------A few weeks later------

Life started to settle gradually down. Capital Planet had been left in its own peace, and Buzz had returned to the quarters of his old hometown. Kaon was a half-rural village somewhere on the northern hemisphere of Morph, with scattered settlement around it. It had no real silhouette, perhaps it from upwards resembled some kind of giant spider that had tangled up with its own legs. A thick mixed forest surrounded it from the other side in the shape of a stretched banana. The other side ended up to the light splashes of water. A large lake widened towards the horizon, leaving only a foggy blue ribbon to tell about the opposite shore somewhere there. The centre of the city was rather small, with the services needed for everyday life. Shops, little stores and stalls were around a paved marketplace, the city hall sticking out on one border of the square. Some of the buildings were modern architecture, but the city's basis lay on older stone foundations. The white town hall was a representative of this newer wave, but one could distinguish delicately built, decorated wooden villas here and there. Among them were even more ancient, somehow medieval-looking forms. At least the local claim to fame, a half-wrecked massive castle was the slave of this style. It jutted on a hilly island, about a good swim-distance away from the petite harbor. In overall, the surroundings narrated about a colorful history. As everywhere, this place had its own legends. An enthusiastic historian could have stayed half of his life here, and not getting enough of scribblings done. And if there was a nasty gap in some local tale, the inhabitants gladly filled it with their own theorems and storylines. Of course there was supposed to be the official history too, but also it tended to be a bit colored with those 'his grandmother's cousin's old neighbor told him thirty years ago that there was this man living about one and half centuries ago who blah blah blah' -isms.

Humans were not the natives on Morph, but had come there a few hundred years ago. Still they lived together with the original denizens, a humanoid-type race that looked... well, quite boring in the very meaning of the word. Grey seemed to be their element in everything. Their skin was grayish, as well as their eyes and hair. They always had somewhat an apathetic expression on their thin faces, like someone who had listened to a six-hour-speech about cicadas' eating habits would have had. Some of them, for some completely absurd reason, preferred even gray clothes. Yet, they were not imbeciles anyhow, but as witty and nifty as the human beings, and friendly personalities. They just happened to look as cheerful as old, musty prunes. On the whole, the town's atmosphere was perky, homey, perhaps a bit introvert, but not impolite. It was nice to pop to a tiny cafeteria or bakery or anywhere, since there was always someone who would greet you, discuss about weather or ask had the aunt's aching toe got already better. Though, the climate was not that fascinating topic of speech. The temperature variations were not that scandalous on these latitudes, the winters usually being rather mild and the summers never too hot.

Buzz had bought a medium-sized single-family house at the outskirts of the city. He had had a neat amount of uni-bucks in the stocking leg, so it was not a problem to set up a new home. The space ranger job had paid well during all these years, and before this Lightyear had virtually had no interest to budget his shekels for almost anything. Thus... a neat, bluish-colored modern-shaped dwelling was waiting for the couple. It had three stores, funny little alcoves here and there, and round doors and windows. A good garage was in the first floor, containing of course Lightyear's speeder. The garden was rather large, in addition that the adjacent houses were not actually quite close. On Capital Planet Mr. Heymans always cut the hedgerow right under the Captain's nose. But alike it was not here. Narrow sand roads that crisscrossed hither and thither, separated even the most contiguous huts from each other. Equally behind his shiny noveau fortress there was one of those footpaths, whereas behind it was a large, empty site growing meager sallow and high grass. Nature was indeed quite wild at this district. The forest made fun of the urban greenhorns. Small, horned rabbit-like rodents were a common sight destroying the plantings. Once or twice a month someone nagged that a moose had come to eat his or her flowerbeds, then the animal had just scampered back in the woods mooing scornfully.

The moving process had not been an agony. Daddy Zora, Warp and the rest of Team Lightyear had offered their help, and also given a neat heap of housewarming gifts. Though... Buzz had no idea where he could put all the presents that quite did not fit with the existing decoration. Zurg had given purple tableware with z-figures all over it, as well as a huge, autographed oil painting of himself. Darkmatter had piled a heap of those maroon-colored oddities he had his mansion full, in front of his friend. The Captain did not quite know where to place all those pillows, tapestries, oriental drapes and such, since preferring a clean, whitish and simple décor himself. And the oil paintings did not end. Perhaps it was a conspiracy against the household. The blue man slammed a portrait of himself -even bigger than Zurg's one- under Buzz' regard. Now where would that be put? The idiotically smug, grinning mug of Darkmatter would quite not be the living-room's most winsome piece of decoration. Then there were all kind of miscellaneous artifacts. A bunzel-boiler from Booster, a series of pink porcelain kittens from Mira, a walking, miniature-sized trash compactor that worked with a tiny landanah cylinder from Zarah, and so on. Buzz grinned happily when receiving all the junk, perhaps he would during the next years invent what to do with them.

Indeed, the Captain had once more stepped out of his space ranger suit. This did irk his subconscious, but the previous experiences almost forced him to quit. He perhaps could find something less dangerous work on Morph, maybe part-time job or relevant. In everyone's life comes the spot, when silence is needed. Now it was his turn.

So, the rest of Team Lightyear went on with their missions employed by Star Command. Years, and years again had passed since the rookie times. All the three were crafty rangers, and could survive as a smaller team. This was not even quite the first occasion. One point from Buzz' kidnap. A second point from his Lord Zenith -adventures. And a wheelbarrowful of more points from the countless previous cases. So, Mira took the pilot seat whereas XR and Munchapper went on with their regular tasks.

Also, some registrations and formal papers needed to be signed until everything was in order. Buzz and Yoka were already legally married, but had to enroll their status to the Alliance's population register, and so on. The woman received a real surname, which she found quite odd. Everyone in Kaleva was identified by whose son or daughter he or she was, not depending on was that person married or not. Perhaps Buzz' wife could have claimed her name being "Yoka-hanen Vainamoisentytaer", but shyly was content with "Lightyear". Besides, her mate was not really able to spell that jawbreaker.

------------------------

 "Uhh... no, no, put that thing away."

Buzz sighed, blowing out the fire of a match Yoka held in her hand. Her big eyes looked very confused. Again she had done the wrong thing?

Lightyear had just arrived home. He had been about two hours away, doing some of his own commissions in Kaon's city centre. He had left Yoka at home because of her being still fully asleep, whereas he had his nightly stubble fixed to fit the existing facial hair, briefcase made ready and a light breakfast eaten. He had not simply dared to shake her awake, but pondered that the girl might still slumber when he returned. Of course he should have remembered that she was just taking the first cautious steps in entering the things that were matters-of-facts for him...

Yesterday the couple had moved in. Most of the furniture was still messily around the first floor, large boxes here and there undone. It had been a diurnal of toiling, carrying things all over, and keeping a housewarming party late till the small hours. Yoka-hanen, used to her own planet's different orbital course, required a lot more sleep than what the Captain was used to. A logical consequence why she was still snoring loudly while the others on this planet were as perky as chaffinches.

In any case, a minor chaos had awaited Buzz as he parked his speeder back in the garage. His wife had woken up, obviously trying to start cooking. Their kitchen had one of those flash-microwave combo-ovens that resembled somewhat the ancient stoves. It had the oven part below with a large shutter, and on the top six laser-warming hot-plates. Well... as the man had entered the galley, he had found her on her knees on the floor. A match was burning in her hand, whereas the oven was stuffed full with firewood.

"Uh, no... you don't need wood to warm up that thing", he heaved another sigh. She looked completely puzzled.

"How I doing aamiainen? I do no understeend?" she got up, wiping some rind dust off her suede shirt. It was obvious that this woman understood nothing about how to use this device. Buzz contemplated. She had not really seen one of these anywhere? During the long space flight she had learned to use some widgets like a holo-reader, a laser, accepted with a few day's hesitation that rooms could be lit with lamps and not candles or fire. What came to making food, the Alliance transport had had a cook, as well as the Star Command's premises where they had spent the rest of the time before moving here. Buzz had virtually been all the time with her, so she had had not a change to hit her itchy fingers anywhere. The Morphean had not brought her on Capital Planet, since thinking that it would have been too much of a shock. The Base had some calm rooms in its vast belly, for civilians and guests that occasionally had to sojourn there for a while. All the formalities, officialisms and such had been handled there; Lightyear had found a tenant for his Capital house very fast. Thus they had arrived straight here, Zurg and company flying on the heel with Buzz' property. As his father had nothing else to do, he had occupied himself to collect his son's belongings and guide the renter to the empty apartment.

Yet, Buzz still stood baffled in front of the micro. He had begun to unload those heavy logs away from the oven, encountering then a question.

"Where did you exactly get this wood, by the way? I mean..." She could not possibly have had brought that from the forest in this time. There were more of those billets in a neatly made stack in one corner. Yoka gesticulated at him to follow her. She went through the living-room to the backdoor, creaking it open. One of the bigger trees of the backyard had been axed by her own Kalevan hatchet, and a part of the timber was chopped to smaller pieces. She did not understand what she had done wrong, but kept tilting her head and babbling about making food. Nonetheless, Buzz could not be angry because of this. He burst into a horse-laugh, next giving lessons about how to use a flash micro.

There were far more obstacles on the road. The day went on with all kinds of vacuities. Although the Kalevan had seen water taps, she still had the impression that the liquid might cease coming from there. Thus she during the midday got a whim to start storing drink water into big buckets, as if the faucet would dry up any moment. As being quite over-hygienic, she by afternoon had noted that one of Buzz' shirts was quite untidy. Lightyear came across her in the bathroom; she was rubbing his blouse against a wooden washboard. This item must have had been a part of her possessions, since he could possibly not recollect any of those stone-aged flotsam being in his assortments. Hence Mrs. Lightyear learned what a washing-machine was.

Next morning Yoka had woken up earlier than her husband. He met her knelt, washing the hall's floor with a rag in her hand, and Buzz' shampoo bottle's inners spread all over the flat surface. Again, perplexity. His shakes of head announced that more lectures were ahead. Opening up one box, he peeled some weird-looking bot from the shield plastics. With a remote control, the tiny robot began living. It threw the rag away, dosed detergent from its inners and started cleaning up the floor with its little brushes and sponges.

"See, my Yoka? The house-cleaning is way easier this way. No one needs to toil like we used to do in Kaleva." He smiled warmly at her. Today she had had brains to carry a translator with her after all the confusions, so that they would better understand their different languages.

"Umm and one more thing..." he chuckled, "Actually my shampoo is maybe not meant for floors, although it's sorta soap." He handed her the empty package. "Look, it says 'for hair' on it."

Again a shiftless mien had troubled her face. Yoka eyed at the bottle, trying to understand the lines of the odd gibberish.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." he abruptly recalled, putting a finger on his lower lip. "Sorry, I... I didn't remember you... can't read English." Yes, this was the truth. She mastered perfectly her own language's pictographic alphabet, whereas many other women in Kaleva were completely illiterate. His smirk had now faded. Buzz could see her saddened figure in front of him. He read self-reproach and shame in her eyes, that expression being even too familiar for him. The dark statue room in the bowels of Suur-Kaleva... she had been staring long at the one cold stone sculpting. Faintly his eyes had caught her visage for a fraction in the dim lantern light... Perfectly the same look.

Failure. Such a thing she sensed herself to be. Back at home the girl had seemed to be nothing but a constant dishonor for her demanding father. Now in this uncanny empyrean of machines she could proceed nothing right either? Just the same as in the space ship's jungle of widgets, only now it felt somehow even more shameful. As if the female had learned nothing during the weeks. Her sadly drooping hands were picked up by his ones, a warm squeeze giving support.

"Yoka... don't be sad if you can't just right ahead adapt to all this. I mean... if I were you, I couldn't do that either. As you see, it won't happen in a day, or in a week, or in a few months. You need time. I won't be pushing you into anything. Umm well... but perhaps one thing is on the top..." he clicked his teeth together, aiming an asking regard at her. "I'll try to teach you to read and write. We'll figure out something."

Snap. More things started swirling around his intracranial caves. What on Mercury was his sweetheart wearing? If they had been back in Kaleva, the outfit she had would have told about a forthcoming hunting trip. Shaking his head, Buzz admitted that he had too loads of things to learn and arrange. She needed appropriate clothes. She needed good shoes. He would need to tell her not to carry a crossbow and a quiver on her back everywhere. Definitely, Buzz Lightyear did not have much experience concerning women or how to fathom their world. The opposite gender had always made him tangle up with his words and feel like an idiot. Finally he had with efforts broken those barriers and for the first time in his life, truly fallen in love. But just a warm sensation was not quite enough. With patience, he would have to bow his head and learn. Swallow the pride.

He leaded her to sit on the sofa that had found its position in the half-decorated living-room. A few other notions had also popped in his mind, so those brainwaves needed responses. Her gape followed the datalines of his holo-portable, apprehending a piece of nothingness. Buzz had logged in to the city's network, checking out if the local evening institute had anything to give to total tenderfoots like his beloved. Namely, as it was brooded on further, her knowledge in many subjects was lower than the one of kids going to comprehensive school. Not the slightest clue about what an atom was. The false belief of electricity being some kind of creature that lived inside wires. There would be loads of work to do to get her out of the mental backwoods.

"Craters... too bad this is a small town and they don't have so much in the adult education... but you'd need to go to school of some kind. Of course it would be easy to learn things over the Intergalactic Network, but because you can't read, that's not an option yet."

She curled under his arm, nestling against his side. He did not detest her because of her lack of education, but was ready to help. A sweet tenderness lulled Yoka's heart. Her owner definitely had changed from the rude beginning. Feasibly this all would glide softly forwards, though with the predictable hills and valleys.

The day flew by with learning alphabet. Buzz felt principally like a preschool teacher, but smirked at the whole role. As the man had come to perceive in the past, Vainamoinen's gift was not debilitated. She started learning moderately fast to recognize the inkblots that were supposed to be letters. An old-fashioned book printed on real paper was the best tutor. The 'educator' did not recall a piece of meson about how a copy of "My Magnificent Deeds and Evident Heroism: A Self-Memoir" by Gilderoy Lockhart had drifted in his bookshelf, but at least it had use. Slowly the night fell behind the window, as the lovers sipped tea, and went on to study the beauty and glory of letter W.

But the idyll of the night started feeling somehow oppressing for Buzz at some point. He had the strangest sensation that something was watching him. It was not his wife, she lay nestled against him, her eyes in the book he held. The Captain slowly shifted his leer towards the living-room window. Out there, it was almost ink black. A few faint lamps stood in the back yard, but were mostly shaded by the decorating trees. Thus the in the window glass, Buzz met only his own reflection against the dark background. Giving a little snort, he wiped the thoughts away. Perhaps there was nothing, or maybe it was just a night owl sitting on some of those branches and marveling the two odd creatures inside the lit room.

But out there, in the warm summer darkness, was something. It was not an owl perching in a tree, nor a cunning slinky fox standing on the top of the yard's hedgerow. Behind it, though, was something. A completely charcoal, vague shape crouched there, immovable. As if waiting or... observing something.

...to be continued...