They walked side by side through the maze of passages and connecting skywalks between the buildings. Every time they passed a view of the city, Buck slowed and turned to look. The shock never wore off. This, this, was Chicago. Or had been.

"There are a couple of eating areas around the complex," Wilma informed him.

"So the 25th century does have restaurants?" He was glad to hear that. "Is there anything besides food discs?"

She looked at him oddly. "What's wrong with food discs?"

He shook his head. "If you don't know, I couldn't possibly explain it to you."

"They're nutritious, premeasured, convenient, can be taken on trips." She interpreted his expression. "Buck, I told you, we're very tight on food here. That's why we wanted the treaty with the Draconians in the first place, to guard the shipping lanes. We buy the discs from a few galactic suppliers. There is other food, but we don't have much of it. Everybody may have one non-disc meal a week."

"Who's counting?" he asked.

"The computer system. Which reminds me." She stopped and fished a card out of her pocket. "Here. This is your ID."

He looked at it. His name, and it clearly said Defense Directorate at the bottom. His temper flared up. "Now wait a minute. I told you, I'm not . . ."

She cut him off. "I know. That doesn't mean you're a member of the Defense Directorate, just that that's the branch that created this ID card for you. Buck, you have to have ID in this world. Believe me, you'll need it for a lot of things, including eating. That's what keeps track of everybody's food consumption. You'll use it getting clothes and other supplies. You'd need it if you wanted to travel to see another city. You'll definitely need it if you ever want to visit another planet."

He looked at the card dubiously. "I can't join you right now, Wilma. I said that. It's too close to what I was doing; I can't just pretend nothing's happened, forget about the past, and move straight on."

"We heard you. But in this world, without an ID, you're going to have a lot of trouble doing anything or going anywhere. That one actually could be quite useful to you in other ways. Very few people have one from the Directorate; we don't just hand them out casually. If anybody is ever asking you questions, that should end them. It also will grant you entry to your apartment whenever you lock the door."

Resigned, he tucked it into one of his own pockets, but he still didn't like this. They arrived at one of the eating areas then, which looked as familiar as anything so far. There were computer panels on the walls and a few service robots, but the tables around the room were full of people obviously having a meal together, much like they might have 500 years ago.

500 years ago. 504 years ago, to be exact. Another wave of homesickness hit him so powerfully that his stride faltered for a moment.

Wilma dropped into a seat at a table. Several of the other diners noted her arrival, and Buck read their expressions: Recognition, respect. Not much cheerful friendliness, but she was someone of status, and they acknowledged that. He was the unknown factor here and drew more than a few curious looks. He sat down in the chair across from her.

She pulled out her own ID and indicated the slot in the middle of the table. "Here's where you insert your card, and the screen will activate. And you can get something besides food discs if you want."

"Once a week, at least," he grumbled.

"I told you, supplies are short. Actually, you can get more than that, but you'd have to pay for it." The screen lit up, and she indicated it. "Here. You can use my weekly other meal if you want. I hardly ever do."

"You mean you actually like those things?"

"It's an efficient way of eating. Now the screen shows you a few options." He studied the limited choices and selected something called a hot breakfast meal. The screen beeped politely and recorded the choice, and he then passed his new ID to Wilma.

"Feel free to use some of my food discs."

She smiled there - she could smile, he noted; it just took some effort to make her - and she inserted his card. Food discs were the #1 choice listed, top left of the screen. "So everybody automatically gets food discs, plus one other meal a week?"

"As long as you are registered."

"What have I been eating for the last few days then if I just got registered?"

"The . . ." She hesitated. "Certain areas have extra allotments."

"Like the jail system."

"Well, yes. I'm sorry, Buck, but I hope you can understand our position, too. If someone just appeared from space, when you know you have several enemies looking for an opening for an attack, and said he was one of you from 500 years ago, would you believe him without some questions and investigation?"

"No," he admitted. "Although to clarify, I never said I was from 500 years ago. You all told me that. I didn't have any idea what was going on at first." He looked around the familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings again. To distract himself, he picked up a comment she had made earlier. "You mentioned that if you want more than one non-disc meal a week, you have to pay. So you guys do have money?"

"Of course we have money," she said. "The same thing goes for supplies. If you are registered, you are allowed the basic food and clothing and such requirements. If you want anything beyond that, you will pay for it."

"And I assume you get money by working at a job?"

"Or by inheriting it, or as a gift, but most people who want more do it by working. Some are content to take the minimum and leave it at that."

"And do what? Just sit around and play solitaire all day?" With or without the need of money, Buck couldn't imagine doing nothing at all.

"Play what?" She looked confused. At that moment, a service robot came up with a tray. The orders were reversed, of course, since Wilma technically had ordered the hot breakfast meal, and Buck had ordered food discs, but they switched as soon as the robot put the plates down. He eyed the hot breakfast meal. He wasn't entirely sure what it alleged itself to be, but it at least wasn't food discs. He picked up his fork and tried a bite. It was hot, and it was breakfast. There was still a lot left to be desired, but this was better, at least.

A job. Money. He could pretty well guarantee that anything he might be interested in obtaining in this computerized, pre measured and allocated city was classified as an "extra" and would require payment if it existed at all, and much of it probably didn't. He also knew that sitting idly around that apartment for too many days would drive him crazy, but the idea of just switching from the Air Force and NASA over to the Defense Directorate without a hitch still seemed disloyal to him. His world, his people deserved to be mourned. But what on earth was he going to do with himself meanwhile?

"Buck?" He jumped slightly, looking up. "Are you all right? You didn't hear me the first time I said your name."

"Just thinking." He could hear how flat his tone sounded and tried to duck back behind his typical lighthearted front, but it was an effort.

"Do you like the food?"

"It's okay." Which was a step up from totally boring.

Wilma was studying him closely. "I have a few hours before I have to be on duty, and I was wondering if you'd like to go flying this morning. I can show you around local space a little bit, and you could fly a starfighter again."

She had his attention fully with that suggestion. He knew his eyes had lit up, but he couldn't help it; he was at heart a pilot, always had been. Any chance to fly was a good one. His one outing where he was in control with that starfighter had formed the content of his only 25th-century-based dream so far. His shopping plans, not that he had money for them anyway, were postponed at once. "I'd like that."

BRBRBR

The starfighter danced, weaving in and out. They had checked out one with two front seats, and Wilma gave a few explanations of this or that in the craft but did let him do the flying. She had directed him to a small asteroid belt that she said was often used in combat training and then sat back and told him to pretend he was in an engagement. Buck had plunged straight into the belt, heading for what looked like a direct collision before diving underneath at the last second, and he couldn't resist a glance over at his copilot. That maneuver had increased her tension level sharply, but to her credit, she didn't say anything aloud. He swept through the belt, darting up and down as much as side to side, pretending that the space rocks were enemy craft and lining them up in his sights before letting them go.

Plenty on this ship was unfamiliar, but it reacted very much like an Air Force fighter jet, only with a huge increase in speed and maneuverability. It also did a neat roll, pulling easily into and out of that exercise. Ranger 3 had been an exploration ship, built for range and not for combat; the starfighter was infinitely lighter to the controls and more responsive.

This felt more right than anything else so far, in spite of the many sections of the panel that he still didn't understand. The basic controls worked well enough. He finally pulled the ship out of the asteroids into clear space after playing for several minutes, and he looked over at Wilma. She was watching him with open admiration.

"You are good. Better than good. A little bit crazy, maybe, and some of your maneuvers don't make sense, but . . ."

He grinned. "Did I confuse your poor flying computer?"

"You know, Buck, at that battle with the few Draconian fighters that you didn't have time to sabotage before takeoff yesterday, I did order everyone to disengage the combat computers and fly manually."

"No combat computer alive will ever have instincts like a human. Which is why a good human pilot will always be able to beat somebody flying by computer."

"I always thought of it as a mixture of the two, the computer adding extra finesse that the human couldn't."

"And how many ships has that lost you in battles?" he asked. He regretted the crack a moment later, because she obviously mentally knew the total and did realize the number of lives it also represented. Wilma might be obnoxiously by the book, but deep down, she did care.

He looked around, and she asked him, "What is it?"

"I was looking for the moon." He located it and turned the ship in that direction. "Always wanted to go there, and I never did. I can at least do a fly-by." He opened up the throttle, testing the ship's speed. "Pretty impressive. You know, it took us three days to get to the moon."

She reached out. "Over here is the directional finder and the scanners. I realize your opinion of computers, but there are a lot simpler ways to find something than looking around visually. Also, it's a big universe." She showed him the basic navigational charts and how to run scans and search for destinations.

"I was doing fine the other day just flying it on instinct." He was absorbing the direction even while ribbing her a little.

"You got plain lucky."

He shook his head. "Skill, Wilma. Plus a bit of luck, I'll admit, but it's a nice combination. I know I'm a dinosaur by your standards, but I really was trained up to state-of-the-art flying back in my time. The basic principles of a fighter aren't that far off."

"What's a dinosaur?" she asked.

He stared at her, then turned back to the slowly enlarging moon. "Never mind." It had all been destroyed, he realized again. All the history books, too, all the museums. These people didn't know much about anything before the Holocaust and knew precious little about that. He remembered seeing the dinosaur skeletons on display in the museum in Chicago, standing there as a child and looking up in wonder at the Tyrannosaurus rex. He was probably the only source in the universe now that even knew it had ever lived. He'd gone to that museum with his parents many times.

"Buck." He snapped to attention and looked back over at Wilma. "Where did that name come from, anyway? Your official log and mission statement that the NASA officials put in your ship even called you Buck after giving your real name at first. Did anybody ever call you by your full name?"

"Only when I was in trouble growing up," he replied. "I knew when my parents used that name to watch out." She smiled; apparently the concept of the parental tone was something that had stayed constant through the centuries. "Which, believe it or not, wasn't as often as you might think. Mom always said that I was high energy, but I had a good heart."

"I could see that," she said softly.

"I've been called Buck all my life. It started before I was born, actually. I apparently liked to exercise or something before I was born, according to my mother."

"I can imagine that pretty well, too," she replied.

They were almost at the moon, and he pulled the ship around. It took a few minutes even in this fleet craft to do a complete orbit, and then he located the Sea of Tranquility and moved the starfighter in closer.

"Buck," Wilma cautioned, "what are you doing?"

"Looking for something." He'd seen the site pinpointed on maps at NASA many times, but it still was looking like a needle in a haystack. Finally, he spotted the old relic. Less sharp or attentive eyes never would have found it, silver against gray. "There!" He brought the starfighter down even further and did a tight circle around his prize. "See it?"

Wilma straightened up in surprise as she looked out the window. "What is that?"

"It's the remains of the descent stage of the Eagle on Apollo 11. That was the lunar module on the first manned moon landing."

She stared. "Were you on that one?"

"No. I was about 10 years old. I remember watching, though. Everybody watched on TV. And that's when I said that I was going to make it into the space exploration program someday." He looked around. "And I did, even if Ranger's mission went completely haywire."

She didn't understand the last word, he could tell, but she didn't bother to ask for an explanation of his vernacular. She had a bigger question. "Buck, what happened on your flight? How did you get frozen like you did?"

He pulled the starfighter up, gaining more altitude so that he didn't have to pay as close attention to the lunar topography while talking. "There was a new feature on the ship, something they were just developing. I wanted to go ahead and live test it. It had been an option for my mission, but it was really scheduled for the next. I insisted on trying it, and they finally agreed." He shivered, feeling again the icy certainty of death. He'd dreamed this multiple times every night so far. "The stabilizers went badly wrong, and then somehow life support shorted out. Total cockpit heating failure. I hope they realized what was happening and investigated it before trying that with somebody else; I was talking to them as long as I could, telling them as much info as I had. Everything iced up so quickly." He shivered again.

Wilma reached out and touched his arm. "That must have been terrifying, knowing you were about to die. Believing you were, at least."

He nodded. "I don't guess you have records for any flights after mine but before the holocaust? But they knew what I was going to do, and I think they got a good bit during the failure. Surely they wouldn't have just sent the next shuttle to try the same thing." But if they had, was someone else frozen out here? Was he not alone after all? He looked around again, scanning the black blanket of space. But that was useless. Any ship as small as Ranger, lost for as many years on as wide an orbit as Ranger had been knocked into, would be far, far harder to find than the remnants of the landed Eagle in Tranquility Bay. You'd have to stumble across it accidentally, much as the Draconians had with him. No, he knew that NASA had heard enough. They never would have used the automated maneuver series again without serious redesign and extensive testing, and they probably hadn't had time anyway for more flights before the holocaust started.

Nope, he was one of a kind. Old lucky Buck once more defying the odds. He sighed.

"Switch to heading 306, and I'll show you something," Wilma said briskly. He put in the coordinates, using one of the navigational controls she'd so recently explained to him, and then accelerated again, letting the little ship run.

"Where are we going?" He couldn't see anything up ahead visually.

"In about 20 minutes at full speed, we'll get to a stargate."

"A what?"

"A stargate. They're subspace portals. You move between space instead of through it. See, Buck, even with our ships, the distances out in space are tremendous. If you wanted to go to another planet just by flying there, it would be a long trip. The stargates jump you into different quadrants. You select your destination, tell it to the computer planted in each of them, and it moves you over. You can go millions of miles in a split second."

"Wow." He looked around space again. "Space is getting smaller every day. How many other planets have you been to?"

She furrowed her brow in thought. "I honestly don't know. I've never counted."

"It's gotten that routine for you? No excitement, no new world curiosity?"

"Buck, when I do go to another planet, I'm always on some kind of assignment for the Directorate. I have a job that I'm doing."

"That doesn't have to eliminate excitement and curiosity," he countered. "So you live in one of the Directorate apartments, too?"

"Yes."

"Have you got any family? Any man in your life? Close friends you do things with?"

"I'm happy with the job," she answered a bit tightly. "I'm a very successful officer in the Directorate."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Wilma."

"For what? I'll have you know that I'm perfectly satisfied with my life, Buck Rogers."

There were a few minutes of silences as the starfighter plunged on. Wilma was the one to break it. "A large part of my job is training new recruits, developing new pilots. I was thinking, Buck. You really are the best instinctive pilot I've ever seen fly. You still need to learn some things about these ships, but in two weeks, I think you'd be perfectly comfortable flying any sort of ship we've got."

"You think it would take two weeks?" he asked. "Bet I could do it in one."

She smiled but pushed on. "You could teach those recruits a lot, Buck."

"I told you, I'm not joining the Directorate."

"I'm not talking about becoming an official member. We do have several people who come in and provide different specialized services who aren't technically part of us. Call it a consultant if you like. You could . . ." She hesitated, then plunged on with the admission. "You could show them types of flying that I'm not as good at myself. That inventiveness you have."

"You called it craziness a while ago," he reminded her.

"Call it whatever you like, it would make pilots who are much harder to shoot down when they do get into a fight. Would you consider helping me with the cadet training? You weren't an instructor before, so this would be something different."

He didn't reply, eyes front, but his thoughts were whirling. After a moment, she went on. "Think about it, okay? Just sleep on it for a few days before you decide. We would, of course, pay you. And meanwhile, you can keep taking practice flights each morning, getting used to our ships."

"That's not fair," he protested, but he knew that spark was back in his eyes. The thought of regularly working out with something like this starfighter was appealing.

"Just consider it. You don't have to give me an answer right away." She pointed up ahead. "That, Buck, is a stargate."

He studied the glowing diamond up ahead. Wilma reached over to yet another unknown section of the computer console. "This ties directly into the stargate system. You can look up coordinates to any system or quadrant you like, but you'll get to know the most common ones. I'll jump us over to Jupiter, short ride this time. I take it you've never seen Jupiter?"

"If I have, I wasn't awake for it." He studied the diamond ahead with interest. Wilma finished entering the coordinates. "I just fly into the middle of it?"

"Yes. It already knows we're coming." The stargate was glowing brighter, the diamond points seeming to twirl, and Buck saw lines start to reach out from them as he put the starfighter dead center.

In the next moment, there came an almost audible pop, and it felt like something reached down his throat and tried to turn him inside out. For the first time, his control of the fighter wavered, and it wobbled slightly.

"Buck?" He heard Wilma's voice and realized that he had closed his eyes. "Buck? Are you all right?" She reached over to shake his arm.

He opened his eyes, seeing not only her but the huge red bulk of Jupiter out the viewscreen. "Do they always do that?" She seemed completely unphased.

"Do what?"

"It felt like it was trying to turn me inside out."

She was puzzled. "No, it's never done that with me. I've never heard anybody else comment on it, either. Of course, you still might be recovering physically from your ordeal. It will probably get better over time."

"I hope so." He shook his head, then looked at the gas giant. "Wow. So there's Jupiter." He turned the starfighter, following the big planet a short distance around until he found the spot. "Still has the spot, too. That spot is older than I am."

"Let me show you something else. Close range communication is still done by radio waves, but over any distance, we use subspace." She flipped on the correct panel. "That again can cross millions of miles, but you must have the correct channel. This is the code directly to Dr. Huer's lab. Remember it." She tapped it in. "I'll show you how clear it is even at this distance. Colonel Deering to Defense Directorate. Dr. Huer, do you read?"

Dr. Huer picked up promptly, and his voice was indeed remarkably clear, not a trace of static. "Yes, Colonel. What is it?"

"Nothing urgent. I'm showing Buck how subspace communication and the stargate system work. We're over by Jupiter at the moment."

His voice held a dry amusement. "That's fine, but are you aware that your class of recruits starts in 20 minutes?"

Wilma was as flustered as Buck had seen her yet. "In 20 minutes? But it can't . . .I don't believe it." She looked accusingly at the chronometer on the console. "I lost track of time. I never lose track of time."

"I'll inform the class that you will be late, but it would be convenient if you showed up before the period was over."

"Yes, of course. We're on our way back right now. Deering out." She snapped the channel out, and Buck laughed out loud. "Oh, stop it. This isn't funny. I have responsibilities, and I should have kept an eye on the chronometer." She shook her head.

Buck had already turned toward the stargate again, abandoning Jupiter, but he still had the grin on his face. "Relax, Wilma. I doubt there's anybody who hasn't been late to class a few times. The cadets will understand."

"I am not late to class," she said frostily. Her lips were tight. As they approached the stargate, she activated the computer link to it again and typed in a code. "This is the code for the location closest to Earth. Remember it. From any stargate, that will bring you back home."

The second trip through the stargate felt much like the first to Buck, only better because he was expecting it. He did manage to hold the stick steady this time, though he still closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them, Wilma was watching him closely. "No better the second time?"

"No. Exactly how long would it take me to fly around in your century while avoiding those things?"

"You'd be several millennia older in no time. You'll get used to it, Buck."

Earth was visible up ahead, a slowly growing marble. He kept the starfighter to full speed, but Wilma was wishing for more, he could tell. All the way back, she was still annoyed at herself, and the general conversation of their flight so far dropped into silence. She sat there in the copilot's seat and fumed at failing a responsibility. Buck for his part had plenty to think about, too. Neither of them said anything else until contacting the Directorate hanger for permission to land.