Andy's Fan-Fiction Archive

CABIN FEVER I
JULIA: VALENTINE'S DAY
By
Jayel (Jessica)

Timeline: On way to New Pacifica
Author's E-Mail: mlifsey@sunbelt.net

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Hey y'all--
Instead of starting another endless saga that takes in everybody's point of view this time, I thought I'd do a lot of smaller bits, each from a different first person point of view, and group them together into something called "Cabin Fever." The idea is to show what I think the second winter on G889 would be like from a lot of different perspectives, the first being Julia's. Hopefully the individual stories will stand alone or make some kind of sense together.--Jayel

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 1
by Jayel

for Rosa
Is it possible to actually die from a lack of privacy? That was the question that had started to haunt me as the days got shorter, the snow got deeper, and the quarters felt closer around me.
The Eden Project had been in its second winter camp for almost two months. Situated in the gentler mountains that represented the last geographical barrier between us and New Pacifica, the layout of the new camp was much like the one we'd used the winter before, with a single logand -mud-daub lodge replacing the central dome and windbreaks built around our individual tents.
But this year, the windbreaks weren't enough to keep the tents habitable after dark, and by the second really heavy snowstorm, even the most chill-resistant members of the group had relocated to the lodge. So there we were, sixteen souls crammed into a space roughly the size of a medium station unit. Bess and Morgan had a still-new baby who had apparently inherited his father's sunny disposition, at least where his late-night feedings were concerned. Magus and Baines were still in the awkward early stages of falling in love, a process which alternated between being really sweet and being really embarrassing for both the parties involved and their captive audience. Devon and Tara's interrelations fluctuated wildly between a dangerously guarded courtesy and open warfare, neither of which was pleasant for anyone, especially Danziger. True and Ulysses were understandably restless--Yale did all he could to keep them from bickering or getting too boisterous, but they were young, healthy kids who were as tired of being cooped up as the rest of us. And I suspect the strained relations between their respective parents were doing little to help matters, either.
And then there was me. All my tests indicated Valentine was due any minute, and Alonzo and I were wildly excited, but . . . Part of me wanted her to just *come out*, for pity's sake. I felt hugely uncomfortable, and no matter how many times Alonzo and Tara assured me that I was "incredibly beautiful" in my deformity, I still felt gross. But as heartily sick as I was of being pregnant, I was even more afraid of the alternative. Every time I tried to picture myself giving birth in that room in front of all those people, I didn't know whether to cry or be sick. Everyone was very supportive, of course, very solicitous--actually it was a little embarrassing, the way everyone from Danz to Uly did whatever they could to make me as comfortable as possible. But that was the whole problem--it simply was not possible for me to be anything but miserable and scared.
Alonzo tried so hard to make things easier for me. No one could have been sweeter or more affectionate or tried harder to understand why I was so unhappy. But even though he was obviously struggling with everything he had to hide it, I could tell he was losing patience, and I couldn't blame him. So when he and Danziger suggested a short scout on the day the snow broke, I didn't protest nearly as much as expected.
"We won't leave clear-reception gear range," Alonzo promised, glancing at my face as if to gauge my reaction.
"No further than we can walk back from before dark," John added, checking his magpro.
Tara looked up from her game of catch the yarn with Tu-Two and laughed. "Coward," she told him with a grin, glancing pointedly at Devon. The two women had been spoiling for a fight since breakfast, and it didn't take higher thought to see Danziger was beating his retreat while he could.
"Alonzo, are you sure you want to leave Julia for the day?" Devon asked, the tiny frown that hardened around her mouth any time Tara spoke to John making its expected fleeting appearance.
"I'll be fine," I put in quickly. "Besides, if they're not going any further than they say, he could be back in plenty of time if anything happens."
Alonzo took my hand and drew me aside. "Are you sure?" he asked softly, putting himself between me and the rest of the group. "I'd be just as glad to stay here if you need me."
"'Lonzo, I'm fine," I repeated with the first genuine smile I'd been able to manage all day. "Hey, if there were any way I could get outside for a few hours, I'd be gone in a flash."
His brown eyes registered both sympathy and enough love to make me feel almost good. "Soon, right?" he said, squeezing my hand.
"Yeah," I agreed, squeezing back. Suddenly I couldn't help throwing my arms around him and holding on with all my might, audience or no audience. "I'm sorry," I whispered tearfully as the warmth of his embrace turned into the whole world again.
"You and Walman go ahead," Alonzo said, kissing my cheek. "I'm staying here--"
"No!" I protested, pulling away. "I'm serious, fly-boy--" "You're scared--"
"So stay close," I finished, meeting his eyes. "Really . . . I think this is a good idea. We need to know what's going on out there." I moved closer and whispered. "Somebody has got to get Danz out of here before those two blow, and I know you could use the break."
He hesitated, obviously torn. "I don't . . . Stay out of any fights that break out, okay?" he said. "Let'em tear each other's hair out if they want to, but don't let them drag you into the middle of it."
"I won't," I promised. "Now go, before I change my mind." "What's the verdict, Solace?" Danziger demanded. "You coming or staying?" "He's coming," I said firmly, giving my sweetie a playful shove. "Go away, kid; you bother me."
He still didn't look convinced. "Are you--?" "Sure?" I interrupted. "Yes. I am absolutely, positively certain that you should get out of here right now." I walked him to the door and gave him a quick kiss. "Just hurry back, okay?"

The rest of the morning passed in relative peace. Devon turned her attention to the New Pacifica plans while Yale held school. Bess had a much-needed nap while Morgan cuddled and played with Dare--even I had to admit they made an adorable pair when neither of them was whining. I attacked the task of bringing my long-neglected journals up to date. And Tara settled down beside me, apparently dozing with her VR gear strapped firmly in place. In fact, she had gone on gear as soon as Danziger was out of sight. I wasn't really happy to see this--like John, I worried about what kind of damage she might be doing to herself with so much sensory overload. But under the circumstances, it seemed best to leave well enough alone.
Would that Devon had seen it that way--but that's really unfair. It actually started with Ulysses . . .
As soon as their lessons were done, he and True came over to Tara. "Hey," Uly said, yanking on her sleeve.
She opened her eyes and flipped one of her eyepieces back. "Yes?" "Where are you?" True asked her.
Tara smiled. "Grand Isle, Louisiana, circa 1900," she answered, leaning back again. "Lying on a beach, reading a novel." She flipped the eyepiece back into position.
"Are there kids there?" Uly demanded. "Uly, don't talk to her when she's inside," I said, noting the sudden glow in Tara's palms as she performed the supposedly-impossible task of "living" in two realities at once.
"It's okay, Doc," she said without opening her eyes. "Yes, Uly-love, there are scads and beaucoups of kids here, raising all kinds of ruckus."
"Oo, can we come?" True begged, scrambling for her gear. "Whatever you want," Tara answered sleepily. "But Uly has to ask his mom." "Can I, Mom?" Uly asked, running to Devon. "Please? We'll be careful, I promise, and besides, you can't drown in VR--"
"Uly, I don't think that's such a good idea," Devon said slowly. "I'm sure Tara will be coming out of the program very soon anyway--"
"No, I'm thinking this is my day," Tara answered without looking up as the glow in her palms got brighter. "Don't worry, Adair--they won't have too much fun, I promise."
"That's hardly the issue," Devon said, giving me a questioning look. "Tara, either take the gear off or stop talking to us," I ordered firmly. She sat up and yanked the gear off her head with a look of petulant impatience. "Look, Devon, it's just a program," she said, shooting me a murderous glance. "If you don't want him to play, fine--that's why I told him he had to ask you first. But I'm going back in now--"
"I wish you wouldn't," Devon interrupted. I could see from her face that she really didn't want to go down this particularly conversational road, but she just couldn't stop herself. "Tara, you've been on gear for more than two hours now--don't you think it's time you came back to reality for a while?"
"Actually, no, thanks," Tara said, her voice pleasant but brittle. "It's dangerous," Devon insisted wearily. "You've said yourself that--" "And whose business is that?" Tara interrupted. "Look, Dev, John's not here to be impressed at how giving and sensitive you are, all right? You don't have to pretend to be concerned about me."
"Okay, I think that's just about enough," Morgan said, standing up with the baby in his arms. "Let's just stop now before one of us says something we'll all regret for days and days to come . . . "
For once I had to agree wholeheartedly with the Martin platform. "Tara, I hardly think Devon would pretend to be worried about you if she weren't," I said. "And you know she's right--"
"Do you always have to take her side?" Tara demanded, turning on me. "I can understand your wanting to stay neutral, but this thing of jumping to her defense every time we pass a cross word is really starting to get on my nerves."
"Oh, for God's sake, Tara, leave Julia alone, can't you, please?" Devon demanded. "If anyone has tried to put up with your childish little tantrums--maybe she's finally gotten as tired of you as the rest of us."
"Oh God," Morgan groaned.
"Maybe," Tara agreed slowly. "Or maybe she's trying to make it up to you that you lost and I won--"
"Stop it!" I heard a woman's voice scream in fury, not realizing for a full five seconds that it was me. "Are you crazy?" I demanded, turning on Tara. "Don't you realize we are *stuck* here with one another? If you don't stop it, I--" I realized everyone was staring at me, and suddenly I felt a little sick. "I can't stand this . . . "
Luckily Alonzo and John chose just that moment to walk back in. "Doc?" Alonzo asked, rushing to me. "What's going on?"
I grabbed his arm, feeling like I might faint. "Nothing," I tried to promise, but I couldn't stop crying--why was I crying, for heaven's sake? The idea that my emotions had gone so haywire just made me cry harder. "Tara said . . . it doesn't matter . . . "
"What did you do to her?" Alonzo demanded of Tara, who was now standing there with her mouth hanging half-open in obvious dismay.
"I said awful things," she admitted, touching my arm for a hesitant moment before backing away. "Doc, I'm so sorry . . . " She glanced up at John, then turned and ran out with the mechanic in pursuit.
"Typical," Devon muttered. "She makes Julia cry, but then she feels so sorry about it that he has to go running out to comfort her . . . "
"Shut up, Devon," I said without meaning to say anything at all. "Shhhh," Alonzo soothed, pulling me close. "It's okay, doc . . . " "Alonzo, please--I have got to get out of here," I begged, clinging to him. "Just for a little while--a walk, or something--"
"Okay, okay," he promised, motioning for True to hand him my coat. "We're on our way right now."
"I know I don't get a vote," Devon ventured. "But we have no way of knowing when it's going to start snowing again--"
"It's all right," Alonzo assured her, buttoning my coat and handing me my medical bag. "John and I found something . . . we'll be fine." He gave me a kiss on the cheek for reassurance, then started packing food supplies.
"How long are you planning on being gone?" Morgan asked. "I mean, Julia is our only doctor . . . "
"We'll stay in touch on gear," Alonzo assured him. "And John will know where to find us if you have to." He framed my face with his hands and gave me his best fly-boy grin. "You up for a field trip?"
I couldn't help but smile back, so relieved I almost cried all over again. "Oh yeah," I answered. "Wherever you want to go."
End of Part 1.

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 2
by Jayel

NOTE: Thanks to Maxine McBrinn for her help on the metaphysics here--most if not all of the ideas about the Terrian life cycle came out of an extremely entertaining and enlightening conversation with her.--Jayel

I couldn't believe how beautiful everything was--the black of the trees against the glistening white snow and the incredible blue of the sky. I have absolutely no talent for poetry, but even I wanted to compose a sonnet on the spot, or a song, or a painting--something that would make me always remember that quiet and that beauty and the way I felt, the pure joy of being free and alone in the sunlight with the only person I really wanted to see.
The best part was how completely we left everyone else behind as soon as Alonzo started the 'rail. I had thought I would tell him all about Devon and Tara's fight and how worried I was about Tara using the VR so much and how I wanted to just strangle her for putting herself in danger and making things so hard on everybody, and I would ask him what if anything Danziger had said about the situation while they were alone and what he thought would come of it. But once the lodge was out of sight behind us, I no longer felt the need to discuss anything of the kind--it was like the problems just disappeared. "Out of sight, out of mind," I sighed happily, leaning back in the seat and settling my scarf more comfortably around my neck. Even the bitter cold was almost a relief after the warm stuffiness of that lodge.
"What?" Alonzo asked with a grin. "Hey, you look better already." "I am better already," I agreed, smiling back. "Thanks, fly-boy." "Don't mention it." He shifted down and eased over a particularly soggy patch, then speeded up again, the 'rails textured tires digging into the hard crust of the frozen snow. "I'm just sorry it took me so long to find a way to get away for a while."
"Which brings up an interesting question," I said, turning in my seat to face him. "Where are we going exactly?"
He glanced over and grinned again. "Don't you want to be surprised?" he asked
innocently.
I leaned my head against the back of my seat and closed my eyes, the motion of the rail suddenly no more jarring than the rocking of a cradle. "Why not?" I murmured, reaching out one hand, incredibly gratified to feel him take it and squeeze it before laying it on his lap. "Wake me when we get there, okay?"
He gave my hand another gentle squeeze. "You got it, doc."

I woke up to the sound of moaning wind and the smell of fir trees. Looking up, I saw we'd stopped in the middle of a small, apparently deserted glade, surrounded on all sides by firs so tall that the only way I could see the tops was to lean all the way back into the other seat. The wind had swirled the snow into a bowl shape around the rim of the trees until it made an almost perfect circle of drifts, broken only by the 'rail's tracks and a cluster of moss-covered rocks. "Alonzo?" I called, climbing out, more curious than worried--by now I knew he wouldn't leave me alone for long.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty woke up," he said, his smiling head emerging as if by magic from the pile of rocks. "I wanted to get everything set up before I woke you."
"How long have we been here?" I asked, walking clumsily over the slippery crust as the feeling came back into my legs. "Have I been asleep for long?"
"Almost four hours," he admitted. "Which means you should be hungry." I paused, mentally checking my internal machinery for nausea or emptiness--a strange process that had become something of a habit of late. "Not really," I said with a sigh. "But if it's time, I suppose I should eat."
He kissed the top of my head. "Come on inside," he said, taking my arm. "Maybe if you smell food you'll feel more like eating some."
"Doubtful," I warned, letting him lead me. "But we'll see." The rocks disguised the opening to a narrow cave with thick veins of Morganite running along the walls and over the ceiling and floor. "Wow," I said. "Look at all this stuff."
"I know," Alonzo agreed, holding my hand and helping me maintain my footing on the uneven surface as we walked down in what felt like a spiral. "John and I figure we can probably find enough just lying around to warm the individual tents--or maybe we can build smaller log shelters."
"Assuming we can talk Devon into letting us use it," I pointed out. The warmth was lovely, but I was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic. "So how far are we going?"
"Not much further now," he promised. All of a sudden, I realized I *could* smell food cooking--Bess' vegetarian stew. "You built a fire in here?" I asked. "Do you think--"
"Trust me, please?" he teased, kissing my cheek. "There . . . " The cave suddenly opened up in front of us into a chamber roughly the same size and shape as the clearing above--when I looked up, I could see the roots of what could of been the same fir trees poking through the edges of the rounded ceiling. And standing against seemingly every inch of wall were Terrians, a circle broken only by the archway where we stood. "Oh my . . . Alonzo, are they sleeping?" I asked.
"Hibernating I think would be closer," he said, leading me deeper into the room where the stew was bubbling over a pile of glowing Morganite. "Remember the Terrians that lived in the caves with the Elder's tribe?"
"Of course . . . " I walked over to one of the statue-like figures and put my hand close to its chest, almost touching. "Do they know we're here?"
"Not the way we do," he said, stirring the stew. "They're dreaming, doc--unless we touch them, we don't seem any closer to them here than we do back at camp." He ladled out a bowlful and set it on the ground near a cushion. "Come eat, all right?"
I was amazed as always at how easily he talked about this, like the Terrians' behavior was the most natural thing in the world, something he understood as completely as he understood flying. Did he even realize how profoundly they had changed him, how much a part of this planet he had become? "Have you talked to them?" I asked, joining him, my hands automatically closing around the bowl he placed in them.
"They've been dreaming to me for a couple of weeks now," he admitted, squatting near me, apparently as comfortable in that position as I was on my cushion. "Very benign, very curious--I didn't want to say anything, because things were already so tense. Besides, I wanted a chance to get to know them first--I think it took them a while to decide whether or not we could be trusted." He handed me a spoon. "Eat, doc--you know, chew? Swallow?"
"Have they seen other humans?" I asked around a mouthful, too interested to argue.
He smiled rather strangely, not his usual fly-boy grin. "No, I think we're a completely new thing to this group," he said, taking a bowl for himself. "Although I get the impression they've heard rumors--impressions on the dream plane from other tribes we've encountered, other tribes who may have seen other humans. They're very interested in us." He smiled again. "You especially."
I frowned. "Me? Why would they be interested in me?" The fractured memory of my experiments with Uly's spinal fluid made a whirlwind appearance in my mind, making me lose what little appetite I had--that was the only time I could remember Terrians taking a particular interest in me, and it wasn't a happy one.
"They think you're a really strange creature, doc," Alonzo said seriously, but I detected a mischievous gleam in his eye that was sublimely comforting. "You look like one of us, a thing with the most backward consciousness they've ever encountered, but you're a double-think."
"Excuse me?" I asked. "A what?"
"That's the closest word I can think of to the idea they keep trying to communicate to me," he explained, chewing thoughtfully. "At first I wasn't sure what they meant--I thought maybe they had picked up on the fact that you're so much smarter than the average human."
"Thank you very much, fly-boy, but that's a matter of opinion," I pointed out. "Genetic engineering has nothing to do with smart per se--"
"Whatever," he interrupted with a grin. "But then I realized what they really meant was that you have two minds." He leaned over and gave my stomach a pat. "Your physical processes are supporting two different awarenesses."
"The baby," I breathed, smiling back. "Exactly." He leaned over and frowned into my bowl, checking my progress. "Valentine has completely destroyed their perception of what we call the human race."
"Yeah, mine too," I mumbled, going back to my stew. "They're very aware of her presence as a separate being on the metaphysical level," he went on, sitting back again. "But they can't figure out why she's not a separate physical being and why her dreaming is so under-developed. Actually, they think she's a separate dream-part of you--sort of a second-string consciousness."
"Don't they realize she's just an immature human, a fetus?" I asked. "Words like immature apparently don't mean anything to them," he explained. "The concept of that kind of growth is completely foreign--believe me, we've been over and over the definition of baby, but they just don't get it. from what I can gather, they tried to dream to her first, because hers is the most pliable awareness, more hungry for input--"
"The same reasons the first tribe picked you," I interrupted, getting caught up in the idea. "You didn't dream; therefore, your dream-self was the closest thing to a blank slate in the group at that point. And you were so unhappy, so unfocused--your mind was searching for a purpose."
"I think so, yeah," he agreed, giving me a look that made my heart perform a short but sincere gymnastic routine. "And I picked up on what they wanted almost immediately, even though I didn't want to, because of their connection to Uly, someone I already knew something about. But Valentine frustrated the hell out of these guys--as much as Terrians can be frustrated--because she's still part of you. She has no context yet outside of your body--when she dreams, she dreams of you. Her whole world is physical, even her abstract thoughts."
"So they asked you to interpret," I said. "Alonzo, do they realize that Valentine is connected to you, too?"
He grinned. "That's the neatest part," he said. "Yeah, they do--they see patterns in her dream-images that match mine--on the dream plane, she and I speak the same language."
"So to the Terrians, I'm Valentine's physical support system and you're her metaphysical one," I said, smiling back, love for him filling me up far more efficiently than any stew. "That is astoundingly neat." I took another bite, thinking. "And you know, when you think about it, this confusion they're having about birth, it makes perfect sense."
"I was hoping you'd say that," he teased. "No, really, think about it," I went on, undaunted. "We know from our experiences with Mary and Gaal and moon cross that the Terrians don't see time the way we do, that they don't see death the way we do--To them, the universe is literally cyclic, a genuine circle, just like this cave. They don't have a cause-and-effect progression to their lives--things either exist as part of the
great organism of the planet or they don't." I polished off the last of the stew. "Remember that ancient Terrian we dug up?"
"As if I could forget," he grumbled. "I'd be willing to bet that's the closest thing to the kind of death we experience they know," I said. "A kind of stasis, outside the natural cycles of the planet. And remember the outcasts? Their punishment was to be denied access to the earth, to so-called 'going-in'--the very same process we interpreted as a death sentence on Yale."
"That would explain the dream plane," he mused. "What do you mean?" I asked, confused. "No death, no heaven, no hell," he said as if this would explain everything. Seeing my look of obvious bewilderment, he smiled. "We think--or some of us think--that when we die, our spirits, the non-physical or metaphysical part of selves, pass on to another level of consciousness, another plane--heaven or hell. If the Terrians don't die; if their bodies don't make that kind of change, then maybe their access to what we consider heaven or hell is constant."
"Genuine pantheism," I said, mulling this over. "God is simply the force that makes the system continue, an inherent part of the earth, accessible through dreaming."
Alonzo grinned. "Now do you see why I'm having so much trouble explaining where
babies come from?" he said.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess that angels from heaven story is out . . . " I looked back at the wall of living beings all around us, wondering how much if anything of what we were saying penetrated their dreams. "I suppose you've already given them the purely biological explanation."
"Oh yeah," he answered with an exaggerated sigh. "Apparently they know all about sort of thing from the other creatures on the planet, Grendlers included."
"Now there's a picture," I muttered, making him laugh. "But none of those creature have a dreaming soul, at least not as the Terrians see it," he went on. "And they can't understand how such a process--which to them, by the way, is extremely icky--can produce a spirit as well as a body."
"So they understand that I'm pregnant; they just don't understand why," I finished.
"Exactly." He came over and squatted close to me, close enough to touch. "Are you angry with me?"
"Angry?" I asked, mystified. "Why would I be angry?" "For bringing you here," he explained, obviously surprised I didn't understand. "For dragging you out here so they could find out for themselves what I was talking about."
I just looked at him for a moment. "Wait a second," I began. "You mean you want me to have the baby out here? Is that what we're talking about?"
He made a sheepish face. "You are angry," he said. "No," I said quickly. "I just didn't realize . . . " I looked around at the Terrians again, so still and silent--if I hadn't known better, I would have just thought they were really ugly art carved into the cave wall to keep out evil spirits. "Is this the whole tribe?"
"Yeah, I think so," he admitted. "I know you're tired of crowds--but you have to admit, this one is a lot quieter."
"And a lot less prone to conflict," I agreed. "But I don't know . . . 'Lonzo, I thought you just brought me out here to get away for a while."
"I did," he promised, picking up my hand and kissing it. "To get away and be alone with you, to talk about things we've never had a chance to talk about before--Do you realize we've never really been alone for more than a couple of hours, and then there was always somebody at least ten feet away?"
"Except for that night when I thought you were flying away to die," I answered, the memory making me reach for him and sink into his arms.
"We can go back to camp whenever you're ready," he promised, stroking my hair with such tenderness I wanted to melt. "But I know how worried you are about having to have the baby in the middle of that lodge with everybody watching, and I know how much easier it would be to make these guys understand us if they could see . . . " He laughed. "Hell, I didn't really understand it until I saw Bess."
"But will they see?" I asked, pulling back to look into his eyes. "I mean, they're hibernating."
"I can make them see," he explained. "But not if you don't want them to--" "No, you're right," I interrupted, touching his mouth. "The more the Terrians understand our life cycle, the easier it's going to be to communicate with them in the long run." I smiled. "And I have to admit the prospect of giving birth here with just you, even with a Terrian audience, is a little more appealing than doing it at the lodge."
He gave me a kiss on the lips. "Look, you're not in labor right this minute, are you?"
"No, I don't think so," I said with a grin. "So we don't have to decide anything absolutely," he continued. "For the time being, let's just enjoy the quiet, okay?"
I turned around and leaned back against his chest, the most comfortable chair in the universe. "I think that's more than okay," I said with a sigh. "I think that's just terrific."
End of Part 2.

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 3
by Jayel

Writer's Note: The song quoted here is "Julia," officially copyrighted as a Lennon/McCartney composition, but actually written by John Lennon by himself. It's on the The Beatles (the White album).

We stayed that way for the rest of the long afternoon and into the night, just talking. "Alonzo, tell me about your parents," I said, turning to face him. "I don't think you've ever mentioned them."
He smiled. "That's because I don't remember ever meeting them," he said, twisting a lock of my hair between his fingers.
"What? What--why don't I know this?" I demanded, hurt for him because of the pain I could see in his eyes, hurt for me because he'd never shared it.
"I don't know, Doc," he teased. "It's recorded in my bio files--" "You don't remember them at all?" I interrupted, bio files holding no fascination for me whatsoever.
He shook his head. "No . . . the first place I remember is a hospital--apparently we had all been in some kind of accident, and they were killed. I was so small, I couldn't tell them what happened, and if they ever found out, no one bothered to tell me." He took a semolina bar out of his pocket and tore it open. "My first memory is of a pretty doctor asking me questions I couldn't answer." He grinned. "Maybe that's what made me fall so hard and fast for you."
"Were you old enough to talk?" I asked. "Yeah, I think so," he answered. "I must have been--I told her I wanted my mom." His expression darkened to an uncharacteristic scowl. "I don't remember it so much as . . . That doctor's report is still part of my file--I've read it a hundred times. And in it, she says I cried for my mother." He tossed the bar back into his back untasted. "But I have no memory of my mother's face or even why I wanted her."
I took his hand. Was there anything in the doctor's report about what happened to them?"
"Not by the time I saw it, no," he answered. "The story was that the hospital had a power surge and lots of data was lost. When I first became friends with Val, probably around the same time your parents were thinking about being born, Tara looked at the file for me . . . the way she does, you know . . . "
"Yes," I agreed.
"She said there'd been deliberate cuts in the data, that parts of it had been sliced out on purpose," he said, his unfocussed gaze turned toward the Terrians along the wall.
"Have you ever tried to find out why?" I persisted. He looked at me like I'd suggested he fly back to the stations on his own power, then gave me the fly-boy grin. "My doc," he sighed. "Do you know what kind of blind security clearance I had to maintain to fly the runs I was flying? If I'd made those kinds of waves, I'd have been lucky to get work on a station-to-station garbage scull."
"So you just let it drop?" I asked weakly, culture shock catching me unaware again. We had all been together so long, and 'Lonzo and I had become so close, that sometimes I forgot how different our lives had been before, how wide a gulf we had crossed to come together.
He shrugged. "It didn't seem to matter that much," he admitted. "Whoever they were, however they died, my parents had been dead for more than forty years by then, and I had a life." He toyed with a handy rock, scraping it against the smooth ripples of the floor. "All I cared about was flying--I grew up in an orphanage, never alone, never having anything that was mine. Being in that ship, being in control--that was what was important." He looked up at me with serious brown eyes that made my heart ache just looking back. "Maybe it sounds cold--"
"No," I hastened to promise him. "It makes sense . . . " I looked away for a moment, then back. "It also makes me understand how . . . how strange it must be for you, being tied down, being--"
"Being connected to you?" he interrupted with a smile. "Being part of this little circle of us and Valentine?"
"And the bigger circle of the Eden Project," I admitted. He leaned forward and kissed me, deliberately pressing his mouth to mine for a long moment. "It is strange," he said, making me look into his eyes and really hear him. "Strange and scary and completely perfect."
"Are you sure?" I couldn't stop myself from asking. "So sure, you can't imagine," he promised. "Julia, honey, when I lost my first family, I--I don't miss them, all right? I never have--for whatever reason, I don't remember them." He framed my face with his hands. "But if I lost this one? No amount of flying could ever make it up."
I slid my arms around his neck and held him tight. "Good . . . " He laughed, a low rumble in his chest that was as comforting as distant thunder under my cheek. "I'm sorry I never told you about them, doc," he said, cuddling me close in spite of Valentine's ever-present bulk. "I knew how hard it would be for you to understand--"
"I forgive you," I said.
"But you know, you're just as bad," he pointed out. I drew back and looked at him, completely mystified. "What are you talking about?"
"Tight lips," he said. "You've mentioned your mother several times--" "Always in the most pleasant of terms," I said sarcastically. "Yeah . . . but didn't you have a father?" he finished. "Ah," I said, not sure how to answer. "My father . . ." I settled myself more comfortably against him, telling myself firmly that turnabout was fair play. "My father died when I was six," I said at last.
"Do you remember him?"
"Oh yeah," I said, smiling. "Very clearly. He was . . . well, very different from my mother, for one thing. He was a doctor, and he loved . . . he seemed to love everybody, everything." I stopped, trying to put the confused whirlwind of feelings into words that made sense. "He was full of life, very passionate about things--unlike my mother, who always looks before she leaps. But she loved him, too--They were very happy."
"How did he die?" he asked gently. "Nothing terribly dramatic," I answered. "It was actually sort of silly--his appendix burst while he was working a long shift at the hospital, taking care of radiation victims from an industrial accident." I grinned through threatening tears. "He told his scrub nurse he thought he'd eaten a bad hot dog for lunch."
"You and your mom must have been devastated," he said. "We were," I admitted. "I didn't realize at the time how hard it must have been for her--that's when she really started shutting off." I looked up at him, touching his cheek. "I didn't really understand it until you." He kissed me again, a quick, sweet reassurance before I settled back into his arms. "My dad . . . . he used to sing me this song--for years I thought he made it up just for me, but the words don't really fit for a little girl--It just has my name in it."
"How does it go?" Alonzo asked.
I laughed. "I don't remember," I retorted. "Sure you do," he persisted. "Come on, doc, sing it for me." "I really don't remember most of it," I said slowly. "Sing what you remember," he urged. "Okay, okay," I agreed grudgingly. "But I'm warning you, I am nobody's idea of a singer . . . Let's see, how does it start . . . . ? 'Half of what I say is meaningless . . . But I say it just to reach you, Julia . . . Julia, Julia . . . Ocean child . . . Calls me . . . So I sing a song of love for Julia . . . '" I stopped, embarrassed. "The chorus is the part I really remember."
"I know that song," he said, his face alight with affection. "I've heard it--Tara used to have a recording of the original version, and yeah, it's mostly that chorus . . . But I remember another part that does make me think of you." He started singing, surprising me with how sweet his voice was, very casual but clear. "'When I cannot sing my heart . . . I can only speak my mind . . . Julia, Julia . . . More and more . . . Touch me . . . So I sing a song of love for Julia . .. . Julia . . . Julia.'"
"You do know it," I said, tears in my eyes for no good reason except it had been so long since I'd heard those words and it was just so perfect that he knew them. "But tell me something . . . why does that part remind you of me?"
"Because of what it says," he said, kissing my cheek. "It's you . . . you speak your mind to keep from singing your heart." He turned my face up to his and smiled. "But you sing it to me."
"Yes," I agreed, reaching for him. "Every single note . . . " I kissed him tenderly, and he deepened it, lowering me to the cave floor and moving over me as his tongue explored my mouth. "Alonzo, wait," I said reluctantly, "I can't . . . I mean--look at me, for heaven's sake."
He stopped, a look of infinite patience and near-infinite frustration on his beautiful face. "I know," he admitted with a sigh. "Sorry, doc . . . " He sat up and looked around at the silent, stone-like Terrians, and suddenly an idea lit up his face. "Hey . . . "
"Yeah?" I asked suspiciously.
He grinned. "Do you trust me?"
End of Part 3.

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 4
by Jayel

Alonzo helped me to my feet and kissed my cheek before leading me over to the Terrians. "Touch one," he urged with a mischievous grin.
"Excuse me?" I just looked at him for a moment, trying to read that twinkle in his eyes. "Oh . . . no, 'Lonzo . . . Devon told me about . . . " I could feel myself blushing crimson. "You know how I am about VR, much less this dream thing . . . ."
"Dream thing?" he teased. "Devon?" He looked puzzled. "Why would Devon . . . oh." He shook his head. "She told you about her excursions with Shepherd," he elaborated, hugging me affectionately.
"Exactly," I grumbled, feeling his grin even though I couldn't see it. "She talked about it like it was this great thing, this . . . sexual epiphany, but to me it just sounded . . . I don't know . . . " I pulled back and looked at him. "Icky," I finished. "Like one of those VR programs they send out to the non-breathable atmosphere mining camps, only without the furniture."
"That does sound gross," he admitted. "Sexual epiphany?" He raised an eyebrow. "She actually had sex with that guy? With poor Danz lying in the next room dying of the flu?"
"Not actual sex," I demurred. "Dream . . . whatever. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what they did exactly. She wasn't terribly clinical in her descriptions, and I was just as happy to let her keep it vague. But whatever it was, there's a big difference, I think--"
"Oh yeah, absolutely," he agreed, pulling a solemn face. "Has anybody told Tara about this?"
"Alonzo," I warned, taking him hard by the chin. "Okay, okay," he laughed, taking my hand and kissing the wrist. "You're right, doc, it is a very different thing--not as different as a connection in VR would be, but . . . ." He gave me a sidelong glance through those incredible eyelashes. "Icky, huh?"
"Alonzo . .. "
"Trust me, doc," he interrupted, still holding my hand and meeting my warning look with his sweetest smile. "The first sign of ickiness, and we are out of there."
I gave him a long, sharp look. "By *my* icky-meter?" I asked, trying not to smile back.
"Absolutely," he promised.
I looked doubtfully at the Terrian directly in front of me, still standing like a weirdly upright gargoyle with no consciousness whatsoever. "Okay," I sighed, stripping off my glove and lifting my hand to its shoulder. "Here goes . . . ."
. . . . . For a moment I couldn't figure out what had changed. I still seemed to be inside the same cave, with Terrians all around--even the one I had touched was still there, absolutely unchanged. But I felt . . . great. My back didn't hurt; my legs didn't ache; I wasn't the least bit nauseous. Even the paper cut I'd given myself that morning rolling up an EKG on the baby had stopped its mild but persistent stinging. The baby . . . I looked down, and the baby was just gone.
"Alonzo!" I said, about to take my hand from the Terrian's shoulder--I could, I realized. In this world, I wasn't touching anything, yet I was still aware of touching the Terrian. I suddenly thought of Tara, simultaneously lying on a nineteenth-century beach and making conversation with Uly in the shelter . . .
"It's okay, doc," Alonzo promised, suddenly with me, though I had no perception of his entrance. My senses didn't even register a "one second he wasn't here, the next second he was" impression. He was standing beside me, and it was as if he'd always been standing beside me--that he had been as long as there had been a me. "Valentine is still here; she's just too . . . unformed I guess is the word . . . to be seen the way we see each other. But we can both feel her."
My eyes narrowed as I tried to focus . . . I could feel *something*, a third presence, but . . . I was completely accustomed to feeling my daughter as a physical part of me, and this presence . . . it didn't seem to have anything to do with me at all. "That's Valentine?" I asked Alonzo doubtfully.
He smiled. "Yeah," he answered. "Isn't she beautiful?" Suddenly it made sense, and I realized how he must have felt, both now and for the past few months.
Outside this dream plane, I was the one who was pregnant; the baby was physically,
actually inside of me. So while I could describe the sensation of her life to Alonzo and show him ultrasound video and even put his hand to my stomach and let him feel her movements, he was still outside the loop on a very basic level. In the physical world, his feelings of love and possession of this child were at bottom an expression of faith. I knew she was mine because I could feel her; she was a part of me, and I loved her the way I loved my own heart. He knew she was his daughter because I told him so, because he loved me and trusted me, and he loved her as an extension of that.
But here . . . . Here, the outsider was me. "This is amazing," I said, moving closer to him, feeling a slow but utterly goofy grin break across my face. "Alonzo, you said they were calling me a 'double-think', but it isn't me." I looked up at him, deep into those soft brown eyes. "It's you . . . " I tried to think where to touch him . . . it seemed to make sense that it wouldn't matter where to the dream plane as an organizational system of perception, just to me, that it had to be somewhere that seemed symbolically, archetypally appropriate to my own consciousness . . . I leaned close and laid my cheek against his heart . . .
And suddenly I could feel a tiny mind, a tiny awareness that seemed to whisper in pure feeling all around me. Safe, she was impressing . . . . warm . . . . dark . . . safe here, both of them *here* . . . . perfect bliss from every side, from inside . . . safe safe safe safe safe . . .
"Oh my God," I whispered, my fist closing convulsively around a fold of his shirt. "Yes . . . she is so very beautiful . . . " Did he feel this all the time, with the same persistent intensity with which I felt the baby's solid weight beneath my heart? No wonder the petty bickering going on in that shelter seemed to roll off of him with an ease I had found unfathomable. Just a minute of this kind of touch, this knowing from a secondary, slightly distanced position, and I felt as if my heart and mind would break from the sweetness of it, the depth of the emotion. "Is this constant?" I
asked, lifting my head to break the connection. "Are you always aware of her this way?"
"To greater and lesser degrees," he said, all shining eyes and dimples, almost but not quite too perfect to touch. "Here it's much more intense and clearer--it's like the difference between dreaming and reality--I can put the images into focus, the feelings into words." His grin broadened. "It isn't all such sweetness and light, though," he added. "I'm afraid we're in for an interesting couple of decades--our little treasure has one hell of a temper."
"Really?" I breathed, laughing. "That's terrific--scary, but terrific." I hugged him tight, and it was like hugging two people I adored at once, one nested securely within the other. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to," he admitted, squeezing me back. "I just . . . I didn't know how." He pressed his lips to my temple, a gentle touch that raced through me like fire. Devon's description of the dream plane was beginning to make sense--every sensation seemed to be multiplied a thousand times or more. The blows from that ancient Terrian Alonzo fought must have been agony, I found myself thinking, then put the thought out of my mind. "Like I said, outside the actual dream plane, the impressions I'm picking up from her are really diffuse, like a dream. And I'm not like you, doc." He passed a hand down my hair. "I don't analyze things as well; I don't think about them or organize them into words as easily as you do--it's hard for me to describe my
feelings . . . "
"Oh, you seem to do okay," I teased gently, looking up at him. "You've managed to get quite a few powerful feelings across to me over the past year or so."
He smiled, then the smile faded into something equally pleasant but much more serious, the kind of look that could make my knees go weak no matter where we are or who was watching. And the best part was, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, we were completely, utterly, blissfully alone . . . . "I love you, doc," he whispered as he bent to kiss me, and I melted into his arms . . .
But we weren't alone--as soon as he touched me, I could feel our Valentine, dreaming her unborn dreams in the space that used to be an abstraction, the place where our hearts felt intertwined. "Alonzo, wait," I said, pulling away, not only from him but, to my surprise, from the dream plane itself--my recoil was powerful enough for my physical self to echo it and pull away from the Terrian.
"Wow . . . ," I managed, looking up at the sleeping Terrian like he might hear me. How to describe the sensation of coming back . . . ? When I was a child, I learned to ice skate--one of the privileges of having well-connected parents. For the first week or so, I wouldn't let go of the handrail--I skated around and around the rink at least a hundred times, holding on to that support, absolutely certain that was the only way I would ever keep my balance. Then one day, another little girl fell down about two yards away from me, toward the center of the ice, and without thinking I skated out to her--no doubt my genetic skewing kicking in even then. I helped her up, dusted her off, stood there with her for a good five minutes, until suddenly I realized I wasn't holding the handrail any more, that I was balancing on my skates alone. And I crashed to the ice, sprawling, completely panic-stricken and completely triumphant.
This was like that falling . . . when I first entered the dream plane, and I could still feel the doubled consciousness, was still aware of my hand touching the Terrian's shoulder, I was holding the handrail--I could feel the way back to safety. But as soon as I became aware of Valentine and started moving toward her, I moved away from that security, from that intimate awareness of the physical world I was leaving behind, and let myself get caught up in the dream world, let it seem real, just like skating away from the rail toward the center of the ice. Coming back was like falling--it was painful to suddenly be back in the physical body that had been giving me such grief
after escaping it for those few minutes, and it scared the hell out of me to think I had forgotten how it felt for even that long. But it was a feeling of tremendous accomplishment, too--I had cleared a major hurdle in my understanding of the planet and in understanding my newfound and deeply beloved family. And while I was still scared and still hurting a little, I knew I could do it again.
"Are you all right?" Alonzo asked, letting go himself. "Fine," I promised, touching his arm. "What happened?" he said, puzzled. "I . . . I felt her, and it was so strange . . . " I lowered my suddenly aching body to the floor with a sigh. "Talk about trying to get it on with your kid sleeping in the room . . . "
"Stop, you're embarrassing me," he laughed, sinking down beside me with an agility that made me want to smack him.
"Very funny," I retorted, leaning back against the wall--actually against a Terrian . . .
. . . . And I was on the dream plane again, standing just as I had been before. "Hey kid, on or off," Alonzo joked, with me again. "Any kind of contact will do it--they're creating the plane, intensifying the natural connection--that's the point of their hibernation."
"Oh," was all I could think of by way of response. "At least my body's sitting down this time . . . But 'Lonzo, I really don't think . . . " I let my voice trail off, blushing a little again.
"Okay, wait a minute," he said, thinking. A particularly evil grin appeared on his perfect face. "Do you trust me?" he asked archly.
"I'm not sure," I said slowly. "What did you have in mind?" He picked up my hand. "You can travel through time as well as space here," he explained. "I haven't tried the future yet--they say it's probably going to be tricky, if not impossible, for us to move forward, because our minds don't have the blueprint--anyway, we can move back into the past pretty easily, or at least I can. That's why I asked if you trust me."
"To take me back into the past?" I asked doubtfully. "You have fantasies about hoop skirts and corsets maybe?"
"Not the VR past, silly, *our* past," he answered, mock-annoyed. "I can take you back to any point in our time together."
"Meaning pre-Valentine," I said, beginning to catch his drift. He grinned. "Exactly," he answered. "As a matter of fact . . . I've had the perfect time picked out for a while now."
"Oh really?" I said, eyebrows raised. "Oh yeah," he retorted. "So what do you say?" "I say I don't know," I answered. "I mean, just because you can do this doesn't mean I--"
"That's exactly what it means," he interrupted. "All you have to do is hold on to me in the physical world. If I'm understanding these guys, that will put you inside my dream--that's probably what Shepherd did with Devon."
"Will I know I'm dreaming?" I asked. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Probably not, since this is your first time--I'm thinking that if the dream is real enough--or accurate enough, actually--you'll think you're back in that time and place."
"But you'll know we're dreaming," I said, intrigued but anxious. "Yes, I promise," he said. "And you'd be able to tell, too, if I stopped maintaining the surroundings. Don't worry, doc . . . " He touched my cheek. "I'm not about to take you out in the middle of inner space and get you stranded."
I gave him a long look. "Okay," I said at last. "I trust you. Tell me what I have to do."
He grinned. "Let go of the Terrian, then grab on to me," he said.
So I did. I moved away from the Terrian and broke the dream connection, finding Alonzo sitting on the floor beside me with his eyes closed and one hand clasped around the Terrian's leg. "This is too weird," I grumbled, finding a comfortable position on the floor, then reaching out and taking his hand . . . .
. . . . and I was soooo sleepy. Twenty-two years is too damned long to be unconscious, lowered body functions or no lowered body functions. I hit the button to open the door, then watched it close again, too out of it to make myself move through. Come on, Heller, get it together . . . you've got a whole advance team and one very sick little boy to wake up and check out before breakfast, and your boss already thinks you're an incompetent idiot. I pressed the button again and walked through the door as it opened, padding in stocking feet down the corridor toward the cockpit . . .
End of Part 4.

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 5
by Jayel

I was a little surprised to discover the pilot . . .what was his name? Something ironic, I had thought the first time I heard it, the absolute wrong name for a too-good-looking-to-be-true sleep jumper who probably had a girl in every port. Solace. That was it. (Alonzo, my brain whispered with a happy sigh.)
Which was really, really, *really* weird. If I had one predominant social/interactional strength, it was an extremely high resistance to the charms of this kind of Romeo. I mean, what had been up with that look he had given me back in station dock? Everything about him--the gleam in his eye, the dimple in his cheek, that damned fly-boy grin--had made me furious. I could all but hear what he was thinking, and I didn't like it. My professionalism was *not* a pose, and I was not a bundle of flighty feminine repressed desires just waiting for some big, strong, testosterone-poisoned space jockey to cut me loose with the intensity of his temporary ardor. No thank you very much, Solace.
And now I had to face more of the same, only this time I was all alone, in my pajamas, for heaven's sake. Why me? And why . . . ? Why did part of me seem to think this was all just great? Walking closer to him, my heart was actually skipping beats in anticipation--No! I had not worked so hard and so long and given up *everything* just to crumble at the first leer from this--
"Isn't it standard operation to have me verify position?" he said suddenly, making me jump. His back was turned, but I could hear that grin in his voice. "So you and I can hop back in the big sack if we're a couple of hundred million miles off course."
Come on, Heller, if he rattles you, he's right, right? If you're this antsy, he's already won. Just do what you have to do and get on with your life as planned. "That's right," I said, neutrally pleasant. I touched his shoulder with my gloved hand, checking his vitals, and he turned to me, and I could feel the ripple of muscle through the glove, and my knees actually, literally, felt weak. (Look at his hair--I had forgotten how spiffy he used to look, my brain laughed. Was I completely insane?)
"Well, you'll be happy to know that my record's intact," he was saying, his eyes completely focused on my face as I struggled to concentrate on strictly medical impressions. "Haven't missed yet."
I ventured a glance up at his eyes. "Okay . . . " Something in those deep brown eyes, intelligence behind the bravado, and a question, a searching, as if he expected something from me, something a lot more profound than a simple medical exam. Or a quick roll in the hay . . .
"I could postpone everyone's defrost, and we could celebrate life a little bit," he offered with a grin, completely destroying the illusion, no doubt created in my own mind, that we might somehow actually be connecting. Heller, you're a moron, genetic engineering be damned . . . . Yes, you may need at some point to reproduce on the surface, but couldn't they have left the practical equipment and taken out all these confusing secondary stimulators? "What do you say?"
"Is that the only come-on you sleep jumpers can come up with these days?" I said briskly, nipping this foolishness in the bud as I finished my exam with all possible speed.
"You've worked on sleep runs?" he asked, obviously surprised and interested--maybe he thought we could swap hibernation stories between swapping bodily fluids and wouldn't that be fun? Or maybe he was hoping I was as jaded about this kind of thing as he was.
"Well, let's just say your reputation precedes you--," I began--suddenly I knew I had to tell this blowhard just exactly what I thought of him and his cutie-pie crudeness, doctor or not.
"I don't have one," he interrupted, knocking the wind out of my sails again with those eyes. "I'm not around long enough to make one." True enough--I wanted him to stop looking at me; I wanted to crawl back in my sleep capsule; I wanted . . . I started to retreat, discretion being the better part of valor. My heart was doing flip-flops, and my whole body was aching to touch him, and that was crazy and wrong and not not not *not* me-- "But you," he continued, stopping me in my tracks. "You have some sleep in your eye."
"What?" I faltered as he leaned closer, one fingertip touching my face, brushing the sleep from the corner of my eyelid with indescribable tenderness . . . how could he touch me that way, like he knew me? Yes--that was it exactly. Everything about him seemed to know me so intimately that the illusion was contagious. Gazing up at his perfect mouth, I seemed to know exactly how it would feel to kiss him, exactly the way he would taste, the way his arms would fold around me and make me feel safe. "This is insane," I whispered, longing to run but powerless to move a muscle.
"No," he promised, smiling, framing my face with his hands. "Trust me, doc, this is perfect."
"Trust you?" I mumbled as his lips touched mine . . . I'd never felt anything remotely like this. I had been kissed before--not lots, granted, but some--but this . . . Melting into his kiss was like finally, finally coming home--the word sanctuary kept echoing through my head, entwined with the tender promise of his voice saying "Trust me, doc . . . trust me. . . "
His hands slid down my back, pressing me closer as he deepened the kiss, and I felt my own arms come up around his neck apparently of their own volition. (a reflex, my brain whispered . . . ) "Wait," I protested, turning my face away like a swimmer gasping for air. "How can it be a reflex?"
He looked down at me, confused. "What?" "How can I be reflexively reaching for you?" I demanded, my palms pressed to his chest, holding him at bay, my glove beeping companionably with the beating of his heart. "You are a stranger--I don't love you--I don't even *like* you, for heaven's sake." I looked up into his eyes, twinkling with amusement that made me furious again and something else that made everything I was saying feel like a perversely childish lie. "I don't love anyone," I insisted. "Especially not you." I tried to pull free of his embrace, but he wouldn't let me go. "Solace, stop--"
"Why especially not me?" he demanded, the circle of his arms too strong to break but his eyes still tenderly amused. "What's so particularly unlovable about me?"
"You're arrogant and shallow--what you're trying to sell as love or at least romance is nothing more than a biological function, no more meaningful than a sneeze," I retorted, folding my arms against my body, closing myself off, closing him out in spite of the fact that I could feel his breath on my face. "And even if by some miracle you did turn out to be sincere, you'd still leave, and I'd have to stay--"
"I won't leave you alone, Julia," he said, suddenly serious, intense, his palms sliding up to grip my shoulders.
"You will--actually, you don't even have to," I insisted, hunched tensely in his grasp, his touch like fire even through the thick fabric of my robe. So easy it would be to give myself up to that warmth, to give up everything that was supposed to be so important--to sink into him and forget everything else. "I'm already alone, Solace--I always have been--"
"But you don't have to be," he protested, all traces of fly-boy swagger gone. What difference could it make to him? Why should he care so much? "You're part of a larger group now--you're going to a whole new world--"
"Yes, and I have a very specific job to do on that whole new world, which, incidentally, you'll be leaving as soon as we unload," I shot back, breaking free of him at last. "You don't know anything about me; nothing about what I am or what my goals are or my loyalties or how important this project is for me. You look at me and all you see is another opportunity to play at having a real life for a day or two before you drift back off to sleep."
Something about this last had apparently made an impression, and not a favorable one--he looked as if I had hit him in the stomach, hard, with something big and heavy. "That's what you think?" he asked, his dark eyes shockingly bright against the sudden pale of anger. "That I just play at life, that my life isn't real?"
"How could it be?" I demanded, ignoring the tiny voice in my head that was begging me to stop before I hurt him. He was hurting me; why shouldn't I hurt him? "You're never awake long enough to accomplish anything real--chronologically, you're probably more than a hundred years old, but in real life? You haven't even gotten started yet--you're a perpetual adolescent, all of you are, trying on one life after another without ever making any kind of commitment beyond your decision to be a pilot. Your only function, the only contribution you've ever made or ever will make to society is to make it possible for real people to move from place to place--you're a necessary evil created by the limitations of space travel. You have no political leanings, no loyalties, no family, no philosophy, no religion--no depth whatsoever, because if you did, you wouldn't be able to stand leaving it all behind. And the saddest part of it all is that transport engineers are working day and night to find a way to make you obsolete--someday what little you can do will be done by a machine, and then--" I stopped, the pain in his eyes finally breaking through my own rage and petty anxieties. "Solace," I began again, inwardly kicking myself. Great bedside manner, doc . . . . "I'm sorry; I had no right--"
"Hey, what difference does it make?" he said with a bitter laugh. "If I'm a non-person, why should you care about hurting my feelings? Oh, that's right--I am a necessary evil, and you're a doctor--it's your job to keep me up and running, just like it's Danziger's job to make sure the ship's circuits stay on-line."
Danziger? I thought, confused. Who . . . ? I turned and stared hard at the portal that led to the outer corridors--where was he? Why hadn't he . . .? The image was gone like the last glimpse of remembering a dream. I turned back to the angry pilot, trying to think how to mend this fence before everyone else woke up--the last thing I needed was for Adair to know I had willfully upset the guy who'd be dropping our supplies. "Yes, I am a doctor, and it was very wrong of me to let my personal feelings--"
"That's right, because you're not allowed to have personal feelings," he interrupted. "That might get in the way of the Council's big plans for you, right?"
I could feel the blood rushing hot to my face, my hands going cold as ice. "I beg your pardon?" I said, struggling to find my voice.
"I'm not the only necessary evil in this cockpit, am I, doc?" he went on angrily. "You say my life isn't real, that I'm not real--what about you, Julia? How long before you're obsolete? You say I'm going to be replaced by a machine, and maybe that's true, but guess what? For me, it hasn't happened yet."
I tried to meet his eyes, to be righteously indignant, but all I could feel was panic and a grief like nothing I'd felt before, as intense and inexplicable as the desire I'd felt for him before. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said weakly, turning away.
"At least I'm trying to have a real life," he went on as if I hadn't spoken. "At least I can still pretend that there are things in the universe more important than the narrow little task prescribed for me by the Council." He paused, the rhythm of his breath deafening in the sealed silence of the sleeping transport. "But maybe that just makes me stupid."
"No," I answered, staring at the portal again, as if there were some deeper meaning I couldn't quite grasp written in code in that image. "You're not stupid, Alonzo . . . I . . . " I felt sick--really sick, like I had eaten green or rotted fruit. He couldn't know; no one could know--it wasn't possible. Suddenly, even though I knew absolutely that it was impossible, I could have sworn I felt the Council's VR tube buried deep inside of me . . . . poison, a silver vial of poison breaking open inside my body, destroying the cells, destroying me . .. . My stomach lurched--no, lower, the pain was lower, and I screamed, completely focused on the spasm of agony ripping through me.
"Julia?" the pilot said, shoving past the instrument console to reach me. He caught me by the shoulders again and pulled me toward the door. "Julia, come on, let go--it's time to stop this now--"
"Stop what?" I asked, looking up as the pain subsided, leaving only the nausea and the feeling that I was dying, that the Council had lied--they aren't using me; they're killing me--I'm the one they want to get rid of, not Devon Adair, not the Eden Project--
"Stop dreaming," he said urgently, his eyes now profoundly frightened. "You're dreaming, Julia--"
Suddenly the glossy floor seemed to turn to water beside our feet, and the strangest, ugliest bipedal creature I had ever seen swam up through the rippling surface. He seemed to know Solace, spoke to him in a series of chirps. Accusing? Advising? Whatever it was, the pilot seemed to understand--he chirruped back to the thing . .. the Terrian!
Alonzo was communicating with a Terrian, and we were on the dream plane, and . . . and I was in labor. I felt my knees turn to ice water beneath me as in the dream ship I fainted, and when I opened my eyes, we were back in the cave.
"Julia?" My love was cradling me in his arms, looking down at my face with a haggard concern. "Doc, I'm so sorry . . . ."
"No," I protested, touching his cheek, my own cheeks burning with shame. "I'm sorry . . . I didn't realize . . . " Another contraction ripped through me, cutting off my apology in mid-syllable. "'Lonzo?" I said weakly when it passed.
"I know," he answered, reaching for his VR gear. "I feel it, too." "Alonzo?" Danziger's voice echoed eerily around the Terrian-covered walls from somewhere well down the circular corridor. "Julia? You guys in here?"
"Julia, answer us, please," Devon's voice added. "If you're all right, please answer."
"We're here," Alonzo called back. He looked down at me with a hopeful grin. "We're fine?"
"Hmmm. . .. ," I said, laughing nervously. "Yeah, I think so. Maybe . . ."
End of Part 5.

Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 6
by Jayel

By the time Alonzo had me lowered to the floor, Danziger and Devon were coming through the archway. "You guys all right?" Danz demanded, eyeing the Terrians with suspicion even as he lowered the muzzle of the magpro.
"We're fine," Alonzo repeated as Devon knelt beside us. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Uly said you were in trouble," she explained. "Something about the dream plane." She laid an unconsciously maternal palm against my cheek. "Julia, you look pale. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Other than being in labor," I admitted with a nervous laugh. "Oh dear," she sighed, laughing with me, obviously relieved. "So that's what--Danziger, do you think that's what he could have meant?"
"I guess so," Danziger allowed, sounding less than convinced. "Hell, none of it made any sense to me--a lot of Terrian gibberish."
"Ulysses was very upset," Devon elaborated. "And Danziger's right; most of what he said was a bit beyond us. But he was adamant that we come here--or at least that someone come . . . " She broke off, looking away.
"Come on, fly-boy," John said gruffly, shouldering the rifle by its strap and reaching for our packs. "You carry the little mama there, and we'll take care of this stuff. If we really push that 'rail, she can be back in camp by midnight."
"John, I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I can't." I closed my eyes and forced my muscles to relax as I rode out another contraction. It was strange--that morning, everything about giving birth had scared the hell out of me--the pain, the indignity, the thought of being completely responsible for another life. The only thing that had comforted or sustained me had been the thought that Alonzo would be right there with me every step of the way, that whatever happened would happen to both of us. But now that it was actually happening, everything I had imagined was turned upside down. My body seemed to know exactly what to do, whether I made good decisions or maintained any level of control at all, and the whole idea of dignity seemed a childish exercise with no bearing on my situation whatsoever. I felt completely self-contained, completely prepared . . . and Alonzo had never seemed so far away.
Devon, on the other hand, seemed to understand completely. "Good girl," she soothed, stroking the hair back from my face. "It'll pass in a minute, I promise. John, I think you'd better bring the cot from the transrover."
My eyes snapped open at this, and I saw Alonzo's eyes widen as well. If Danziger had agreed to bring the transrover this far at high enough speeds to get them here this quickly, they must have really been worried. And secondly . . . Devon hadn't called the mechanic by his first name in months. "Guys, where's Tara?" Alonzo asked without the slightest attempt at tact.
"Back at camp," Danziger promised. "She's fine." "She and I discussed it and decided that since I have in fact had a baby, I should be the one to come," Devon added neutrally. She glanced down at my face. "But John can certainly take me back and bring her--"
"Tara's with Yale," Danz interrupted, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Yale?" I demanded. The contraction had passed, leaving me shaken but otherwise perfectly well. But something in his tone scared me badly. "What's wrong with Yale?"
"He seems to be having some sort of cybernetic malfunction," Devon explained, obviously struggling to maintain her composure. "But Tara seems to have the problem well in hand." She smiled. "For the time being, I think the four of us should concentrate on you and little Valentine, okay?"

The contractions continued for hours with no significant increase in intensity or frequency- -not particularly unusual for a first baby, I knew, but frustrating nonetheless. Alonzo never moved from my side, squatting Terrian-style by the cot with my hand clasped in his. But his eyes kept closing for longer and longer periods of time, and I knew he was dreaming to the surrounding Terrians, a realization that filled me with both apprehension and a strange, oblique comfort. The disastrous results of our latest experiment had made me more certain than ever that the dream plane was not for me--I hadn't felt so out-of-place on or unwanted by G889 since destroying the VR tube that had connected me to Reilly.
But my child was very much a part of the metaphysical systems of this planet--my brief trip beyond the physical had taught me that if nothing else. That Terrian who had risen from the floor on the dream version of our transport ship hadn't come to save me from a mental breakdown or Alonzo from a broken heart. The planet had sent it for Valentine.
Devon got up from her faithful post at my other side. "I'm going outside to check in with camp," she said briskly. She had been a rock all night, but even in my current state of profound self-absorption, I could see how frightened she was for Yale. "Be right back," she promised, giving me an encouraging smile.
"You need me to come with you?" John asked, starting to get up. "No, it's okay," she said. "Unless you want to talk to--" She broke off, blushing. "Unless you want to say good night to True," she amended.
Danziger settled back to the floor. "You can do that," he said with a grin that seemed to hint at something more. "And if you should happen to talk to Donahoe, tell her Julia's okay."
"I will," she promised, smiling back before disappearing through the arch.
When she was gone, I expected Alonzo to ask John another blunt question or two, but my life partner was apparently far, far away at the moment. "John, what is going on?" I asked, struggling to sit up.
"Hey, stay where you are," he admonished, coming to me. "Unless you need to get up and walk again--"
"No," I answered, too tired to even consider such a thing, though I knew it would probably help. "What I need is to know what's happening back at camp."
He shook his head with a wry grin. "You can't stand letting other people take care of you, can you, doc?" he teased.
"Yeah, well, that's something we have in common," I pointed out. "Now come clean."
"Lord, deliver me from bossy women," he sighed, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling for a moment. "It's just like Adair said," he continued. "Yale has had some kind of malfunction--"
"What kind of malfunction?" I demanded. "I don't know what kind of malfunction," he insisted. "He just . . . collapsed; shut down completely." He glanced over at Alonzo, still silent as the Terrians. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine," I answered briefly. "Tell me more about Yale." "Tara seems to think it has something to do with whatever Elizabeth did to his programming to repair our uplink to EVE back when everybody was sick," he explained, still giving Alonzo a long, sharp look. "Her theory, which may well be based more on paranoia than anything else, is that Elizabeth planted a fail-safe virus into Yale's neural net, an upgraded version of the virus her husband originally programmed into EVE."
"Why would she do that?" I asked. Or at least, that was what I meant to ask. Before I could get it out, a much deeper version of the pain I'd been feeling for hours seemed to explode inside me, turning my question into a most unprofessional scream.
"That didn't sound good," John remarked, giving Alonzo a shove hard enough to knock him out of his reverie and onto the cave floor. "Hey fly-boy, I think it's showtime." He got up as Alonzo scrambled back to his knees and crawled over to me again. "I'll get Devon."
"I'm fine," I insisted shakily, grabbing Alonzo's arm in both hands and squeezing until the pain seemed to subside. "I want to hear more about Yale--" Another pain cut me off, making me sit straight up on the cot with another embarrassing scream I couldn't seem to suppress.
"Adair!" John yelled, running through the archway. "Danziger, wait!" I called as he disappeared into the dark. "What about Yale?"
"Come on, doc," Alonzo soothed, propping cushions behind me and helping me lean back again. "Let's let Tara worry about Yale for now, all right? As soon as we get our little detail worked out, we'll go back to camp and see what's going on for ourselves . . . " He re-arranged the sheet around me, sneaking a peek between my bent knees. "Oh wow . . . "
"What?" I asked, alarmed. But the look of awe-struck fascination on his face made me smile in spite of the fact that I was scared to death and being split neatly in two.
He continued to stare at the wrong end of me for a full minute before answering. "I can see her head," he informed me at last, looking up with eyes as wide as dinner plates.
"Oh," I managed, not certain whether I wanted more to laugh or to cry. "That's . . . . . good, I guess--weird, definitely." I did laugh then, a nervous giggle that seemed to come from somebody else. "At least she's coming out the right way . . . "
"So I hear somebody's finally having a baby in here," Devon said, coming in and pushing the sheet back with matter-of-fact efficiency and her usual encouraging smile. "Right about now, I'd say . . . . ."
"It certainly feels that way," I answered, smiling back. She seemed so calm, as if this were the most normal thing in the world--if she'd been close enough, I would have kissed her. As it was, my whole body seemed to relax back into automatic pilot as she brushed the hair back from my face and helped me sit up a little straighter.
"We should have brought that birthing chair you and Bess fixed up," she said, a tiny frown appearing between her brows. "Alonzo--"
But Alonzo wasn't listening. Still holding my hand in one of his, he had reached out to one of the Terrians with the other. As Devon and I watched, dumbstruck and irritated respectively, the apparently sleeping Terrian came to life, reaching out and clasping Valentine's father's other hand, as if it belonged here as much as any of the rest of us, as if my scary miracle belonged to its tribe as well as ours. "Alonzo!" I said, squeezing his hand so hard my nails dug into the flesh. "The action is out here, remember?"
His eyes snapped open. "What?" he stammered. "I know, doc . . . . They're just curious-- they want to--"
"Alonzo Solace, *I don't care*!" I retorted, channeling the pain into unreasoning rage. "Either forget about the damned Terrians and help me, or get the hell out!"
To his eternal credit, he never hesitated for a second. "I'm here, doc," he promised, letting go of the Terrian to sit by me, wrapping both his arms around my shoulders. I could see Devon trying to suppress a smile, but I didn't care how I sounded any more than I cared what the Terrians thought. If ever I had been entitled to be a little hysterical . . . .
"Here she comes," Devon said, grabbing a blanket and squatting in front of me. "Push, Julia . . . . push now, honey, you're almost there . . . "
"This hurts," I informed them tearfully, burying my face against Alonzo's throat as I bore down. "This hurts a really lot . . . "
"I know, baby, I know," Alonzo promised, kissing my hair. "You're almost done . . . "
"We have a head," Devon continued. "Oh God, she's beautiful . . . . one more push for the shoulders, Julia, and the hard part's over . . . "
Easy for her to say, I thought grouchily, trying to obey even so. I could hear the baby crying--obviously this whole process was no more fun for her than it was for me. "I'm trying, baby, I'm trying," I promised, blind with tears of my own.
"She knows," Alonzo said. "She's trying, too . . . . " And suddenly, my whole body seemed to focus into one immensely powerful channel that pushed our Valentine free.
"She's out!" Devon said triumphantly, laughing and crying at once as she lifted the slimy, squalling bundle into her arms. "Julia, look at her . . . . she's perfect . . . ."
As soon as I was done with the afterbirth and Devon was done wiping the baby clean and making sure her tiny mouth and nose were clear, I finally got to hold my precious daughter. I'd never felt anything so warm, so alive . . . . her little arms and legs felt so strong, working diligently back and forth as I cradled her against me. And her lungs were certainly in tiptop order- -she hadn't stopped screaming yet. "She seems to have inherited Danziger's voice," I laughed shakily, touching her all over, making certain she was real.
"Her mother's, I'd say," Alonzo retorted, laying a hand on her tiny stomach as his other arm squeezed me tight. "Hey, Valentine . . . it's okay. You made it."
The screams abruptly stopped, subsiding into an irritable grumble as she opened her eyes, their blue so dark they already looked brown. And even though as a doctor I knew she couldn't focus yet, that we were no more than indistinct blobs of light and dark to her newborn perceptions, I could have sworn she recognized us both. "Did she understand you?" I demanded, taking her perfect little fist between my thumb and index finger and coaxing it open.
"I don't think . . . . I don't know," he admitted with a laugh. "I'm going to go tell John you guys are okay," Devon said with a smile. "Devon, wait," Alonzo protested nervously. "Are you sure--I mean, what if something happens?"
"We'll be fine," I promised, kissing his cheek. "Call home and tell everyone we have a Valentine."
"I will," she said. She touched the baby's rose petal cheek with the tip of her finger. "Congratulations . . . both of you."
"I think she'd like to have another one of these," Alonzo remarked when she was gone, pressing a kiss to my temple.
"Hmmm?" I answered, counting Valentine's tiny fingers and toes just like any normal, red- blooded, genetically imperfect mom would do.
"Devon," he elaborated. "I think she likes babies." "Of course she does," I said, opening my shirt and guiding a nipple into our daughter's impatiently waiting little mouth. "This is so strange . . . . . "
"Yeah, I bet," he joked. "But you guys are beautiful . . . ." "No," I interrupted. "I mean, thank you . . . " I looked up at him and smiled, and he kissed me warmly. "But what I meant was this . . . . knowing," I explained. "I was so worried I wouldn't know what to do." I looked down at his hand, so big and strong and perfect against the frightening delicacy of the baby's skin. "I've always been so wrapped up in what I could do with my mind, I've never learned to trust my body."
"I've always trusted your body," he answered with a fly-boy grin, but I could see in his eyes that he knew what I meant . . . . how could I have ever been so blind? How could I have missed so much--he was everything, and I could so easily have missed it . . .
"I love you," I said simply, meeting his deep brown eyes for a long moment before looking back down at our beautiful and apparently ravenous offspring.
He shifted closer behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder as his arms encircled my waist. "I know, doc," he said softly, his touch more reassuring than any words he could have spoken. "Even if I could have doubted it before, I couldn't now." He pressed a kiss to my cheek. "I mean, just look what we made."
I laughed. "She is nice, isn't she?" I said with a happy sigh. "She's perfect," he promised, kissing me again. "Hey, looky what you guys got," Danziger said with a grin, coming through the archway with Devon close behind. "I was afraid you weren't going to make it there for a minute, the way you were screaming."
"Very funny," I retorted, blushing but not really upset. "Come look at our daughter and tell us how beautiful she is."
"Too beautiful to tell," he admitted after a long look. "Even if she does look like her dad."
Valentine rolled her little eyes toward him with what looked like a perfectly conscious frown. "Hey, she's smart, too."
"I'm sure she's just reacting to your voice," Devon said with a smile. "Come on, let's get the rest of those cots inside so we can all get some sleep."
"Devon, wait," I said. "Is everything all right back at camp?" She paused, biting her lip for a moment before giving me a fragile grin. "No," she admitted. "But looking at the three of you . . . . I have to believe it will be."
-The End-

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