26

Jimmy seemed to awaken from his trance. He gave a bit of a shudder, then looked around the room and finally to his audience of family members. "Whoa! I feel a little drained. It was like a whole other person was inside me using my motor skills to tell that epic." His body slumped a bit on the couch and he wiped his hand across his brow. "And all I could do was listen. Whew!"

Phyllis, concerned for her son, took his hand and asked her daughter, "Noel, go get a glass of water for your brother, please."

"Cripes, Mom! It seems like I've been babying him the last two days! First I gotta get a wet washcloth for his face, now I gotta get him something to drink! Next thing you know, you're gonna have me feeding him, too. Why do I have to..."

Phyllis quickly turned her attention from her son and fixed one of the coldest, scariest scowls she could muster upon Noel, who suddenly saw her life flash before her eyes.

"On my way!" said the youngest Kent and was out the door to the kitchen. In a moment, she returned with a large glass of ice water and handed it to her brother, who couldn't help but snicker at the turn of events. "Service with a smile," she added and punctuated the deed with a large, if not altogether sincere, grin of her own.

Phyllis was all business outside, but inside she was fighting to keep from bursting out with laughter. "See... (heh!) That wasn't so hard (hee-hee), was it?"

"No, I guess not. But if I ever get zapped in the head by a ray from a glowing green rock, I sure as heck better get the red carpet treatment by a certain brother I know!"

Jimmy laughed, "You got a deal, Sis!" He chug-a-lugged the contents of the glass and turned to his mother. "Are you ready to hear more of Jor-El's story?"

The worry returned to his mother's face as she turned her attention back to Jim. "Are you sure you're up to it, son? It seemed to take a lot out of you?"

"I'm fine, Mom. I just needed to take a breather, I guess. Besides, I think we may have something Mr. Carr can use in his investigation. We've got to go on."

"All right, as long as you're in control. Like you said, it was like you were an entirely different person while relating this history. Just be careful, please!"

Jim nodded to his mother and Noel rolled her eyes. "Oh, man! You're gonna get all spooky again?" Phyllis didn't bother turning toward her daughter, but Noel could almost feel the left eyebrow arch on her mother's forehead. "I mean... uh... Great! I love a good story!"

Jimmy winked at Noel, who caught the gesture and, this time, felt the love behind it. She gave her brother another little grin, but this one was very, very sincere.

He concentrated for a moment and then resumed the tale.

"My early findings are just too fantastic, Lara. Even for my reputation. I don't think anyone will believe me. Why, I'm not sure I believe it myself." Jor-El, back in his home laboratory in Kryptonopolis, studied the satellite photo of the crater very carefully. It had been taken with a special ultra-violet lens, and revealed that the unknown element that had been dug up the day before, was strewn about the entire crater area in a very deliberate checkerboard type pattern. "One thing is obvious to me. This was no tragic accident, no atomic explosion, no seismic quake that swallowed up the city. No, Kandor - the entire city of Kandor - was the victim of a deliberate crime..."

"I'm sure you're right, darling, but I need to tell you som..."

"...the scope of which is far greater than any crime ever known before..."

"Yes, dear, but I..."

"I mean, the pattern of the purple element in the crater is just too perfect to suggest it pre-existed underground before the incident..."

"Jor-El, please...!"

"It almost looks like someone took a giant paint sprayer and pointed it at one spot on the planet's surface and..."

"You're going to become a father!"

"...and the crater itself is a perfect circle. No meteor could be that precise...! Eh... Uhm... What did you say, Lara?"

"I said, 'you are going to be a father !' We're having a baby !"

Jor-El was speechless. Of all the things that could happen right now, this was the one thing he would never have expected.

"Uh... wuh... hah... a... bahbee...?" was all he could get out. As his wife's news finally sunk in, he asked, "But how? We didn't go to the PDC together and leave samples... We just... er... OH! "

"'Oh!' is right, dear," Lara said with a grin. "We don't need no stinkin' PDC to have our baby!"

Noel tugged her mother's arm. "I have a feeling that Jimmy might have influenced that translation just a wee bit."

"Hush, Noel!"

"Sorry, Mom..."

Jor-El was flustered - more so than he had ever been in his life. All sorts of emotions came rushing through as he realized that the child would be carried through to term in Lara, not some incubator. They would be taking a huge chance by bringing the child into the world in this manner. He worried for Lara. He worried for the child within her. But then his love for Lara and their child - yes, their child - overwhelmed all his fears and as Jor-El found a deep sense of satisfaction and, perhaps, pride overtake him, he enveloped his wife in a loving caress with tears of joy streaming down his face.

"Rao himself couldn't make me happier than you did today, my love! A child! Our child! We will be a real family! I promise, Lara, that we will be a real family, perhaps the first real family on Krypton in centuries! Oh, great Rao! How long have you known?"

"I tried to tell you yesterday, but you became too busy with Kandor exploding..."

"It didn't explode. It... disappeared. And I believe... stolen!"

"Stolen? An entire city, Jor-El? How is that possible?"

"I know how fantastic it sounds, Lara. But from the evidence available, it is the only explanation that makes sense. The crater is a perfect circle. That's too much of a coincidence to be anything else but the outline of a single ray of an energy beam of some sort. The purple residue in the crater is patterned, as I said, as if it came from a single source within that beam and spread with distance. Finally, there is not a trace remaining of Kandor anywhere within the confines of the crater, while everything on the outside of its perimeter is as untouched as it was before the incident.

"We know that teleportation of matter is viable in theory, and while we know of no Kryptonians who have such a device capable of this, it is feasible to believe that someone - on Krypton or from another planet - could have created one."

"From another planet?"

"Yes, Lara. As you know, we are aware of civilizations on other planets in the galaxy. Earth, for example."

"Oh, Jor! I know we've taken some of their customs and mimicked them, but even I understand how primitive they are compared to us. I don't see how they could travel here to..."

"Yes, they are too far behind us in the sciences, darling. But just as they are primitive to us, there are other planets and civilizations that would view us as primitive compared to them. It would have to be a race such as this to be capable of such interstellar travel and molecular transport technology.

"And to reach the proper altitude in order to project a beam wide enough to encircle a city the size of Kandor, it would take a craft capable of interstellar flight."

"Isn't it possible that the city was disintegrated by a weapon instead of stolen?"

"No. Again there was no trace of the city within the crater at all. If Kandor had been destroyed in any way - disintegration included - there would something - ashes, residue, d. n. a., something! - within that hole left over from what once was a collection of people and buildings."

"All well and good, Jor-El, but where did the city go? If it was an alien spacecraft that stole our city, how was it carried away? Was the ship so large that a city could fit inside it?"

"No, any craft that size, alien or domestic, would have been picked up by sensing devices on the ground. It had to be small enough to avoid detection."

"Then I don't understand how a great city could fit into a small spaceship."

"That is the one piece of this puzzle that I haven't made fit... yet! I do have a theory, but I need to do more study before making my findings known to the Science Council.

"In the meantime, I am more concerned about you, dear. I don't know too much about naturally bringing a child to term. It is done so infrequently these days. Are there even doctors who are still skilled in this form of childbirth?"

"Yes, darling. As you say, few Kryptonians have taken this route to giving birth, but there are some who have over the centuries. There has always been a need for doctors who understand its nuances. I've already contacted someone. We should be all right."

"Speaking of 'all right,' are you?"

"Am I... what?"

"Are you all right? As I say, I know little about this, but it seems to me that having an extra person within you would be somehow... tiring, to say the least."

"Darling, I am fine right now. But when the pregnancy is in its later stages, I may need a little help around here while you are at work."

Jor remembered that Kerra, the girl he took to the hospital, mentioned her mother was pregnant. "I think I know someone that will be able to help us when we get to that point."

Kerra Zee brightened considerably when Jor-El walked into her room. She had already shown remarkable progress , but his was the first familiar face she had seen since her arrival at the hospital. Her room was especially drab and dreary, even by old Krypton standards, but Kerra had done what she could to cheer up the place with crayon drawings and water colors.

"You came! You really came! Jor-El. I am so happy to see you again!" Kerra gave Jor a big hug. "These people are very nice, but I haven't had anyone that I could just talk to. Ohhh... Thank you!"

"And hello to you, Kerra Zee, but why are you thanking me?"

"After I got here, I thought perhaps that you only told me you would visit me to, you know, calm me down." Kerra noticed a young lady with long black hair at the door. "I was a little emotional at the time. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't come."

"No, Kerra. One thing that you can always count on from me is that I always mean what I say." Seeing that his new friend had spotted Lara, he gestured toward her. "I'd like you to meet someone."

"She's not a another doctor, is she? I think I've seen about a dozen doctors since I've been here."

"You've only been here three days, Kerra. Could you be exaggerating just a little?"

"Well, maybe just a little bit," the young forest ranger admitted with a grin.

"No, this is not another doctor. I'd like you to meet my wife, Lara."

"Hello, Kerra. I'm pleased to meet you. My name is Lara. I'm sorry to hear about your loss. At least you knew your mother. I never even knew who mine was."

"Hi, L-Lara. I-I'm Kerra Zee. Thank you for the sympathy, but you don't need to bother with it. And I'm all right now, Jor-El! I really am. You see, I now know that my mother and brother are alive and well."

"You do? I seem to recall you saying something like that when I met you. You know, right now almost everyone else on Krypton believes that Kandor and all its people have been destroyed. How do you know that it wasn't?"

"You won't believe me, but you've been so nice to me that I'll tell you anyway. I had a dream last night."

"A dream?"

"Yes, and I saw a young man come to me in my dream and I knew who he was - even though I'd never seen him before in my life."

"Who was he?" asked Lara.

"He was my new little brother - the one who hasn't been born yet."

"Yes, Jor told me your mother was pregnant."

"She is! And he came to me and told me that it was all right. Kandor still exists. And that it would survive long after Krypton had perished. I don't know what he meant by that, but I knew it was true. In my heart I knew it!" She looked at both of her visitors and added, "What's more, you know it, too. Don't you, Jor-El?"

The young couple glanced at each other and Jor admitted, "Yes, Kerra, I think it is true. And that is one of the reasons I came to see you today. You said the purple light came from the sky. Could you have been running any sort of video recording device when it happened? Perhaps we might be able to see something that would tell us exactly what happened?"

The girl smiled broadly and announced. "Why, yes, of course. You're right! As I said before, I was doing my safety check with a telelens. It records what it sees directly into a computer. The data is probably still there, but it usually gets purged from the system after a few days."

Jor-El was elated. Maybe he would be able to produce hard evidence to support his wild theory after all. "That's wonderful, Kerra! I need to look at what you recorded to figure out what really happened that night. Do you think you could show it to me?"

"If you can get them to let me out of here. They think I'm crazy because of my dream. I don't think I should have told them about it. You don't think I'm crazy though, do you, Jor-El? What do you think happened to Kandor?"

The scientist put his hand on Kerra's shoulder and smiled at her as Lara began to peruse the drawings and paintings on the walls of the room. "No, Kerra. You're not crazy. But you may think that I am. I think Kandor was stolen... by someone in a space ship."

Lara took notice of one watercolor in particular and, taking it down from its place on the wall, she handed it over to her husband. "No, darling. I don't think she'll have one bit of trouble believing you."

The subject of Kerra's painting was a rendering of a saucer shaped vehicle floating in dark, starry skies with a purple light emanating from it toward the lower portion of the paper. "I'd say she just might concur with your theory completely."