John Stewart was a man cast in iron, bare chested, honed muscles rippled under his rich dark skin. Dog tags hung around his neck. Broad hands scooped ice cold water to his face, dipping into the mountain stream, run off from the Logan Glacier. John rinsed his tight curled hair; clipped short, almost shaved, Marine style. Stewart's boots were worn, but well cared for, John worshipped at the Church of self reliance; motto "God helps those who help themselves, and he practised the daily rituals of routine maintenance, spit and polish. Only his rifle, a M1 Garland received more care. His shirt hung in a tree wafting in the wind over the Chitina river, and was army surplus, like the rest of his gear, faded green from honest wear. Beyond the trees of the Alskan National Park, was the Saint Elias Mountain range, and the highest peak, Mount Logan rose on the Canadian side of the border. Stewart dressed, picked up his pack. A faded red insignia bore the likeness of a green dragon. His intention was hike along the water course to the ice. The Chitina was glacier fed, and this far upstream it was heavy in sediment, becoming a braided river some three miles wide. Criss crossing channels cut through the wide sand bars.

The sound of another human being moving through the trees alerted Stewart, old habits deeply ingrained had made this boy from Detroit a US Marine. Vietnam had made him a teenage recipient of the Purple Heart, the Corps had made him a non-commissioned officer. JAG had shown him the door. There are some things a Marine shouldn't admit to seeing. Civilian life hadn't been easy.

Gun to hand Stewart said. "Come on out, easy now, nice and slow."

From the summer green and untidy undergrowth of young saplings, a unkempt middle aged man emerged. He had hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. His dark hair was shoulder length and untidy much like his grey streaked beard. "Now steady on there young fella." He said. "I'm just minding my business."

Stewart scowled. "Seems like you've been minding mine for last twenty minutes or so."

The other man sniffed, he seemed irritated that Stewart had known he had been following him. "Just don't like strangers much."

"This is public land." John told him.

"Yeah and I'm seeing more of your sort, hiking here, hiking there. What's the point in that?"

"Like the man said about the mountain."

"What mountain?"

"Any, all that matters is that it's there."

The older man laughed. "Yeah that's true ain't it." He looked John up and down. "I thought you was military."

"I was." John replied, relaxing his stance, and letting that show.

"We've been expecting you. Bob and me." The man said.

"Me?" John's fingers tensed around the gun once more.

"Not you in particular. Just the military. No one sent you then?"

"No. I'm a civilian on holiday. Doing some hiking in the great outdoors." John thought that in all probability this man was crazy; that in all likelihood Bob was his invisible friend.

"Yeah I see that now. Still I am right kinda; I'm guessing you was a Marine."

"Maybe." John conceded.

"I recognised the emblem." He pointed to John's pack. "Bob was expecting they'd send the Marines, maybe some more of those Black Helicopters."

Stewart's curiosity got the better of him. "Okay." He laughed, as much at himself for asking as at the other man. He looked around him at the wilderness. "I'll bite, why?"

"You think I'm crazy?" The man snapped. "Crazy Chuck Chuck?" He coughed. "Hell no - I'm not, not any more. You think I'm some crazy Chicken shat, I'll prove it to you."

"Steady on" Stewart said. "I haven't any beef with you."

"Hmmph." Chuck replied. His eyes narrowed. "Then you won't want to be seeing our alien artefact then?"

Had John Stewart been another man, hell if he'd still been the man who had made Gunnery Sergeant, he'd have laughed and walked away from the old coot, but he wasn't that guy any more.

Life happens, a man sees something that changes everything he knows, he was a believer.

"How far is it?" He asked.

"Just a short aways, back there." Chuck thumbed back into the trees. "At the cabin."

"How do you know it's Alien?"

"Fell from the sky didn't it. That's what Bob told me anyway."

"Lots of things do that, doesn't make them not of this world."

"Yeah but do they glow green, can they kill people, can they cure people, give 'em their lives back?" Chuck asked. "Well can they?"

"I guess not." Stewart replied his decision made, striding past Chuck. "You say its this-a-way?"

They walked, Chuck took the lead, pointed the way and chattered, but said little of consequence; except his surname; Powell, in turn he introduced himself as John Stewart.

The cabin was about a mile or so away from the main river channel along side a fresh fast flowing tributary stream. It was an old fur trappers lodge. Smoke wound out of a chimney, greenery sprouted from a turf roof, the walls were timber logs. A food catch was set back high on stilts with a rudimentary ladder to the shed on legs that served as a larder.

It transpired that Bob was real enough. He was inside making a pot of coffee for himself. An African American like Stewart; he was older, darker and greyer than Chuck, and had the same couldn't give a damn approach to sartorial elegance. The one room shack was simple but clean. It smelt of men, tobacco and wood smoke. A table, two chairs, centre, and two bunks lent against opposite walls, and in the stone fireplace a stove.

Bob, coffee not withstanding ,wasn't expecting company.

"What's you brought him here for."

"He's come to see the green."

"You say?" Bob asked. "Since when did we start inviting hikers to see our green?"

"Well I got to thinking." Chuck said. He hung his rifle on the wall. The cast stove burned wood, and Bob's coffee pot boiled on the top. "I remembered what you said about the green."

"So you just take it upon yourself to ask the first man you meet to come on and see it?" Bob asked. "Ain't I told you enough times, we're the greens guardians. We don't show it to any brother who happens to show up."

Bob looked him up and down. "Military green too." He scowled.

Stewart raised his hands in conciliation. "Now gentlemen I don't want to make trouble between you. I'll just let myself out, and go on my way."

"Now look what you've done." Chuck snapped. "The first fella who was prepared to come here and look at the green Bob, and you are chasing him away."

"What do you mean?" Bob asked as Stewart turned to the door. "How many you asked?"

"Four, this ones five." Chuck answered, "not like we've lots of visitors out here," stepping back to put himself in the way of John. His face pleading. "This one is the first that hasn't thought I was plum crazy."

"Well you were."

"I was." Chuck agreed. "But I'm not now. Show him Bob. Show him the green."

"All right, all right." Bob said. "I'll get it."

Stewart sighed. He had come this far, so he stayed. Bob fetched an oilskin wrapped object from under his bed, and placed it centre on the table. Pealing away the canvas revealed an old railway style Storm Lantern. Two things struck John right away. It was very green, and it was glowing.

"See this is the green." Chuck said.

Stewart frowned and shook his head. Odd, yes, he thought, but Alien? No, he decided. Thinking not unless it changes shape before my eyes.

Still fascinated nonetheless, John Stewart looked closer. The green light filled the lamp completely it seemed to move like hot wax in a larva lamp, but with more intensity and energy. The green was glowing inside the void of the lantern, and in turn the metal had taken on both a green colour and a luminous mercurial quality. This gave rise to second thoughts.

He squatted down to get a closer look, bringing his eyes parallel with the lamp.

"Three times shall I flame." Bob said. "First to bring death. Second to bring Life. Third to bring Power."

"Huh?" Stewart said, not understanding Bob's recitation, but before either he or Chuck could shed any light on the matter, the Green Lantern flamed. In an instant it's surface was alight with green fire, intense and bright. Filling the small room with an eerie glow, and from the void a tongue of flame leapt out at John. Stewart fell back, arms raised, instinctively ducking away, but it was too late, he was engulfed.

John was ablaze in green fire, yet the flames did not burn, if any thing Stewart felt cold, he shivered with chills like electricity coursing down his spine and through his limbs.

A voice in his head said to him. "Power, power to fight evil. Power if you have faith in yourself. Lose that faith and lose the energetic force of the Green Lantern, for will power is the flame of the Green Lantern's light!"

Stewart looked through the green fire and saw in the brightness moving shapes and shadows.

There was a disembodied voice. "Doomed Planet." He saw the surface of am alien world breaking and cracking. Stars were going out, everything was dying.

"Desperate Scientists." The voice in his mind said. He saw them, so very human and terrified in robes of red and blue. "Last hope." The man stood outside a rocket like capsule. Inside was a baby in the arms of its mother. "Riding upon the Heart of a Star."

The green light dimmed and the fire dissipated, leaving only the glow from inside the Lantern.

Stewart slumped to the floor.

"Is he breathing?" Bob asked.

"A-huh." Replied Chuck.

"Damn I guess he's got the power."

"What is the Power Mr Stewart?" Chuck asked keeling down beside him. "We'd like to know."

Chuck barely waited for an answer, before he said. "Because Bob here was saved from a mean Grizzly by this green rock you see. It flamed the bear, like it did you, but it killed it, because first comes death."

"That's what it told me." Bob agreed.

Chuck continued. "Then Bob found me running around out there," Chuck gestured vaguely outside, "I don't know how I got all the way out here because I was insane back then. Mad as a box of frogs I can tell you. Well Bob brought me here, I was fixing to die from exposure. By now he'd put that rock into a lantern he had on account of the glowing."

"It remade that rusty thing into something else, shiny and new." Bob stated.

"Well that's when it flamed again and instantly my sanity came back to me, I could think clearly, I had my life back."

"Because second comes life." Bob commented.

"Then it flamed just now," Chuck added, "that's the third time and that's for power." He lent in close, bent across the prostrate Stewart, and asked again. "So what is the Power?"

John barely heard any of this, less understood it, but answer in the form of a hoarse whisper crossed his lips.

"Star Heart."