Prologue

Boston, Massachusetts: October 1989

John Koenig walked down the front steps of his brownstone apartment building on Salem St., and then sprinted towards the waiting powder blue Chevy Malibu sedan double-parked on the corner. As usual, his carpool to Lexington was obscenely punctual at 7:15 a.m. As he hopped into the back seat, he reflected briefly that there were worse places in the world to be right now than New England in the autumn. The sun was low in the sky, but still warm on his face; the morning air was brisk. Now that the major league had resumed games after the War, he could catch a night game at Fenway, (although after the near miss in western Long Island, the Yankees were still on hiatus); and the trees! The trees were exploding in their annual symphony of colors. Growing up in Brooklyn, trees were an afterthought, a line-item in some petty official's budget for civic improvement. Here in Massachusetts, if you looked cross-eyed at a tree, you might find yourself in front of a local human rights commission on a charge of environmental genocide! But as the car he was riding in made its way northwest on the Concord turnpike, the thought had no power over him. He watched the beautiful Autumn-in-New England scenery pass by. He enjoyed this even more in the evening on the commute home. Work at the MIT Lincoln Lab was about as stressful as it came, and the leisurely thirty minute drive back to Boston was a great way to unwind. By the time he got home, his troubles were all behind him, the work day all but forgotten. Diana would usually be waiting for him in the flat they shared, sometimes with one of her simple but inspired dinners, other times with a line on a great local restaurant. Yes, he thought. There were worse places to be, no doubt about it, as the car pulled into the parking lot. He walked past several layers of security and took the stairs to his 3rd floor office.

He had just sat down in his cubicle and logged into his station, when someone tapped his shoulder.

"Boss wants to see you." said Renee, the department secretary.

Warily, Koenig got to his feet and trudged over to his boss's office. Now what could he possibly want me for this early? Koenig thought to himself. Dr. Todd Rhinehart's bespectacled head was barely visible over a pile of papers and manila folders on his desk.

"Ah John, come in, come in." said Rhinehart amiably. "Don't get comfortable, though." he warned, as Koenig headed for the one cracked plastic chair not piled high with papers and journals. "You're shipping out."

"What?" said Koenig?

"Moonbase Alpha is a go. I got the word late last night. You're heading to Houston for six weeks of advanced astronaut training." said Rhinehart, grinning broadly.

Koenig was pole axed for a moment. A permanent moon base had been under discussion since before the war, but with so many countries still recovering, and internal politics askew, the funding had been on hold. There had been many false starts and disappointments. Koenig had all but resigned himself to staying on at the Lincoln Lab until he was old enough to draw Social Security.

"Well," was all Koenig could say. Then he gathered himself to say something more constructive. "This is sudden."

"Don't ask me to explain why politicians do the things they do. You might not like my answer. They could have had this ten years ago." said Rhinehart, with a fatalistic shrug. "No matter. You might as well head home and start packing. You're booked on the one o'clock flight out of Logan tomorrow."

"What about the specs for the new anti-grav screens? They're due in two weeks." protested Koenig.

"Gianelli can handle those just fine, John. Don't get me wrong. Your work here has been outstanding, but we both know you're destined for bigger and better things."

"I've always wanted to go into space." Koenig answered honestly.

"Then go home. You've got some things to square away there before tomorrow." suggested Rhinehart. Koenig turned to leave, and then remembered. As if reading his mind, Rhinehart said irritably, "Just take a cab and expense it."

He spent the day packing, and making phone calls. At 4:30 Dianna walked in.. glided in was more like it. She was a voice instructor at the New England Conservatory of Music, and an accomplished ballet dancer. She seemed to float on air as she walked through the door. "John, you're home early!" she exclaimed.

"My orders came through, Di. I'm going to Moonbase Alpha!" he answered without preamble.

She smiled, threw down her gym bag and flew into his arms with a squeal. "Oh John, that's wonderful!" Then she sobered quickly. "So this is our last night" It was not a question.

"For a while, anyway." said Koenig.

She looked away. "A long while. John, lets just enjoy this last night together, ok?"

"Okay" he relented. And they did.

The first thing he noticed as he got off the airplane and started walking down the concourse was the humidity, and the heat. Boston was well into Autumn, but here in Houston, summer still had a grip on the climate. He looked into the crowd teeming with people, and saw a man holding a sign with two names on it, his being one of them. He was about Koenig's height, but at first glance Koenig thought he would make a better linebacker than an astronaut. He was wide, muscular with thin sandy-colored hair, and a friendly face that could have advertised a number of products on TV.

"Hi, I'm John Koenig" he said to the man, extending his hand.

"James Buchanan Keller, at your service." said the big man in a fairly thick southern accent. As he tossed aside his sign. "But my friends call me Sam. Only my mama calls me James anymore. This here is Will Langenfeld." he said, indicating a dark-haired, intense looking man to his left.

After introductions, Keller led them to the rental car. A voluble man, he did most of the talking. Koenig had never been to Houston before, and watched as the scenery went by. He tried to imagine something more different than Boston, and came up short. He was anxious to get to work, but Keller waved him off.

"You never mind that, Johnny-boy. This here ain't like boot camp. They got us set up at the Holiday Inn near the Johnson space center, with most of the other crew. First class starts at 9:00 a.m." He handed Koenig and Langenfeld each a folder with their names on them, giving them useful information such as class schedules, expenses, and project deadlines. As they checked in, it took Koenig only a moment to realize that they hadn't assigned people to rooms on the basis of specialties. Clearly, they didn't have time for that. They just assigned rooms alphabetically.

Koenig had barely finished unpacking when Keller clapped him on the shoulder. "Johnny boy, I don't know about you but I'm starving." Koenig, who had been so anxious since hearing the news, had not eaten since breakfast. He suddenly became conscious of his rumbling stomach.

"Hell yes, let's eat!" said Langenfeld, which for him was a violent display of emotion. Keller, who seemed to have a natural instinct for finding the best places to eat and drink, led them to a local steakhouse that went by the name of The Shankhill, where he proceeded to order a T-bone rare and a baked potato. During the meal, they all exchanged information about their backgrounds, their hometowns. Koenig's Brooklyn accent contrasted with Langenfeld's flat Pennsylvania speech, and sometimes Keller's drawl barely seemed like English at all. Keller spoke at length about his past, his naval career going back to the waning days of Vietnam. "Yup, started out driving Phantom's in '71. Just in time to meet up with the SA-6. That was bad news. Flying telephone poles, we called 'em. Didn't even show up on our threat receivers. Had the war gone on another year or two, there would have been damn few of us left." he opined between bites of steak. Koenig and Langenfeld seemed at a loss for anything to add to that. Their background was academic rather than military.

"Mmmmm, that's the straight goods!" exclaimed Keller after polishing off his steak. He went to work on his baked potato next, after slathering it liberally with butter. Koenig and Langenfeld each settled for a smaller cut, but Koenig, despite his earlier hunger, found himself picking at his dinner. Keller noticed something in Koenig right away that he had seen before, but inwardly shrugged. It was none of his affair after all, but if he was going to be spending weeks with this man, and going into space, then it would probably be best to get this settled now.

When they emerged from the Shankhill, it was full night. Keller made a quick decision, as was his wont. "You boys in a hurry to get back to the hotel?" asked Keller. Langenfeld begged off, said he wanted to call his wife. Actually, Sam wanted to do that as well, but duty came first. Before Koenig could protest, he found himself being dragged into a bright and smelly saloon with country music playing in the background, and cocktail waitresses uniformed in, to Koenig's wry amusement, denim mini skirts, cowboy boots and brown leather vests. Good God in the Foothills, Koenig thought to himself. 'What the hell am I doing here?' This is all wrong. I'm going to call Rhinehart in the morning, and tell him to forget it. This is not for me. I'm going back to Boston where I belong. Back to Dianna, if she'll take me.

Keller ordered a bottle of Kentucky sour mash, two glasses and ice. Not my first choice for libation, Koenig thought to himself, but when in Rome… The bourbon tasted like liquid fire going down his throat. After the 2nd glass between them, Koenig got up to leave.

"So, what's her name?" Keller asked suddenly.

"What? The girl I left in Boston? Diana. I told you that over dinner." said Koenig.

"No, the one before her." said Keller.

Koenig was dumbfounded. No one had ever been able to read him so easily. A number of responses came to his lips for this huge, affable pilot. Go to hell; mind your own business. The temptation to just walk away almost overwhelmed him. For no reason at all, he said. "Jean. Jean was her name."

For the next hour, Koenig told the story. He paused at several points, unable to continue through the grief that he had so long denied.

In October 1987, John and Jean Koenig were newlyweds living in mid-town Manhattan. The war that came upon them, and various parts of the world, was sudden. The first warning Koenig had gotten was on his rental car radio, on his way back to his hotel from MIT after a successful job interview at his alma mater. Five minutes into the interview, Bergman and Rhinehart had shared a glance, and the offer was tendered and accepted. Then, the Emergency Broadcast System had cut in on the car radio, ordering everyone to take shelter. By the time it was over, northern Manhattan and the Bronx were gone, along with Paris, Seattle, Donestsk, and a dozen other cities around the globe. Muslim extremists, in an attempt to forestall détente and eliminate the greater and lesser satans, had obtained a tactical nuclear device, mounted it on an old Kelt class Soviet cruise missile, and launched it at Donestsk from inside Turkey. This apparent attack on the USSR from a NATO country had imitated an automatic response from the Soviet defense system. However, awful as the exchange was, presidents Reagan and Gorbachev had immediately gotten into contact with one another, and forestalled the massive release of their respective nuclear arsenals. The bombers had been turned around, and the ballistic missile submarines, each carrying more firepower than was released in all of World War Two, were ordered to stand down.

Once the perpetrators of this deed were identified, retaliation was swift and brutal. The inhabitants of Qum were mercifully given 48 hours to evacuate, after which it was reduced to radioactive rubble. Speaking on a live joint teleconference from Reykjavik , Iceland, Gorbachev and Reagan, flanked by other heads of state, explained to the world that a new era of peace must begin, and that Mecca and Tehran would be next if necessary. The effect this had on the world was galvanizing. Within one week, every nation that had secret programs for weapons of mass destruction had disarmed and accepted vigorous inspections to verify their compliance. All over the world, support for jihad collapsed almost overnight. Governments in over a dozen Muslim countries were overthrown. Hundreds of leaders of jihadist parties were dragged from their lairs. The lucky ones were arrested. Police agencies, who had for years met stone walls of silence in their hunt for international terrorists were now flooded with informers, and given intelligence of which they could have scarcely dreamed.. They swooped down on terrorist hideouts the world over, seizing huge caches of weapons and explosives, and arresting thousands.

The unlucky ones were publicly lynched in uprisings that made Mussolini's fate seem like an ice cream social by comparison.

All of this was small comfort to John Koenig. Their apartment building had been five miles from ground zero. Even so, the shockwave had collapsed the building as Jeanne had been packing her suitcase to leave the city. He had identified her body in a makeshift morgue on Long Island, by a doctor with a foreign accent, so overworked and numbed by what he had seen in the past few weeks, he was perhaps past sympathy.

As you can see, she was carrying a fetus, he had told Koenig, as he handed him a clipboard with a release to sign.

"John, that's rough. But you have to know there was nothing you could have done. If you'd have stayed there, you'd be dead too." consoled Keller.

"I..I left her to die." Koenig had said, his voice full of ashes, the tears coming now.

"Oh, horsecrap!" said Keller, with his usual tact as he filled Koenig's glass yet again. "Listen, I lost four guys from my squadron before Nixon pulled the plug. Four. No warning, just bang! One minute they were there, the next blotted out of the sky. I can still see their faces. Was it because I was a better pilot? Nope. Just plain dumb luck, nothing more. Your Jean didn't deserve to die. McDonough, Connolly, Pearce, and Clark: they were young, sharp guys. They didn't deserve to die either. Poor Connolly, he only had three weeks to go! Why did they die and I made it? I don't know. I ask myself that almost every day." This came out in a rush, which he concluded by downing a generous shot of bourbon. Koenig was sobbing now, and Keller was reminded of his mother's favorite Bible passage: "For man born of woman, life is short and full of trouble."

After a few minutes, Keller reached out and put his hand on Koenig's shoulder. "C'mon. We've got a days work tomorrow. And I might have time to call Tessa after all"

"Your wife?" asked Koenig.

"Yup. She'd kill me if she found out I was in a joint like this getting plastered." he said with a conspiratorial wink. "Don't say a word, ok ?"

"Will do, Sam." said Koenig, although he was slurring his words now. He got unsteadily to his feet. Keller was responsible for half, and maybe more than half of that bottle of bourbon. But Keller was an old hand at this. He steadied Koenig as they left the bar together.

Seven a.m. came too fast for Koenig. The alarm going off next to his bed sounded more like a gong. He swung his feet out and headed for the shower. He noticed Keller was already up and dressed, watching some insipid local morning show, and looking not nearly as bad as Koenig felt. Koenig blasted himself first with hot water, then cold. That helped clear his head well enough to get himself dressed. In the hotel restaurant, Keller ordered for both of them. A big plate of ham, eggs and grits, with cup after cup of strong black coffee went a long way towards reconciling Koenig with the world. Koenig had never had grits before, and decided he liked them. His headache eased and he started to feel more nearly human. On the drive from the hotel to the Johnson Space Center, Houston seemed to look a lot better than it had the previous day, Koenig mused. Keller spared a few surreptitious glances at Koenig as he drove. The man is doing a lot better. You can see the confidence in his every move now. Good. That fifth of sour mash was not wasted, he thought to himself with some satisfaction.

Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the hangover, or maybe Koenig's excitement at having a lifelong dream finally come alive. Either way, as Koenig got out of the just parked car and started heading towards Building 1, he was so focused on what lay ahead, that he failed to pay the duty that pedestrians owe to automobiles: caution. He was perhaps three steps out into the street when he saw the car, a brown Chrysler, bearing down on him. Keller saw it too but was too far away to do anything. Koenig's first thought was oh shit.

Koenig had heard about people's lives flashing before their eyes. Now it happened to him. His boyhood in Brooklyn.. His first day in high school. His grandfather's funeral in the dead of winter. His first date with Jean. It all passed before him in the blink of an eye. His life was over. Who could have believed it would end- he hit the ground hard, the man behind him throwing a tackle worthy of the NFL. Both men landed hard , and in a tangled heep on the sidewalk, the Chrysler missing them by inches. As Koenig landed and the air was forced out of his lungs, he at last heard the screech of the car's brakes.

"Fella, are you all right?" asked the man, extending his hand to help Koenig up.

"I think so."

"Sweet suffering Jesus, I can't take my eyes off you for a minute!" exclaimed Keller, rushing over.

Koenig assured Keller he was all right, and commenced to brush himself off. He turned to the man who was already walking away. "Hey! Wait a minute."

The man paused and turned. "Thanks for what you did back there. You could have ended up a smear on the street along with me you know, Mr…?"

"Brent. George Brent." said the handsome, dapper man with a mop of blond hair.

….."Brent! George Brent!" Koenig sat up in his bed, in his quarters on Moonbase Alpha, gasping, just now coming out of the dream but remembering it all.

"John, what is it?" asked Helena, awakened by her husbands thrashing. Koenig just sat in his bed, panting from the ( nightmare?), and shaking his head. "What's wrong?" asked Helena again.

Koenig finally turned to look at her. "Brent, and the others.. We have to send them back." he said with soft wonder.