Okay, then; fifty-one it is. I've been awfully slow about reading and reviewing, much less writing, but promise to do better in the future. This bit takes place a little before Brains' mistake, and Alan's big adventure.

51

Mars; Endurance Base-

The meal wasn't a complete disaster. Hunger and ketchup made the stuff at least somewhat palatable, and Linda Bennett even conjured up a dessert, of sorts. The next day, 13 August, was her birthday, and she'd been saving a box of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of Gummy Bears in her personal food locker, to mark the occasion. Under the circumstances, she decided to celebrate early.

Everyone got three cookies, a handful of candy, a carton of chemically stabilized chocolate milk... and a vitamin tablet, because the physician in Linda couldn't allow all those sweets without some form of reparation. Immediately, a lively trade sprang up. Pete was more interested in the cookies than milk, while Roger craved only the red candies, and was willing to crumble his cookies, extract the chocolate bits, and trade them to the ladies for more red gummies.

John (who only cared for the pineapple and lemon flavors) did a complex bit of horse-trading that wound up with him holding most of the candy, then doling it back out, again. He might not be able to help 'cornering the market', but he liked his crewmates too well to cling to his winnings.

The unexpected party, plus news that Kuiper had been declared 'go for launch', made the evening a success, after all. The idea of neighbors, months ahead though their 'move in day' might be, lifted everyone's spirits. If nothing else, the Europeans would probably grow as sick of their own rations as the Americans were of theirs, and be willing to swap. (John Tracy was unanimously selected to handle all future bartering sessions, and given spirited advance requests.)

Before breaking things up for the night, Pete McCord gave his crew their 'marching orders'.

"It's like this, people. I'm taking first watch, followed by the Blue Flight-Day team. Linda, you'll relieve me at 1100 hours, stand a three-hour shift, then wake Tracy to take your post. Tracy's on till 0230 Zulu Time, 0500 local, when he wakes the rest of us for the supply run. Tomorrow night, I'll take first shift, again, followed by the Red Flight-Day team; first Thorpe, then Dr. Kim. Same rotation schedule. Any questions?"

The sandy-haired mission commander looked briskly around at his crew, not really expecting objections. They'd become a close-knit group; almost more a family, now, than a flight crew.

"Good. Show time's bright and early tomorrow, so get plenty of rest, folks. It's going to be a busy day."

They lingered awhile, afterward, basking in the fine glow of dessert and companionship. Tonight had been rather pleasant. Tomorrow might be anything at all. The joking and talk outlived the food, and Pete finally had to order them all to bed.

John eventually peeled off his ridiculously tight suit-liner, but he still had trouble going to sleep. After writing a few lines in his leather journal, he switched off the bunk compartment light and closed his eyes, but couldn't find rest, with so much swirling around in his thoughts.

First, there was the equation. Seen closer, it wasn't just a line, or even a flat page, but a solid block of figures, with terms branching off in all three directions, plus, somehow, shrinking away 'inward'. The symbols were unfamiliar, but evoked something, nevertheless; excitement, curiosity, and awe. Not unlike the red world, itself.

Next, setting aside the alien equation, John focused on the problem of Five. Where the hell was she, and in what condition? He was a very good 'bare metal programmer', able to write code and operating systems for new, empty hardware. But, John didn't want a new computer, no matter what logic suggested. He wanted his friend.

With his eyes closed, hands behind his head, John poked about inside himself for any trace of the vanished quantum intelligence. After all, she'd been in there once before. Maybe...?

Repeatedly visualizing the query-command " /whois/ ", John searched ever deeper. He even tried a port scan, through his own mind, the ID chip and Endurance, herself Nothing. At some point, sorely worn and unsuccessful, John Tracy at last fell asleep.

In a dream, he wandered through a strange house, full of locked doors and shuttered windows. It wasn't frightening, just large, and terribly empty. Then he came to a room that troubled him, for there was something wrong with it. The far wall was in entirely the wrong place, making the oddly slanted room seem smaller on the inside than it had from without. There was a hidden space behind that wall. John drifted up to it, then away again, somehow half-aware that he mustn't ask... and feeling strangely relieved.

A hand on his shoulder and a quiet voice whispering,

"Rise and shine, Fella. You're on,"

...pulled him out of the weird house. Everything locked back into place. Mars... the noisy, vibrating ship... Dr. Bennett, waking him up to stand watch. She seemed impatient, frowning there in the dim, cluttered common area before his bunk. Perhaps he'd been hard to rouse.

John nodded, rubbing at his face with one hand, and flicking the light back on.

"Right. I'm awake, doctor. Give me a second to wash up."

He took more than a second, but not much more. In three minutes, John was out of bed, and had tidied his sleeping area to West Point specifications. Then, at the habitation module's head, he stood over the tiny, chromed sink, brushed his teeth and shaved, while Dr. Bennett cleaned and re-bandaged his facial wounds. She timed her swipes and pats almost perfectly, aiming under and around his shaving motions, despite having to reach up to do so.

Idly, John wondered whether this was what it was like to be married, this quiet dance in a small space. Didn't suppose he'd ever find out, though.

They spoke little, beyond generalities.

"It's been pretty... hold still a minute, while I put on the new bandages... calm," She told him, pulling John down a little as he rinsed the razor off in a spurt of pumped, recycled water.

"All quiet on the western front, so to speak," she added lightly, earning herself a sharp, searching glance.

"What?" She demanded, noting the sudden, odd look.

"Nothing," John shook his head. "Just... never much liked that book. Terrible ending. You were saying...?"

"It's been pretty dead. The wind picked up about an hour ago, probably because we're headed back into daylight, and the livestock's restless, but that's about it. The 'OK Corral ' remains secure."

He smiled at her.

"Works for me. About now 'dull' would be a nice break."

"Breakfast would be better," she smiled back, as they left the head. "If there's canned ham, powdered eggs and instant coffee in one of those cylinders, I'll be in heaven."

They spoke in whispers, so as not to disturb the sleeping others, but Linda seemed rather more interested in conversation than in seeking repose. Pointing to his tee shirt, which she'd noticed before, but never inquired about, the doctor asked,

"What does that mean?"

It was a black, short-sleeved shirt, with a statement across the front in white, formal logic symbols.

"Oh. Um... goes back to my college days." Damn Alan! He didn't get drunk that often! Did he?

"It's a Homer Simpson quote: 'Beer. Now, there's a temporary solution.' '"

Linda snorted, shaking her head. Good looking he might be, with a truly jaw-dropping intellect, but John Tracy was also terribly young, with an emotional range that ran the gamut from A to C... if that far. On the bright side, he seemed better; more alert and human. The cuts were healing nicely, as well.

"Good night, Sunshine," she told him. "You've got the hot seat. Wake us up at 0230 ZT. See you."

Patting his arm, Linda went off to her berth. Moments later, full of strange questions, John headed forward.

He took his place in the pilot's seat, and ran a quick perimeter scan. As the doctor had indicated, everything seemed quiet, with only a rising wind and the swift, glittering passage of Phobos to divide the stillness. John watched, and thought awhile, then decided to call a friend.

Brains was still in the main lab complex, glasses askew, with a sleeve and button pattern imprinted on the right side of his face. He'd apparently fallen asleep at his work station, again.

"J- John!" The engineer seemed delighted to hear from him, though he'd called in officially only hours before.

"Y- you're up, ah... up late!"

"And you're awake to notice," the pilot responded. "What's new in the land of shining water? Have the others calmed down, yet?"

Brains shook his head, causing mussed brown hair to flop into his blue eyes.

"Th- they're still, ah... still quite w- worried, John. Your f- father wants t- to launch a r- rescue mission, with, ah... with himself aboard."

The pilot's eyes widened, slightly. Pushing the blond hair away from his face, he said, in some agitation,

"You're joking. He wants to come here. After me?"

Twenty minutes later,

"S- seems that way. N -not to w- worry, though," the engineer's thin shoulders slumped beneath his rumpled white shirt. "I'm, ah... I'm not M -making much headway w- with Thunderbird 7's engines. It may, ah... may b- be awhile."

John slouched in the seat, barely attending to Ike's rambling account of engine failure and design flaws. Minor details, after news like he'd just been handed. Dad. Coming here.

The big question was, why? To recoup his investment? Ensure the safety of his old friend, Pete McCord? Prove that, no matter what, John couldn't evade him? All of the above, probably.

Yet... Five had indicated that his father once risked his own life in some fubar-ed time travel scheme to save mom... getting Gennine, instead. Maybe, then, Jeff Tracy's object in all this wasn't just the money, or saving Pete, or even the power trip. Maybe (ridiculous on the face of it; his father couldn't stand him) he was acting to rescue an endangered son. Weird thought. He wasn't sure what to do with it, besides stare.

Brains required some sort of answer, though. He'd been babbling on about engines...

"Ike, you're going about this the wrong way. Instead of pushing the ship forward, try collapsing its wave function. Passengers and equipment, too. You'll have to write a hell of an algorithm, but just get her moving, figure the probability that the intact ship is where you want her to go, subtract all the other paths, and alter reality with an equation. And, no, I haven't been drinking. It happens all the time in particle accelerators. Every time we up the power and do the math, we create another damn family of particles. Think about it."

Shrugging, John continued,

"You'll still need a heavy-duty power source, and a bitch of a computer, but it ought to work."

...While taking forever. By the time Brains figured things out, Endurance ought to have completed her mission, and be halfway home. No rescue, no dad. Not until he'd decided what all this meant, anyway.

"Ike, it's late, and my watch is nearly done, so I'm signing off now. Talk to you later. Good luck with the drive system."

And then he killed the connection, liking his friends best in small doses. In the floodlit exterior gleam, the nearest probe seemed already half-buried in orange sand. Staring at it through the view screen, John decided that he'd repair them both; Gemini and Apollo.

He might have temporarily lost his companion, but he could still build and reprogram a couple of 'drones'. And, maybe, somewhere amid all the gears and lines of code, he'd figure out what to do next.