Part Two.
Many things had happened to them since that day in September of nineteen ninety-nine when the moon broke free of Earth orbit, changing all their lives forever.
But nothing, John Koenig thought, had prepared him for this. While it was true in those early days that he had not once imagined himself as the Commander of a journeying moon, bouncing like an errant ping pong ball between galaxies, it did not quite compare to the realization that a man could genuinely fall in love, finding the perfect partner, while adventuring on that same moon in the deepest regions of outer space. Then, to take it further, Koenig positively - not in his wildest dreams - thought he would have a son, a baby boy to love and cherish. It was all too outlandish. But that was in the past, when he was still on Earth, and before their moon started its quest.
Presently, after having passed through a space warp, and miraculously making it back to the moon and his family ten years in the future – or present – he and the others were completely confounded. No, none of them had been mentally and emotionally equipped for this. Ten years. Although he kept an impassive face, it was completely beyond John Koenig's reach. As, it seemed, it was for Maya, Alan, Steiner and Rossi. Yet, they could not deny it had happened.
Thirty-two hours had passed in their lives while everyone else had lived and evolved for a decade without them.
They were nearly strangers to all of those they had loved, lost, and found again.
Many issues would need to be talked about, sensitive and professional topics settled, and despite what Verdeschi and the rest understood, the utter fantasticalness of the event, Moonbase Alpha had to be certain the Eagle crew really was what they claimed to be. Tony was restrained, regarding all of them as lost comrades but also potentially dangerous and undetermined beings. John did not blame him one bit for the caution. The Alphans had been betrayed before, while Koenig was in Command, on many occasions by what they thought were "friends". It could happen again ...
Only, it was them, they had returned, and all knew it to be true, despite the unlikelihood.
Now, they sat somewhat uncomfortably at a round table in a rarely used room, an office, inside Moonbase Alpha near Command Center. Koenig remembered the table from where it was once positioned in his workplace, near Main Mission. That seemed so long ago now, Main Mission having been closed-down for safety reasons many months into their space journey. Koenig's globe of Earth and a few vital pieces of computer technology was procured and used in other departments as well. But that was ten years ago. Where were they now, he wondered. The globe. His ink pen … his position.
Besides the recon party, all those who had been in Eagle three, the meeting was also attended by Verdeschi, Sandra, Alpha's Head of Science, Jared Tsu, and Helena. There were also a couple of security officers standing by the double doors. Koenig could not blame Tony for that either.
John wasn't sure what to do when he first saw her. He wanted to take Helena in his arms the minute he stepped from the travel tube. She was there, expression stunned, and wholly unattainable. Their eyes met, saying so much, but there was also a standoffishness, a worry, and something John could not quite grasp. A disconnection? Through no fault of their own, a couple who were still very much in love, could not comprehend their current situation. She was as in shock, quite naturally, as was he. But she was still his wife … or was she?
Ten years had passed but Helena had remained beautiful. Her hair had grown longer, lovely waves of blond passed her shoulders, and there was a pale blush to her cheeks. She seemed a bit too thin to him and her eyes, although still lovely, were now crinkled ever so slightly with the passage of time and, perhaps, loneliness and grief. An isolation he had caused simply by not being there, the sweet seduction of a potential home-world pushing him away from the woman he loved and their baby.
A baby who was now a ten-year-old boy. He had missed it; his flesh and blood growing into a child of what Sandra said was an "intelligent and popular Alphan youth". John wanted and needed to see him and talk informally with A.J. and Helena but they had to get this debriefing out of the way first.
Professor Tsu brought out charts, showing the path of the moon since they had lost the Eagle Three crew so many years ago. "It appears we have been traveling the same path." He said, "But in different spans or loops of time. It truly is quite remarkable." He pushed his findings in front of Maya on the table, rightly thinking she would be the best judge of the improbable. "We do not have a precedence for this wonder. Do you?"
"Yes." Maya answered promptly, low and honest. "I've only seen it once, when I was a little girl, before Psychon started its decline. Initially, it was mere theory but was made into reality when a hero of our planet, Jerom, came back to us after twenty years of space exploration looking as if he hadn't aged a day. He too traveled through a warp. Three days, he said, was his tour time."
Nearly apologetic, Maya looked up and gently licked her lips which had grown dry with apprehension. She miserably gazed at Tony across the table from her. He was sitting next to Sahn, both displaying a combination of anxiousness and melancholy. Maya gulped. She and Tony were going to be married, he had asked her on his knee, and she accepted without reserve. But now he was wed to Sandra and they had two children together. She and the others had learned of this development from an unthinking chatty operative that escorted them from the travel tube to the briefing. Maya was heartbroken, had felt a sympathetic squeeze to her shoulder from Alan, but could hardly fault Tony for moving on when all on Alpha thought Eagle Three, and all inside, were gone forever.
"I take it none of the other planets in the galaxy the moon was in before the transition could support humanoids?" Koenig inquired. At Verdeschi's nod he asked, "How have you managed? You've done an incredible job, Tony, but as strong and self-sufficient as Alpha is – without certain minerals, chemicals, and resources we scavenge from planets, dead worlds, and asteroids, Alpha should have become inoperative long ago. It would …"
Helena answered, her soft throaty voice quivering ever so slightly. "Three years after we lost you …" Her face was a mask of composure as she shook off what had become emotional chaos in her brain. "… when morale was low, when resources were depleted, and matters were looking very bleak, we were contacted and approached by an alien race who helped us. They understood our predicament and thought we could benefit from a trade."
"Trade?" Carter echoed, dubious.
Verdeschi continued, glancing from Carter, to Helena, then back to Koenig. "In exchange for four volunteer Alphan couples, they gave us all the resources we would need to travel space, build, and continue to have children. A few generations down the line Alpha will again approach another galaxy with compatible planets, where our descendent can finally find a new world to colonize and start fresh."
The Eagle crew looked at one another, unease and reservation visible on their faces.
Sandra said, "Their intentions were honest. We asked them if all of us on the moon could come and live on their planet. They said no, only the four couples we selected, but they promised they would treat them well and the moon would become enhanced from their superior technology."
Alan Carter looked stunned, "So you did it? You just gave up eight of our people and allowed these aliens to do God knows what with them?"
"It was not like that!" Sandra spoke firmly, her expression darkening. "They volunteered to go with them and their alien technology did save Moonbase Alpha."
"But at what price? How could you know?" Koenig asked. "Did you ever hear from them again?"
"We did." Professor Tsu said, feeling the filtered air about them suddenly becoming pungent with accusation. He could also see his Commander's expression darkening. Verdeschi was a good man but he did have a temper when his authority was being questioned. He probably felt doubly threatened when the questions were coming from John Koenig, a leader of near legend. "The couples came back to Alpha a few years later, smarter and content. They told us it was a good experience. They were observed, valued, and gave speeches about Earth and Alpha. They were treated kindly by all who met them. They lived with a highly advanced society in splendor and all but one couple returned to their planet."
"Which two?" Maya asked, curious.
"Bill and Annette Fraiser. They volunteered to come back to us and stay – to teach us new things. And they have." Tsu smiled gently at Maya, "I would say they could even teach you a thing or two, Miss Maya."
Maya smiled mildly and nodded. They had chosen her replacement wisely. Professor Tsu was smart and charismatic.
"We will go into all of that later, even take you around Alpha to show you what we have done to improve her, but for now we have to be vigilant." Verdeschi made a motion to the security men who brought comlocks over to Koenig and the rest, "Limited access." He said, curtly. "Just for a while. You will all need physical exams and orientation."
"Tony!" Carter nearly bristled, "How can you …?"
"Don't judge us, Alan." Sahn demanded, perhaps a bit more indignantly than she intended. "If you had been left behind you would react the same way. It's procedure, common sense, and good security."
Koenig watched as Alan quieted and blinked against the small woman's resolute tone. If he had ever thought there might be something between Sandra and Alan it was confirmed with this exchange. It appeared that love and loss was an epidemic on the moon. Once again, as hard as he tried not to look at Helena, for fear he might reveal too much, John snuck a glance and wondered if she too had moved on. He could not ask her, not yet. He may hate the response she gave. Focusing, he said: "When I left Alpha, it was as its Commander. Now you are its Commander, Tony. Where does that leave us?"
"We'll figure it out, John. In time." Verdeschi said, diplomatically.
'Adjustments.' He thought. Small steps before the heavier issues were addressed. Reasonable.
They spent another hour talking, discussing the changes on the moon, explaining their home's expansion, and how their children had become everything to the Alphans. School was currently in session, they were told, and even now the boys and girls were being told about the return of Alphans they had thought lost to them forever.
John hoped A.J. was being advised in a gentle manner. Finally, his father had come home.
Helena sat with Maya in her quarters, holding her hand, explaining how devastated Tony was after they had disappeared. She told the Psychon how he got through the grieving process by being the best Commander he could, and it took three years before he even looked at another woman. Then Sandra, having experienced the loss of Alan, a man she once thought of as a big brother, then possibly more, came to him and they realized that they could be happy together. What he had with Sandra was not what he had with Maya but it was soft, comfortable, and loving. It produced two children, a boy and girl, and they needed each other.
She left Maya coping and wished there was more she could say or do. They had once been close friends and would be again, she was sure, but telling a woman why her lover was with another was never easy.
Now Helena had a complication of her own to deal with. Slowly, she walked to her quarters, the one she shared with her son, and entered. Thoughtful, Helena moved to her bed – further into the room - and gently sat down. She opened the drawer to her bedside table and pulled out a framed photo of she and John at an event on Alpha, a party of some kind, taken months before he disappeared. They were smiling and very happy. Personal, intimate moments between them, assuaged her. His touch, smile, and the sound of his voice as he murmured sweetly into her ear as they lay together, came back from the spot in her mind where Helena had pushed them into the darkness. It was the only way she could muddle through her life, post Koenig, on Alpha. Still, he had never been entirely out of her mind. How could he when his son, looking so much like John, was with her night and day?
Aaron James knew who his father was, she never kept it a secret from him, but for the boy he had been a phantom, a legendary Commander who just happened to sire him. And while he was proud to have the lineage of a near King – A.J. was also burdened by its expectation. She glanced at the door that separated their living quarters from his small bedroom, adorned with colorful posters, various hanging spaceship models, and paper mâché planets. Things a boy like A.J., brought up on Moonbase Alpha, knew about and respected.
Helena smiled, remembering. Aaron once clung to her when young, weeping when pushed to the floor during play, and again later when receiving the bad news of a much-needed tonsillectomy. He confessed to Helena the night before the procedure that he really did not want to have it done. A.J. wanted so much to be brave but, on the day of his surgery, the six-year old's hand firmly clung to hers when he spotted Dr. Vincent preparing anesthetic. His soulful blue eyes looked up into his mother's as she bent over the bed to gently ruffle his hair, telling him he would go to sleep soon and wake happier and healthier. His whisper of "hating naps" touched her heart as his eyes closed.
He had been her brave boy and he would have to be again.
She would also have to be courageous. There were things John needed to know. She, at this moment, did not grasp how to tell him about certain developments. Would he find her suddenly unattractive when the undisclosed was revealed? Helena knew him as an honorable man, a husband who would not abandon his post easily, but part of her also knew a man could be asked to make only so many allowances.
If he asked her for a divorce, she would give it to him – and die a little inside – as she had when learning the love of her life had disappeared, allegedly never to return. If that piece of history had proven to be erroneous perhaps the other would work in her favor too. But Helena did not know if she could wait another ten years for John to come around. "In sickness and in health. God help me." She whispered and placed the photograph back into the desk drawer.
Earlier in the day, after their uncomfortable command meeting, the Eagle crew were asked to report to Medical Center.
"Congratulations, Commander Koenig. You are who you say you are." Dr. Ben Vincent diagnosed and pulled the bulky scanner aside. He smiled, frankly pleased by his medical judgement. Vincent and others, possibly with the exception of Dr. Russell, were initially as skeptical as the Command Center crew but now, looking at Koenig, Maya, Carter and the rest – viewing their perfectly humanoid body scans on a lighted panel, Vincent and Dr. Nunez were sure. The crew of Eagle Three had returned, looking no different than when they had left. Their individual psychological profiles, while slightly skewed do to current events, were normal as well.
However, Maya and Steiner were showing distinct signs of lethargy, an on-set of depression, both having come back to heartache. While the Psychon had to contend with a lost love, a bit problematic but not incurable with hard work of which she would have plenty, poor Steiner's wife had died, committed suicide after her husband was lost. They had planned to have a baby and Kathryn could not move on without him. Dr. Mathias, a trained psychologist, immediately took Steiner aside. More than a few appointments were in his future.
Carter seemed slightly out of sorts in retrospect, but all knew the Australian was adaptable and would soon be his old friendly self. He started his healing by walking to their Eagle hanger. He was looking forward to seeing the innovations made over the last ten years to their transport. Rossi went with him.
While Maya was asked to report to their science department, where Dr. Tsu could clue her into a few new scientific discoveries, she elected to go her quarters. She had asked Helena to meet her there, so they could talk. She really needed a friend.
Koenig hung back, not only unsure where he should go from here, a one-time moonbase Commander who obviously had little power to rule or control these days, but he had questions. He could tell by Dr. Vincent's evasive demeanor, how he was looking a little too hard at some paperwork, that he knew what was coming. "Is she all right?" John asked.
"Helena? Yes, she is fine now."
"Now?" Koenig tried to read his expression.
"It was tough on her, Commander." Vincent blinked a little, not quite looking at him. It was amazing how easy it was to revert to calling this man by a title which was reserved for Verdeschi. "But she was and is a strong woman."
Koenig hesitated before saying, "Why do I feel like you are not telling me something?"
Vincent turned and met his eyes with his own, suddenly ignoring the paperwork. "You need to talk with her. She is off duty, probably in her quarters after counseling Maya, and you must have a conversation."
Before he left John said, "Tell me this, just so I can prepare … Did she remarry?"
The doctor paused for a moment before replying, "No." he said, "She never remarried, Commander. Go talk with her."
End of Part Two.