Boys Night Out
Breakaway + 11 years
The large Eagle bay was quiet, almost tomb-like, here in the midst of the eternal darkness of night. The Eagles lined up neatly in their serried ranks, sentinels looking out for the safety of the Alphans who relied on them for their hope of eventual deliverance.
John snorted. That was perfectly dreadful. Well, he’d never been that good at making up imagery in the mandatory English classes back at the USAF Academy, either. He’d suffered through those classes while counting the days to the start of the real classes of engineering and aeronautics.
He walked the length of the cavernous hanger and back again, gently patting the back of the fussy infant he held to his shoulder. Helena assured him it was just colic and would pass in a few weeks, but the constant crying had just about everyone at wit’s end. Stephen had never cried like this, nor David. Eliza had cried a lot, but not this endless hour after hour sobbing and shrieking that nothing seemed to help.
Still recovering from her most recent pregnancy, Helena was asleep in their quarters. On top of four pregnancies in just a little over six years, the last an outright surprise, she was exhausted from diagnosing and treating the latest round of pediatric illness. ‘Kid crud’ one of the nurses nicknamed it. Back on Earth, he doubted anyone would have given the sniffles and coughing a second look; his bubbe certainly wouldn’t have. She’d firmly believed colds were God’s way of making you stronger. But then again, his mother’s mother firmly believed that colds were also an excuse for making large quantities of her famous chicken soup. With matzoh balls. John smiled to himself. He had always been partial to her matzoh balls.
The baby let out a particularly shrill shriek that reverberated off the walls of the hanger, pulling her thin legs up to her belly and waving her small, bandaged hands fitfully. John cringed at the noise and futilely tilted his ear a bit further away, but kept walking and speaking soothingly to the infant. From experience, John knew walking seemed to provide at least some small measure of relief to his daughter. And if he had to pace kilometers in the middle of the ‘night’ to sooth Kelly, at least he could pace them in the Eagle bay where the sight of all the well-maintained Eagles soothed him. For variety, he sometimes took Kelly to the biodome, but that meant carrying the howling infant through most of the residential wing. Awkward to say the least. So, more often than not, Eagle Bay 1 it was.
It usually took five laps around the hanger for Kelly to settle down, and she looked to be about on schedule tonight. Nodding pleasantly to an Eagle tech on the night shift, John continued on toward the Reconnaissance control center on the deck overlooking the Bay, patting Kelly’s back as the baby finally fell to sleep. One of the untouted benefits of rank… using the Reconnaissance office as a personal lounge.
Looking up to the large observatory window that made the ‘wall’ facing the Bay, he saw five-and-a-half year old Stephen standing and watching him, his ‘new’ scarf draped colorfully about his neck. John smiled up at the brown-haired boy who waved back. It was an ongoing mystery as to how that boy got by with so little sleep. He’d sleep at best five or six hours a night. And for the past few weeks, with Kelly colicky and Helena so tired, Stephen had taken to joining John on the nightly perambulations to settle the fussy newborn. And to be honest, John enjoyed the company. He climbed the stairs to the second level and opened the door with his commlock. The room was filled with consoles, monitors and chairs and was dark and shadowy. What little light there was spilled in from the hanger bay below. He pulled a chair over to the large observatory window and sat down next to Stephen, steadying Kelly’s head as he leaned back. He’d rest his feet for a while then they would head back home.
He heard the door open behind him.
“Terrorizing my people again?” The quiet voice held amusement, not anger.
“Shh, Carter. Unless you want to take the next five laps.”
Alan’s smiling face came into view as he set down a chair, very quietly, next to John and joined him, patting his lap to offer Stephen a seat. The boy happily scrambled up. They all sat companionably studying the Eagles and enjoying the peace and quiet. Alan was the senior officer on duty tonight, but as usual was to be found wandering around Alpha. John had no problems with that, although it technically wasn’t in the regs. He did the same on his night watches.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, sport?”
“Why is Kelly called Kelly?”
John looked at his eldest reclining against Alan’s chest, his legs swinging idly on either side of Alan’s . As usual, Stephen was wide awake and full of questions.
“Your mom liked the name.”
Stephen twisted around and looked up at Alan.
“Eliza was named after your mom, right, Uncle Alan?”
“Yeah. Your mom said she liked that name, too.” Alan exchanged an amused glance with John. They both remembered another Alphan who had asked endless questions. “Why the sudden curiosity, kiddo?”
“Kevin says it’s important to know where we come from, who our ancestors are. That only if we know where we have come from, will we understand where we are going.” The formal words sounded odd coming from such a young child, but Stephen always had been the precocious one.
Alan looked over to John and grimaced slightly. “That sounds like Kevin, alright.”
John chuckled. Pilot Kevin Taylor had slipped into the role of teacher and children’s mentor without effort, and the children followed him like a Pied Piper. And John did have to agree that the oral chants the Ojibwa Canadian had come up with were clever and much easier to remember than any history textbook he’d ever memorized.
Alan tugged gently on the red and black scarf around Stephen’s neck and was rewarded with a boyish giggle. Sandra had given it to the boy several months before and it had become a favorite of Stephen’s. Rather like Danae’s stuffed Horse.
“You know, I seem to remember your father wearing this a time or two. He got it from his Aunt and brought it up to the moon. It’s made from real llama hair.”
Stephen knew all about the scarf and how it had been accidentally torn in two and remade into two smaller scarves. He had this half, and his half-sister, baby Naomi Carter, had the other. He still liked to hear the story, though. Stephen found all the old stories about Earth fascinating and liked to touch the things that had once been on that lost planet. It helped him feel a little closer to the biological father he’d never known.
“Dad, where’d my name come from?” The boy looked over to John, complete trust radiating from his blue eyes.
John leaned back and attempted to settle in somewhat better to the ubiquitous white plastic chair, Kelly still snoring quietly on his shoulder. It looked like they might be here a while. The quiet of the night seemed to encourage questions and confidences.
“Well, your mom did some research and found out that was the name of your father’s father. We thought it would be a good way to keep his line alive.” John caught Alan’s eye. “And your mom liked the sound of it.”
Alan snorted as John grinned.
“His ‘line’?” Stephen looked confused.
“His family tree. When you get older, you can decide if you want to use Bergman or Koenig as your last name, but you’ll always have your grandfather’s name no matter what.”
Stephen sat quietly, running the scarf through his hands. This would be a lot to think about, but later. Right now he wanted to ask a lot more of his questions.
“Dad? Why did you give David his name? Is that your dad’s name?”
‘No. My father’s name was Seth. Seth Benjamin Koenig.”
The room became quiet for a while. Stephen really wanted to know the answer, but he had learned that sometimes it was best to simply wait his Dad out. He glanced up at his favorite ‘uncle’ who shrugged back at him.
“So, John, why did you name him David? After Kano?”
John remained quiet long enough that Alan began to wonder if he had stuck his foot in his mouth again without realizing it.
“What do you remember of Operation Babylift, Alan?”
“Operation Babylift? You mean back in the seventies?” Alan scrunched his forehead in thought. “Well, I remember it was a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane that went down in Vietnam. A bunch of kids and civilians were killed. I was only ten or so at the time, but years later one of the survivors became a good friend of my kid sister in college and we dated a while. She’d been adopted by some folks in Sydney. Why?”
“Robbing the cradle, Alan?” John glanced at his formerly womanizing friend who just shrugged good naturedly. “Anyhow, that’s the one. The war in Vietnam was winding down, and not the way the US forces would’ve liked to see it end, but anyhow… There were a lot of children there fathered by American troops and the powers-that-be feared that they would be treated poorly after the American forces left.” John paused, lost in memories.
When John didn’t keep talking, Stephen looked up at Alan for some explanations.
“Back on Earth, people from one land sometimes fought the people from another land over money, food or even ideas.” Alan realized all this was foreign territory for a young Alphan. He looked at John for help. “Yeah, I seem to remember Binh telling me about that, and how she’d never been able to find out who her biological parents had been.”
John shook his head slightly, pulling himself away from memories, but continued to look out over the Eagles lined up below. “In April of 1975, the first of dozens of cargo planes were ordered to evacuate as many of the Amerasian children as could be shifted out of the country. The planes were huge and hundreds of infants and toddlers were almost literally stuffed in the pressurized holds with nurses and medics to help care for them. There were so many kids that volunteers were accepted from anyone who had the least training. Nurses, civilian teachers, volunteer parents. There was even a young rabbi, newly assigned to Vietnam by the Army, who helped load the kids on that first flight out. When it became obvious that more help was needed, he volunteered and hopped aboard at the last minute and was assigned to the lower deck.
“About 40 miles out of Saigon and 23,000 feet up in the air, an explosion blew off the rear doors. The flight controls were crippled. I can only imagine the decompression trauma. And there were oxygen masks for only about a hundred of those kids. The damaged plane crash landed 2 miles from Tan Son Nhut airport. It skidded about 1000 feet, hit a dike and broke apart. Everything was coated with oil from the crash and pieces of the plane burned. Rescue helicopters got there quickly but couldn’t land in the watery rice paddies. Every adult who could waded through the mud carrying the children to the helicopters hovering nearby. It’s a miracle that those pilots were able to turn that plane around and land at all, but still, 144 adults and children were killed out of 305 people on board her.”
John fell silent again, absently rubbing Kelly’s back as the infant, still asleep, sucked on a straggling bit of bandage that encased her little hand.
Stephen looked between the adults. “How big was that airplane?”
Alan could see that this was a hard memory for John. He re-settled Stephen on his lap and distracted the boy for a few minutes.
“You could put an Eagle in the hold of one of those beasts, with plenty of room left over.”
“Did you ever fly one, Uncle Alan?”
“Nah. Your Dad might’ve, though. Only the American Air Force had those planes. They were still using them at Breakaway.”
“What’s a ‘rabbi’?”
Alan put a finger to the boy’s lips.
“John, who did you know on that plane? The pilots?”
“What? Oh. No. I was only about fifteen or sixteen at the time.” Another pause. “Most of the dead on that flight were on the lower level. Including the rabbi.” John looked at Stephen, catching the boy’s eye and waiting until he had his son’s full attention. “A rabbi is a Jewish teacher, kind of like Kevin. He keeps the past alive. That rabbi’s name was David Seth Koenig. He was my older brother.”
John stood up carefully, balancing Kelly on his shoulder, and held a hand out to Stephen. “Come on, sport. Time to get even you to bed, my young sleepless wonder. Say goodnight to your uncle.”
Stephen twisted around and gave Alan a hug before sliding off and taking his father’s hand.
“’Night.”
Alan waved his hand and waited for the Koenig family to leave. Time for him to make an obligatory appearance in Command Center.
~~~~~~~~
Alan stood up from Eagle Ops and stretched. Only two more hours. Night shifts seemed to last forever. Time for another walkabout.
“Can you hold the fort, Alibe?”
Looking up from her hard-bound, much read and re-read novel, the pregnant woman yawned and grinned as she nodded. “Right now, I’d like to have some grass to watch grow. Or maybe I should take up watercolors. Then I could watch the paint dry for some variety.”
Alan chuckled. “Well, call me if we blow a fuse or something else interesting.”
Alan swung by the cafeteria for a cup of ‘coffee’ to help keep him awake. One of the dietary techs offered him fresh baked cookies and Alan helped himself. Munching on the sweet treat, he paused to try to think where he’d already been this week. Hydroponics, the biodome, manufacturing, the nuclear generators, weapon’s center, laundry, reclamation and even Medical Center. There was always someone awake there, but they were in the midst of a stockroom cleaning frenzy and Alan would just as soon not get drafted into counting bandages. Again. He found his feet taking him toward the main Eagle Bay. Oh well, maybe he could help overhaul Eagle 21.
En route to his destination, he swung by his quarters to check on Sahn and the kids. With some reshuffling of personnel, one of the quarters here in the ‘Outback Section’ near Pad 1 was being re-divided into extra space for the adjacent suites. That would give the Carters a needed extra bedroom and keep them from having to relocate in the foreseeable future. Jack Coleman was volunteering to help and Alan planned on pitching in a hand, too. He liked being based near his Eagles, even if it did give Sandra a bit of a trudge to Command Center.
The door opened to his commlock and he stepped into the dark front room. He crossed the small family space, pausing to leave the remaining cookies on the sofa table. He stuck his head in the children’s bedroom to find Danae and Richie sleeping peacefully. Richie was tucked neatly under his blanket, but Danae had tossed and turned as usual and her blanket was mostly on the floor. He stepped quietly over a reading pad left on the floor and re-covered his eldest daughter, tucking her stuffed Horse under her arm and kissing her lightly on the cheek. He ran a gentle hand over Richie’s dark hair and stepped back out. He closed the door with a touch on the sensor pad and went next to his bedroom. The door was open, no doubt so Sandra could hear if the older kids needed anything. He stepped around the small crib set immediately inside the door and paused to look at Naomi. The small, six-month-old baby had rolled over onto her stomach and was sleeping snug in her makeshift sleep sack. He reached into the crib and touched the tiny hand which closed trustingly around his finger. Even in the dim light from the corner commpost, he could easily see Sandra in this small person, and traces of Victor Bergman. The match of Stephen’s red and black scarf was neatly folded and placed on the built-in dresser behind the crib. He wondered if Naomi would treasure her father’s scarf as much as Stephen did.
He took the two steps needed to reach the side of the master bed and silently went down on a knee. Sandra was asleep, curled on her side facing him, dark hair falling over her cheek. She had taken to wearing it longer of late, and he liked that, even though she fretted about the gray hairs that were beginning to show up. At least she had hair to go gray. His was thinning appreciably. He smoothed the hair away from Sandra’s cheek and kissed her gently on the lips. She might have said his name, he wasn’t sure, and he smiled and left quietly. All was as it should be.
Back in the corridor, Alan turned right and walked the short distance to Pad 1. Everything was nice and orderly, down to the sleepy security guard on her rounds. He swung by the maintenance ‘shed’ and grabbed a multi-purpose tool kit. He took a quick detour to the Reconnaissance control room to confirm no new info had been logged in about his birds. He climbed the stairs two at a time, smiling when he reached the top landing. Not even a bit out of breath. He opened the doors, turned on the lights… and found John Koenig where he’d been sitting a few hours earlier. The black sleeved man was leaning forward, his hands resting on his lap, his eyes watching the two techs working on Eagle 21, and he looked anything but relaxed. Alan set down the tool kit and walked over to the chair he had used earlier and sat down.
“Still can’t sleep, John?”
John looked over to Alan. “I hadn’t really thought of David in a long time. Really thought of him. And what his last minutes must have been like.”
“It’s a risk we all face when we go into the service. Even the chaplains.”
“I know. It’s just… David was such a gentle man. My memories of him are sketchy, he was much older than I, over ten years older, and not around much, but I do remember that. It surprised our grandparents when he sought a commission. But… he felt strongly that America had been good to our family and he owed something back.”
Alan minded his tongue. John rarely spoke of his past, and if he wanted to talk, Alan would certainly be happy to listen. Sometimes it took another military man to really understand what it meant to serve your country. Especially in an unpopular war.
“Jews have served in the US forces since the beginning, but rabbis were sometimes scarce. David felt he could make a difference. Maybe he did. I hope so. He certainly didn’t have much of a chance. He died only a few months after he won that commission. His dog tags were sent home Stateside and we sat shiva, my grandparents and me. They died not so long afterward, and I really haven’t had much of a family since then. Until now.”
“I didn’t know you were so religious.” Alan realized that John never said much about his beliefs in all the long talks they’d had on reconn missions. And they’d covered just about every topic under the sun over the past eleven years.
“I’m not. Never was really. My brother filled that expectation in the family. He was supposed to marry his fiancée when he returned from Vietnam, settle down and have a large brood of kids to continue the family name and traditions. That was the plan, anyhow. His fiancée was from a Reform family, but properly Jewish for all that. They could claim a clear matrilineal line going back generations. That was very important to my Conservative grandparents. Well, David didn’t make it back and I never had any children with Jean. So, this branch of the Jewish Koenig family tree will end with me.”
Alan felt frankly confused. Stephen might be Victor’s boy, and Eliza was actually his, but there was no doubt David and little Kelly were John’s. And he’d been to John and Helena’s wedding, so he knew that was all nice and legal, or at least as legal as things got here on Alpha. His confusion must have been apparent.
“Helena was raised in a Protestant family. By Halakha Jewish law, a baby is Jewish if his mother is Jewish. Not the father. Oh, sometimes a conversion is accepted, but that needs a council of scholars to verify, and we’re a little short on those.”
“Ah.”
“My children will be gentiles. But, maybe it’s for the best. We need to pull together and be one strong people, not stress the differences that were important on Earth.”
Alan looked at John and studied his face. John had aged in the past decade, as they all had. The black hair was now liberally sprinkled with grey and the wrinkles on his face were a bit deeper. But there was a sadness present now that was usually absent.
“You don’t really believe that, do you, John?”
The tall man pushed himself up out of the chair. “What I really do need is to get some rest. See you at shift change, Alan.” He rested a hand on Alan’s shoulder for a moment and squeezed lightly.
“Yeah. See you in a few hours. Give a holler if you need me to cover you for a few more hours of shut-eye.”
John headed home to be with his precious family. He walked out without a backward glance, the hand he waved in acknowledgement his only answer.
6 January 2007
MGK
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