"AAAAAAA!" Buzz yelled, as he was to fall in the unknown dusty darkness. On the last picosecond, Yoka's strong hands snatched his arm, and put him to hang above the gaping chasm. His heavy body was too much for her to drag for too long; already her wrists and articulars tingled with pain. Lightyear found a grip of her arm with his fingers, and pushed himself up. Snap, and his other hand had found the edge of the fallen floor. Ripping him still up from his other upper limb, she partly helped him out of the hole.

"Owowowow…" dementedly he trembled for a few seconds after the initial shock, sitting on his knees on the grubby tiling. He wiped sweat away from his forehead, and resembled a dog that had just received a cold shower. Yoka in her sudden nervosity found him so silly-looking, that did not even consider what she reeled off. That man who thought he was the center of the universe, had needed her help again? Her chaffing laughter reached him.

"Haha, how many times do I still have to save the proud, proud Proud Crescent?" She started amusedly humming some folk song that told about a man wrestling with a bear. And to be even more teasing, she wrapped her sleeve up, showing him her bicep like some bodybuilder.

A twinge sharply cramped Buzz' heart. Pride… he was proud. He had been too proud to abide the fact that she had saved him from tricky situations. Things he should have been able to handle as a crafty space ranger. But what he had for his misfortune only goofed up. He felt himself lying wet in the pond again, hearing the impish giggles of the woman hunters in his ears. That mocking, mocking, mocking… However, under that bitterness foamed something else. That emotion reflected from his burning gaze.

Yoka winced under that soul-piercing fervor. Retreating towards the wall, she doubtlessly regretted now her little lampoon. His anger had resurrected, was it not so? What could she expect from this half-unknown man?  Him beating the living birds out of her, amidst this abandoned place? "I… I did not mean to…" she apologized.

"You didn't mean what?" He began approaching her, the odd blaze in his pupils. She was soon closed in an arresting corner. The next seconds passed as in a slow-motion movie. In a bit of an unmannered way, his large fists closed themselves around her upper arms, setting up a good grip. The stern flare in his pupils was aimed splittingly at her for a few fractions… that stretched up to illusive hours. Now, would it finally come? The moment when her last squeak was taken away? Yoka's own yelp was cricket's chirr in a sewer.

"I did not mean to be mean, p-please do not hit me---" Her cry died abruptly. Black. Then a sense that the inhales did not reach properly her lungs any more. A flash of those gleaming irises. Then, a wakening. She found herself almost horizontally in his arms, pinned so that she could not move. A deep, hard kiss on her lips had suffocated her plea. Taking then some distance to her, he exhaled, "That's for the bears." Another similar attack, and a line for conclusion. "And that's for the refreshing swim in the pond." Next, a third assault. And this time he was not to let her go at all, but just kept and kept on fondling her lips with his ones. Her abrupt fear had turned to listless shuddering, and he was fully content with the result. No resisting, no pushing him away. Resting in his hold, she seemingly enjoyed his heavyish kisses, now. This was only the second time he had dared to touch her lips, but its effect was as expressive as at first.

"And, that's for the falling floor." He finished his repartee, his smile fourteen parsecs wide. "Thanks. Thanks for saving my life."

A delivering relief filled her lungs. She did not pull herself up from his lap, but just lied there for a moment. It was relaxation after the startle, or… no, there was something else too. A weird sense of safety sneaked along her nerves, as if he truly cared for her. If he would have wanted to finish her off now, he had done it. Smack, and it could have turned all to murk. However instead, a second one of these… But could it be possible that he would… care for her? The few elapsed days were just a bubble in the ocean compared to the three weeks she had been under the pressure. Being now encouraged by his surprise, she took comfort to make him one frank question.

"You… you do not hate me?"

His mien saddened. Taking her head between his palms, he whispered, "I never have hated you. No. I… how would I explain this… Blast, I find no words. I never find words when I should tell you something. I have been stressed out, fearing I'd never get home, never get to… umh… defend the universe, fight the evil. Well I told you, what I actually do in my own world. A few days ago you made me open my eyes. I've been… careless, selfish, proud. Above all, too proud. Too proud to see the others around me, as I've only been keen on to think about what I want, and how my things have gone upside down…" Sighing, he softly put her deeper under his arm. "I'm glad you're here with me, now. Finally you can understand what I say, how I try to apologize my behavior. I… I've always used to be the center of attention. Well, here I have been it, and that made me even prouder. I don't actually fully even understand my motives to be so arrogant, as I think about it now…"

"You are s-sorry? Really?" she uttered demurely.

"I am… I am sorry. Sorry for everything I ever have caused you. Craters, if I'd think myself in your place, I'd possibly have completely broken down." Shame made him hide his face under his palm. "I… I thought… you and your father had made some kind of conspiracy against me to keep me jammed on this planet… craters, how could I have been such an idiot? And I neglected your needs, by being impolite, nagging, yelling. Of course it's not your fault, if… you have different traditions as we in the Galactic Alliance. I… I don't still know what to think about all this. I miss my home, I miss the people I've used to see around me. I don't know… maybe… maybe I still have to spend some time over here, maybe I never see my home. But, for Zarah and Mira and everyone it would be a shock, if they could never return…"

It was quite much of a different experience to comprehend his speech, than just attempting to foretell his mood from the tone of his voice. Every sentence was glassy clear, so full of regret. Yet, it was burdensome for her to see how he would immediately transform to another person. To the Buzz Lightyear he normally was. Although Star Command was his obsession even in the everyday course, into too bombastic measures it had swollen during his stress. And she could not know, what kind of voyages he had hiked on the dark side.

"I promise you, Yoka, that I… I never ever treat you like that any more. I don't know if you believe me after this all, but I hope, I wish and I beg." A sigh, then his eyes flew open. What was the nasty word that had spun around his subconscious and had not extruded before? Hit? Hit! That it was. In her sentence before he had started to caress her lips. An ice-cold scythe cut through his stomach. Did she still think he was violent? Still she thought that… although he never had raised a fist to mar her. Gulping he pressed his forehead against hers. "Y-yoka… I need to ask… why did you think I was going to… hit you?"

She only stared back, frightened due to this anxious inquiry. What could anyone respond to that?

"Please… I never, ever would hurt you like that. Although I was a piece of trash, I didn't ever hit you, did I?"

"No…"

"So… if you'd wish to believe me… please don't think that I'd hit you. Moreover…" The harnesses of his patience cracked. Her soft, thick lips were too close, open a bit because of the confusion. His mouth melted together with them, into a deep kiss. No, he did not understand why his mind demanded him to squeeze her again in his arms, but so sweet it felt, it was so nice to comfort her. Comfort? Just comfort? Or way something else…? He just could not figure out.

A few more moments he made her lull in his lap. Fondness… she had saved his life, that was the final verdict. Maybe the third time announced the truth, like the old adage chirped. The two first cases had been broiled under his jealousy. But now, he realized, and would pay even the compound interests.

However, the gap in the floor allured. It was not a bottomless pit, the echo of a dropped rock told it. What kind of mysteries would it twine inside itself? The rooms this far had not renounced quite much about the ancient wisdoms. But how about this one? What would this one present?

Some kind of archeology-enthusiasm had bitten Lightyear, and hard. He was as intrigued like a kid, who thought a peculiarly-shaped rock to be an erstwhile arrowhead, or every fragment of glass to be a piece of some age-old crystal cup. Hence, with Buzz' rope, the couple tardily descended inside the blackness, a lantern illuminating the way. The bottom was achieved in time.  

The musty, old air itched in Buzz and Yoka's nostrils. A couple of sneezes were required to get used to the mouldy smell. The light's flames danced ghostly along the yellow stone, not revealing the whole space.

"We're again in some kind of big hall, or something", Buzz surveyed around. More carvings and murals in the walls, and high up there, more cubes. In Lightyear's mind, they had started resembling lamps that were out of electricity.

"What are those? They're everywhere."

"I do not know. The ancestors knew things we do not know."

"Hmm… just wondering… let's go and see what's there", he pointed with his finger towards the shades.

"Is it wise? What if the room collapses?" she reasoned. As a woman used to open nature, and free winds, she abhorred closed, saturnine cavities.

"I'll take that risk. I just want to know where we have landed."

A walk began. It indicated that the drop had not brought the couple to a chamber, but to a tunnel. So, more guffaws for the Captain. It went on deeper inside the mountainside, the cube columns wearing above them. The architecture was firm, with no sign of landslips anywhere. But a concave crackle under Buzz' boot made him out of the blue jump up.

"Craters! What did I step on?" he cast his eyes on the floor, and met the hollow eye sockets of a grimacing, mummified scull. "Eeekh!" He jumped twice as higher, his hackles up.

"Ancestors. You stepped on a frail bone." She calmly glanced over the space like nothing remarkable had happened, "When the giant Purkaus began, they obviously became trapped here, and died."

The Captain looked disgusted at the macabre landscape. Some day those several carrions had been full of life, but had withered maybe to the loss of water. Some of them had still intact clothes on, made from colorful canvas. In the dry air, they had been preserved like the dead in Egyptian pyramids. He was to shoo Yoka away from the body of a male, which was lying half-sitting against the wall. She was fumbling the fabrics of its garments, and had picked up something it had squeezed in its bony hand.

"No, no, uh, don't…"

"No what? Are you afraid, Proud Crescent? They are dead. They can do nothing to you or me. As a little girl I was afraid, but an adult sees the life with wise owl's eyes."

He grimaced, scratching his neck. He really did find it somewhat gross to examine a mummy just like that. And more he gulped, when she brought him the objects she had taken from the ancestor. "Look, Proud Crescent. I found something interesting."

"What's that?" Buzz took the greenish, metallic apparatus from her hand. It looked like a small staff, and had two curved cruses in the other end.

"Look, I press this circle and it spits out blue fire", she took it back, and fingered a button-looking extension in the handle. An electric charge caused a zap between the protruding appendages. A bluish flame flickered a split minute.

"I don't believe it… Do you know what you took from him? How… how can this still work? How long time did you say it was from the days of the great Purkaus?"

"Fifty-three thousand six hundred seventy-eight revolutions of Moon Sammiokuu."

His inner calculator did not match the different chronologies. Whatever it was, it must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. But what she held in her fingers, was a functioning high-voltage switcher.

"Phew… your ancestor really did have good batteries. But, but…" a comprehension flew in his head. They had found an effective electric device! This meant that the cavern where they wandered might hide even more surprises inside it! What if this… what if this rare finding would even turn out to be a benefit for Team Lightyear?

"Uh, you better give that thing to me. That light must not be touched, it could kill you. Just wondering its purpose…" Taking her hand gently in his own, he encouraged her to pursue deeper, towards the black throat.

After enough of promenading, the pass ended, but not to a blind alley. It widened up to an immense hall, to a parking house, if that definition could be used. Buzz and Yoka's jaws hung open, as the torch flare shook a leg among the dusty lines of vehicles. Or at least that they looked like. The mood was homely like in some Capital Planet's parking lot. The thunderstruck man tiptoed to the first looming chariot. A roofless, wheelless, metallic wagon it was, shaped to the figure of some kind of bird. It had four seats inside it, whereas the bird's head arched into a console. Under the flukes were two pipes, as if jet reeks would escape that way. Yoka-hanen behind his large shoulder leered suspiciously at the odd cask.

"It is Kokkolintu", she noted.

"Cuckoo…a what?"

"Kokkolintu, a mythical bird of thunder and fire. It metaphorically symbolized volcano eruptions."

"Umm… right. But I think this is some sort of a car."

"Khaar?" she primed her lips.

"Umm yeah. I think we fell into your ancestors' big garage or something. Because I think these things are vehicles. This place has somehow stayed intact under the chaos of Purkaus."

"Vehicle? Does Proud Crescent mean we could fly with this vehicle like Kokkolintu?"

"I'm gonna find it out. But if your ancestors were geniuses, this weird thing might actually work after a little pause", he uttered, and jumped onto the front seat. In the golden glow of the lantern, he surveyed the fowl's brainpan. And, for once the pinions narked also in his cube. There was a movable stick for obvious steering, and a hole beside it… just proper in size for that rod Yoka had found. Curiously he stuck it in there, releasing at the same time an electric charge. And vroom! The whole vat shook, and some of the carvings on the birdbrain began glowing faintly green light.

"Whoo… well, craters, craters…" he left a dozyish chuckle. She had retreated against the wall, staring at the whole show with fright. The birdie looked like some ghost in her eyes, as it hovered initially a few inches over the floor line. Buzz patted merrily the seat beside him, asking her to jump in.

"No, no, I will not ride with Kokkolintu."

"Meh, bold, strong girls won't get scared that easily", Lightyear played with her prejudice. "We aren't chickening out now, are we?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I am not chickening out! Proud Crescent can keep his teasing words!" Taking a springy leap from her spot, she was with one jump inside the 'car'. He smirked cunningly back. Yoka looked comically cute, when she was angry but without tears.

"Alright, let's try this birdie baby!" he twisted the controller. Of course the Captain had not the tiniest clue how this kind of UFO would flit, but during his long career in Star Command, he had used to all kinds of conveyances. This could not be any trickier than driving a common speeder.

Buzz had to draw back his bragging, as he balancedly collided with the walls, other carriages and pillars, which were propping up the wide hall. Dust and smoke flew in the air, putting the couple cough and sneeze. But after ten minutes of bungle, the wreck stood firmly in the air, and Buzz could smoothly turn it to diverse directions. It was a cross between a hovercraft and a speeder, subsisting on with some unknown source of energy. So much petite it was in size that it could possibly fit through the floor hole further there.

"Shall we take a joyride?" he winked to the girl, whose head spun after the smashups. Accelerating abruptly, he directed the vehicle to fly along the long corridor.

"YIIIIIIII!" she squealed, as the spell of speed enraptured even her.

"Whee! I bet this can reach five hundred miles an hour!" Plunging up from the track, they were in the same room, where Buzz was to forfeit his days.

Obstacles ahead. There was nothing else hindering them from diving out into the sunlight, but a wall.

"Craters! And I kept already hoping we could get this wagon out of here!" he banged his both fists against the console. Frustration, of course. "If I would have had my wrist laser… or even Booster's laser with me, I could have sawed that blasted wall to salami!"

The speeder hovered steadily in the air. The man grated his teeth, smearing his minuscule forehead against a wide palm. Why was there such a silence? Crumpling, his regard met Yoka. She was tinkering with a knife, some rag, and flour-like substance, her flints loosened from the belt. The brown flour was poured, mixed, and wrapped to some kind of bundle.

"Umm… what are you doing?"

"Has Proud Crescent never heard of explosives? A great bang will be heard, and a forceful beast of fire and thunder breaks through everything", she tilted her head as if she was now enlightening him with up-to-the-minute wisdom.

"You mean… you're doing dynamite?" his back hair rose up.

"I do not know what is this dai-naa-mait you are telling me about, but Proud Crescent should know that we can blow up the wall and thus float out with the wind."

"But… but…" he was to keep some harangue about safety, but came to think of with what he actually bustled as a space ranger. Riding with Zurg's rockets… and now going to moan like a bagpipe because of someone using gunpowder? And she was with a good speed making sparkles with the firestones.

"Alright, I'll get ready to dash off with this, right when you throw the uhh… defuse, or whatever you call it. Let's just hope that we're not going to cause a landslide."

"Good." She picked up a leather sling, stood up and tossed the ignited explosive in the air.

To be continued…