Andy's Fan-Fiction Archive

KAMIKAZE
By
Jayel

Timeline: Trying to cure Devon
Author's E-Mail: mlifsey@sunbelt.net

A NOTE FROM THE WRITER: When the television series Earth 2 ended so abruptly, I felt cheated--how could they hook me so completely into these people's lives, work their way so deeply into a fascinating narrative, and then just leave it unfinished, with no explanations and no resolutions? Then when a friend put me on-line, I discovered that I was far from alone in my feelings--you guys were pissed off, too, and doing a bang-up job of creating your own resolutions while demanding an explanation from the network, the production company, and anybody else you could find. So when all of the details that kept rolling around in my head as I watched and re-watched my videotapes of the original episodes started to come together into a possible way of going on from where they left us, I wanted to share it with you and see what you thought. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed their comments--I hope I answered everybody. And I hope no one who liked "Kamikaze" up to a point is disappointed in the way it came out. If you are, tell me; I can take it. (Naturally, any positive comments are more than welcome as well.)
Anyway, thanks (especially to Frank!). I hope my stuff helped you guys through the drought as well as everyone else's stuff has helped me.
Jayel

Kamikaze, Part 1
by Jayel

I've always hated the name Valentine. It's a shame I'll have to use it for my first-born.
We had been crossing the grasslands for two days more than a week, making it exactly ten days since we had left Devon Adair behind, sealed in a cold-sleep capsule on a death-ship from another time. We were all still bothering to remark on at least an hourly basis that as soon as we knew what was wrong, as soon as Alonzo heard something from the Terrians or Yale had some sort of breakthrough in his analysis of his cybernetic connection to EVE, we would be going back for her. We said these things as much for ourselves as for Ulysses, her son, who still seemed to believe us. In fact, the confidence Uly showed in all of us, the trust he bestowed so unreservedly on every adult left in the Eden Project that we would find a way, was heartbreaking, especially for me. I was his doctor; I knew him inside and out, and it had been my job, my duty, my destiny to save his mother. And I hadn't.
But perhaps I take too much on myself again when I say I felt worse about losing Devon than anyone else did. Medically speaking, John Danziger was as sturdy as ever; indeed, the man's capacity to bounce back from every kind of physical trauma never ceased to astound me. But speaking as his friend and yes, I suppose as a woman, I had to admit that emotionally he was a wreck. Alonzo and I had often speculated on how John's relationship with Devon had evolved and what it might eventually become, but even we were surprised to see the change in him. The ironic humor I had been so quick to call sarcasm and the raw courage we had all labelled good old-fashioned foolhardiness were gone now, replaced by an almost fanatical sense of purpose. The Eden Project was going to make it to New Pacifica if John had to drag us behind the transrover like so much unwilling cattle. And his devotion to True and Uly, always remarkable, had become fanatical as well. As Magus expressed it, he "watched over those kids like a hen with two eggs." Alonzo and I agreed that Devon must have gotten a sworn promise out of him to take care of all of us and make sure we made it. I just worried that soon we'd need someone to take care of him.
Morgan, Wolman and I were in the rail, scouting ahead of the main caravan for a place to camp for the night. Our water supply was getting low, and we had detected the possibility of a freshwater lake in the area. We were all on gear--that was one of the more amusing aspects of the new Danziger regime; no one left the main group without being and staying on gear. So we all began receiving the signal at the same time.
"Are you guys hearing this?" Morgan said, his eyes so wide that if I hadn't seen him panic a thousand times already I might have been afraid they'd fall out. "Music . . . old jazz . . . "
"Speakeasy," Wolman interrupted with a cautious grin. "Don't you see it?"
I flipped the second eye-piece of my gear into place and saw immediately what he meant. The rail morphed into what looked to my untutored eye like a very early model Rolls Royce parked under a rain-obscured streetlight. The music Morgan was talking about was wafting through the open basement windows of a disreputable-looking building across the street along with a smoky yellow light. As we watched in stunned amazement, a couple dressed to the nines of 1920s evening fashion came laughing around the corner and were admitted through a dimlylit door a few greasy concrete steps down from street level. "Who's projecting this?" I asked, knowing I should remove my gear for a closer look but loathe to lose the image. "Do you think it's EVE?"
"I think that's a definite possibility," Morgan said. I looked over at him and almost laughed, he looked so perfectly at home in a pin-striped, double-breasted gangster suit. "I think we should get out--" Then he disappeared, zipped out. Obviously he had taken off his gear.
"If it is EVE, she's already found us," Wolman pointed out as he climbed from behind the wheel. "We may as well have a look around."
Prudence dictated that I agree with Morgan, but neither prudence nor Morgan could have been called one of my favorite concepts. "I agree," I answered, stepping out onto the rainy sidewalk. "And by the way, nice suit."
Wolman looked down at himself, then grinned. "Why thank you, Doc," he replied. "And I may I say you're looking rather spiffy yourself."
I looked down and couldn't help but laugh. I had heard enough about flappers to recognize one, but I had certainly never expected to *be* one, even in VR. After so many months in sensible hiking gear, a beaded dress and pearls was rather exhilarating, and I found myself wondering how Alonzo would look in one of these old-fashioned three-piece suits.
"You guys are insane," Morgan snapped, zipping in again under the streetlight. "There's a hollow with a lot of dark, scary-looking trees right there where that so-called 'speakeasy' should be. We have no idea what's in there, and I for one don't want to be one of the first ones to find out."
Wolman raised his rifle, now transformed into a tommy gun. "I figure this still works," he said. "If you don't want to come inside, stay here in the car and listen to the radio." He turned and started toward the steps.
"Really, Morgan, I'm sure it's all right," I lied. "Why don't you wait here? We'll be back in five minutes, I promise."
By the time I caught up with Wolman, he had already knocked on the door. A slit-shaped panel slid back, and a pair of beady eyes right out of a *film noir* regarded us with patent suspicion for a long moment before ushering us inside.
The room was packed with happy, drunken people, all celebrating madly in a cavernous room that fairly glowed with opulence in spite of the seedy-looking exterior and a cloud of tobacco smoke that would have choked us if it had been real. A fair-sized orchestra was pouring a slow rendition of "Honeysuckle Rose" across the dance floor like bourbon-flavored syrup.
"Look there," Wolman said, pointing to the center of the dancers. "He looks pretty real, doesn't he?"
One of the couples did look a little more substantial than the rest, a little more "there." He was very tall, almost as tall as Danziger, and powerfully built, but he seemed as light on his feet as an Astaire, twirling his partner through the dancers. "They both look . . ," I began, taking a step toward the stairs that led down to the dance floor.
"No way that's a real woman," Wolman disagreed. "Look at those eyes."
The woman in question had looked up in our direction, and indeed, she did have extraordinarily lovely eyes, so blue they seemed violet. These widened perceptibly when she saw us, and she seemed to shake her partner out of his reverie. "Son of a bitch, Val," she said with a laugh, reaching for the glittering band she wore around her hair. "They're here."
Suddenly the club melted from around all of us, leaving me, Wolman, and these two strangers standing in a cool grove of trees next to the lake we'd set out to find. In the real world, the man was dressed . . . well, like Alonzo, actually, in what I had always mentally called "fly-boy clothes," and the woman was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of ordinary work pants cut off well above the knee--so well above, in fact, that I considered offering Wolman a snout full of oxygen. Behind them was a log shelter that had been there long enough to weather gray and to my right was some sort of transport unlike anything I had ever seen, resembling nothing so much as a child's toy rocket.
"You walk away from that perimeter surveillance monitor for five minutes and look what happens," the man, Val, said in a drawl as thick as Texas chili. He took a couple of steps toward us, and Wolman raised his rifle. "Hey, man, don't shoot me," he protested, raising his hands. "We're just here to help. You're from the Eden Project, right?"
"What do you know about the Eden Project?" I asked, putting a hand on Wolman's arm.
"Not much," Val admitted amiably. "Just that you supposedly blew up on take-off, except we knew my old friend, Alonzo Solace, had already taken something real big and bulky out about eight hours before this phantom explosion supposedly took place."
"I'm Tara Donohoe, and this is my husband, Valentine, Val," the woman explained, flashing Wolman a dazzling smile that went a long way toward lowering the barrel of his rifle. "He's right; we're friends of Alonzo's, sleep jumpers. I happened to be ferrying a big freighter out of that dock when you guys left. You went out the hole they had opened up for me, actually. I knew Alonzo was on the wheel of that ship, so I called in to find out what was going on. Control told me I had been bumped back a slot, so I didn't really think anything about it."
"Until the next morning when the news came on that you guys took off on schedule and ended up toast," Val finished. "Then we knew something was up, something big. The Council doesn't bother to fake news unless they think it's absolutely necessary. Too many things can go wrong; too many people have access to the feeds."
"Yeah, great, but how did you get here?" Morgan demanded, scrambling down the hill to plant himself stalwartly to the rear of me and Wolman.
"Look, we're perfectly willing to explain all about us," Tara said impatiently. "Just tell us this--is Alonzo okay? You do know him, right? You are Eden Project, not convicts?"
"Yes, we are," I said, going past Wolman to meet them. "And Alonzo is fine. But you have to understand, we've been through a great deal, and it's made us rather suspicious of strangers."
"No kidding," Val muttered, shaking his head.
"We've seen some pretty weird stuff, too," Tara said, shooting him a look that fell somewhere between a warning and a caress. "You asked how we got here . . . we came in that." She pointed to the transport. "Actually, we probably arrived about four years before you did."
"That's impossible," Wolman scoffed.
"Impossible for you, oh my aggressive *compadre*," Val interjected with an exaggerated bow that looked to me like the first harbinger of a major temper. "But nothing is impossible for Renaldi's rocket."
"Hey, look," Tara interrupted, pointing behind us. "Looks like the cavalry is here."
Standing at the top of the ridge were Danziger, Alonzo, Baines and Magus, and we could hear at least one other vehicle behind them. "What's going on down there?" Danziger called. "You guys okay?"
"We're fine," I called back. "Hey, Solace, I think we found some friends of yours."
Alonzo raised his binoculars and waved to me. Then he suddenly just dropped them, and his rifle, and everything else he was carrying and came running down the hill, past all of us, and scooped Tara up in his arms. "I'm dreaming," he said, swinging her around and around. "I have to be dreaming . . . "
"You don't dream, remember?" Val teased, clapping him on the back. "I'll thank you to unhand my wife, sir."
I couldn't have said it better myself. If anyone had asked me before we landed on this planet if I would ever feel jealousy, I would have told them that wasn't possible. And even the day before I would have considered it highly unlikely- -my feelings for Alonzo were not possessive, or so I thought. But watching him hold this other woman, this pretty other woman, so tight and be so happy to do so was almost more than I could bear in silence. "So you all do know each other," I ventured."
Alonzo turned back to me with such a genuinely happy grin that I couldn't do anything but smile back at him. "Forever," he said, taking my hand and drawing me into the group.
"Come on, not quite as long as all that," Tara protested, winking at me. "I thought she looked like your type."
Alonzo blushed, but his hand squeezed mine. "This is Dr. Julia Heller," he informed them. "And yes, she is my type, actually."
"Unbelievable," Val groaned playfully. "A woman in every port, even the ones that aren't supposed to be inhabited."
"A good pilot always brings along all necessary supplies," Tara said, giving him an affectionate poke. "Why don't you guys take us up there to meet your friends? Something tells me we've got a lot of catching up to do."

Kamikaze, Part 2
by Jayel

Tara and Val repeated what they had already told us for the benefit of the rest of the group while we set up camp in the grove next to the lake. Then most of the adults settled in a circle on the sandy strip of beach to hear the rest of the story while the kids played at the edge of the water. "So what exactly is Renaldi's rocket?" I asked Val.
"Renaldi?" Alonzo interrupted. "You guys actually went to Renaldi?"
"We didn't have a whole lot of choice," Val admitted. "We had to get out of there."
"Renaldi is--or was, I guess, now, an aerospace engineer," Tara explained to me.
"An insane aerospace engineer," Alonzo elaborated. "The Council fired him and revoked his license about twenty years before we left on this trip. He was the kind of guy who back in the twentieth century would have tried to power a rocket to the moon with a really big rubber band."
"Aw, now you've spoiled it," Val said. "And we were just about to show you how our propulsion system worked . . . "
"Very funny," Tara interrupted. "Alonzo's right; his methods were a bit unorthodox, even crazy, and his failed experiments tended to make a big mess . . . "
"Yeah, a big mess with a busted-up pilot smeared across the middle of it," Alonzo said.
"But he was the only one we could think of who might be able to get us here to G889 before you guys," Tara finished. "We took off from the stations in that rocket about a month and a half after you did."
"And we arrived here safe and sound on the planet's surface almost five years ago," Val added.
"I still say that's impossible," Wolman repeated belligerently.
"Not necessarily," Danziger interrupted. He had been uncharacteristically quiet during Val and Tara's explanation, although I had seen him giving their transport the once over while we were setting up the tents. "That craft is a lot smaller than the one we were using, and the fuel is a lot hotter, a lot more powerful." He shot Val a piercing look. "As a matter of fact, it looks like no more than a double-wide cold sleep capsule strapped on a great big gas tank."
"You got it," Val agreed, throwing an arm around his wife's shoulders and planting a kiss on the top of her head. "Needless to say, it was a no smoking flight."
"So why the urgency?" Alonzo asked. "Why did you have to get here first--or get here at all, for that matter? Don't get me wrong; I'm flattered you were so concerned about me . . . "
"Come on, Solace, you know us better than that," Tara chided playfully, but her eyes looked scared, haunted.
"They were coming after us," Val explained, squeezing her again. "The Council, or whoever. They knew Tara would know something was up because of her security call the night you left."
"We started--I started to have a lot of accidents," she went on. "Little stuff, really--fuel tanks left open, tie-down straps that didn't hold. Once when I was doing a short station-to-station run, dragging some garbage out with one of those open tugships, my oxygen mask mysteriously went dead for about a minute. If Val hadn't already gotten suspicious and made me carry an auxiliary tank, I would have ended up brain-fried."
"That's when I decided we had to find this planet, find you, and find out what the heck was going on," Val said. "We figured you knew you guys were in danger; otherwise you never would have risked taking a ship that size out through an unauthorized hole."
"We found a bomb," Danziger said. "One of our guys, Baines there, picked up a feed of that newscast you were talking about, and we searched the ship until we found it. Apparently that news wasn't supposed to be fake, just premature."
Alonzo and I exchanged a look--we couldn't believe John was giving up this much information to a pair of total strangers, particularly now when we had so much more reason to be suspicious. Or at least that's what I was thinking.
"Do you know who did it?" Tara asked him. "Was it the Council?"
"Certain members of the Council, yes," I told her. "At least, that's our theory. There have been other incidents since--"
"The point is, somebody didn't want us to make it," Baines said. "And they still don't."
"You mean you're still having trouble?" Val said.
"Haven't you had trouble?" Wolman asked. "I mean, if you've been here almost five years, you're bound to have run up on a glitch or two."
"Nothing a sewing kit or a dozen roses wouldn't cure," Val said easily, but I could see in his eyes that he was not liking Wolman much at all.
"Look, we can spend the rest of our lives comparing notes on all the interesting things that can go wrong around here," Tara interrupted. "Yes, Mr. Wolman, we have had trouble. Those toad-looking things have stolen everything we didn't nail down or stand guard over, and every time one of those earth-people coems blossoming up out of the ground I pee my pants. But compared to what seemed to be happening back home, this place is paradise."
"Then you've been lucky," Danziger said to her with the grin I had almost forgotten he had. "Wait till you hear the scary stories we're going to tell you around the fire tonight." He stood up and stretched, pointedly calling a halt to further discussion for the moment. "In the meantime, let's do something radical and start putting together some dinner *before* those kids and Morgan start whining about being hungry."
"Hey, where is Morgan?" Alonzo asked.
"I saw him with his wife, headed for the other side of the lake," Tara said. "I don't think he likes us very much."
"Maybe they found the hot tub," Val said with a mischievous grin, helping her to her feet.
"Oh lord, we may never see them again," Magus groaned. "It is safe, isn't it?"
"So long as you keep your head above the water," Val replied. "Come on, I'll show you and Alonzo where it is. Honey, why don't you take Julia up and show her around the old homestead?"
"Yes, dear," Tara said, wrinkling her nose at him. "You guys be nice--that guy Morgan looked kind of skittish. If you just jump out of the trees at them, he's likely to keel over."
Danziger laughed. "This I gotta see."
"Well, you heard what the man said," Tara said to me as Alonzo, Danziger and Magus disappeared into the trees. "You want to see the house?"
"I think I may just tag along with you," Wolman said, scrambling to his feet.
Tara fixed him with a gentle smile I couldn't quite interpret--it wasn't malevolent by any means, but it didn't seem quite friendly, either. "I think that would be a stupendously bad idea," she told him, turning away. "Come on, Doc. I've got lots of dirt to dish on Alonzo, if you're interested."
I laughed. "Lead the way."
From the outside, the shelter was very similar to the one we'd found when we found Waylon, although newer and in better repair. But inside, it looked like a well-appointed station unit. Both walls and floor were covered wtih soft, synthetic cotton matting, a rich brown on the walls and a muted gray on the floor. The furnishings were sparse, mostly just brightly colored cushions on the floor, but three of the four walls were lined with shelves which held a myriad of personal items, all displayed with equal abandon--foodstuffs, utensils, tools, clothing, VR gear and program tubes. One long shelf was entirely covered in medical supplies, most of which seemed to consist of various kinds of conception supressors. An old-fashioned fireplace dominated the wall opposite the door, and a pile of smoldering ashes sent a pleasant aroma of woodsmoke through the room. "This is nice," I ventured, meaning it. Add an adequate research set-up and I could have lived there with Alonzo forever.
"Things are kind of a mess," Tara apologized, opening a food locker and tossing me a miraculously cold beverage container. "We weren't really expecting you guys."
"Why not?" I asked, joining her on a patch of cushions near the fireplace. "I mean, didn't you come here to find us?"
"Yes, but we couldn't," she explained. "Or rather, we didn't know . . . we went to where Alonzo had told us you were landing, but--" She broke off and crawled towards the woodpile. "Weird weather, isn't it? Hot as hell all day, but as soon as the sun starts going down--"
"But what?" I persisted. "You went to New Pacifica?"
She sat back on her heels and looked back at me. "Yeah, we did," she said at last. "We found a com dish, and we didn't like what it had to say."
"That dish is ours," I said. "It shouldn't be saying anything."
"Yours?" She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes searching my face. "Yours, meaning the Eden Project's?"
"Yes--Tara, what did you hear coming from that dish?"
She shivered, then shook her head as if to clear it. "Nothing much," she replied slowly. "To tell you the truth, all I heard was an initial warning to stay back. Val's the one who insisted on approaching it. When he came back, he insisted we get the hell out of there, that no way were you guys going to be showing up there." She spread the ashes across the floor of the fireplace and added a layer of kindling to make a blaze. "Whatever that thing told him, it made him think you weren't going to make it, and if you did, we didn't want to see you after all."
"And he never told you what he learned from it?" I found myself liking this woman in spite of myself--if her features and grammar had been a little more regular, I would have thought she had been genetically skewed toward winning trust. But what she was saying was scaring the daylights out of me.
"No," she answered rather curtly. "He said I was better off not knowing, and I believed him. Val's never lied to me before; I hardly think he'd pick a godforsaken place like this to start."
"Don't you mean a paradise?" I prodded gently.
She turned away from the fire she'd started and smiled at me. "Touche'," she said. "It is like Eden here, particularly when there's only two of you." She climbed back onto the cushions. "Which brings me to you and Alonzo. What's the story with you two?"
"What do you mean?" I said evasively. I still wanted to know what she was keeping from me, but I was pretty sure pushing her wouldn't help at this point.
"He's obviously got it bad, and every time his name comes up your face turns red," she teased. "So something must be going on."
"We're friends," I admitted slowly. No one, not even Devon, had ever asked me so pointblank to explain our relationship, and I found I still couldn't find the right words. "Hey, you said you had dirt to dish."
"Oh, I do," she said with a laugh. "I'm just not sure you want to hear it. And I must admit it's all hearsay--I never get to actually meet 'Zo's girlfriends. I just hear about them later. That's one reason I know he's serious about you, the way he piped up and introduced you right off. He's proud of you, Doc."
"I'm proud of him," I said. "Not as a possession--"
"I know, I know," she said, waving me off. "Your relationship is non-possessive, with each party being fully autonomous within the contextual paradigm of your togetherness- -am I getting all of this right?"
"Yes, perfectly," I said, stunned and a little embarrassed. "Although I must admit you sound more like a psycho-socio-therapist than a sleep jumper."
She shrugged. "It takes all kinds. Nobody's born a sleep jumper." She settled back against the cushions with a luxurious sigh. "Seriously, Doc, take it from someone who's been married probably about forty years longer than you've been alive. As my dearly beloved would say, that dog won't hunt--any relationship worth keeping is a wee bit possessive, and anyone who wants to share someone else has to be willing to give up a little bit of herself."
"You've really been married that long?" I asked, ready to change the subject. "Do you have an open-ended contract?"
"We don't have a contract at all," she answered with a grin. "We got married in a Catholic ceremony, in a church, thank you very much. If he cheats on me, I don't sue him--he's going to hell."
"You don't really believe that," I scoffed.
She shrugged. "Maybe when I know you better I'll tell you whether I do or not," she conceded, getting up from the floor to look out the window at the lake. "So who do the kids belong to? The big guy, Danziger?"
"The girl is his daughter," I explained, joining her. True and Uly were standing knee-deep in the lake, vigorously splashing each other and shrieking with laughter. "The boy is Ulysses Adair." As calmly and in as few words as possible, I tried to explain what had happened to Devon, but I still found myself crying at the end. "I have absolutely no clue what's wrong with her," I finished, wiping impatiently at my eyes with my sleeve. "Maybe it was EVE, maybe the planet, maybe a head cold. I just don't know."
"Hey, how could you?" Tara soothed, drawing me to her and holding me tight. My first reaction was to recoil in horror, but she seemed so genuinely sympathetic I didn't want to hurt her feelings. And then suddenly I was comfortable, and it was good to cry it out to someone who wouldn't blame me or feel responsible for me. I had talked to Alonzo about it, and he had been so sweet, but I knew my being unhappy hurt him, and I couldn't bear that. So I had been holding it in.
"It sounds like you guys have had a hard time, just like your friend said," Tara said at last, giving me a final squeeze before reaching for some warmer clothes. "And I suspect that when we tell Val about this EVE, he's going to recognize her voice."

Kamikaze, Part 3
by Jayel

"O---kay. . . I think this one should be all right, Val said, tossing True another VR program tube. "Nothing dangerous, nothing obscene."
"Which one is it?" Tara asked from the hearth. She was cooking something that smelled heavenly while Val helped the kids find something new to play with.
"Ice planet, I think," he told her. "Lots of penguins."
"Sounds great," True enthused, snatching up her gear. "Come on, Uly, it'll be fun."
"I don't . . . you go ahead," Uly answered. He was sitting on the sill of one of the windows, watching the sun disappear into the lake, and I resisted the urge to scoop him up in my arms. All the excitement he had shown at finding this oasis had drained away with the daylight, and now he just looked lost and miserable again. I shouldn't have been surprised--he held up beautifully during the day, but every night we could see him grieving more and more for his mother.
True went over and put her hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure? New VR doesn't come along every day," she urged gently.
"Who cares about VR?" he exploded, leaping to his feet. "Who cares about any of this?" Snatching free of her, he ran out the door, past Danziger who was just coming in.
"Uly, what's the matter?" he yelled after the boy. "True, did you say something to him?"
"No, she didn't," I assured him, patting True on the shoulder. "I'll go find him."
I found Uly by the lake, hunched in a miserable ball under one of the tall, rough-barked pines that edged the shoreline. "Go away," he ordered, obviously struggling manfully to hide his tears. "I'm all right--"
"You are not," I shot back, kneeling beside him. "And neither am I. And neither are any of the rest of us." Putting my hand under his trembling chin, I turned his face up to mine. "None of us will be all right until we can bring your mother back."
"That's not true," he protested angrily. "We left her, and now we've found these other people, and we'll just keep going, and maybe we won't even go to New Pacifica now, because they think it's dangerous, and Mom will just stay there in that box--" He broke off with a sob, and I gathered him into my arms.
"That isn't true, Ulysses, and you know it," I soothed, mystified at his words. Where was he getting this stuff? "Finding Val and Tara has nothing to do with helping Devon, and they certainly aren't going to stop us from going to New Pacifica--"
"Oh yes, they will," he warned. "The man is already trying to convince Alonzo that you and he should stay here, and Mr. Danziger thinks--" He stopped, shaking his head. "You're going to ask me how I know what he thinks, and I can't tell you, because I don't know how I know." He looked up at me, his sweet little boy's face a mask of too-adult grief. "I just know, Julia, I just know."
"All right, Uly, all right," I crooned, comforting him like the child he appeared to be because I hadn't a clue what else to do. "I believe you, I promise. But I still think you might be wrong. And I know that neither Alonzo nor John would just abandon your mother or her dream, no matter what Val said."
Suddenly his entire body, tense as taut wire a moment before, relaxed, and he slumped against me with a dreamy sigh.
"I know," he murmured.
"Ulysses, are you all right?" I demanded, automatically reaching for the pulse at his throat.
"Yes," he assured me with an angelic smile. "You won't let them leave her, I know."
"You're right; I won't," I replied, resisting the urge to ask "but how do you know?" I was glad to see him calm down, but I didn't kid myself that I was the one who had comforted him. At least not by myself.
Later I tried repeatedly to get Alonzo alone to ask him what he knew about Uly's fears and these people, but every time we would grab a moment of privacy, someone would invade it, either looking for me to bandage a bruised digit or looking for him to ask questions of their own. Only after the campfire had burned down to embers and nearly everyone had retired to their tents did I get a private word in edgewise.
"It's been quite a day," I remarked casually, but I had an iron grip on his arm and was leading him purposefully away from camp.
"Yeah, it has," he agreed, putting his hand over mine and squeezing. "Lots of excitement."
We reached the shadows of the treeline, and I let him go, turning to open my line of inquiry.
"Alonzo, what exactly--"
Actually, I barely got that much out before he was kissing me, slamming me with flattering urgency against a tree trunk. By all rights, I should have been at least annoyed, but he felt so warm and tasted so nice I let myself by pleased instead, momentarily forgetting my purpose.
"Um, I missed you, too," he teased, drawing back to flash me his best cocky fly-boy grin.
"Very funny," I retorted, swatting at him. "Alonzo, I wanted--"
"Yeah, me too," he interrupted, kissing me again.
"Alonzo, wait!" I put my hands on either side of his face and pushed him gently away. "Will you listen to me, please? There's something I need to talk to you about." His brown eyes clouded for a moment in confusion.
"Talk?" he repeated. "But I thought . . . " He broke off with a rueful grin. "You're right," he sighed. "What was I thinking?" He lifted my hand to his lips, then motioned for me to join him on a log.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, but . . .
"'Lonzo, Uly said Val was trying to convince you not to go to New Pacifica," I began.
"Wait a minute, how did he--I mean, he was down at the lake--" He saw my questioning frown and nodded. "You're right; don't ask. Yes, Val is a little iffy on the New Pacifica thing."
"The New Pacifica thing?" I demanded. "When did New Pacifica become a 'thing'? It's what we came here for--"
"Hey, hey, settle down," he soothed. "I know that, and that's what I told him." He paused, running his fingers through his hair while he put his feelings into words. "Look, he and Tara were there not three months ago," he explained. "They found our com dish--"
"I know," I interrupted. "Tara told me."
"Well, Tara didn't exactly see it," Alonzo said. "And from what Val told me, it's probably a good thing."
"Why?" I asked. "What's so scary?"
"Apparently EVE has control of the dish," he answered slowly, picking his words with care. "And 'she' recognized him--and she would have recognized Tara, too." He looked up at me and grinned. "What did you think of her, by the way? Tara, I mean."
"She seems nice," I answered. "Kind of not what I would have expected--"
"Kind of intellectual for a sleep jumper?" he pressed.
"Maybe," I conceded. "What does that have to do with our com dish?"
"You two have a lot in common," he explained. "Tara's Mom and Dad were on the Council, too."
"But I don't--"
"About sixty years before you were born," he finished.
Suddenly what he was saying began to make a weird kind of sense. "So they would have been on the Council when EVE was created," I said.
"Exactly," he replied. "And they were pretty unthrilled about their only daughter eloping with a crazy sleep jumper. They put out an all-space-points alert with her bio-stats, saying Val had actually kidnapped her and offering a pretty good-sized reward for her return." His eyes met mine. "Dead or alive."
I shivered from something deeper and more pervasive than the chilly night air. "Why would her own parents want her dead?" I breathed.
Alonzo shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "Val never would explaint that part, and Tara won't tell anyone that much. That got to be the standard condition for being their friend. If you wanted to stay pals, you didn't ask too many questions. Apparently they did a series of long sleep jumps to the outer colonies in succession to outrun the ASPA, with him teaching her how to fly in the meantime. When I met them, she had just gotten her license on the Plutonian outpost, the furthest point from the stations that can actually issue one." He rubbed the back of his neck, a sure indication that he was tired--tired of worrying, anyway. "All I know is he's the best pilot I've ever seen, and she writes killer VR programs. She's a whiz on the computer, almost as good as you are. Maybe her parents thought she knew something they didn't want to get out."
Even for me, someone who had been genetically engineered to serve the "higher good" of the Council, the idea of someone's parents wanting them dead because they knew too much was sickening. Still, I had to admit it was a possibility.
"But still, like you said, that was almost a century ago," I persisted. "Even if they were fugitives, and even if EVE does recognize them, what can she possibly do to them?"
He took my hand in both of his and pressed it warmly. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "Maybe the same thing she can do to us."

I had thought there was no way I would be able to sleep that night--my brain was spinning. But surprisingly, as soon as my head hit the pillow--or Alonzo's anything-but-pillow-like chest, actually--I was, as they say, dead to the world. My eyes didn't open again until I felt sunlight on my face.
Alonzo and I had accepted the Donahoe's invitation to sleep inside the shelter, along with True and Uly, who were curled up cozily before the now-smoldering fire. Being careful not to disturb Alonzo, I rolled over toward the other side of the room. The Donahoe's were still sleeping, too. I had been concerned the night before when they had insisted that Alonzo and I take temporary possession of their air mattress, an imperial luxury after so many months on a narrow cot or the hard ground. But I needn't have worried, at least not on Tara's account. She was sleeping directly on top of her husband with her head on his chest and her arms laid along his to clasp each of his hands with her own. "Eighty-five years," I thought to myself, not knowing whether I was awestruck or merely envious. Still, most of that time had been spent in cold sleep--I found myself wondering if they slept that way in the capsule. And I also wondered if Alonzo and I would still be so eager to touch after so long, or if we would even be together.
Alonzo stirred behind me, and I turned as gently as possible to look back over my shoulder. He was still sleeping, but his dark brown eyebrows were knit together in a frown, and I couldn't help but wonder if somehow he was sensing my thoughts. Planting a tender kiss on his nose, I reached for my boots and slipped outside.
Baines and Danziger were the only ones up, standing in a conspiratorial huddle by the "rocket." When I shut the door, they both looked up like kids caught with their naughty hands in a cookie jar, but when they saw it was me, they relaxed, and Danziger motioned for me to join them, quietly.
"What's up?" I asked softly. "Thinking of boosting that thing for a spin around the block?"
"As a matter of fact . . . ," Baines said with a slight grin.
"Has Alonzo said anything to you about this thing?" Danziger interrupted, shooting him a warning look.
"Yes, some," I answered. "Didn't he tell you?"
"We haven't really asked," Baines admitted. "I mean, obviously they're friends of his--"
"Yes, but so are you," I assured him. "I don't think he's going to keep anything from the group that we need to know." To prove my point, I told them everything Alonzo had told me the night before. "Why all the mystery, John?" I finished. "I thought you trusted them."
"I do," Danziger said. "At least, I did." He closed the hatch of the transport with a soft thud. "I don't know, Doc. Uly seems awfully spooked, and if what you say is true--"
"I'm thinking maybe we've got enough problems already without taking on somebody else's," Baines finished.
"I'm not ready to go that far," John objected. "Although Baines isn't the only one who feels that way. Morgan and Bess are already worried, and this isn't going to put their minds at ease."
"Since when do we live by Morgan Martin's paranoia?" I asked, trying to keep my tone light. I wasn't sure I wanted the Donahoe's as a permanent addition to the group, either, but this was starting to sound bad.
"Since he's been right nearly every time," Baines asserted.
"Yeah, right," I shot back. "Like when he insisted we open up those cold sleep chambers back on that other ship--"
"All right, you two, settle down," John said, putting a quieting hand on each of us. "The last thing we need is a big fight waking everybody up and getting them crazy." He gave Baines a sidelong glance. "I promise if things get too bad, you'll have my full permission to hide out in the transrover until it all blows over."
"Very damned funny," Baines muttered, and I couldn't help but smile. If Alonzo had said that, there would have been a fight. But when the one teasing happened to be as big as John Danziger, discretion became the better part of valor.
"I'm going to go start breakfast," he continued, stalking off toward the tents. "You guys are so smart; you figure out what to do."
"You have to admit, he does have a point about one thing," Danziger said when he was gone. He turned back to the rocket. "We do have enought problems of our own."
Suddenly he looked wrung out and worn down to the bone.
"You talked to Uly?" I asked.
"Yeah." He rubbed his forehead as if trying to make the perfect solution float to the top of his mind. "He's right, you know. The further we get from that other ship, the easier it is for some of us to accept that she's never coming back."
"Not for me," I said, laying a hand on his back. "And not for you, either."
He looked back at me and almost smiled. "You know what I keep thinking about?" he said. "I keep thinking about when we voted to leave you behind. Everybody was for it; nobody voted against it--hell, under the circumstances, it was the only thing to do." He looked past me, his eyes focussed on something I couldn't have seen even if I'd turned around, something I suspected looked a lot like the fragile shell of a woman completely enclosed in life support. Or the seemingly perfect frame of a lifeless woman enclosed in a cold sleep capsule. "But Alonzo couldn't stand it," he continued. "He loved you, no matter what, and no matter what we said or did or how much it might endanger the group, he would not leave you alone."
"And he was right," I added softly. "Because I loved him as much as he loved me, he was right." I looked down at the carpet of pine needles at my feet, trying to blink my eyes clear again. "We should go back," I said, looking back up at him.
His eyes seemed to see me for the first time. "You're right," he said. "We have got to go back."

Kamikaze, Part 4
by Jayel

Even though I had known everyone felt bad about leaving Devon behind, I couldn't have predicted how happy and relieved everyone was to be going back for her. Even Morgan, the first one who had advocated leaving the EVE ship as far behind us as possible, was positively scurrying to get things packed up to go.
I had decided to leave some of my surplus equipment-- supplies I had in bulk, mostly, and an extra diagnostic kit-- secured in the Donahoe's shelter until we came back through. Yale was helping me sort out things that could be left behind, and while he was being very patient and thorough, I could tell he was in a hurry to leave. "Don't bother going through those vials individually," I told him with a smile. "I'll just take the whole box to save time."
"That sounds wonderful," he replied, smiling back before he stacked the box on the "to-go" pile we were forming by the door. "Are you sure the things you're leaving will be safe here?"
"I think the Donahoe's can be trusted to take care of them," I said, checking that box off my list.
Yale looked surprised. "Aren't they going with us?" he asked.
"I don't think so," I said. "As a matter of fact, I'm sure they're not. Val told Alonzo and me this morning that he wished us luck, but he wasn't going to risk letting EVE see Tara. Apparently he thinks the computer is some sort of threat to her."
"Yes, I know," Yale said slowly. "Danziger told me what you told him about her parents . . . but Julia, I distinctly heard Tara tell Uly this morning that they would be going with us, not only back to the EVE ship but to New Pacifica."
Now it was my turn to look surprised, not only that Tara and Val were telling different stories but that Tara was interacting with Uly. Val had been quick to try and make friends with both children, and he and True were now boon companions. But Tara had been somewhat distant--not uncommon in a former only child, as I well knew. And I had definitely gotten the impression that Uly was no great fan of either of the Donahoe's from our conversation the night before. "When was Tara talking to Uly?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"They went for a walk this morning," Yale answered, moving to the next box. "And yes, it surprised me, too. But according to Uly, they found a great deal to talk about." He straightened up and looked at me, as if trying to decide whether to change the subject or continue. "Julia, do you . . . I'm not even sure what the right word would be. If Val and Tara weren't such old friends of Alonzo, would you like them?"
"Yes," I answered decisively, meeting his worried eyes. "I think I probably would. I don't think they're being entirely upfront with us, but I don't think they mean us any harm."
"Nor do I," Yale agreed. "Still, if we've learned nothing else on this planet, we should know that even the best of intentions can sometimes go awry." He went over to the tent flap and looked out, watching Uly and True wrestle one of the larger tents down. "Tara told Ulysses that she was adopted," he remarked casually, but I could tell this seemed significant to him somehow.
"She didn't mention that to me," I said, putting down my clipboard to join him. "Still, it isn't really unusual--a lot of Council members from that period were unable to have kids of their own because of the radiation from Earth and the early colonial power stations. I'm sure many of them adopted orphans from the migration."
"Or bought children in exchange for passage to the stations," Yale finished. "You forget, adoption records are part of my memory banks. But the fact of Tara Donahoe's adoption isn't what concerns me."
"Then what?" I asked.
"Uly said that Tara told him how hard it was for her to accept new parents," he said, turning to me. "She was almost his age, and she said she missed her father, her 'real' father, terribly. But she promised Ulysses that she did eventually get over it, and when her 'real' father wanted her back, she didn't want to go. She was happier with both a mother and a father than she had been with just a father." He looked back out at Uly, and to me he seemed ready to scoop the boy up and flee to safety with him, he looked so tense. "Julia, doesn't it seem odd to you that two people, so obviously in love, have been married so long without ever having a child?"
"Not necessarily," I said carefully. I could understand his concern, and I shared it, but I knew how much he cared for Uly, and I didn't want his love getting the better of his judgment. "They're sleep jumpers, after all--not the best conditions for either pregnancy or child-rearing. From all the suppressors in their shelter, I'd say they've been pretty careful about contraception."
"But what if they've decided to settle down?" he persisted. "Look at this place--this isn't a temporary shelter; this is a home." He let the tent flap fall and turned back to the task at hand. "I realize how ridiculous this must sound to you, but I can't help wondering if perhaps at least one of these people sees Ulysses Adair as a conveniently available orphan," he finished brusquely.
"It doesn't sound ridiculous at all," I assured him. "But Yale, Uly isn't an orphan. His mother is very much alive, and we are going to bring her back to him."
He smiled at me gently. "I do hope so, Doctor," he said. "You can't possibly know how much I hope you're right."

Once Yale and I had finished sorting the medical supplies, Alonzo and Val started helping me move the ones we were leaving into the shelter. When we went inside, we found Tara dismantling the wall coverings. "Hey, honey, what are you doing?" Val demanded, putting down the box he was carrying.
"Packing," Tara said stubbornly. "We can secure the door and windows well enough to keep the Grendlers out for a month or so." She neatly folded the mat she was holding and reached for the next one. "But we don't have a tent, and we're going to need someplace to sleep--"
"Tara, stop it," Val said, going to her. "We're not going anywhere--"
"Yes, we are," she said firmly. "Val, we have to--"
"We do not have to do any such thing!" he snapped, making Alonzo and me stare at each other wide-eyed. Even after a less-than-twenty-four-hour acquaintance with this man, I knew this was uncharacteristic. He usually spoke to his wife like she might have been a princess. He snatched the mat she was holding away from her and flung it on the floor. "We've already talked about this--"
"No, you've talked about it," Tara retorted, catching hold of his wrist. "And I've listened, up until now. But Val, this is that little boy's mother; we can't just--"
"And how is our going with them going to help that little boy's mother?" Val demanded, tearing free of her grasp.
"That's what I want to know," Alonzo interrupted. "Hey buddy, what aren't you telling us?"
"Nothing," Val said coldly without looking at him.
"Dreams," Tara said. She put her hands on her husband's arm and kept them there in spite of his thunderous expression. "Baby, we have to tell them." She reached up and touched his cheek. "We have to."
"What kind of dreams?" I asked. I didn't want to press-- my conversation with Yale had made me think leaving the Donahoe's behind might not be a bad idea, and I could see how genuinely upset Val was, how afraid they both were. But if they knew something that could help Devon, they were damned well going to tell us, whether they went back with us or not.
Val glared down at Tara for a long moment, his blue eyes like burning ice. Then he inclined his head and tenderly kissed her brow. "Go ahead, tell them," he said, kissing her cheek. "I'll be outside."
She watched him go with tears in her eyes, then turned back to me and Alonzo. "Terrian dreams," she answered. "When we first came here, the Terrians were very . . . they obviously didn't want us here. We both had some real screamers about them coming to us in our sleep and circling around us, although they never really tried to hurt us, even in the dreams." She looked up at Alonzo. "We never understood them the way you do, still don't. And for the first four years or so, we never stayed in one place long enough to develop any real attachment to a particular tribe. We were flying around looking for New Pacifica."
"So you can really use that thing for surface travel?" Alonzo asked.
"Sure," she replied with a grin. "You should try it, kid; you'd love it. Unfortunately, we started running low on fuel. The good news was that we had finally figured out where New Pacifica was, and we went there." She shuddered. "That's when we found EVE. Val figured we had just enough fuel to take us to the other side of the continent--he didn't want to risk flying over the ocean for fear we'd run down."
"So you came here," I said.
"Exactly. We had been here before and built the shelter, planning to come back if we didn't find you," she explained. "But once we'd settled in, the dreams came back, much more powerfully than before. We started to recognize the individual Terrians--we even knew what to call them." She looked out the window to where Uly was struggling to hoist a ridiculously heavy bundle up to Danziger in the back of the transrover. "And we saw that little boy."
"Uly?" I breathed, almost wishing Yale and I had never talked. Tara sounded so sincere; surely she wasn't just making this up so she could steal another woman's child. Surely Val wouldn't let her.
She nodded. "Calling for his mother," she said tersely. "At first we thought it was just some sort of shared nightmare- -that's happened to us before. But then we saw the Terrians with him, and they told us . . . they said we had to find him. That he would die without us, that the whole planet would die with him."
"That's crazy," Alonzo said. "Devon's the one who's sick. Uly's fine--he didn't even get sick when the rest of us had EVE's virus--"
"Maybe it isn't crazy," I objected, wishing I had found time to tell him what Yale had said. "Devon told me once that she thinks time is different for Terrians, that because of their strong connection to the metaphysical plane, they live in all times at once." I looked at Tara, who still looked like a perfectly ordinary woman to me, and tried to see what the Terrians saw. "Maybe Tara and Val are meant to do something to save Uly in the future."
"Or his mother," Tara said. "I don't know . . . all I do know is I couldn't live here and be happy even with Val if I thought we had let something happen to that child, something we could have prevented." She bent forward and pressed her forehead to Alonzo's chest. "So that's how it is, 'Zo," she finished.
"It's okay," he soothed, stroking her hair, and I was gratified to notice that I wasn't the least bit jealous. "Everything's gonna be fine."
She straightened up with a rather sickly smile. "From your lips to God's ears," she joked weakly. "I'd better find Val. If he doesn't help me pack, he'll never be able to find anything."
We watched her go, then Alonzo let out a huge breath. "This is not good," he said, putting his arm around my shoulders and drawing me close to his chest.
"I thought you said everything's going to be fine," I said, savoring his warmth.
"That's what you say to girls like Tara," he replied. "You've got to understand; she's always had Val to take care of her."
I wrapped my arms around him, for once oblivious to who might walk in at any moment. "I can see where that might have a certain appeal," I said. "But Alonzo, seriously, why are you so worried?"
"Because it's a kid," he said, as if that explained everything. Seeing I didn't understand, he went on. "I'm not sure why, but Tara has always had this thing about kids . . . it's like she adores them one minute, but the next . . ." He shrugged. "I don't know--it isn't that she doesn't like them. It's almost like she's afraid of them, like they make her really nervous. I mean, you've seen how touchy-feely she and Val are with one another."
"Yes," I said, suppressing a smile. "Although your technical terminology for human relations is a little beyond me . . ."
"But they've never had a kid," he went on, ignoring my teasing. "Val loves kids--he's even told me how much he'd like to have one, but Tara . . . "
"He's afraid that Tara is afraid," I finished. "Alonzo, you know these people better than any of the rest of us. Yale and I were talking earlier, and I think I'd better run a theory by you." I told him what Yale had said, but as soon as I suggested that Tara might be inclined to "adopt" Uly, he started shaking his head.
"No way," he said. "Or maybe--I just don't see Tara as a kidnapper. And you heard what she said about the Terrians."
"If she was telling the truth," I pointed out gently. "Do you think she was?"
"Absolutely," he said, taking my hand. "I don't know how to explain it, doc, but if she were lying about the Terrians, I think I would know."
I looked up into his eyes, marveling again at just how beautiful he was. "I think you would, too," I answered, trying to show him how I felt with my smile.
"Still," he continued, smiling back to let me know he understood. "I hope the Terrians know what they're doing."
"Hey," I said, punching him lightly. "Sometimes you have to just let go and let nature take its course, remember?"
He grinned, shaking his head. "Trust a woman to use my own words against me," he grumbled, kissing me. "But you're right, of course."
I kissed him again. "Of course."

*from the personal journal of Tara Reilly Donahoe; encoded @ VALLIFE
Another child . . . I might have known he would use another child to finally bring me home . . .
Bless me father, for I have sinned . . . I betrayed your all-powerful presence and added to your power . . . I escaped your cruelty to one generation and brought torture to another . . .
But the true God is just if not merciful, Papa . . . He has brought them to creatures more powerful than you or I, creatures that may well punish us both . . .
But please, Dear God, don't take this child's mother as Your sacrifice to correct our wrong . . . and please, please, not my love . . .*

Kamikaze, Part 5
by Jayel

Val and Tara had apparently reached some sort of agreement, because Val started helping her pack. "Hey, Julia, there's a refrigeration compartment on the underside of the rocket," he called to me as I struggled to make everything fit in the back of the transrover's tiny "icebox." "Why don't you stash your medical stuff there, and Tara can put her dainty underthings in the transrover instead."
"Wait a minute," Danziger said, coming around from the front of the truck. "You're planning to take the rocket?"
"Yep," Val answered, obviously anticipating objections. "As a matter of fact, we're not going without it."
"I thought you said it was nearly out of fuel," Danziger said. "Will it make it that far?"
Val shrugged. "Probably," he said, dragging a heavy coil of chain out of the rocket's cockpit. "But I wasn't thinking of flying it." He looked up at Danziger and me with one of those killer fly-boy grins I was beginning to know so well. "I thought maybe we could hitch it up to that transrover of yours and drag it."
Morgan had been silently stashing he and Bess' personals in the back of the truck, but this was apparently too much for him. "You have got to be kidding," he exploded. "Do you have any idea how heavy that thing is?"
"Nah, Tex, not a clue," Val said sarcastically. "Why don't you pick it up and weigh it for me?"
"You're a real funny guy, fly-boy," Wolman said, striding over from one of the rails to put his two cents worth into the conversation. Relations between him and Val hadn't improved any. I wasn't sure why, but when I asked Danizger about it, he had mumbled something about a "pissing contest."
"For once, Martin is right," Wolman continued. "Towing that thing is going to slow us down by hours every day. It doesn't even have wheels on it, for pity's sake."
"Exactly," Morgan agreed--he so rarely found an ally among us, I didn't really blame him for taking full advantage. "We're already moving at a snail's pace as it is, trying to keep up with all the stuff we really need."
"Like you and Bess' precious geolocks?" Alonzo muttered, joining me. "Those were useful."
Morgan ignored him. "Why should we add something else that for all the practical use it is to us might as well be a pile of scrap?"
"A two-ton pile of scrap with a smidgen of extremely powerful propulsion fuel floating around inside it, just waiting to explode," Wolman concluded.
"All right, all right," Danziger said wearily. "We've heard why we shouldn't take it; now why don't we just calm down and let Val tell us why he thinks we should." Both Morgan and Wolman opened their mouths to protest, but a pointed look from Danziger was enough to convince them to close them again, and all eyes turned to Val.
"We don't need wheels," he began, reaching into the rocket and flipping a switch. The admittedly junky-looking thing seemed to shudder once in alarm before lifting itself a few inches off the ground. It hovered, wheezing as if for sympathy, but apparently stable, until Val flipped the switch again. "It can hover like that for hours by pulling power from the DC cells," he explained, closing the cockpit. "As for why we have to take it, we just do." He looked up at Wolman and Morgan, the ice returning to his eyes. "Otherwise, I'm not going."
"Fine!" Wolman said. "Stay here, why don't you, and good riddance--"
"And neither is Tara," Val continued, taking a threatening step toward him.
"Hey, buddy," Alonzo said, springing to life beside me and stepping between them. "Get a grip, all right? Nobody's suggesting that Tara's going anywhere without you--"
"Although it might not be a bad idea," Wolman added, perversely adding fuel to a fire that was already threatening to get out of control. I had been close to Alonzo long enough to know when he was anxious, and although he was still smiling and his voice was calm, I could tell he was worried.
"You think you might try convincing her?" Val said, a dangerous grin playing around the corners of his mouth under his icy blue stare. "Why don't you, Wolman, just to see what happens next? You're an adventurous kind of guy, right? 'Lonzo said you've been itching to shoot something with that big rifle of yours; why not try aiming it at me?"
"Stop it!" Tara had come out of one of the few tents still standing, holding Uly by one hand and a basket of foodstuffs in the other. "Val, for pity's sake, just tell them about the dream." She dropped Uly's hand and walked up to her husband. "They're on our side, remember? We have to trust them." She shook her finger at Wolman playfully, but her eyes were serious. "All of them."
"What dream?" Alonzo asked.
"I don't even really remember," Val admitted, shooting Wolman a final murderous look. "All I know is that in the dream, the Terrians kept pointing at the rocket like it was something real important, something we're going to need again. I don't know why, or if it even means anything at all, but I've learned enough living on this planet to know that sometimes a little signal like that is the only clue you're likely to get."
"He has a point," I said, looking around the group.
"You're right; he does," Danziger agreed, putting a hand on Wolman's shoulder. "We've set out on crazier quests on less evidence before. I think it's worth the risk, but I guess if it's an issue, we should vote--"
"No," Wolman interrupted, his face a little flushed. "I mean, you're right. I'm willing to withdraw my objection, if the rest of you--"
"Yeah, me too," Morgan interjected. "If the Terrians think we should have it, then probably we should have it. Although I still can't see why."
"Neither can I," Val admitted with a conciliatory grin in the bureaucrat's direction. "But I'm powerfully afraid we're going to find out soon enough."

Later, just before we started moving, I remembered that I had yet to get a medscan of either of the Donahoe's. Val was helping Danziger and Baines tie down some cargo they had strapped to the top of the rocket, and Tara was leaning against the transrover consulting with True about some VR gear, so I figured now would be as good a time as any and went to the rail to get my glove.
I passed Val on the way back and gave him a quick scan-- he was as healthy as the proverbial earth-grown horse. But when I got back to the transrover, Tara was gone.
"Where's Tara?" I asked True, who was still standing there holding her gear.
"She went back inside," she answered pointing toward the shelter. "One of the VR programs she had lent me was malfunctioning and I couldn't fix it, so I asked her what was wrong. She said she couldn't fix it out here in the direct sunlight and took it inside."
I had never heard of a VR programming tube being sensitive to sunlight, but then I had never seen or heard of any VR programs as vivid as the ones Tara had. The few moments we had spent in her "speakeasy" had given us only the barest glimpse of what she could do, the vividness of the sensory experiences she had captured. The kids had sworn they caught the sniffles playing on her ice planet, and even Yale confided to me that apparently Tara was to VR programming what Dickens had been to novels, that her attention to detail was uncanny. At any rate, if she said they couldn't be exposed to the sun, I was in no position to dispute her.
"Do you think she's pretty?" True asked me suddenly.
"Who?" I asked. "Tara? Yes, I think she's very pretty. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "She does great VR, and she seems nice enough, I guess, but I like Val better."
I didn't tell her that this was the reaction of most of the female contingent of the Eden Project towards our newfound companions. "Val is easier to like," I admitted.
"He sort of reminds me of Alonzo," she said.
"Who sort of reminds you of Alonzo?" Magus said, joining us.
"We were talking about the Donahoe's," I told her.
"Ah," Magus said with a knowing smile. "He's awfully cute, isn't he? Too bad he's so happily married."
"Julia doesn't care," True pointed out. "She has Alonzo."
"Yeah, lucky Julia," Magus said, shooting me a teasing look. "And lucky Tara, and poor, sad me and True-girl. I guess we'll just have to keep looking."
"You look all you want," True said, making a face. "I'm just as happy without." She looked up and saw Ulysses daring to touch the controls on one of the rails. "Hey, wait for me!" she yelled, running after him and leaving Magus and myself to our own devices. "We're supposed to stick together, remember?"
"She's just as happy without, huh?" Magus said to me.
"For the time being," I agreed, returning her smile.
"It's amazing how quickly that changes, isn't it?" she said. "Don't answer that--you don't have to." She looked around and sighed. "Speaking of Tara, have you seen her? I need to find out how to get one of these ground-lockers they've got by the lake open, and Val said she's the one who set the locks."
"I think she's in the shelter," I said. "That's what True said, anyway. Listen, if you see her, will you tell her I'm looking for her, too? I need to do a medscan."
"Sure, no problem," she said, heading for the shelter.
I didn't really think anything of it when she didn't come out after about ten minutes--obviously Tara was explaining the ground-locker combinations to her. Then Bess came up and asked me for a pain suppressor for Morgan's headache. So it was almost an hour before it occurred to me to wonder where Magus and Tara had gone. Everything was pretty much packed, and Alonzo and Val were getting the kids stowed in the back of the transrover.
"Have you guys seen Magus?" I called.
"Not since she was with you," True called back.
"How about Tara?" I said, going up to them. "Val, have you seen her? I need to do a medscan."
"If she knows that, she's probably hiding," he said with a grin.
"She doesn't, unless Magus told her," I answered, trying to ignore the nagging little alarm bells that were going off in my head. "They were in the shelter--I'll be back in a minute."
At first I thought the shelter was deserted. All the windows had been secured, so it was almost completely dark inside, and I didn't sense any movement. I was about to assume they had gone when I heard a tiny sound coming from the floor near the fireplace. Switching on a flashlight, I saw Magus crumpled in a heap in front of the hearth."
"No light," she moaned, rolling onto her side and sheltering her eyes with her arm. "Please . . . too much . . . " Then she was quiet and much too still.
"Alonzo!" I yelled, rushing to her. "Alonzo, hurry and bring my bag!" I knelt down beside her and rolled her over so I could see her face. She didn't react to the light again, even when I shined it directly at her eyelids. The only sign of injury I could see was a small, bruised lump on her forehead that didn't look terribly serious and thin trickles of blood coming from her nose, mouth, and ears that did.
"What happened?" Danziger demanded, bursting in with a much bigger light. "Good lord--"
"Yeah, I know," I said brusquely. "Here, help me lay her flat, but be careful. I don't think anything's broken, but I don't want to take any chances. Is Alonzo coming?"
"I'm right here," he said, handing me my glove. "What happened?"
"I don't know," I said, slipping it on and passing it over Magus' eerily peaceful face. "She seems to have suffered some sort of cerebral trauma. The bump on her head is minor-- she probably got it when she fell."
"What about the other?" Danziger asked grimly.
I looked up at him and shrugged. "I just don't know," I answered.
True and Val had followed Alonzo inside. "Where's Tara?" True asked.
"True-girl, get out of here so Julia can work," Danziger said firmly.
"No, but where is she?" True insisted. "She was here, with Magus."
"She's right," I agreed. "Magus came in here over an hour ago looking for her."
Val was deathly pale, and he kept muttering what sounded like "lock the door . . . how many times . . ." under his breath. When he saw me looking up at him, his expression cleared somewhat, but he still looked worried. "It's sensory overload," he explained, reaching for another flashlight from the shelf on the wall. "If you can stop the bleeding, she should be fine--"
"What are you talking about?" Alonzo asked him. "Are you saying Tara did this?"
"Not on purpose," he said grimly, taking down a coil of rope as well. "I'm gonna go find her."
Danziger picked up a flashlight of his own. "I'm going with you," he said in a tone that suggested the issue was not up for debate. "Julia, is there anything else you need?"
"True and Alonzo can help me," I said, returning my full attention to Magus. "You guys just find Tara so she can tell me how she did this before she does it to anyone else."

Kamikaze, Part 6
by Jayel

By the time Alonzo and Morgan had managed to unpack enough medical supplies to make Magus comfortable, I had staunched the flow of excess blood in her brain and stabilized her condition. Once Bess helped me lift her onto a cot and hook her up to the necessary life support, it was a fairly simple matter to bring her around.
"Julia . . . oh, my god," she said softly, turning her face into the pillow. "Please, turn down that light."
"Okay," I promised, reaching to comply.
"Thanks," she murmured when I had turned the lamp down to the softest yellow glow it could emit without going out entirely. "What was that, anyway?"
"What was what?" I asked her gently, exchanging a glance with Alonzo.
"All that . . . You guys didn't see it?" She looked back and forth between us. "How could you not have seen it?"
"Honey, we didn't see anything," Alonzo said. "All we saw was you, sleeping on the job."
She managed a weak smile. "Yeah, well, you really missed it," she said, closing her eyes.
"What, Magus?" Bess pressed, looking at me with wide eyes. "What did we miss?"
Magus' eyes suddenly snapped open. "Tara," she said. "Where is she?"
"She's gone," Alonzo said, squeezing her hand. "She was gone when we found you."
"You've got to find her," she insisted, grabbing his sleeve. "Julia, make somebody go find her right now--"
"Her husband and John have already gone,"I assured her. "Magus, please, you've got to tell us what happened. I think you'll be fine, but I need to know what did this to you."
"Tara did this to me," she said. "Or at least, I think it was Tara." She closed her eyes again as if remembering hurt her head. "You and I were talking, and I went to look for her, remember?"
"Yes," I said gently. "I remember. Was she in the shelter?"
"Yes," she answered. "The shelter . . . it was full--full of light." She looked up at me in helpless frustration, obviously struggling to put her thoughts into words. "Walking into that room was like walking into a rainbow or a star or a . . . a matrix," she said. "It was like a computer matrix, only more complex, infinitely more complex, a genuinely infinite array of colors and so bright. I saw things, people--so many places all at once. And she was there. Tara was there; it was coming out of her, or rather--it was inside her." She closed her eyes in concentration. "It was like being inside her head," she said firmly. "Like I was seeing her thoughts. I saw her see me, and she called out to me, but there was no sound, only a feeling, like I was calling out to myself to wake up. Only she was saying 'go to sleep.'" She opened her eyes again. "The next thing I remember is waking up here, just then," she finished.
Morgan stuck his head into the shelter. "They're back," he said, glancing around at all of us. "Julia, you might want to bring your glove." Then he was gone again.
"What are you talking about?" I called after him. "Morgan, wait, I can't leave--"
"It's okay," Bess said, putting a hand on my arm. "I'll stay with Magus. You go see what they've done to John."

Bess was wrong; no one had done anything to John. Or rather, John had apparently given as good as he got. Both he and Val were wearing the evidence of what looked like a pretty entertaining brawl. Val's left eye was an alarming shade of black, and Danziger's nose was still bleeding in spite of all the blood already staining the huge wad of rag he was holding under it.
But while these injuries were certainly more superficially colorful, they were far less alarming to my highly-trained medical eye than the pallor of Tara's skin or the purple shadows around her eyes. Her lips were swollen and cracked, not as if from any blow but as if she were in the last stages of some cruelly debilitating fever. Val was carrying her in his arms, and her head lolled drunkenly on his shoulder. Her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to know where she was.
"Val, what's wrong with her?" I asked him gently, handing Danziger a somewhat cleaner rag to staunch his wounds.
"He doesn't know," John interrupted. "Believe me, we've been over that already."
"How's Magus?" Val said, lowering his burden to the cot Alonzo had set up.
"I'm not sure," I said bluntly. "She's conscious, finally."
"Then she'll be okay," he said, sounding certain. He still hadn't looked at any of us. Instead his full attention was on his wife, whom he had arranged on the cot like a broken doll. "Come on, honey," he said softly. "You can come back--Magus is going to be fine. You didn't hurt her--"
"Like hell she didn't!" Alonzo said sharply. "She almost killed her! If Julia hadn't found her when she did--"
"I'm sorry!" The voice that came from the crumpled form on the cot sounded more like a magpie than a woman. "'Zo, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it . . ." She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
"There she is," Val said, obviously relieved. He knelt down beside the cot and gathered her into his arms. "There's my girl."
"Julia, look at her hands," Danziger said softly. "Make him show you her palms."
"I want to show her," Tara said, allowing Val to hold her upright. She held her fists out to me, then slowly opened them.
"Good lord," Morgan breathed. "What is that?"
In the center of each palm was a rough circle of bluish-gold light, shimmering like the surface of a tiny but endlessly deep well of glowing liquid. "I know," she said, looking around at all of our shocked faces. "It's awful."
"It isn't awful," Val insisted, burying his face in the side of her neck.
"No, it isn't," I agreed, moving closer to her with my glove extended. "Just very strange . . . " I passed the glove down the length of her body, but its readings were perfectly normal for an adult woman under somewhat more than normal stress. Even when I held the glove directly over her palm, it refused to register so much as a hiccup of unusual energy. "Tara, what is this?" I asked her.
"I'm not sure," she admitted, closing her fists again. "It's me--what Magus saw, what hurt her, it was me, turning myself inside out, going into myself, putting the light on the outside instead of the inside--"
"Wait a minute," Morgan demanded. "Are you some kind of computer? Are you EVE?"
"No!" she cried, looking wildly around at us. "Val, please make them believe me. I'm a person, just like you, or Uly, or any of you." She squeezed her fists even more tightly shut, and when she opened them, the light was gone. "He made it come out of us," she said. "He cut away the barriers so that what was on the inside could come out, so he could see it."
"Who, Tara?" I asked, forcing myself to take one of her hands with my bare one. "Who did this?"
"My father," she explained slowly, looking down at our clasped hands. "Citizen Reilly."
My very bones turned cold. I knew Reilly wasn't just a "personality matrix." No computer projection could have manipulated me so well, could have seen inside me the way Reilly had. Seen inside me . . . but that was just what Tara was talking about, wasn't it?
"That's impossible," Alonzo said, coming up behind me and putting his hands on my shoulders. I resisted the urge to slump against him, but I was inutterably grateful to feel him so close. "There is no Citizen Reilly. He's just part of a computer--"
"*Now* he's just part of a computer," Val said, looking up to meet Alonzo's eyes.
"There were ten of us," Tara said slowly, as if reciting a difficult poem for an audience of children. "Citizen Reilly called us his children. He opened our brains and touched . . . then when he was finished, we could reach out. Our minds could reach out of this--" She knocked on her forehead, a gesture that would have been comically childish if the idea behind it weren't so frightening. "We could bring the energy of our minds out of organic matter and into a free-standing matrix. We could touch each other's minds--we were connected." She let go of my hand and pressed her fists against her temples as if trying to hold the light inside her skull. "Only the others couldn't stop," she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. "They couldn't draw it back in again, once it was out. And they couldn't stop burning--the light just burned them up." She turned her face away from us and buried it against her husband's chest.
"When that happened, Reilly's experiment was declared a failure, and Tara was taken away from him," Val explained, stroking her hair. "That's when she was given to her adoptive parents, people who were on the Council who could be trusted to keep her 'talent' a secret."
"They told me I could never let anyone see me do it, that I could hurt them," she explained. "But they let me use it to make VR--all I have to do is think really hard about a place, and I can recreate it perfectly and transfer everything about it to a real computer matrix. I was always really careful not to hurt anyone, but I had accidents--like with Magus, people just walked into me. That's how Val found out --I almost killed him, too." This thought seemed to frighten her even more than the others, and she clung to him tightly.
Yale had been listening to all of this in silence. As a kind of computer-assisted intelligence himself, he more than any of us was in a position to understand what Tara was describing, but so far he hadn't commented. But now he came forward and laid a reassuring hand on Tara's shoulder. "You told Uly that your father came back for you," he said gently.
She looked up at him and nodded. "Yes," she admitted. "After I had enrolled at the University. I thought he was dead--that's what my parents had told me. Certainly the Council was denying his continued existence--if it hadn't been for me and my parents, they probably wouldn't have admitted he had ever existed at all."
"So he wanted you back," I said.
"Not me so much as what I could do," Tara said. "He said he had more children--orphans from a colonial insurrection. He said he had determined what had gone wrong before, that he knew how to make a computer that would help these children connect to one another, to make a superorganism. He said these children were sick, that the stations were making them sick, and connecting them this way was the only way to save them."
"Syndrome," I murmured more to myself than to her.
"Yes," she agreed. "At least, I guess so. Reilly said there was a new place, a new planet, where this superorganism could rebuild our society the way it was supposed to be, before we destroyed the Earth. The superorganism would save the Syndrome children, because instead of having a single flawed immune system, each child would be part of an entire immune network created in an entirely organic environment. My parents agreed with him--they said they would be the ones going to this new place, to make it ready for these children. All the time they had been pretending to me that Reilly was dead, they had been helping him build this computer."
"I'm going to hate myself for asking this," Morgan said slowly. "But what exactly were your adoptive parents' names?"
Tara smiled at him, but it was more a grimace than a smile. "You got it," she said, mock-flippant. "Elizabeth and Bennett Anson were my parents. They convinced me that my socalled talent would provide the catalyst to jump-start this superorganism's computer brain, that it would be a copy of my own personal matrix." She laughed bitterly. "My mother actually told me I was lucky; that I would be the mother of a whole new world."
"But you knew how wrong that would be," Alonzo said.
"Good lord, 'Zo, of course I did," she said impatiently. "I knew I wasn't going to help him; I just wasn't sure how to stop him." She looked down at her hands, lying open on her lap and looking perfectly normal. "Then I figured it out," she said, her voice suddenly cold and precise. "I suggested to Papa--to Reilly, that we form a three-way connection: me, him, and the computer. The computer was a standard life-support system with an open matrix address. I would download my matrix there, as if it were a really big VR program, and Reilly's own brain-grid would act as a controller, channeling it into the appropriate chambers. I would give it life, and he would give it 'discipline.' Needless to say, he loved the idea."
"Yes, I imagine he would," I said.
"Then when the time came to download what was me, I--I'm not sure how to explain it--I pushed out and away," she said. "I pushed Reilly into the computer."
"Excuse me?" Morgan demanded.
"When my matrix had made contact with that address, instead of taking hold, it created a vacuum," she explained slowly. "That space had to be filled, so it swallowed Reilly. That's the only way I know to put it. The computer swallowed Reilly's brian."
No one said anything for a long moment--this was, after all, quite an idea to take in. But Morgan, of course, soon broke the silence. "What about Reilly's body?" he asked. "Or is that just too gross to talk about?"
"It killed him, of course," Tara said, turning her gaze on him stonily. "Where my brothers and sisters had been burned from the inside out, he was consumed from the outside in. He just collapsed in on himself."
Everyone was quiet again while this pretty picture sank into our collective imagination. "Not an easy thing to explain to station security," Danziger said at last.
Tara looked up at him with genuine affection. "No," she admitted with a smile. "Not at all, nor to my parents. So I ran, as far and as fast as I could. I was hysterical--when Val found me, I was in a bar, drunk out of my mind and trying to explain what had happened to anybody who would listen."
"Luckily, the other guys all just wanted to get into her pants," Val said with a grin.
"He sobered me up, and when I was still telling the same crazy story three days later, he agreed to help me get away," she continued after planting a soft kiss on his jaw. "And after the first twenty years or so, it was easy to pretend it never happened. And it just got easier and easier."
"I think we can all understand that," Danziger said. "The only problem is, it did happen, and apparently it's still happening. Whatever you may have done to Reilly, you didn't stop him."
"No," she agreed, her face sobering at once. "I just made him stronger." She reached out and took my hand again. "But we can destroy him, I know it. I know him, Julia, I know how his network works. There has to be a way to destroy the source without hurting you guys. If I can make the connection, there has to be a way I can break it."

Kamikaze, Part 7
by Jayel

Julia says if I really want to be a doctor, I have to learn to keep notes on everything that happens, no matter how insignificant it seems to me at the time. That's why she gave me this audio-journal, so I could get into practice. But how am I supposed to ever record anything interesting if no one ever tells me anything or lets me know what's going on?
Take tonight, for example. I know something bad happened to Magus, and I know it had something to do with Tara, but as soon as I showed up, Dad tried to make me go away. Then when he and Val came back with Tara, all the adults went into one of their little confabs in the old med-tent and sent Uly and me to bed-- like we can sleep with stuff like this going on. Actually, Uly did go to sleep, but I think that's how he finds stuff out. He goes to sleep and the Terrians tell him what's going on in his dreams.
But the Terrians tell me exactly squat, asleep or awake, just like everybody else, and besides, I wasn't sleepy. So I decided to try and find out for myself.
Bess is usually the best place to start when I need information, not because she's a pushover (which she really is), but because she's just about the only one in camp who doesn't treat me like a newborn baby with a learning disability. I knew she was still in the shelter with Magus, because I had seen everybody else come out and go into the med-tent. So once I made sure Uly was good and asleep, that's where I went.
The door was standing open, and I could see Magus on the cot. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like she was sleeping--I guess I knew Julia would have told us if she had died or anything. I started to go on in and talk to Bess, but then I heard Morgan's voice.
"I can't believe, after everything that's happened, that Danziger and the rest of them are just going to let those people, that . . . woman, stay with us," he was saying, hysterical as usual. I crouched down beside the doorway to listen.
"Morgan, honey, keep your voice down," Bess urged. I could see them sitting in front of the fireplace. Bess had her back to the door and was holding both of Morgan's hands, trying to calm him down. "We don't want to wake Magus."
"You're right; I'm sorry," he said more softly. For a second I thought he had seen me, but then he laid his head in Bess' lap. "But I'm upset, I can't help it."
"Of course you're upset; I'm upset, too," she soothed, stroking his forehead. "If what you just told me is true, then maybe Tara shouldn't be allowed to go with us."
"It's true if she was telling the truth, which we have no way of knowing," he pointed out. "What makes them think EVE couldn't make up some plausible story--"
"Morgan, honey, how could EVE possibly get out of the computer and come after us?" she said reasonably. "I don't think Tara is EVE."
"Maybe not," he conceded. "But she's still dangerous-- you should have seen those . . . things on her hands. And her husband nearly broke Danziger's nose when he tried to make her come back to camp."
"Val probably thought John wanted her punished for what she had done to Magus," Bess said. "If someone wanted to hurt me, wouldn't you break his nose?"
"Of course I would," he said quickly. "But you wouldn't fry anybody's brain--"
"Not intentionally," she interrupted. "But remember when I had that energy inside me from the plant? Remember how worried everybody was, how afraid they were of what I might do?"
He looked up at her with what Uly and I privately called "fuzzy eyes," like he wanted to eat her up with a spoon. Too disgusting . . .
"Of course I remember," he said.
"I think we have to give Val and Tara the benefit of the doubt," Bess went on, smiling sweetly down at him. "We need their help."
"If they can really help," he grumbled. "All right, all right . . . I'll try." He reached up and laid his hand on her stomach. "Let's just say I have reason to be overly cautious," he said.
She put her hand over his and squeezed it. "So do I," she said. He reached up and pulled her down to kiss her, and I decided I had seen enough. Believe me, after growing up in a tiny unit with Dad, I know when to snoop and when to walk away.
I figured if Morgan had come out, the meeting in the med-tent must have pretty much broken up, but lots of times Dad would hang around with Julia and Alonzo and Yale to hash things over after Morgan and Wolman and everybody else had gone. I knew from experience that this was when what was really happening would come out.
But when I got to the med-tent, there was no one left but Dad, Julia, Val and Tara. Julia was doing something to a bruise on Val's eye, and Tara (who looked worse than awful herself) was putting a skin-knitter on Dad's nose. "You poor baby," she teased. "Val, I can't believe you got this clear a shot at him."
"It wasn't easy," Val said, wincing as Julia probed his shiner. "Hey, man, I'm sorry."
"Forget about it," Dad said. "I'd have done the same thing."
"And did, apparently," Julia said. "The next time you guys want to pound on each other, give me a little notice, all right?" She turned away from Val and put her hand on Tara's shoulder. "The one I'm really concerned about is you."
"Don't be," Tara said. "It's happened before, like I said-- and you said yourself that my glove readings came up perfectly normal."
"Yes," Julia agreed slowly. "But this glove wasn't designed to detect the kind of activity you described."
"Julia, I'm fine, I promise," Tara insisted. "Val, tell her I'm fine."
"She'll be okay," Val agreed, getting up. "But I'd still check her out if I were you. Come on, Danziger, I'll buy you a drink."
Dad touched his nose like it still hurt. "Don't even joke," he said.
"Who's joking?" Tara said with a laugh. "Hasn't he shown you his stash yet? What do you think is in that locker down by the hot tub?"
"No kidding?" Dad said. "Let's hit it."
"Guys, be careful," Julia warned. "It's been a big night, and we've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow."
"She's just worried we're gonna get her sweetie schnockered," Val teased. "That Italian pretty boy has drunk stronger men than you and me under many a table in his day."
"They'll be good, Julia," Tara promised.
I faded back into the shadows as Val and Dad came out. My first instinct was to follow Dad--he usually stayed on top of things, and if I got caught snooping, he was more likely to forgive me than anybody else. But I couldn't help wondering what had happened to Tara, and I could tell she and Julia really wanted to talk. So once the guys were gone, I crept back up to my original listening spot.
Tara had taken most of her clothes off, and Julia was examining her with the glove. She looked like she had been badly sunburned, even on the parts that would have been under her clothes. "When I realized Magus was there, I tried to pull everything back in too quickly," Tara was saying. "It'll fade in a day or so."
"What about your cerebellum?" Julia asked. "Is it physically damaged as well?"
"How should I know?" Tara asked. "You're the doctor; you tell me."
"I'm not picking up any significant damage," Julia admitted, passing the glove over her head. "Although there is some old scarring--you say this has happened before."
"A few times," Tara said. "The worst was when I killed Reilly--for the next two weeks I looked like I had fallen asleep on a radiation bed. That's how I was able to pass as a sleep jumper--everybody assumed I had done a tour on the surface."
When she said Reilly, my ears perked up, and I think Julia's did, too. "You can get dressed," Julia said, taking off her glove. "My medical advice is to not make any new VR programs for a day or so."
"I think I can go along with that," Tara agreed. "What about you, Doc?"
"What about me?" Julia said.
"Are you okay? I know how you felt about Reilly . . . when Alonzo told us about what had happened to you, I nearly died." Tara came over to Julia, who was putting her equipment away and wouldn't look up. "I wanted to tell you, Doc," she went on. "But we had decided so long ago never to tell anybody. And Val wanted to just stay here--"
"It's okay," Julia said, turning to her with a smile I was pretty sure was a fake. "I understand, really. I just hope we can figure out a way to use what you can do to help Devon."
Tara seemed to know Julia's smile was a fake, too. "I hope that, too," she said, reaching for her boots. "Hey, you'd better go find those guys before they do get Alonzo started. Otherwise you'll be treating hangovers all day tomorrow."
I knew better than to hang around any longer. Hard experience had taught me I couldn't hide from Julia, and she was obviously about to come out. So I crept away from the med-tent on my knees until I was out of range, then got up and ran the rest of the way back to the tent I was supposed to be sleeping in.
Uly was tossing and turning on his cot and making those weird Terrian noises in his sleep. "Hey, wake up," I said softly, shaking him. "You're having a nightmare; wake up."
"MOM!!" he yelled, sitting bolt upright with his eyes wide open.
"Shhhhh," I told him, shaking him again. "You're okay, it was just a bad dream." I put my arms around him and squeezed him as tight as I could. "Your mom isn't here, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," he said, sounding like his old self again. He let me hold him, though, his head kind of drooping on my shoulder. "Thanks."
"Forget about it," I said, giving him one last squeeze. "You want a drink of water?"
He shook his head. "I wish I could forget about it," he said, sitting up cross-legged on the cot.
"What, your mom being gone?" I asked, sitting opposite him.
"No, not that," he said, shaking his head. "My dream."
"Maybe you should tell me about it," I said. "Sometimes when I have a nightmare, it makes me feel better to tell it to Dad. When I hear it out loud, it usually sounds so silly that it isn't scary any more."
"This one isn't silly," he said. "And I don't think it's a nightmare. I think it's real."
"Tell me," I said.
"Okay," he agreed. "I'm always in this cave, and there are lots of Terrians around me--the cave is so big, I can't even see the walls, and it's full of Terrians, squatting down close to the ground like they do. You've seen them--"
"Yeah, I've seen them," I said. "What's so scary about that? I thought you liked the Terrians."
"I do, stupid," he said. "That's not the scary part. The scary part is that we can't move, any of us. It's like we've turned to stone, or like we're frozen, like that old Terrian that got into your dad."
"That is pretty scary," I admitted.
"But that isn't the worst part," he said, sounding like he was about to cry. "The worst part is Mom . . ."
I reached out and took his hand. "What about her?" I said. "Is she frozen, too?"
"I think so--I think she's more frozen than we are," he said. "She's in the center of the cave, and we're all around her--I'm right up next to her, and so is Alonzo--"
"Alonzo is there?"
"Yeah, sometimes, and sometimes he isn't. We're there, looking down at Mom, like we want her to help us, but she isn't moving; she's frozen." He was really crying now, rubbing his tears away on his sleeve. "Then all of sudden we start--I don't know, we start melting--"
"Thawing out?"
"No, disintegrating. It's like we're turning into dust. My fingers are dust, and there's dust inside me, in my chest, so I can't breathe." He took a few big gulps of air like he was showing himself that it wasn't really happening. "All of the Terrians are screaming and turning into this frozen dust, and we all want Mom to save us, but she can't; she's turning into dust, too. I can see her skin going away, and the bones in her face . . . " He hunched over and put his head down on his knees, crying like his heart was broken.
"Hey, don't cry, Uly," I begged him, putting my arms around him again. "It's just a bad dream, I swear. It isn't real."
"It is," he insisted. "I know it is, and Alonzo knows it, too. He's been having the same dream."
"Did he tell you that?" I asked him, suddenly getting really scared. If Uly and Alonzo were both dreaming this, it probably did mean something. "I'm gonna go get Dad."
"No!" he said, looking up. "No, True, please don't." He held out his hand to me. "Just stay with me, okay? I'll be all right if you just stay here for a while."
I thought about it for a minute. Dad was probably going to be back soon anyway. "Scoot over," I said, pulling my blanket off of my cot and crawling in beside him. "I'll tell you something really scary, about the time my dad and Alex got stuck in a wrecked pod at the North Pole."
He snuggled up beside me. "Yeah, right," he said. "Like I haven't heard that story a hundred million thousand times already."

Kamikaze, Part 8
by Jayel

In spite of misgivings on all sides, our odd little caravan had gotten underway just after sunup the morning after Tara's revelation. We had met up with Wolman and Baines again our second day out--they had gone back toward the EVE ship the day of Magus' "accident" to make sure the trail was clear and were now on their way back. Alonzo had taken them aside and explained what had happened while they were gone. He told me later that both of them had been upset, but he was surprised to notice that Wolman seemed far more concerned about Magus' safety than about any security threat the Donahoe's might pose to the group at large.
"That's not so surprising," I told him. We had discovered that the only way to have a private conversation was to stay awake until everyone else had gone to sleep then whisper in the cramped intimacy of our own cot.
"Isn't it?" I could hear his grin even in the dark.
"Well, they obviously . . . I mean, they're obviously very close," I ventured.
"Yeah, maybe," he said. "You're the woman; you should know."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, forgetting to whisper.
"Nothing, forget it," he said, his arm tightening around me. "But you know, I thought Wolman was interested in Devon."
I pushed myself half-upright and looked at him. "That's weird," I said. "So did I." I settled back down again, trying to find the one possible position we could both be comfortable in. "Maybe when we had to leave Devon behind . . . shank, Alonzo, why are we speculating about other people's love lives?"
"Beats me," he said, planting a kiss on my forehead. "Maybe so we don't have to speculate about our own." He pulled the blanket up around me. "And watch your language, Doc--I'm easily shocked."
"Yeah, I noticed," I said with what threatened to be a giggle. "Go to sleep."
"You first," he shot back.
Something in his voice made me think he wasn't teasing any more. "Why?" I asked. "Why don't you want to go to sleep?"
"Afraid I'll miss something," he said, trying and failing to keep his tone light. "Don't worry; I'll wake you up if Santa comes."
"Alonzo, I'm serious," I said, struggling to sit up. "We decided on full disclosure, remember?"
He lay on his back looking up at me for a long moment. "You're beautiful, you know?" he said. "Irritating as hell, but beautiful."
"Don't change the subject," I retorted, refusing to be distracted even by such a lovely come-on as that. "I want to know what's bothering you."
He groaned extravagantly and sat up. "All right, if you must know," he said, mock-sarcastic. "I've been having dreams."
"Terrian dreams?" I said. "Alonzo, I thought we agreed that you'd tell the group if the Terrians dreamed anything to you--"
"I didn't think the group would want to know!" he said, all the teasing gone. "I don't want to know," he said more softly. "Come here . . . " He reached for me and held me close to him. "Please, baby, don't make me tell you about it."
I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight. "It's okay," I soothed pointlessly. "But is it really that bad?"
He didn't answer me for so long I began to wonder if he'd even heard me. Then he said, "Bad enough for me to think it doesn't matter what Tara can do or what the Terrians know. Bad enough for me to think we're already dead." He was squeezing me so tight my ribs were cracking, but he still didn't feel close enough. "Just in case I don't get a chance to mention it, Doc . . . I love you."
He had to be wrong. No dream could tell him . . . he just had to be wrong. "I love you, too," I whispered, holding him so tight I knew I'd never let him go.

By the time I woke up the next morning, Alonzo was already outside, and when I saw him, he was just the same as always. In fact, he seemed in such a good mood, I almost believed I had dreamed our frightening conversation of the night before. We packed up and moved on as usual, and he never said a word about Terrian dreams or impending doom, even when we were alone. But over the next few days, I caught him several times looking at me strangely, as if he were trying to memorize every detail of my face. And when he realized I had noticed, he would smile or wink, but his brown eyes would be sad and haunted, and I would know it hadn't been a dream at all.
So by the time we finally made it back to the EVE ship, I was already worn a little thin. But even being in the best possible emotional condition couldn't have saved me from the oppression I felt looking at that monstrous wreck again. "It seems weird, it still being here, just the same, doesn't it?" Danziger said, coming up beside me.
"Yeah," I agreed. "You're right . . . but that's crazy --I mean, why would it have changed?" The flat gray hull towered over us, presenting a utterly featureless but nevertheless unnerving facade broken only by the outline of its one bay door, still standing ajar like we'd left it.
"I don't know," Danziger said, turning away. "You know, I wasn't even sure it would still be here."
Suddenly Uly darted past us and through the door. "Ulysses, wait!" I called, running after him, but John was faster--as a matter of fact, he plowed over me like a human transrover to catch the child.
But when I made it inside, I found John just on the other side of door. Ulysses was across the room, bathed in the dim glow that emanated from the cold sleep capsule that held his mother, frozen but alive and still heartbreakingly beautiful. "Hi, Mom," he said softly, touching the glass with his fingertips. "We came back." He turned and looked back at me. "Is she okay, Julia?"
I slipped on my glove, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I don't know, Uly," I said, relieved to hear my normal, business-like tone intact. "Let's see." I used the glove to access the life support data systems of the capsule, then glanced back at John. "She's . . . she's fine, Uly," I said.
"Tell the truth," the little boy ordered harshly, his attention focused entirely on his mother's face.
"He's right, Doc," Danziger said, coming up behind us. "We might as well know the worst."
"Her cerebral activity is still very high," I said, trying to concentrate on the data as an abstraction without thinking of what effect my words might have on my listeners, both of whom were so obviously desperate for good news. "As a matter of fact, I'm getting higher brain wave readings that I got when we left."
"She's dreaming," Uly said softly, the last word fading into a Terrian-like purr that echoed eerily in the hollow of this death ship.
"But everything else is failing," I continued. "All of her other bodily functions are shutting down."
"I thought this thing was supposed to hold her in stasis," John said angrily.
"It is, as much as anything can," I told him. "If she weren't in cold sleep, she'd--her condition would be much worse. As it is, the cold sleep is slowing the progression of her illness considerably, but it can't stop it altogether."
"And we still haven't got a clue what kind of 'illness' we're talking about," John finished wearily. I almost wished he would get really angry--bellow and throw things and call me a terrible doctor. At least that would be better than this awful resignation.
"She's freezing," Uly said, looking up suddenly. "It's too cold--we gotta let her out!" He started banging frantically on the glass. "Open it up! Danziger, open it up!"
"Uly, calm down!" I said, trying to hold him still. "We can't open--"
"Don't listen to her!" Uly screamed, tearing out of my grasp. "She doesn't know--"
"Ulysses, stop it!" John ordered, scooping the whirling dervish that only moments before had been a perfectly calm, if somewhat unhappy, little boy up in his powerful arms. "Stop it right now," John said more gently, but holding the boy firmly against his chest. "Julia's right; we can't open that capsule yet. Not until we know what's wrong with your mom."
"I know already," Uly insisted, still fighting but with less energy. "She's freezing to death--COLD sleep--why do you think they call it cold?-- it's killing her."
"No, it isn't." None of us had heard Alonzo come in, but now he was standing beside me. "Uly, listen to me. I know what you think is happening, but that's not it."
"It is," Uly sobbed, but he seemed less certain now, and he went limp in John's arms. "It has to be . . ."
"Shhhh," John soothed, cradling him like a baby. "It's all right, champ. Everything's gonna be all right."
"No, it isn't," Uly wept, clinging around the man's neck like he was drowning. "It's bad--tell him, Alonzo."
"You're right, Uly; it is bad," Alonzo agreed, going to them and taking hold of the boy's hand. "But opening up that capsule isn't going to help. I have that dream, too, and it isn't cold sleep that's causing your mother's body to disintegrate." He glanced back at me. "It's the planet."
"What dream?" Danziger demanded. "What are you talking about?" He looked at me.
"Julia, what's he talking about?"
"Terrian dreams," Alonzo said. "I didn't want to say anything, not until I actually saw Devon." He went over to the capsule and placed his fingertips on the glass in an eerie echo of Ulysses' gesture earlier. "It isn't just Devon that's dying," he continued. "It's the planet."
"'Lonzo, you don't know that for certain," I interrupted, going to him and putting my hands on his back.
"I know now," he said stubbornly, his eyes still focused on Devon. His face was barely an inch from the glass that covered hers, and I had the ridiculous thought that if the glass weren't there, she would feel his breath on her lips. She would wake up.
"Okay, so the planet is dying," Danziger said, still rocking Ulysses back and forth. "This ain't news, you know? Elizabeth Anson said as much before Devon even got sick. She said EVE's network was killing the planet. We didn't believe her, because we had seen those convicts and the Elder, but maybe she was right. Or at least now maybe she's right."
"Because we reactivated EVE," I breathed, barely able to form the words. I felt as if someone had punched me hard in the stomach, and from the look on his face, I thought John probably felt the same.
"Exactly," he said. "And even if we could turn her off, we couldn't, because if we did, we'd all die."
Alonzo looked up, first at me, then at John, then back at me. "But the planet would live," he said softly. "If the planet dies, we die anyway--"
"Stop it," John said, his eyes like blue fire. I hadn't seen that particular look on his face since the demon, and I hadn't really wanted to see it again. "I've had just about enough of this 'we have to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the planet; the Terrians were here first; we have a responsibility'--that's a load of crap, all right?" He shoved Uly into my arms and stormed up to the cold sleep capsule, knocking Alonzo out of the way. "You told me to make sure everyone survived, remember?" he yelled at Devon's sleeping form. "Turning off a geolock or getting rid of a scumbag like Gaal, that's one thing, but if you think I'm gonna let you die to save a bunch of diggers, you're crazy, all right? And if you think we're gonna just commit mass suicide for this planet, if you think I'm gonna come this far . . ." Suddenly he seemed to see how pointless it was, this shouting at a dreaming corpse, and his voice trailed off. "I won't do it," he said gruffly to me then turned to Alonzo. "You hear me, fly-boy? I won't do it."
"We can't," I promised him. "We can't deactivate EVE, even if we all voted to do so." I squeezed Uly and was gratified to feel him squeeze back. "Our only hope is that Tara can somehow make her let us go."

Kamikaze, Part 9
by Jayel

I thought I felt as bad as I could possibly feel about our situation. But as usual, the Martins managed to make it worse.
We were making camp. John had bullied a promise from Alonzo that he would tell the entire group every detail of his dreams once we were settled in, the theory being that fifteen heads were better than one. Although Alonzo seemed to have given up hope of finding a solution that would save both G889 and the Eden Project and I had begun to suspect he was right, John Danziger was determined. "We made it this far; we'll make it a little further," was all he would say, and that with a grim will neither of us could bring ourselves to dispute. Besides, Danziger's determination, as bitter and unreasonable as it was, seemed to be the only thing that comforted Uly. The Terrian in Uly may have felt as overwhelmed as Alonzo, but the little boy still believed in John.
Alonzo had helped me set up the med tent back in its old location, and I found myself putting together a life support unit without ever making a conscious decision to do so. It was as if I knew that someone, maybe Devon, maybe not, was going to need it.
"You're going to take her out of the capsule, aren't you?" Bess said, coming in unannounced as usual.
"Eventually, once we know what's wrong and how to cure it," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "That's what we came for, isn't it?"
"Yes," she agreed slowly. "But that doesn't mean we'll succeed, does it?"
Once again I was reminded that Bess wasn't quite as innocent and empty-headed as she sometimes appeared. "No," I answered her honestly. "It doesn't. And quite frankly, right now, I don't see how we can succeed." I looked around at all my technologically stunning and now seemingly useless equipment and wanted to cry. "I don't know any more about what's wrong with Devon now than I did weeks ago when this first happened."
"Julia, we have got to figure this thing out," Bess said urgently, grabbing me by the arm. "We can not all start getting sick again."
"Bess, we haven't had any indication that Devon's condition is contagious--"
"Julia, please!" She collapsed on a chair with her hands over her face. "Oh God . . . this is so unfair," she wept, her shoulders shaking.
"I know," I said soothingly.
"No, you don't!" She looked up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Julia, I am pregnant!"
The sudden silence gave me several endless moments to clinically analyze all the feelings this statement elicited from me. I was shocked . . . elated . . . jealous . . . But the most powerful emotion of all was a cold, paralyzing fear, not for me, but for Bess and the tiny life she carried inside her. "Are you sure?" I said, seeking shelter in my profession and reaching for my glove.
"Positive," she replied as I scanned her. "See?"
"You're right," I agreed. "You are pregnant. And Bess, honey, this is a good thing--"
"Of course it is," she said. "Unless we're all going to die. Unless that thing kills us, or the planet dries up --Did you notice that? The way the new leaves on the trees aren't getting any bigger? When we first found this thing, this EVE ship, it was springtime, remember? The grass was turning green again, and the trees were putting on new leaves. But they aren't growing. Julia, I've been watching, and the baby leaves are dying."
"I know," I said softly, longing to comfort her but unable to think of a single thing to say that might.
"And this baby, inside me? What if it just dries up, too? What if it dies before it even has a chance to be born?" She touched the respirator as if she, like me, wanted to find the answer in technology and be done with it. "We have to think of something," she whispered.
"We will," I promised, hoping I sounded at least marginally convincing.
But that night around the campfire, there was a frightening but not-unexpected dearth of plausible solutions. I had seen Danziger talking privately with Tara and Val before dinner, and Alonzo briefed everyone else as quickly and as painlessly as possible, simply presenting the impressions of his dream, all of which were verified by Uly. Taken at face value, this image of Devon at the center of a sea of dying Terrians was more gruesome than frightening. But the light in Alonzo's eyes and Uly's pale, pinched face were enough to convince even a die-hard realist like Wolman that we had a serious problem.
"No chance this is just some sort of shared bogeyman, I suppose?" Morgan said hopefully. "Or maybe the Terrians just want to scare us."
"I don't think so," Alonzo said. "I definitely get the impression that they don't have any more control over this dream than we do."
"So that's it," Magus said. "We have to blow up the computer, or the whole planet goes kaput and us with it."
"But if we blow up the computer, we go kaput first," Baines finished.
"Not necessarily." Tara had been listening in silence while we hashed the situation over, but now she spoke up, getting to her feet and pacing like a lecturer. "You have to remember that EVE is still a machine--a very powerful, insidious, and possibly insane machine, but underneath it- -not 'she,' but it--is still subject to the laws of mechanics."
"Okay, professor," Wolman said, obviously struggling to keep the sarcasm at a minimum. "But what does that mean exactly?"
"It means there's still a way to pull the plug," Val said.
"Yeah, and when we do, we die," Morgan said.
"No . . . at least, maybe not," Tara continued. "Okay, if you have important data on separate repositories that were formatted for use only on one highly selective computer and that computer goes bad, what do you do?" She looked around as if expecting an answer, but we were waiting for answers, not giving them. "You build a new computer, an upgrade, the next model."
"You're saying build another EVE?" Bess asked.
"No--we don't need another EVE, we need something more sophisticated, something better suited to the tasks at hand," Tara said. "EVE was built with no knowledge of how this ecosystem works--no knowledge of the Terrians or the dream plane. Consequently when Elizabeth and Bennett tried to put it in place, it didn't work--or rather, it worked too well. EVE's task was to oversee and control, but no computer device can oversee and control the kinds of things that go on here. That would be like putting Uly here in charge of the rotation of the planets around a star. Uly's a really smart little boy, and he has a fair idea of what planets do as they orbit. But he doesn't know why, so he doesn't know how to make them start or stop or how to fix the system if something goes wrong." She sat down beside me. "With Reilly's intellect inside it, EVE knows a lot about human behavior and even something about the subconscious, dreaming in the abstract. And I suspect the ZED have been feeding it clinical data on the Terrians. But it doesn't know why or how the dream plane works--metaphysics are still beyond its capabilities." She looked at me and grinned. "I mean, call Reilly what you will, he was never much of a philosopher."
"Agreed," I said. "So EVE's supervisory system for the planet is working in opposition to the natural supervisory system of the planet, this metaphysical plane that holds everything together."
"Exactly," Tara replied. "And each system is treating the other as a kind of virus. Bennett created the virus you and Yale 'cured' to help the natural system--the Terrian system, I guess we can call it-- fight off EVE, not realizing that they didn't have all of EVE's component parts."
"They didn't know we were coming," Danziger said. "And once we were here and she saw us, Elizabeth couldn't let us die, even if it meant sacrificing the planet."
"You know, none of this is really news," Baines pointed out. "I mean, we're back to square one--"
"Not if I understand Tara's reasoning," Yale interrupted. "Tara, you said we didn't need another EVE but rather something more sophisticated."
"Yes," she said. "Something we can plug you guys' network into that can work in concert with the Terrian system rather than against it."
"Can you build such a device?" Yale asked.
She looked around the group, her eyes finally coming to rest on Val's purposely expressionless face. "Build one? I doubt it," she said. "But I think maybe I can be one."
"What are you talking about?" True demanded. "You're not a computer; you're a person."
"That's why it might work," Tara told her. "I'm a person who can access and load data like a computer. Obviously I'll have to downsize EVE's task load--I have no interest in tracking or controlling you guys' movements. All you really need is something to complete your circuit until Julia can figure out how to remove the foreign matter from your neural networks. The trick is going to be disengaging you from EVE."
"How do you plan to do it?" Danziger asked.
"Yeah, baby, tell them how you plan to do it," Val said bitterly.
"I can't explain it," she admitted. "It will be like what Magus saw before, except I'll know you're there, and I'll incorporate your responses rather than overloading them, if that's possible. I know it is possible; it has to be. No component is irreplaceable, even the operating system."
"That's true, theoretically," I said, the possibilities opening up inside my head. "It's like the idea of a brain transplant. If you could maintain system integrity long enough to transplant a new brain and create workable neural connections . . . No one has ever actually done it, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. And this is just another version of that--it's simpler, actually, because as Tara said, we are dealing with a machine, and she has the capability to access that machine and a human data array." I looked over at Alonzo, still looking so grim, and smiled. "'Lonzo, I think we can do this. All we have to do is figure out how to break one connection and make another."
"Gee, you make it sound so simple," Morgan said.
"Yeah, well, it won't be," I said.
"Even if it works for us, how do we disengage EVE from the rest of the planet?" Alonzo said. "Bennett's virus took fifty years and it still wasn't finished. Does anyone here think we have fifty more years to wait?"
"No," Bess said quickly. "The planet is dying now. Whatever we do, we have to do it now."
"Agreed," Danziger said. "But I think we have to take things one step at time. Once we're free of this EVE-network, then we can start worrying about the Terrians."
"But that's just it, John," Alonzo said. "Don't you realize? If Julia and Tara make this work, the Terrians are us. We're leaving one system to become part of another."
"Still, John's right," I said, putting my hand on Alonzo's arm. "One step at a time."

Kamikaze, Part 10
by Jayel

I awoke before dawn the next morning to Magus shaking me like a rat. "Come on, Doc," she ordered. "I can't handle this one alone."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, still too groggy to really comprehend what was going on. "It's still dark . . . where's Alonzo?"
"Funny you should ask," she said, dragging me upright and throwing me my boots. "He, Danziger, and Wolman have gone insane. They're in there opening Devon's cold sleep capsule."
"What?!" I jumped to my feet and ran out onto the dewy grass, grabbing up my kit but leaving the boots behind. "They can't be--they don't even have the code to unlock--"
"I know," Magus interrupted. "That's why it's taking all three of them to do it. Come on."
Inside the EVE ship, we found Alonzo and Wolman steadying the capsule while Danziger attacked the lock with an axe. "John, no!" I yelled. "What are you doing?"
"It's okay," Alonzo said, stopping me from stopping John. "Uly's right--we have to get her out of there."
"Are you insane?" I demanded. "If you take her out of there, she'll die--you guys heard me explain that to Ulysses."
"She's dying anyway," John said, giving the lock another solid whack. "Let her at least know what's going on."
"She's too far gone to know," Magus insisted. "Right, Doc?"
"Exactly." I started toward John again, fumbling in my kit for a sedaderm, but Alonzo caught hold of me and wouldn't let go. "Alonzo, he is killing her--"
"No, he isn't," Wolman insisted stubbornly, bracing harder against the capsule. "I've got her, John. Hit it again."
"No!" I screamed, struggling to get free. "Magus, for pity's sake, stop him!"
Magus looked as if she meant to obey, but then she looked at Wolman's determined face and stopped. "I . . . maybe they're right," she said hesitantly.
"It's okay, Doc, I promise," Alonzo soothed, sounding so sane and certain I was sure he was crazy. "I dreamed it . . . the Terrians think that Devon being a part of this ship is giving EVE more power over them, strengthening her--its--connection to the dream plane. Devon is dreaming, and the cold sleep monitors are hooking into her dreams."
"They're also keeping her alive," I pointed out hotly. "And we're supposed to be figuring out how to shut EVE down, remember?"
"Either way, Devon's gotta come out," Danziger said. Turning the axe around, he dealt the lock a final heavy blow with the blunt side, shattering it. The cold sleep vapors began seeping, then flooding around the broken seal.
"Don't breathe that!" I ordered as Wolman opened the door and Devon's limp body fell forward into John's arms. "You guys are way out of line here--"
"Punish us later," John snapped, carrying Devon toward the door. "Right now we need you to hook her up to life support." Alonzo let me go and followed them, as did Magus and Wolman.
"Sure," I said bitterly to no one but the dimly glowing lights of the empty ship. "No problem."

I managed to stabilize Devon's condition at "critical in the extreme." Her bodily systems continued to fail at an ever-increasing rate, but her brain functions continued to register high levels of creative energy--she was still dreaming up a storm. I put everything I possibly could under the supervision and control of a machine and prayed we could release her from whatever was causing her illness before she shut down completely.
Needless to say I had plenty of witnesses as I worked. Everyone in the Eden Project came by at least once while I stabilized her and most of them stayed. Yale and Danziger stood on either side of the doorway like sentinels, each looking as if he would have gladly taken Devon's place given the option. Ulysses sat at Danziger's feet, just watching. And Alonzo had taken up a vigil right beside Devon's cot. He hadn't spoken to me or anyone else since we'd left the wreck. Now he looked . . . well, like a Terrian, actually. He was squatting, not sitting, by the cot with his brown eyes closed and both hands clasped around one of Devon's cold, slender arms. Just looking at him made me want to cry with fear and frustration and the jealousy I pretended I couldn't feel.
"So that's the famous Devon," Tara said softly, coming in. I thought the sound of her voice might make Alonzo at least look up, but he didn't move a muscle. "She's quite a looker."
"You should see her when she's not half-dead," I said, trying not to sound as perturbed as I felt.
Tara shot me an amused glance but wisely made no comment. "Come on," she said. "You and I have work to do."
Suddenly the idea of staying in the medtent didn't seem so bad. I had known, of course, that we would eventually have to turn EVE back on, that I would eventually have to confront Reilly again. But I had managed to push the idea to the back of my mind, keeping the screaming horror of it manageable by simply pretending it wasn't there. But now it was time to face it, and horror was all I could feel. "Yes," I said, my mouth turning dry as cotton. "I guess we do." I started picking up objects--a clipboard, a medkit, VR gear, anything I could think of that might help or at least postpone the moment when we actually walked out the door. "I don't know what to bring," I confessed, looking up at Tara helplessly.
"Nothing," she said, trying to flash her signature grin but only managing a scared-looking grimace. "None of this stuff is gonna be any help anyway."
The strange thing was that seeing her feel fear made my own a bit more bearable.
Suddenly, I could think again. "I'll bring the gear and the kit," I decided.
Val was waiting for us at the door of the EVE ship. "What are you doing here?" Tara asked lightly.
"I want to watch," he answered, opening the door. "And you're not going to stop me."
"Val, please," she began, obviously resuming a longstanding argument.
"Tara, enough," he said firmly, putting his hands on her shoulders. "If you're going in there, I'm going in there." He tilted her chin up, making her look him in the eye. "Share and share alike, for better or worse, remember?"
Her bittersweet smile would have made the most hardened anti-romantic's heart melt. It just made me remember that my love was watching vigil over somebody else. "I remember," she said, kissing him quickly on the lips. "So come on already."
"Where's Alonzo?" Val asked me, following us in.
"Watching Devon," I replied. "Apparently he wants to be the first to know when what he and John did kills her."
I saw them exchange a significant look--Val raised his eyebrows, and Tara shook her head ever so slightly. For a moment, I was so jealous of their intimacy I hated them both. Then I turned the corner and saw the central console Elizabeth had used to bring EVE to life and even my jealousy was forgotten.
"Good lord," Tara breathed. "I've seen this . . . this is home."
"Are you okay?" Val asked.
"Fine," she replied, shaking her head as if to clear it. "It's just so familiar--this was my parent's computer on the stations . . ."
"Good," I said brusquely, sitting down at Bennett's keyboard. "So let's fire her up." Now that we were committed to doing this insanity, I wanted to get it over as quickly as possible.
"Wait," she said. "Not there." She went over to the wall and ran her fingers along what appeared to be a purely decorative groove running parallel to the floor. Suddenly a semi-circle of flat black tabletop slid out of the wall. The center of the curve opened up to reveal a glossy black screen. "Let's use this instead," she said, pulling up a chair.
"What is it?" Val asked.
"A direct-line console, my sweetest love," she said with an impish grin. "No keyboard required. Bennett made it for me. He thought it would contain my . . . light."
"Did it work?" I asked.
She glanced up at me, her eyes too bright, and I could see she was terrified. "Not really," she admitted with a shaky smile. "But it's probably the best chance we have." She turned her attention back to the screen, concentrating for a moment. "Hang on to whatever you hold dearest," she said at last.
She laid her hands lightly, palms down, on the plain black table-top, and suddenly the screen burst into brightlycolored light which threatened to spill over the edges. "Don't look directly at it," Val instructed, shouting to me over a roar I hadn't realized I heard. I tried to concentrate on the sound, to analyze its component parts, and I realized it was actually a babble, like thousands of voices all speaking at once.
"Have you ever seen her do this before?" I shouted back.
"Oh, once or twice," he said. "Be ready to run . . . it may get away from her."
Tara was staring at the pulsating lights which were now more concentrated around the screen than confined to it-- it was like she had conjured up a holo of a nuclear reaction about six inches in front of her eyes. "You guys get out!" she called--or at least her voice rang out over the babbling roar--her lips didn't move at all.
"Turn it off!" Val yelled back. "You hear me, Tara? Let it go, right now--"
Suddenly the center console let out its own war-whoop of expanding energy, seeming to suck power from Tara's screen in a whirlwind. The holographic image of Reilly we had seen before sprang to life on its circling screen.
"Why look who's here," Reilly said sarcastically. "My two favorite little girls in all the universe. And one of them's brought her pet pilot."
The image was much more vivid than the one Elizabeth had brought up--it was as if we could simply step through the screen and touch him. Or punch him. Or rip his smirking face to pieces . . .
"I'm glad you're so happy to see us," Tara said in a voice I barely recognized. I had never noticed it before, but her usual accent was as "Dixie-fied" as Val's, to use Morgan's word--moonlight and magnolias. But now the drawl was simply gone, replaced with the crisp diction I had heretofore subconsciously associated with my superiors-- my teachers, the Council. Mostly, she sounded like Reilly. "We had no idea we were your favorites," she continued.
"Don't be absurd, my darling daughter," he said with infuriating good humor. " I'm sure you're perfectly aware of just how much I've missed you. I told your husband just a few months ago how eager I was to see you again." He turned his attention from her to me for a moment. "And surely Citizen Heller realizes how important she has made herself to our success. I'm so pleased the two of you have met." He was fairly beaming with satisfaction. "Why, in a sense, you could even be called sisters."
"We are rather close," Tara said coolly. "You should have quit while you were ahead, Papa. You couldn't even control me. How did you ever imagine you could control Julia? She's much smarter and much stronger than I am, and you never even pretended to care about her."
"Don't sell yourself short, Tara Reilly," he shot back, looking almost rattled. It was as if he really did care about Tara. But then the moment passed, and he was his old unfeeling self again. "Or me, for that matter," he continued. "You haven't beaten me yet."
"Haven't I?" she replied easily, getting up from her chair, but keeping one hand resting lightly on the console. "As I see it, you're trapped in my father's creation--my real father, Bennett. You remember him, don't you, the one who actually did love me? He explained to me exactly how this friend of yours, EVE, worked. He even gave me my own little access. Now that I've found you, it should be a fairly simple matter to shut you down."
Reilly's eyes widened perceptibly, but his smile never slipped. "Ah yes, but you'll be shutting your friends down in the process," he said. "Or hasn't Heller explained all that to you yet?"
"That will be unfortunate," she replied, returning her attention to her screen, which now seemed two-dimensional again, though still pulsing with light. "They're all quite sweet, really." Her eyes were frighteningly blue, absorbing rather than reflecting the light from the screen, and I realized I was clutching Val's arm so hard my nails were white.
"But as I see it, they're doomed anyway," Tara went on. "By destroying you, I'll simply be putting them out of their collective misery, leaving the planet free and clear for me and my husband. As for the rest of the colonists, I assume, meglomaniac that you are, that you loaded connections into their neural nets as well, so when you die, they simply won't wake up." She glanced up from the screen and smiled at Reilly, ignoring us entirely. "As for the Terrians, I think that once I rid them of this terrible scourge on their highly evolved metaphysical environment, they'll be sufficiently grateful to allow us to live out the rest of our days in perfect peace."
"And you think this sentimental fool will go along with that?" Reilly asked, gesturing dismissively toward Val. "He is real, isn't he? He isn't just one of your clever little projections?"
"Oh, he's real, all right," Tara replied with a laugh. "Aren't you, baby? And he'll go along with anything I say."
My vision was clouding, and for a moment I thought quite lucidly that I was about to faint, that I was so frightened and angry that I was losing consciousness. Then suddenly I was looking at something else, a series of doors, like one of the long corridors at the medical research institute on the stations, only the walls and floor and ceiling were all vibrating with glowing light. Only the doors were dark and solid. I could still hear Tara and Reilly exchanging barbed pleasantries as if from somewhere far, far behind me and I could still feel the tense muscle of Val's arm under my clutching fingers, but my eyes thought I was walking down this corridor alone, looking at one door after another. All of them were blank, but suddenly I knew what was behind each one--each one was a file! A file within EVE--this was where Elizabeth had sent Yale before to eliminate the virus. The doors came rushing by faster and faster as I ran, turning corner after corner. Suddenly I knew the one just ahead was the download switch, the way to transfer everything if I could only reach the knob and turn it--
Then the corridor exploded in a holocaust of light and I was falling--it felt like I fell forever, but it couldn't have been more than a few inches, just back into Val's arms. I blinked hard and saw his face, then the room behind him. The central screen was dark again, and Tara was slumped over her console, apparently unconscious. Her palms were glowing with the eerie light we had seen before, as were her eyelids and lips, and her skin was burned a painful, purplish red.
"Oh no," Val said, letting me go and running to her. "Help her, Doc, please."
"Don't touch me," she croaked, waving him away but keeping her eyes tightly shut. The light falling from her open mouth looked ridiculous. "Wait just a minute . . . I'm all right, but I can't be touched just yet." The glow from her hands, eyelids, and lips slowly faded, and she opened her eyes. "That was nearly it," she said, grinning up at us, her drawl back in full force. "We almost did it."
"Almost did what?" I demanded, reaching for my medkit. "What did we almost do? Kill us all? Destroy Eden Advance so you and Val could live with the Terrians?"
"Doc, I was bluffing," she said, apparently shocked and hurt. "Didn't you realize? I had to keep him distracted while you looked for the switch." She got up rather unsteadily and grabbed my shoulder. "And you found it."
"Why her?" Val asked, rather incongruously, I thought. "Why not me?"
"You're not part of the network, baby," Tara explained patiently. "You couldn't have found it." She ran her hands back through her hair as if putting herself together again. "Now all we have to do is figure out how to transfer everyone and make the transfer stick."
"Wait a minute," I demanded. "I found something, yes, but how do we know it was--"
"You know," she said. "You knew as soon as you saw it, didn't you?"
I had to admit she was right--I've never been so certain of anything as I had been that the door I found was the one I wanted. "Okay, but it didn't work, right? That explosion--"
"Yeah, that smarts a bit," Tara admitted. "We weren't quite fast enough; Reilly caught on too quickly and shut me down--"
"So now he'll know what you're up to," Val said.
"Not necessarily," she said. "You forget, he's a computer. When he shut me down, he pulled his own plug, and he probably lost a lot of new data--he may not even 'remember' we had that conversation. But Julia is a person, and she will remember exactly where that door is next time. She can go through and show the rest of the Eden Project the way as well."
I couldn't get over the difference in her. This was the Tara we had met in the speakeasy--friendly, warm, devoutly to be trusted, hanging on her husband's every glance and eager to save the Eden Project and any other good cause that came along. But just as vivid was the memory of the other Tara, the cool, calculating computer genius who had called our annihilation "unfortunate" but inevitable, the one who seemed perfectly at home with Citizen Reilly. Which one was real?
Obviously Val believed in this one and believed he could control her. "Angel, what if he doesn't 'forget'?" he asked. "It's too risky; I mean, look at you. Reilly almost fried you alive--what will he do if you try again? I think it's time to cut our losses--"
"We can't," she said sharply, a hint of the other Tara creeping into her tone. "It's the only option we have."

Kamikaze, Part 11
by Jayel

In spite of Val's continued protests, Tara was determined to forge ahead with our experiments. I suggested she wait and give herself time to recover, but she insisted that she was fine and that she didn't want to "get better" until everyone else could, too. "How much more can he do to me?" she pointed out.
"That's the tricky part, isn't it?" Val said, following us to the med-tent. "We don't know what he can do."
"I know," Tara said stubbornly. "Before, when he was real, I didn't really know him at all." A knowing, even malicious smile played around the corners of her mouth, still painfully raw from Reilly's strike. "But I know him now."
"Maybe you just think you know," Val said. "Maybe he wants you to think that--has it occurred to you that he wants you in there with him?"
"Of course he does," she said impatiently. "That's exactly what he wants, but he isn't going to get it. Or at least, not really."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Val demanded. "Girl, you tell me right now what you're planning--"
"You know what I'm planning," she said, stopping at the tent flap and turning back to us. "You both do. Now hush before we scare poor 'Zo out of ten years' growth."
Would that we could have scared Alonzo out of anything or even have gotten his attention. He was still exactly as we had left him. Although the rest of the group had apparently retired to their own devices, I couldn't see where he had moved at all. "Where's Yale?" Tara asked him as if she didn't notice he was in some sort of trance. "I need him."
"He took Uly and True for a walk," Alonzo replied without opening his eyes. "John's out there trying to keep everybody else calm. Magus said you guys produced some pretty impressive fireworks in the ship."
"We did," Tara answered, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's going to work, 'Zo, I promise. I think . . . " Her voice trailed off as if talking to him were hopeless. "Julia, I'm going to try to convince Yale to come back into the ship with me," she said, turning back to me. "His connection to EVE may be the strongest, but it's also the easiest to access and therefore the easiest to break. If he's agreeable, will you help us?"
"Of course," I replied.
"I'll come with you," Val said in a tone that broached no argument. "You're not getting out of my sight."
Tara laughed. "It's the Plutonic Pleasure Station all over again, eh, 'Zo?" she said. Alonzo didn't answer or even look up, and she shot me a worried glance. "Yeah . . . ," she said, taking Val's hand. "See you in a bit, Julia."
I nodded, and they left us alone--me, Alonzo, and what was left of the woman who had led us here in the first place. The sound of her almost-totally-artificial respiration seemed deafening, closing in around us. "That was sort of rude, you know," I ventured, sitting down across from him. "They are your friends, and they're just trying to help."
He looked up, his brown eyes meeting mine over Devon's barely heaving chest. "What?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "Oh, Tara . . . " He shook his head. "It doesn't matter . . . "
"Alonzo, what are you waiting for?" I asked, near tears. "What do you think she's going to tell you?"
"I don't know," he admitted softly, staring into Devon's face. "I can see her dreams, but from a distance, like I'm standing a long way away and barely catching sight of her on the horizon. And I can't get any closer. I move toward her, but she just keeps moving away . . . But she's calling me, Doc--I can hear her calling. There's something she wants to tell me; I'm sure of it."
I reached out for him, letting my hand close over his wrist. "Why you?" I whispered, more to myself than to him.
He just shook his head, his eyes closing again, shutting me out. He didn't push my hand away, but he didn't take it, either, and finally I just let him go and went out to find Tara and Yale.

"Here, sit across from me," Tara told Yale, pulling a chair up to the back of her curving access station. "I'm going to use my access to wake EVE up, and I want you to be ready to activate your holo when I tell you to and take hold of my hand."
"That should be fun," Val grumbled, earning himself an impatient glower from Tara.
"Yale, he's right, you know," I said. "This is likely to be very painful."
"I realize that, Julia," Yale said kindly, as if I were the one about to face an ordeal, not him. "But what choice do we have?" He looked back at Tara and smiled. "Just tell me what I must do."
"You shouldn't have to do anything," she said, smiling back gratefully. "Julia there is going to try to find that shut-off switch again while I forge a connection with your network. If I can connect with you, I should be able to download your EVE data into my memory banks as she deletes it from EVE's--a fairly simple transfer. Your holo will act as a monitor, so I can read what's happening and make any necessary adjustments. The whole thing, if it works, shouldn't take more than a few seconds."
"And if it doesn't work?" Val asked.
Tara glared at him again. "You know, for a sleep jumper, you sure are squeamish," she said. "Obviously I don't know the answer to that question, because to my knowledge, no one's ever done this before. But if it causes any sort of medical damage, Julia's right here to fix us up."
"Assuming she isn't one of the critically damaged parties," Val pointed out.
"Yes," I said, managing a weak grin. "Assuming that."
Tara's eyes narrowed, and I was struck again by her eerie resemblance to Reilly when provoked. How many times had I seen his eyebrows draw together just that way when I questioned his orders? "Baby, I love you," she said, her pretty drawl sounding a bit brittle. "But I don't have the time or the energy to fight with you every step of the way on this. Now either help me or leave me alone."
The look on Val's face was strangely familiar, but it took me a minute to place it . He looked just like I had felt when I saw Alonzo crouched beside Devon's sick bed. Like this someone he loved was someone he wasn't sure he knew at all. "Yes, ma'am," he said ironically, turning on his heel and stalking out.
Tara watched him go, her mouth falling open either in shock or to call after him. "Oh, lord," she groaned instead.
"It's all right," Yale soothed, touching her arm. "He's only concerned for your safety, Tara. Once he knows that you are safe, he will be fine."
She looked up at him with eyes as trusting as Ulysses' for a moment. "You think?" she asked, half-teasing. "I hope so." She sat down at her terminal. "Okay, Doc, you ready for round two?"
I sat down on the floor--if Reilly decided to toss us around again, I didn't want far to fall. "As ready as I'll ever be."
With a final reassuring smile at Yale, she laid her hands on the terminal again, conjuring up her usual firestorm. This time Reilly appeared almost at once, standing in exactly the same position we had found him in before.
"Why look who's here," he said sarcastically. "My two favorite little girls in all the universe."
"Deja vu all over again, eh, Doc?" Tara murmured.
"Oh no, not the Yale unit again," Reilly groaned extravagantly. "Really, Heller, you're as bad as Adair, using that thing for everything."
"Don't be rude, Papa," Tara scolded teasingly as I found myself in the phantom corridor again. "Yale happens to be here to help you."
"Really?" Reilly asked, his voice distinct even from my sensory "distance." "And why, may I ask, do I require his help?"
"Don't you remember?" Tara asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "Oh no, it's worse than I thought. I can't believe Bennett was so stupid, mucking about in a device he could barely run, much less alter." I heard Yale's holo come to life, transferring the roar of babble that came from Tara's screen into a low, rather pleasing hum. Meanwhile, I could see the door I wanted just down the corridor, less than ten yards away.
"With the Yale unit's maintenance systems, I should be able to isolate the problem fairly quickly," Tara went on. "As soon as I made him show me what he had downloaded from you, I knew they'd planted a new bug. Are these people insane?"
"Yes," Reilly replied, obviously relieved. He seemed to believe every word she said, that she truly had his best interests at heart. "Or at least extremely naive. I apologize for forgetting . . . I seem to have a shadowmemory of seeing you recently . . . I should have known you'd get the better of them soon enough."
"Of course," Tara said with a lilting laugh. "I learned to be a dictator from the best, didn't I?"
"Got it!" I couldn't help but shout as I flung the download door/switch open wide. I expected another maelstrom of sensory overload, but instead the corridor simply disappeared. I could see the actual room again, where Tara was gripping Yale's hand like a lifeline as he looked into her eyes. Anyone just coming upon them would have thought they were in the midst of a heart-to-heart, but I knew it was actually a mind-to-mind.
"Heller, you little bitch!" Reilly roared, obviously furious. "Don't you realize what you've done? You think the Council was bad, just wait--"
"Oh, shut up," Tara said, carelessly slamming the lid of her terminal shut. Reilly's image winked out like an imploding star, leaving us in silence. "Yak, yak, yak, yak, YAK!" she mocked triumphantly toward the air where he had been.
"Yale, how do you feel?" I said, going to him. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," he said, looking up at me, somewhat wide-eyed but almost smiling. "I think I'm fine."
"Of course he's fine," Tara chortled, all but dancing around the room. "Doc, you were great! I knew you could do it." She beamed at both of us, the picture of pride. "I knew we'd pull it off."
Suddenly Val burst into the room, waving a rifle like an old-fashioned gunslinger. "Shut it off!" he yelled. "You're killing them!"
"Oh no," I said, struggling to my feet.
"Val, wait!" True shouted, running in. "It's okay! It stopped!" She looked around at us in bewilderment. "We're all okay," she finished slowly.
"Oh, True, baby," Tara said, rushing to her, her energetic glee instantly transmuted into motherly concern. "Are you sure? I'm so sorry . . . I should have realized there'd be exponentials, just like before." She looked at me. "You did say there were exponential effects in everyone when Elizabeth 'cured' EVE before, right?"
"If you could call them that, yes," I said, putting on my glove. "We thought our heads were going to explode."
"Yeah, that was it," True said, tactfully extricating herself from Tara's embrace. "What are you guys doing in here?"
"Tara's science project," Val said gruffly, going to his wife. "What happened?"
"We did it," she laughed, going up on tip-toe to kiss him. "Yale is no longer a component part of the diabolical device known and despised as EVE/Reilly."
"Or at least that's the theory," I added cautiously.
"Ask him," Tara said. "Yale, run a system diagnostic on your memory banks. Can you find any connection to EVE, even using the secondary program Elizabeth installed?"
Yale's expression clouded for a moment as his eyes scanned the coded lists. "None," he admitted with an incredulous smile. "Julia, I believe the young lady has done exactly as she professes. I believe that, for me at least, EVE is gone."
"I knew it!" Tara repeated, throwing her arms around Yale and hugging him before flinging herself back into Val's startled embrace. "Now we just give it until morning to see if there are any side effects, then do everybody else."
"Side effects?" I asked.
"Just a precaution," she assured me. "You know better than I do that any time you mess with someone's brain, things can conceivably happen that shouldn't. But all indications now are that Yale is perfectly, marvelously okay."
"How about you?" Val asked, putting his hands on her shoulders as if to hold her down to earth. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," she promised. "As a matter of fact--and as you should have noticed by now--I feel great." She caught hold of his shirtfront. "Val, don't you get it? I win! After all this time, I finally get to win!" She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed. "We win . . . ," she murmured. "At last."

Kamikaze, Part 12
by Jayel

True wasted no time in passing the good news on to the rest of the group, and soon the atmosphere in most of the camp resembled a somewhat restrained Mardi Gras. Tara's enthusiasm was contagious; soon everyone was as certain as she that victory over EVE was only a night away. Even I began to feel a cautious optimism--if Yale said he was free, I was prepared to believe him, even if I still had doubts about Tara.
But once I went back into the med-tent, any confidence I had was shattered. Devon's condition hadn't changed even marginally; in fact, she was obviously getting worse. Her metabolic rate had slowed so much that only the barest quiver of the life support instrumentation indicated that she was still alive at all, although her brain waves were as strong and as erratic as ever. Alonzo hadn't moved either, although he must have heard the celebrating from outside. He didn't even open his eyes when I came in. "No luck yet?" I asked, touching his shoulder. No response, not even a grunt to acknowledge he'd heard me. For all I knew, he was past hearing me altogether.
I sat down at the computer and ran a series of routine diagnostics on Devon, but it revealed no surprises; nothing I hadn't seen at first glance. Still no sound from Alonzo. "You know, I am really hating this," I said, no longer really expecting an answer. "I have never responded well to the silent treatment; you could ask my mother . . . " I picked up my glove just to have something to do with my hands, then dropped it on the table again. "But then, she isn't here, is she?" I went on, hating the desperation I could hear in my voice. "No one's here but us . . . and Devon, of course. Except . . . is she really here, Alonzo? Devon, I mean? Are you, for that matter? I mean, I can see you, but then I can see Devon, too. Are you with her someplace? Someplace I can't go?" I was crying now, on the point of hysteria, and for once I didn't even try to regain control. He wasn't listening anyway; why shouldn't I lose my mind? "You promised," I choked out, pointing my finger at him like an angry child. "You promised you'd never, ever leave me by myself again. Do you remember? I remember . . . you're breaking your promise, fly-boy."
Nothing; his eyelashes didn't even flicker.
"Julia?" I looked up to find Ulysses standing in the doorway.
"Uly--"
"Don't be mad at him, Julia," he said, coming in. "He isn't gone; not really." He put his hand on Alonzo's shoulder and trilled softly, like a Terrian, and to my shock Alonzo trilled back, an eerie sound pitched deeper but otherwise identical to Uly's. "Neither is Mom," Uly continued, turning back to me. "They're here; it's just that they're someplace else, too."
"I know, Uly," I said, trying to smile and failing. "Come here, all right?" He came and climbed into my lap, and I hugged him tight. "I just need him here, that's all," I said, burying my face in his soft, curly hair.
Suddenly True tore through the tent-flap, at a dead run as usual. "Sorry, guys," she said, catching sight of us. "But Julia, you have to come. There's something wrong with Yale, and Tara's barricaded herself inside the ship."
I don't care, I wanted to scream. What do you want me to do about it? I'm just as scared as you guys--why is it always me?
I said none of that, of course. "You and Uly stay here," I ordered, snatching up a med-kit. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

By the time I got to Yale, his condition had stabilized on its own--from listening to the reports of the rest of the Eden Advance, I gathered he had suffered a brief but intense seizure. "Do you have any idea what caused it?" I asked him, checking him out with the glove and discovering little more than the residual effects of shock.
"I think I know exactly," he said grimly, opening his holo to show me the familiar pattern of his own brain functioning, a brain-shape covered with a network of glowing blue lines which indicated activity. Another, smaller pattern of red lines was growing slowly but steadily outward from a braided trunk near his brain stem--the foreign matter we had determined to be a connector to EVE. "Somehow it has managed to reconnect itself," he said.
"We've all got that in our heads?" Magus asked, sounding dismayed.
"I'm afraid so," I replied, reaching out and closing Yale's fist--I didn't want or need to see any more. "Are you all right?" I asked him.
"I believe I am at the same level of fitness I was before our experiment this afternoon," he said. "I suspect my seizure was merely a bit of vengeance from our orbiting nemesis."
Suddenly I heard Val shouting furiously outside and a loud banging noise, but none of the others seemed particularly alarmed. "What is he doing out there?" I asked Magus.
"Trying to make Tara open the door," she said. "As soon as we saw what was happening to Yale, she locked herself in the ship--apparently she knew how to access the security systems. Wolman says he saw her hands light up, and her face, but there's no way to be sure." She shrugged. "She's pretty fast when she wants to be."
"Perhaps you should go and talk with her," Yale suggested gently.
"Me? Why me?" I demanded, sounding petulant even to myself. "If she won't talk to her own husband, what makes you think she'll talk to me?"
"She feels a certain kinship with you, I think," Yale said. "After all, you are the only one of us who truly understands her relationship with Citizen Reilly."
"You think so?" I asked bitterly. "Let me enlighten you--I don't understand anything about Tara or Citizen Reilly or any of the rest of this." They were both looking at me so expectantly, I didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. "All right," I said wearily. "I'll try--but I'm not promising anything."

I found Val slumped despondently on the steps leading up to the ship's hatch. "Has she answered you at all?" I asked.
He looked up as if surprised to hear my voice, like he hadn't even noticed my approach. "Yeah," he replied. "She said go away." He rubbed his temples like his head ached. "You know, Doc, she really is a good person," he said. "She isn't doing any of this on purpose--she really thought she could help you guys--"
"I know," I said, resisting a sudden urge to hug him. His brand of despair sounded too much like mine; if we started commiserating, nothing would get done. "Val, she loves you so much--"
"I know," he interrupted, holding up a hand to stop me before I could go on. "You don't have to help me, Doc. Just help her." He got up and tapped on the hatch. "Hey, honey? I'm leaving now. Really. I promise." He glanced back at me. "Julia is here. She wants to make sure you're all right. You let her in there, okay?" No answer was forthcoming, but he seemed satisfied and turned away. "See if you can put her back together just one more time, okay, Doc?" he said, walking away.
When he was well and truly gone, I walked up to the hatch and tapped on it myself, or at least I tried to. As soon as I touched it, it swung open.
But instead of walking into the familiar wreck, I walked into an empty barroom I had never seen before, at least not outside of an old "movie." The little cavern of a room smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke, but it seemed to have closed down for the night. The spindly chairs were stacked upside-down on the tables, and the only light came from the neon signs over the bar and one dim lamp sitting on the lid of a battered baby grand piano in the corner. Turning around, I could see through the still-half-open hatch--Danziger and Baines were walking by, deep in conversation. But inside was a world entirely of Tara's making.
She was sitting at the piano, one finger moving over the keys. "'What'll I do . . . when you . . . are far away . . . and I am blue . . . . what'll I do,'" she sang in soft bursts, each one preceded by a single note.
"I know that song," I said, not sure whether I should move closer or leave her alone. This was like walking into her speakeasy the day we met, only I wasn't wearing gear--I even reached up and touched my hair, feeling for a headset that wasn't there. "Tara, how are you projecting this?"
She didn't seem to have heard me. "'What'll I do with just a photograph . . . to tell my troubles to," she sang on, a prettily tender soprano roughened with tears. "'When I'm alone . . . with only dreams of you . . . . that won't . . . come true . . .'" Her head sank down on the piano, her fist striking an angrily dissonant chord. "I hate him," she raged, banging her fist down on the keys again and again. "He should be dead--"
"Tara, please!" I ordered, going to her whether she wanted me or not. "Where are we? What is this place?"
She stopped trying to destroy the keyboard and looked around. "Noplace," she answered. "My place, I guess . . . Elizabeth always said my mother must have been a singer or something. My head's always been full of places like this, even before I met Val . . .We're in my head now, you see. Only it can't hurt you, because I've focussed . . ." She broke off and got up. "It's just a program," she explained, wiping her eyes. "I can hide here, from Reilly, until I can break any connection he may be forging with me through Yale." She looked at me, seeming to really see me for the first time. "Is Yale okay?"
"He's fine," I assured her. "Well, as fine as can be hoped."
She nodded, gesturing for me to stop. "I should have known," she said, opening the lid of the piano to reveal the computer-access pad. "I should have known he'd beat me in the end."
"He hasn't won yet," I protested. "We just need to try again--"
"What, so you guys can all have seizures?" she asked. "No way, Doc. It's over. This connection it has to you, it's too strong. You guys will continue to rebuild it." She looked down at her screen, which now looked like a perfectly normal navigational monitor. "I can find her in the sky, but I can't touch her."
Suddenly, I heard the one thing I'd been waiting for all day and all night--Alonzo's voice calling my name.

We found Alonzo at the rocket, banging on the hatch. "Damn it, Val, how do you open this stupid thing?" he demanded impatiently.
"Alonzo, what are you doing?" I asked. "What's--"
"Julia!" He turned around and grabbed me up in his arms, hugging me tight for a moment, then letting me go and returning his attention to the rocket. "I found her," he said, as if this would explain everything. "Or she found me . . . It doesn't matter. The point is, I know what to do now." He jammed the heel of his hand against the latch, and the rocket's hatch sprang open with a rusted whine. "Tara, how do you fly this thing?"
"Who wants to know?" she demanded suspiciously. "Who did you find?"
"Devon," he explained impatiently. "I finally caught up, or she finally broke free for a minute--Hey, Val, I think I know what those dreams you were having meant."
"Terrific," Val said, putting his arm around Tara's shoulders. She seemed to shrink against him, hiding her face against his chest. "What dreams?"
"About the rocket," Alonzo said, avoiding my eyes. "We have to use the rocket to blow up EVE."

Kamikaze, Part 13
by Jayel

Before I could form a personal reaction to what Alonzo had suggested or even ask him to explain what exactly he was suggesting, the whole camp was in an uproar. I had never seen the members of the Eden Project so agitated, even when under direct attack. Everyone was talking--or yelling, actually--at once, and no one was listening. Only Alonzo seemed calm.
"All right, everybody, just shut up!" Danziger finally roared in the only voice that could possibly have been heard above the din. "Let the man talk."
"But John, he's crazy," Bess protested. "Even if we could blow up this satellite that EVE is supposed to be on--"
"Which, I'm sorry, Alonzo, seems a little farfetched," Morgan added.
"We can't, because we'll die," Bess finished.
"Not if you can all transfer to Tara's system first," Alonzo said. "Yale, you were fine for more than three hours after the transfer, right?"
"To all appearances, yes," Yale replied slowly.
"That's a pretty big window of opportunity when you're talking about an orbiter run," Alonzo said. "If I take off just before Tara starts a full group transfer, I should be able to destroy the satellite within minutes after its completion."
"But the connector grows back," I said, unreasonably proud of myself for sounding so calm.
"Doesn't matter," Tara said, her first words since Alonzo had started babbling about flying that stupid rocket. "If the primary data/power source is eliminated, the neural connector should automatically switch over to its secondary source, creating a loop which will eventually solidify into a primary arterial data/power flow."
"What she said," Baines joked grimly.
"If EVE is gone, you guys will just stay hooked up to Tara," Alonzo translated. "That's the only way to do it. As long as EVE exists, these connectors are going to find her--it--whatever. We've got to destroy the hardware, and the only way to do that is with the rocket."
"Hang on a minute," Danziger said. "You keep saying 'destroy the satellite,' like it's a done deal, but what makes you think you can? I mean, Bennett built the damned thing, and he couldn't just destroy it."
"He didn't have a viable surface to orbit transport," Alonzo pointed out. "And he and the rest of his group needed EVE's life support systems to make it back to the stations." He turned to me. "I didn't really know it at the time, but that's why we had to take Devon out that cold sleep capsule, even if it was better for her medically to stay in it," he explained. "Now we aren't dependent on any of EVE's systems, so we can shut it down entirely."
"Yeah, but how?" Danziger persisted. "You've got to figure the security systems on that thing are unreal. How do you plan to get past them? Plus, it's a computer satellite; it won't have any kind of on-site life support, and we don't have any kind of mobile suit, even if the rocket had the power to support it, which I seriously doubt. You planning to just hold your breath, jump on top, rip out a few wires, and take off?"
"No, of course he isn't," I said, my careful calm unravelling at light speed. "Don't you get it, John? He didn't say he was going to disengage the satellite's systems or shut down EVE. He said he was going to *blow up EVE.*" I looked at Alonzo, forcing him to look me in the eye. "This is a kamikaze mission, isn't it? You're not coming back."
"What's a kamikaze mission?" True asked. No one said anything for a long moment, then the teacher in Yale took over.
"Kamikaze is an old Japanese word," he explained, his tone studiously matter-of-fact, as if True had merely posed a rhetorical query in the schoolroom. "Japanese pilots during the Second World War back on Earth would crash their planes into enemy ships to destroy them, committing suicide in the process. It was assumed that the sacrifice of an individual life was warranted by the significance of the national cause."
"They were dead, but Japan got rid of one more enemy ship," Val finished, ruffling True's hair. "All the best pilots wanted to be kamikazes. Sort of the ultimate exercise in no guts, no glory." His blue eyes met Alonzo's brown ones. "They all thought they were going straight to heaven by way of a fireball, and maybe they were right. They were unstoppable; that much is certain. But hey, buddy, what makes you think you're the one going?"
"Val, no," Tara began.
"I mean, I'm the one who had the dream about the rocket, remember?" Val continued, putting a hand on her shoulder. "The Terrians seemed to think I would need it, not you."
"This isn't your problem," Alonzo answered. "You said yourself, you guys have no problem with EVE."
"Exactly," Tara said firmly.
"It hasn't been decided that anybody is going anywhere," Danziger interrupted.
"John, I have got to do this," Alonzo said. "It's the only way to save all of us or any of us." He looked pointedly at Tara. "Including you. You've already discovered you can't just wipe out EVE from here, and EVE is killing the planet. If we die, you and Val die with us."
"I haven't tried to just wipe out EVE," she retorted, all traces of Southern sweetness gone. "I've been trying to help you eco-terrorist idiots--I could walk into that ship and shut down Reilly's vessel right now and let you guys all go to hell right along with it."
"Tara, stop it," Val ordered, catching hold of her, but she broke free.
"You're right, though," she went on crisply. "The only way to save the planet and these people is to fly the rocket straight into EVE's heart. And the only one way that will work is if I help you. I don't--*we* don't necessarily need you, Solace. But you sure as hell need me."
Everyone was stunned silent, even Morgan, and I realized that no one but me had ever heard this Tara before. No one but me and Val knew Reilly's daughter. "So you'll just let us die, then?" I asked, going to Alonzo's side.
Her eyes met mine for a long moment, then looked away. "Not if I don't have to," she mumbled. She looked up at Val as if for comfort, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. "I'll help you," she said to Alonzo. "I'll even die if I have to." She glanced back over her shoulder. "But not Val."
"Tara--" Val began, reaching for her.
"No!" she shouted, jerking free of him again. "If anybody dies, it isn't going to be my husband. That's it. That's all." She looked up at Alonzo. "Do you want my help?"
No, I wanted to scream. Better we should all die together--
"Yes," he said, holding out his hand to her.
She took it and shook it solemnly. "Okay," Tara said. "Come on. I'll show you how to fly the rocket."

Everyone tried to stop him, of course. John even hit him again, hard enough to knock him out cold. But when he came around, he still insisted that at first light, he was getting in Renaldi's rocket and crashing it into the EVE satellite, destroying both our problem and himself.
"And you think this will save Devon," I said. He was sitting in the cockpit of the rocket, familiarizing himself with the controls. Everyone else had come out to where the thing was parked, both individually and in groups, to try and help me convince him to find another way, but by now they had all given up and left me to battle on my own.
"I think this will save everyone. I know it will," he said, getting up and swinging jauntily up and out of the cockpit.
"Because Devon told you," I continued.
He stopped, as if the adrenaline that had energized him had suddenly run out. "Yes," he said, turning to me, really focussed on me for the first time since he'd hatched this crazy plan. "That's part of it, yes." He came over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. "But that isn't the only reason, Doc. Don't you see? This makes perfect sense--"
"No, it doesn't," I insisted, refusing to cry again in spite of the aching lump in my throat. "Your getting yourself killed makes no sense whatsoever--"
"Yes, it does," he interrupted. He reached up and framed my face with his hands, just looking into my eyes for a long moment. "You are so beautiful," he murmured. "I've never seen anyone so beautiful . . ."
"Stop it," I demanded, trying and failing to sound stern. "You can't make me feel better about this, fly-boy--"
"I know," he laughed. "I don't want to make you feel better--don't you think I'd be insulted if you didn't try to stop me?"
"So why are you going?"
"I have to--"
"No, you don't. Val could go--or if we can't convince Tara, then nobody goes. That would be better--"
"No, it wouldn't." His eyes were serious, but all I could think about was how the sight of his thick, dark lashes against the pale of his face in the moonlight broke my heart. "Doc, listen to me," he continued, shaking me a little. "Ever since we crashed on this rock, I've been trying to figure out why I'm here."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, genuinely confused. I couldn't really hear anything he said. Every word sounded like nothing but "he's leaving and there's nothing you can do to stop him . . . you're losing him forever."
"This is Devon's dream, and you're here to save those kids, and John is here to take care of everybody, and maybe Morgan's supposed to be keeping everybody on their toes or giving them a common enemy," he said. "The point is, what good is a pilot in a place like this?"
"You saved me," I pointed out stubbornly. "That may not be much, but I like to think it's something."
"It's everything," he agreed. "I had even decided it was enough." He combed his fingers back through my hair, loosening the barrette that held it in place. "You saved me first," he continued, smiling gently. "The only thing that kept me from literally going over a cliff was the idea that I might get to know you."
"So you have to stay with me," I said, clinging to him. "Alonzo, please--"
"If I stay with you, we'll both die," he said, his arms closing in around me. "If I go, at least one of us gets to live." He brushed his lips over my face, planting tender kisses along my brow and cheek and jaw, tasting my tears. "That's something, isn't it?" he whispered.
"It's not enough," I protested, clutching him with all my strength. "One of us just isn't enough."
"I know," he agreed, sinking to the ground in my arms and kissing me fiercely. He fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and for once when I pushed his hand away it was only so I could undo them faster. I had loved him almost at first sight and wanted him desperately for months before our first awkward kisses, but I had never ached for him like this. I had never ached for anyone or anything like this. "I'm sorry, Doc," he mumbled against my neck, and I couldn't be sure if he was apologizing for ravishing me in the middle of a clearing, for which he had no need to be sorry, or for leaving me, for which he could never be sorry enough.
"It's okay," I answered, laughing and crying at once and still struggling to be closer, to find a way to hold him with me so he couldn't go away. "I need you--"
"Need you," he repeated softly, tugging his own shirt over his head and falling back into my arms. And as I held him tight, all I could think was that at least we had this. At least I would get to feel this way--at least I had love, and that was more than I had ever dreamed on the stations. The planet may have been taking him away, but at least I got to borrow him for a while. Maybe that was supposed to be enough.

Kamikaze, Part 14
by Jayel

I had no intention of falling asleep. As a matter of fact, I had made a conscious vow not to fall asleep. If Alonzo was leaving me forever, I was spending my last few hours with him, wide awake.
So naturally I fell asleep.
"Hey, Doc," Alonzo said softly, barely shaking me. "Doc, are you hearing this?"
My eyelids snapped open, and I sat up, blinking. The clearing was still dark, although a thin line of pale blue light was spreading on the horizon. "Hearing what?" I asked, still groggy, then suddenly I realized what he meant. The noise, a resonant, musical hum, seemed so much a part of the atmosphere around us that at first I hadn't been able to isolate it as a separate sensory phenomenon. The very ground seemed to be singing. "Where is that coming from?"
"Everywhere," he answered, pulling on his shirt and standing up.
I got up, too, struggling clumsily into my clothes. We both just stood there for several minutes, turning around and around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. "It's stronger that way," I said at last, pointing toward camp.
"Come on," he said, taking my hand and starting back in that direction.
"Wait!" I drew him back to me and kissed him the way I would want to kiss him good-bye later but wouldn't because everyone would be watching. "Okay," I said, pulling back. "Let's go."

The camp was completely surrounded by Terrians. As soon as we stepped out of the trees, we all but stumbled over the first of what seemed at least a hundred cocentric rings of crouching bodies. At the center of the innermost circle was the EVE ship. And standing in front of the hatch was Devon.
"Oh my lord," I whispered. "Alonzo, do you see--"
"I see her," he interrupted. "It's okay--that's the dream Devon." He looked around at the Terrians, each of whom was contributing its own note to the weird music that should have drowned out our voices but didn't. "They've brought the dream plane to us."
Danziger stumbled out of his tent, scratching his head and carrying one of his boots. At the sight of Devon, he dropped it, and for a moment I thought he would follow it to the ground. "Julia, what the hell--"
"John, it's all right," Devon called, her voice sounding distant but perfectly distinct. "But we have to hurry. Make everyone come quickly."
This was not a difficult request, as the Terrian singing had managed to rouse even the soundest sleepers. Everyone was stunned silent but alert by the sight of all of this . . . I guess light is the only word for it, but that isn't enough. Everything was sharper--the baby leaves Bess was so worried about looked as if they had been carved in green laser on the white-blue sky. Soon the entire Eden Project had gathered in the center of the Terrian circle, standing so close to Devon we could almost touch her. Almost, but not quite--at close range, it was obvious that her physical self was still in the med tent. She wasn't like a ghost, exactly, or a hologram, but rather something in between. I thought that at least Ulysses would try to touch her, but he seemed to understand her present state more clearly than the rest of us and was apparently content to sit at her feet.
"Devon, how are you doing this?" Alonzo asked. "Why?"
"I came to stop you from making a terrible mistake," she said. "You didn't listen to me--you can't die on that satellite."
"Thank you," John said. "I knew he was hallucinating--"
"He wasn't hallucinating," she said with a familiar smile. "He was just taking too much on himself. Alonzo, if you die away from the planet, the planet dies, too. Didn't you realize that? Aren't you the one who said we are the Terrians now?"
"Well, there's a shocker," said a voice dripping with angry sarcasm. Turning, I saw Tara coming towards us, stepping around Terrians like they might have been so many rocks in her way. "Somebody's got to die, but it can't possibly be someone from your precious Eden Project." She walked straight up to Devon like the rest of us weren't even there. "No wonder the Terrians like you and your kid so much," she continued, standing nose to nose with this dream-Devon. "You think just like them. Shank the rest of the universe; just take care of your own."
"That's an interesting accusation, coming from you," Devon answered calmly. She reached out as if she meant to touch Tara's face, but Tara jerked away. "Tara, no one wants to hurt you or Val," Devon said gently in the conciliatory tone we had all come to know so well.
"No, but you will to save yourselves," Tara retorted. "Hey, I don't blame you. I feel exactly the same way."
"Tara!" Val came running from their tent but stopped dead at the edge of the innermost circle and simply stared at Devon. "Tara, come back here," he said, glancing apologetically at the rest of us. "Leave them alone."
"Don't worry," Tara said, still facing Devon. "I intend to." She turned away, coming face to face with me and Alonzo. "I'm sorry, 'Zo," she said softly as she pushed past us.
Suddenly, one of the Terrians stood up and grabbed her by the wrist. "Let go!" she shrieked, trying to tear herself from his grasp, and Val lunged for the Terrian, trying to push it away from his wife.
But the Terrian wouldn't be moved. He drew Tara gently back into the circle and up to me. "Forget it," she insisted, still struggling. "Whatever it is, it won't do any good--"
The Terrian reached out and touched my stomach, and suddenly I felt a warm glow, like a perfect sphere of pure joy had simply appeared deep inside me. "Alonzo . . . ," I whispered fearfully.
"It's okay," he said, holding me by the shoulders.
The Terrian gently forced Tara to touch the spot on my stomach he had touched. "I don't care," she said, crying. "You hear me? I don't care . . . "
"Let her go," Val demanded. "Alonzo, make him let her go."
"What makes you think I can?" Alonzo asked, an entirely inappropriate grin breaking over his face, as if he could feel my joy, too.
But suddenly the Terrian did let go of Tara's wrist, and she jerked away, stumbling against Val. The Terrian passed both its hands over her head before going back to its place in the circle, and while she didn't look happy, she didn't resist. "This is so unfair," she said, crying. She turned to Devon as if for an explanation. "I didn't ask for this," she insisted. "You're the one who wanted this place, not me."
"Baby, what are you talking about?" Val said.
She looked up at him, tears still flowing down her face, but she turned back to Devon. "Answer me!" she demanded. "Tell me why I have to do this. Tell me what I did to deserve this."
"Nothing," Devon answered. From where I stood, I could see this dream-Devon was crying, too. "Tara, I'm so sorry. You're right; I did want--" She paused, her hand going to her heart like it hurt her. "Tara, please," she rasped, and I could hear the life support alarms going off in the med-tent. "You must do this, you must hurry--"
"Julia, go!" Danziger ordered. Suddenly my paralysis broke, and I ran back to the med-tent, tripping over Terrians all the way. Devon's body was just as I had left it, but the monitors were going crazy. I snatched up my glove and bent over her, frantically moving from system to system, trying to put things back in enough order to hold her a little longer.
"Can you stabilize her?" Val said, coming in. "Is there still time?"
"Barely," I answered, my free hand going instinctively to the spot the Terrian had touched on my stomach. The strange joy had faded, but I still felt a glow. "Yes," I decided, making one final adjustment that silenced the alarms. "If we hurry, we can make it. But Val, what are we going to do?"
"Come on, Doc, you know what we're going to do," he joked amiably. "I'm going flying, and Tara's going to play some VR games." He looked down at Devon's placid face, then shook his head. "She disappeared, by the way," he added. "From out there, I mean. Tara's in the ship getting ready, and she sent me after you."
Suddenly it hit me what we intended to do. "Val, I . . . I don't know what to say."
"Then don't say anything," he advised with a grin. "And congratulations. I knew Alonzo had it in him." He picked up a pair of VR headsets. "These should do the trick."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, following him outside.
"I'm going to have to stay in touch with my sweetie until the last minute so we can time this thing right," he answered. "That oughta be fun, don't you think?"
"No, I mean about Alonzo," I said.
He stopped and just looked at me, incredulous. "It is Alonzo's, right?" he asked. "Doc, honey, you're pregnant. Don't you realize? That's what this is all about." He patted my stomach. "You're holding the Terrians' ace in the hole, I apologize for the pun." I must have looked shocked, because he managed a smile for me. "Now come on," he said gently. "Let's do this while it'll still make a difference."

Alonzo and I walked Val and Tara to the rocket while everyone else gathered in the EVE ship. Tara seemed all right, crying a little and holding her husband's hand in a death grip, but reasonably calm. But when he started to climb the ladder to take off, she broke down, throwing her arms around him and sobbing wildly.
"I can't," she insisted. "I'm sorry; I know I'm supposed to, I know it's the only thing that's right, but I can't let this happen."
I started to walk away, but Alonzo caught me and kept me there. "If they're going to do this, I guess the least we can do is watch," he murmured.
"Hush now, baby," Val soothed, stroking her hair. "It's all right--"
"How can you say that?" she demanded.
"Because it's true." He took her chin and turned her faceup to his. "We've had quite a run, remember?" he said, smiling down on her. "It's somebody else's turn now." He glanced over at us. "You take good care of Alonzo, all right? The doc's bound to get sick of him eventually, and somebody's gonna have to pick up the pieces."
"I'm running away with Wolman, remember?" she retorted with the faintest hint of her dazzling smile. She reached up and laid the back of her hand against his cheek. "As if anybody could follow this act."
He bent to kiss her, and then I did look away, burying my face in Alonzo's shoulder. When I looked up, he was inside the rocket, firing up the engines. The noise was deafening, and the smell was atrocious. "Not much like the stations, is it?" Tara said, wiping her eyes.
"No," I agreed, putting a hand on her arm and squeezing. "Not much at all."

The rest of the Eden Project was gathered in the EVE ship--or at least, almost everyone was there. "Where's Uly?" I asked John.
"With Devon," he explained. "Someone had to stay with her, and he's the only one who doesn't have to be here. Apparently he's not connected to the EVE network either."
"Okay, we don't have much time," Tara said, her voice still rough with tears but stingingly efficient. "Let's get started. I know how much everyone has enjoyed Citizen Reilly's wake-up calls in the past, so I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to hear that this one should be even better." She fitted the VR gear onto her head and went over to her access pad. "You'll have to remember that this thing is literally fighting for its life, and its programming is based on the idea that its continued survival is the only priority. So no matter what happens, no matter how much it hurts, hold on." She handed me another set of gear. "There's a chance I won't be entirely functional when Val checks in," she explained crisply. "Somebody else has to be in touch to give the go. Besides, you're still the only one who knows the way to the download switch."
"Of course," I answered, fitting the gear into place.
"Hey baby, you flying?" she asked, flipping the second eye piece into position.
"You know it," came back Val's chipper reply. "Fuel situation is real interesting--y'all keep your eyes open for a Grendler with a sunburn. I think somebody may have been siphoning the tanks."
Tara glanced up at Danziger. "How much fuel does he have?" she asked, knowing full well that Danziger wouldn't have let anything take off without giving it a thorough once-over first.
He shrugged. "Hard to say," he admitted. "Your gauges were pretty much shot, and it isn't like you can just plop a dipstick into those things."
"Val, are you sure you're going to make it?" Tara asked.
"Sure I'm sure," he replied easily. "I'm always sure. By the way, give my love to your dad."
She glanced up at me and grinned. "You got it," she answered, opening the access panel. "Okay, everyone join hands--I know, welcome to the Sunday school picnic. I'm not sure a physical connection is necessary, but why take chances?" We hurried to comply, everyone glancing nervously at everyone else as if searching for affirmation that this was in fact the right thing to do. Tara started to lay her palms on the panel, then stopped. "Hey Magus," she teased. "Close your eyes, all right?"
I noticed everyone except me, Alonzo, John, and Yale closed their eyes--True was sitting in her dad's lap with her face entirely buried in his chest. Tara put her hands in place, and the holo-screen burst into life.
"What are you doing?" Reilly demanded. "Tara Reilly, you stop this at once, whatever it is. There is no need to murder these people--"
"I'm not the murderer in this family, remember?" she replied easily, studying the data swirling madly on the screen before her. "You're the one who made twelve innocent children into toast."
"And only lucky little miss thirteen survived," he retorted. "If you believe that version of events, which I don't. Who's to say you didn't kill your brothers and sisters out of sibling rivalry? I was merely supervising the experiment. The power came from all of you. As the oldest, naturally you were stronger--"
"Shut up!" she demanded, glancing up from her screen for a moment. Her skin was flushed red, maybe from anger, and maybe from heat--she was already so "matrix-burned," it was hard to say.
"Tara, don't look at him," I ordered. "He wants to break your concentration; that's why he's doing this."
"And where is your fly-boy?" Reilly went on. "Have you deactivated him as well?"
"Don't let him shake you up, baby," Val murmured through the gear, and I wondered suddenly if Reilly could hear him.
"Thanks, Julia," Tara answered, reaching out and taking my hand with one of hers, keeping the other firmly on the access pad. Looking down, I could see it was glowing with energy, but I didn't smell burning flesh, so I supposed we were okay. Suddenly, I felt a rush of energy pass through me and into Alonzo, who held my other hand.
"You are making a serious error, Eden Project," a cold female voice suddenly thundered calmly around us. Reilly's image had been replaced by that of EVE herself, looking terrifyingly serene. "This humanoid's data systems are insufficient for the maintenance of your network. You will die."
As if to prove her point, a stabbing, burning pain suddenly engulfed my head, a sensation which was still far from pleasant but nevertheless familiar. EVE was fighting back.
"Nobody's going to die but you, kiddo," Tara retorted. Glancing over at her, I could tell she was gritting her teeth--she felt the same pain we did. Suddenly in the midst of it I felt a mental nudge, like someone I knew was tapping me on my psychic shoulder, and I realized it was Tara, sending me after the download switch. "Hey Donohoe, love of my life--are you close?" she asked, obviously struggling to talk at all.
"Real close, sweetheart; you just hold on a few seconds longer," came the grim reply, echoing crazily through the sensory overload in my head. "Hey, by the way . . . any regrets?"
"Yeah . . . one," Tara rasped, squeezing my hand tighter as I moved down the "hallway". I could hear EVE intoning additional words of doom, but I had lost the sense of it, concentrating on Tara's voice and the hallway in my head. "That sex thing . . . you tried to talk me into," Tara continued, obviously tiring. " . . . back in '38 . . . . I should have done that at least once--"
Suddenly I felt rather than heard an explosion so intense it ripped the VR gear off my head. I mentally slammed the download door open so hard it seemed to scream on its hinges, but then I realized the scream was coming from me and every other member of the Eden Project as the holo-screen blazed with blue light. By the time my brain had registered "scream--blue--light," it was gone, blinked out into darkness.

Kamikaze, Part 15
by Jayel

"Everybody all right?"
Danziger's voice broke the heavy silence at almost the same moment Cameron's emergency torch illuminated the sudden oppressive dark, and the Eden Project came to life around me. Morgan and Bess were hugging each other and crying with relief; Danziger was apparently checking True's limbs for injuries; Magus and Cameron were comparing notes on the brightness of the light and the intensity of the pain we'd felt. Yale's eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving in silent prayer. Alonzo and Baines were shaking hands as Wolman clapped them both on the back. Everyone seemed whole and happy and giddy with relief.
"Y'all make quite a family," Tara said, her voice reminding me I still held her hand.
"Yes," I agreed, smiling at her. She looked physically all right--no worse than before, anyway. Her violet-blue eyes were very bright, but not unnaturally so, and her hand felt no warmer than mine. "Are you all right?"
She let out a short, bitter laugh and muttered, "Oh, sure."
"Julia, Danziger, come quick," Uly interrupted, running in and blinking under the glare of Cameron's torch. "Mom's awake."

Devon's body was still in a horrifying condition--the muscle entropy alone was enough to promise her at least another two weeks of bed rest and months of painful recovery after that. But she was alive and awake and seemingly herself again.
"I can't tell you how wonderful you all look," she said, smiling but weak, with Uly in the circle of her arm.
"That's too bad," Danziger teased from his station at the head of the bed. "Because you look just awful."
"No, she doesn't," True disagreed, kneeling by the bed on the side opposite Uly. "She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw."
Everyone laughed at this, more from relief, I think, than humor, and Devon leaned down and kissed the little girl's cheek. "Thank you, True," she said with a smile. "You don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that."
"Listen, Dev," Wolman began slowly. "Do you remember anything? About seeing Alonzo on the dream plane, or . . . being here with us for a while?"
"Vaguely," she admitted, and I saw her take hold of Uly's hand in a grip that would have been painful had she had the strength. "I remember getting sick, and talking to John . . . " Her voice trailed off for a moment, and he reached down and squeezed her slender shoulder. "And I remember that suddenly I knew what I had promised," she continued, looking at Alonzo. "When the Terrians took Ulysses and cured him, they intended to keep him, I think, just as they had kept Mary--I doubt it ever occurred to them that we would want him back." She laid her palm against her son's cheek, her eyes glowing with love. "He was connected to them, and they wanted--they *needed* to be certain that connection wouldn't be broken, that he wouldn't be used as a pawn against them. When Alonzo and I asked them to return him, they wanted us to promise that we would all become part of their circle, but I couldn't promise that." She looked pointedly up at John. "I didn't have the authority to promise for everyone. So I promised for myself."
"You became our scapegoat," Alonzo said. "One standing in for the pain of all."
"Something like that," she answered. "Of course, I didn't realize at the time what my promise would eventually mean, but it wouldn't have made any difference. I would have promised them anything to have my son back."
"I'm sorry, Mom," Uly said, looking miserable.
"Hey, champ, what are you sorry for?" Danziger asked, reaching down and picking the boy up. "You saved us. If you and Alonzo and your mom hadn't been connected to the Terrians, we would never have known what to do about EVE, and we'd have all died months ago, long before we met Tara and . . ." He stopped, glancing up at Alonzo.
"Tara . . . ," Devon breathed, seeming to remember something vital. "I saw her, spoke with her. She was so angry and so very afraid." She looked around at all of us. "Julia, who is she?"
"A friend," I answered. "She and her husband saved us from EVE. Don't you remember?"
"Yes and no," she said. "It's all like a dream--it seemed so clear in the first moments after I woke up--that's why I sent Uly for you, to explain everything." She shook her head. "But now, it's all faded, more a collection of individual moments than anything coherent. I remember calling to Alonzo and speaking to him, but not what I said, only that I was terribly afraid that he hadn't really understood me. I remember wanting to comfort Uly, but being afraid to try for fear I would only make him worse. And I remember that girl's face, crying and hating me."
"I don't think it was you she hated," I assured her. "Does anyone know where she is now? I left so quickly--"
"She's still in the ship," Wolman said. "I tried to get her to come out with us, but she said she needed some time alone."
Yale opened his mouth to say something, but I put up my hand to stop him. "Yes, I know," I interrupted. "Don't worry; I want to go talk to her."

I had expected to find Tara in a VR program, so I wasn't shocked to enter the ship's hatch and not find the ship. But the faint sound of organ music in the near distance was something of a surprise, as was the sight of a pair of heavy wooden doors opening into an impossibly huge cathedral. Surely if I started down one of those aisles I would crash into the side of the ship long before I reached the altar. But Tara was already there, kneeling under the gaze of an old-fashioned wooden idol with lighted candles at its feet. Tossing logic to the wind, I started toward her, my feet barely making a sound on the thick, wine-colored carpet, and reached her without crashing into anything.
" . . . be with us now and at the hour of our death," Tara was intoning softly, lighting the tiny wick of one of the candles placed in a jumbled mass of colored glass holders before her. She didn't seem to know I was there.
"Tara," I said softly, touching her shoulder, and she glanced back at me impatiently, then up at the wooden woman before her, as if we might offend this thing. "Tara, I think we should talk."
"All right," she whispered. "Just a moment." She bent forward and kissed the idol's wooden feet before rising and leading me to one of the high pews several rows back from the altar.
"Where is this?" I asked her, gesturing toward the elaborate stained glass window to our right. "Is this an actual place, or just something you imagined?"
"This is real," she said, looking up with what could only be called reverence. "Or at least it was--it may be gone now. It's where Val and I got married, on the surface of good old Earth. His parents were part of a secret movement to restore it--they were actual, God-fearing, Latin-loving Catholics, and so was Val."
"And you?" I asked. "You told me once that when you knew me better you'd tell me whether you really believed in hell."
"Oh, I believe in hell," she said with a grim smile. "I'm just not sure it isn't all around us . . . ." Suddenly, she stopped and crossed herself, a gesture I realized I had only seen once before--Val had done it just before he took off in Renaldi's rocket. "Yes, Julia, I believe in hell," Tara said. "The good news is I believe in heaven, too." She looked around the cavernous room again. "It's beautiful here, isn't it? So peaceful . . ."
"If you say so," I answered, the smell of burning wax and what I supposed was incense beginning to be overpowering. "It just seems oppressive to me."
"It did to me, too, at first," she admitted. "But I wish you could have known those people, Doc. They had something, something people like me and you rarely find. Even in that little pile of rubble with bad air and this utterly ludicrous church, they seemed happy in a way I had never been happy."
"But all this kissing statues and reciting the same words over and over," I began.
"I know, Doc, I know," she interrupted. "But believe me, now is not the time to enlighten me." I noticed she was holding on to the pew so tightly, her nails were white. "I need this, now."
"I'm sorry," I said, touching her hand. Suddenly she was in my arms, sobbing, and as I held her, the cathedral seemed to fade around us until we were sitting in the dark, empty wreck again, and she was quiet.

By the time I brought Tara out of the ship, it was dark, and by the time Magus and I got her settled and asleep in one of the spare tents, everyone else had settled down for the night as well. Going by the med-tent to check on Devon, I found Danziger already there, holding her hand and quietly discussing everything that had happened in her absence, with Uly and True curled up sleeping at his feet. From my vantage point at the tent flap, Devon seemed as comfortable and content as possible, so I decided not to interrupt.
Alonzo was waiting for me in the doorway of another tent, and he kissed me almost before the flap fell shut behind us. "Hey, watch it," I teased. "One night of bliss in an open field does not give you carte blanche to maul me at will."
"Bliss?" he retorted, grinning. "You call that bliss? My back is going to ache for a month."
"Your back?" I shot back. "Excuse me, but you weren't the one lying on a pine cone . . ."
He stopped me with another kiss, and suddenly we couldn't kiss each other for laughing or laugh for kissing each other. "Hey, Doc, we made it," he said suddenly. "All three of us."
For a moment, I didn't realize what he meant. My pregnancy was like a tiny flaming thought that had been burning bright but wee in the back of my mind ever since I knew it, but everything else that had happened had sort of drowned it out. Now suddenly it was everything, and I felt faint from the flood of emotion washing over me. "All three of us," I repeated. "I can't believe it . . ."
"Neither can I," he admitted. "Are you happy or sad?"
"Definitely not sad," I assured him. "Happy--scared-- irritated--ecstatic--but definitely not sad."
"Irritated?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, we were using suppressors," I pointed out. "Weren't we?"
"Yes," he promised. "But you know, sometimes nature takes its course whether we let it or not." He put his hand on my stomach. "Come on, Doc, this is a great thing, and you know it. Besides, you don't want Bess to get ahead of you, do you?"
"This is a great thing," I said. "And Bess has nothing to do with it." I went to the tent flap and looked out, noticing for the first time a strange orange glow around two of the moons. "Alonzo, what is that?"
"Probably fall-out of some kind from the explosion," he explained, coming up behind me. "That satellite probably had every kind of radiation known to man stored somewhere to power it, and that rocket was quite a firecracker, too." He put his arms around me and squeezed. "I wouldn't be surprised if it glowed that way for about a month."
"Do you think it'll have an environmental effect here on the surface?" I asked, leaning back into his embrace.
"Who knows? I kind of doubt it, though." He planted a tender kiss on my temple. "This planet seems to have a way of taking care of itself."
Suddenly I felt like crying again, but I was simply too tired to cry, and somehow I just knew he felt the same. "Do you think she felt it?" I asked. "Tara, I mean. Do you think she felt him die?"
He didn't answer for a long moment. "I don't know," he admitted at last. "To tell you the truth, Doc, I don't want to know."
I knew just what he meant.

So ends my file on Citizen Reilly/EVE. The Eden Advance Team will proceed to New Pacifica as planned as soon as Devon Adair is sufficiently recovered to travel. We now have at least two new potential residents, one of whom will be named Valentine Donohoe Solace regardless of gender by agreement of both parents. And I, Dr. Julia Heller, born to be alone, will have a family--mate, child, and sister--whether I want one or not. Just like everybody else.
-The End-

Jayel
lifsey@aol.com
//From E-Mail on 28 September 1995

This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.