duty. And the five other people on board were depending on him to do it.

He just wished he'd actually ever gotten the words "I love you" said out loud to Paul before he'd left.

*Bloody hell.* He'd thought, once, that nothing could have been worse than feeling Denny's life slip away between his fingers, watching the last bit of awareness fade from those beautiful grey eyes. But this was worse. Leaving Paul behind to die. Not being there when he did.

"Got any idea where you're going, Carter?" Osgood, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, asked.

"Away."

"Well, yeah, but—"

"We're not going *to* anywhere," Alan relented. "We're running, mate. As hard and as fast and as straight-line as we can, away from that thing. We need to put a hell of a lot of distance between us and it before we start thinking about a destination."

"Well, sure. But do you have one in mind?"

"Look, George, I found out about this whole thing a couple of minutes before you did. No, I don't. Maybe the professor has some notion. When we get to a stopping place, we'll talk about it. Okay?"

Osgood subsided.

For a moment, Alan wondered if he'd left anyone behind on Alpha. But he couldn't make himself care. Not yet. At the moment, thinking about Alpha, on anybody's behalf, was too dangerous. All he could think about was flying.

Nothing else.

Just heading and speed.

No one else.

Just his passengers; his crew; his responsibility.

And not what time it was. Not the minutes clicking down, Alpha's existence running out like...

Nothing. No thoughts at all. Just actions. Just hand on the yoke, eyes flicking between gauge and control panel and starfield.

The universe in a pair of dark eyes...

*Paul. I love you. I'm so bloody sorry...*

Just fly.

D ?: Passage

The guitar faded in his hands, though he could feel it still, hear it still. He looked up; Tanya was fading, too. He was fading—he could see the walls, the bed through their figures. The cold was gone... then he was alone in a place of shimmering light and sound. It was what Bach would be if you could see it, what the stars might be if you could hear them. A presence, immense and warm and so alive... "Alan? Alan?"

*He is not here.* A woman's voice, full of love, near and yet distant.

"Where is he?" Paul turned, seeking the speaker and seeing no one. "Who are you?"

*I cannot say; I do not find my name in you.*

Paul paused by a crystalline spraying of music. "Am I dying?"

*No.*

"Alan? Is he dying? Whoever you are, can you save him?"

*He is not here.*

"I know that! Where is he?" The music and the starlight shivered fell back into their proper forms. "Wait! Where are you? Wait..." But he knew it was too late, and when he opened his eyes, he was back in his room, the experience and its memory fading like a dream, and Tanya was there, and in the hallway people were laughing.

They had come through. They had lived.

And they had sent the others away.

* * * * *

The control panel in front of him began to vanish; stars showed through it as if it were made of fine cloth. His hands, too, thinned; he couldn't feel the yoke any more, or the seat, or the suit. He
turned to look at Osgood, riding in the copilot's seat, and the man was staring at him as though he were seeing a ghost, but it was Osgood fading. The Eagle fading... He was floating, without a body, amid the stars, and he could hear the heartbeat of the universe. And then, between one pulse and the next—

for a moment—or an eternity, he couldn't tell; Time seemed to have no existence—he could hear the others, hear or feel or sense somehow Osgood, fear running like a hamster on a wheel through his mind Fujita, stillness like a raked sand garden, acceptance laid over everything Sandra, a deep pool of grief Russell, sorrow and longing and an unexpected corruscation of hope Robinson, elegantly precise equations drifting across her mind, the mathematics of the cosmos, of destruction and rebirth and awe and he heard a guitar playing something not-quite-familiar, complicated and almost joyful, and his name called, and then *There is the way*. A voice like the night wind in the mountains, like his mother, like the call of the unknown.

"The way to what?" he asked, turning though he seemed to have no body to turn, and looking with eyes that didn't exist at a ribbon of moonlight across an ocean that wasn't there.

*He is there. *

"Paul?" he asked, reaching out to touch the pathway and feeling it flow around his fingers like warm water.

*He is there.*

He was back in the Eagle, the stars fading or the Eagle gaining solidity, and one last time he heard the voice, *There is the way.*

And then they were back in normal space, and Osgood was grabbing his arm and asking, "Carter? For the love of God, man, what just happened?"

And out the window ran a ribbon of light, like the path of the moon across the sea.

D 0: Journey Home

Osgood took a seat behind Fujita and Robinson while Alan leaned against the bulkhead separating the passenger module from the cockpit. Out the side window he could see the translucent lane stretching through the starfield.

"What do we do now?" Russell asked.

"Look, what just happened," Alan began.

"What did just happen?" she echoed, and she, and all of them, had a look in their eyes that he probably had himself.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "But it wasn't, well, usual. And I think the black sun must have caused it."

"Why?" Osgood demanded. "We weren't going towards it? We were going away from it, weren't we?"

"Occam," Robinson said. "Why complicate it? Not that it matters at the moment."

"Right," Alan agreed. "The point is, here we are. And it's not where we were. There's no black sun over there, for one thing. There's a planetary nebula instead. And the stars are all wrong."

"So?"

"So, we should go that way," Alan pointed at the glowing path.

"Why that way?" Osgood's response cinched it; nobody else could see it. "Why not toward that sun over there?"

"We've got no reason to think there's a planet there that can sustain life," Alan said, trying to be as convincing as he could. "And let's face it—the six of us aren't really going to start the human race over."

"Two did it once," Russell said quietly.

"A fable," Fujita said. "Carter's right. Though I don't see why any direction is better."

"Because," Alan said carefully, "if we came through that, an unshielded Eagle, and survived, then Alpha certainly survived. And Alpha lies that way."

"If our relative positions are the same?" asked Robinson.

"Yeah. I feel it."

"Feel?" said Osgood.

"That's why he's here," Sandra said. "He's the pilot." Her dark eyes rested on him speculatively. "If he is sure..."

"I am."

"Then we should listen to him."

Aland glanced out the window again. The path was fading a little bit.

"What are you looking at?" Russell rose, peering out past Sandra.

"The way," Alan said, and then more certainly, "the way to Alpha."

"Alpha?"

"Yeah. Look—I dunno what happened to us—"

"None of us do," Russell said.

"But we aren't where we were. Nothing's right. We don't know where we are—"

"You mean you don't," Osgood said. "Maybe the professor does."

All eyes went to Robinson. She looked back at them calmly, the green light from the nebula glowing on her near-black skin. "I have no idea," she said. "I can recognize none of these stars. As far as I can tell we could arbitrarily assign a galactic direction to each of us—right, left, up, down, forward, back—and play rock-paper-scissors till only one remains, and that would be as good a way to determine which way to go as any other. Captain Carter has an idea. If all you
dislike about it is that it's intuitive," she shrugged. "I vote with him, if we are voting; if we are not, he is the pilot, isn't he?"

"I am with Alan," said Sandra.

Dr. Russell looked at him,her blue eyes questioning.

"I'm sure," Alan said.

She nodded. "That's a good enough for me. Fujita?"

He nodded once. "Any way is the same to me. I have no way to make a decision."

Osgood shrugged. "Okay. Fine. Let's go."

* * * * *

Osgood had gone to the passenger module to sleep. They were all sleeping, Alan thought, holding the Eagle on course above the path that stretched out before him. At a moment when it seemed to run straight enough—rather, when it didn't take the Eagle somewhere it might be pulled off by spatial perturbations of one sort or another, for the path seemed to ignore gravity altogether—that he could leave it for a moment, he'd put his head in back and checked on them. They'd all been sleeping then, even, finally, Sandra.

Now he stretched, edged the temperature down a degree to help himself stay awake, and wondered if he'd lost his mind. He didn't think he had; didn't they say if you asked that, you hadn't? They'd flown a lot longer already than he'd thought they should have if, as Robinson
had said, their position relative to Alpha had stayed the same. But it hadn't taken him much thought to figure why: the black sun had been causing Alpha to accelerate toward it more every minute. With the figures, he might have done the math; as it was, he reckoned that towards the end the moon had been moving so fast it might take them days to catch it. That wasn't a real problem; they had supplies for weeks, after all. And Russell could give him some amphetamines,
something to keep him awake, if need be.

The funny thing was, how little he questioned their eventual arrival. Alpha's ultimate safety. The proverbial happy ending. That was the oddity: Alan Carter accepting a happy ending. But there was no doubt in him at all. The Voice had left him no room for doubt. So maybe he was mad, after all. Hearing voices... seeing things.

Maybe. He banked the Eagle slightly to the right, pulling against something that wanted to shift him off course. Gravity was the old familiar enemy, the comfortable one whose tricks you knew and could use to your advantage. The enemy who always played fair, never changing the rules on you. There had been a time or two in his life when Alan had thought about surrendering, letting go, spiralling into oblivion on the inevitable curve of physics. He never had. And now he was surrendered to something non-physical, in every way.

Well... he smiled to himself, remembering Paul's very physical reality. But that beloved body wasn't as important as the soul it housed, or the love that lay between them like... like this path of
not-quite moonlight. His body might be subject to gravity, but his spirit was subject only to that soul.

And if this was insanity, then so be it.

"Alan?" The soft voice came from the entranceway behind him. "Do you mind if I keep you company a while? Or, rather, if you keep me company?"

"Of course not, Sandra," he said.

She settled into the vacant co-pilot's chair like a cat, drawing her feet up underneath her and looking out the window before them. After a while she said, "Will we get back to Alpha?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm sure of it."

"I can see you are," she said. "You can truly see the way, out there, can't you?"

"Yeah," he said again. "I can. Clear as day."

"How?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Did you," Dr. Russell's voice came from behind him; as she paused he looked over his shoulder to see her standing in the entranceway. She came into the cockpit and leaned up against the co-pilot's seat. "Did you, either of you... hear or see anything while we were..." she shrugged slightly, a woman who couldn't find the words she wanted and was irritated at her failure, "wherever we were?"

"I did not," said Sandra. "But I think, somehow, that there were things there to see and hear."

"Did you?" Alan asked.

"I heard chimes," Russell said, her voice low. "Like a carillon from a church, far away. I saw lights and drifting clouds. I felt safe. Warm."

Alan made another course correction.

"What do you see, Alan?" Russell asked. "What did you hear?"

"I see the way," he said, looking out over it. "I touched it. It was as real as anything I've ever felt. And something, or Somebody, told me 'there's the way'." He shrugged. "I dunno what happened back there, but I know where I'm going."

"I know where I'm going, and I know who's going with me," Helena sang softly, then broke off, embarrassed. "Oh, Sandra, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Sandra said. "I know who I love and my dear knows who I'll marry... It's a lovely song."

"It is, but I don't know why I thought of it."

Sandra looked at Alan, but all she said was, "This day has been unusual."

Russell laughed. "That's an understatement, I'd say. And that's actually why I came. You should sleep, Alan."

He shook his head. "No. I can go on quite a while, and nobody else can fly. If I sleep, we lose time, maybe get lost. I'm fine, Doc. Really."

She gave him a long, clinical stare, then nodded. "All right. For now. Sandra, you should sleep, though."

"I've been asleep," she said. "I, too, am fine. I would like to stay here a while, with Alan."

"What good is it being the doctor if nobody will listen?" Russell complained, but she went away and left them alone.

"They will be waiting for us, won't they?"

"I dunno," he said. "But we'll catch 'em up, don't worry."

She smiled slightly. "I will be glad to see them. To see Paul... and he will be glad to see us. To see you."

"Yeah," he said, not caring how or when she'd guessed.

"I'm glad for you," she said. "You both."

"Thanks."

Sandra resumed watching the stars, and Alan flew. And the path ran before them, leading them home.

* * * * *
D +1: Afterwards

"No sign of the survival ship," Koenig said for the hundredth time. Today.

Paul wished the commander would let it go. They'd survived, against all the odds. But the Eagle was gone. It was, if Bergman was right, on the other side of the Universe. If he wasn't, it was still a very long way away. They were alive, Alan and Sandra and Dr. Russell and the others, and that was enough. This constant harping on whether the mysterious voice, the entity in the black sun, if there *had* been one in the first place, would reunite them with their lost ones... it was going to drive Paul mad.

"So much for your fancy theories of cosmic intelligence," Koenig said to Bergman, sounding as if he'd finally decided to give up.

Bergman said, "Well, I knew it was impossible."

In the silence that followed, Paul thought, *then why the hell did you keep on about it for so damned long?* And then the quality of the silence caught him, even in his pain, and he looked at Koenig. The commander was staring out the main window. Paul turned to look.

"Was it?" Koenig whispered.

Eagle Five was dropping neatly through the black of the lunar sky.

Something broke inside Paul. He dropped the clipboard he was holding, feeling like he hadn't felt since he was six and still believed in Father Christmas and had found the pony at the end of the golden cord tied to his bed... "They're coming back!" someone shouted, and he realized it was him.

Then the whole Main Mission erupted in cheers, and the staff headed for the Eagle Lounge. Paul hesitated a moment, seeing the commander just standing there. He recognized the emotion on the dark face: it would have been on his if he'd dared. "Commander," he urged. "Come on."

Koenig started, then smiled broadly and followed him.

Paul looked at Alan, cornered by Bergman and Koenig, and he smiled, covering it by putting his hands on Sandra's shoulders and hugging her. But he was listening to the other three.

"It's impossible," Koenig was insisting. "You must have followed us into the black sun."

Alan shook his head, smiling. "We went in the opposite direction," he said again, not insistent himself, just certain.

Bergman said, "You must have followed us."

Dr. Russell, at Koenig's elbow, agreed with Alan. "We didn't."

Paul couldn't keep quiet. "We went right through it," he said, ostensibly to Sandra, but over her head he was talking to Alan, the man who wanted to see the new things. "It was fantastic."

Alan smiled at him.

Koenig was insistently talking to him. "But how? If you didn't follow us through, how did you find Alpha again?" Alan, still smiling at Paul, reluctantly turned his gaze to the commander. "A million light years," Koenig finished.

"Right across the universe," Bergman said in tones of hushed wonder.

Alan looked from one them to the other, then, in his most practical voice, said, "Well, I'm an astronaut, professor, not a philosopher."

"Something brought us home," said Dr. Russell.

Alan was looking at Paul again as Koenig echoed her, "Yes. Home."

* * * * *

The minute the door shut behind him Paul flung himself on Alan, knocking the commlock unheeded to the floor. He wrapped his arms around the lean Australian who was his universe and held him tightly until his trembling ceased, and then their mouths met and for what seemed as long a time as the passage through the black sun they knew nothing but each other.

"God, Alan," Paul said finally. "God. You came back."

"I said I would," Alan said.

"How?"

"Y'know," Alan was a bit embarrassed. "I asked the others if they heard anything while we were inside that thing. Dr. Russell thought she heard something, like chimes she said. The others—nothing."

"You heard something?" Paul had pulled away far enough to look into Alan's eyes.

"There was a voice," Alan said flatly, then his tone softened with wonder. "A woman's voice. She kept repeating, 'There is the way. He is there.' And there was a shining path... It was like flying an
airplane over the ocean, keeping on the moonlight on the water. Like the moon's path across the universe.... And the voice..." he stopped, out of words.

"The commander and Bergman heard it, too," said Paul. "Bergman thinks it was the Mind of the Universe."

"Whatever," Alan shrugged, reverting to normal. "Like I told the professor, I'm no bloody philosopher."

"No," Paul agreed, then laughed and pulled the other man close, feeling his arms come around him to hold on just as tight. "No, thank God, you're not. You're a pilot. And you flew home from one side of the black sun to the other—one side of the universe, they're saying, to the other."

"Home?" Alan asked, his breath warm against Paul's throat, that he'd thought would never be warm again. "Like the commander was saying, you mean? Alpha?"

"Well—"

"No." Alan shook his head under Paul's hand. "You, Paul. I flew back to you. Either side's the same to me if you're there. I am not leaving you again."

"Alan—"

"You hardheaded Pommy bastard," Alan said, "*will* you listen to me? I love you." Paul's hold tightened at the words. "I love you."

"Oh, god, Alan." Paul almost sobbed that, and Alan's hand pulled his head down for a kiss.

And then their hands were frantic on each other's body, pulling clothes off and making sure of each other. They fell onto the bed, need to affirm life driving them, and nothing at all was real but
each other.

Paul collapsed trembling on Alan's body, trying to cover him with his own. The blond wrapped his arms around him, holding on as tightly. "Ummm," he said softly. "I've been waiting for that."

"I came straightway," Paul said.

"Straightway after taking Sandra home."

Paul couldn't decipher the tone. Surely Alan knew that was because, well partly because she was alone and partly because he couldn't do what he'd wanted to, couldn't grab Alan in front of God and everybody and hugging Sandra was a poor second but if she was real, substantial and there, then Alan was too... He couldn't think of anything to say, but then he didn't have to, as Alan hugged him again and said,

"Oh, come on, Paul. I'm well aware of the fact that there's nothing between you and Sandra. I'm not jealous of her. Or you... But I'm also aware that it was her you hugged and her you talked to, and her you walked back to her quarters after the party."

"Alan—" Paul started, trying to find the words to reassure him.

Alan laughed at him. Paul didn't mind, though he didn't understand. After the past two days, the sound of Alan's laughter was the single sweetest sound he could hear. He wanted to hear it for the rest of his life, even if he didn't always know just what he'd done to call it up. "Paul, relax, man. You're here now, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about you."

"Stop that," Alan said. "You've got that Labrador face again. You worry too much."

"It's an occupational hazard," Paul admitted.

"S'pose so... But this isn't your job, chook." He ran his hand through Paul's hair.

*God*, Paul thought. *I almost never heard that again...* He shivered.

Alan pulled him closer, drawing the blanket up. "Still cold?"

"No," Paul nestled up to him. "Nice and toasty, thank you... Just still a little, I don't know, disbelieving."

"I'm back. I'm not going anywhere again."

"Alan."

"I mean it. I'm not going off again. If I have to break my ass teaching somebody else to fly, I will."

"I'd rather you didn't," Paul couldn't help murmuring. "I like it in one piece."

"Galah," Alan said fondly and Paul burrowed closer. "All I meant about Sandra was, I want to tell everyone."

"You'll lose your job," Paul said, without thinking, an automatic response.

Alan laughed. "Oh, Paul, did you even listen to yourself just then? Lose my job? You think Koenig's going to fire me?"

"Oh..." Paul knew he was blushing. "Well, right..."

"And even if I thought there was a donkey's chance of my ever seeing Oz again—which you must admit is bloody unlikely, mate—I'd still want to. After all, aren't you blokes hiring?"

"What?" Paul said giddily. "You—a Pom?"

"Hey," Alan growled. "Watch your mouth."

Paul raised his head and kissed him, languorously and deeply.

"Better yet," Alan whispered against his throat when he could, "let me."

"Forever," Paul said.

*the end*