Acts of Reparation

T

he scream cut through her dreams. She was trying to reach... someone who needed her. Someone hurt. Someone dying. Shivering with fear, Selené sat upright, clutching her blanket to her thumping heart. Waking up to a young mother’s keening could only mean one thing. Another baby had died, the fourth one this year. Still shaking, she rose from her lonely bed and walked to the open door, the night outside only slightly less dark than her sleeping room. Looking up to the white moon, she took deep breaths to calm her shattered nerves.

The death of one, maybe even two newborns in a year, was to be expected, but four? And this one had been so very close to its name-day. Selené wrapped her arms about herself, shuddering. Everyone knew babies were the most precious of gifts. Only six, perhaps seven, were born in any given year. Yes, one or two would always fade and die; the ones whose eyes stayed brown always did. But four in less than a year? Something was dreadfully, horribly wrong.

Her thin arms still wrapped around her cold body, Selené’s looked back up to where the large moon peeked through the leaves of the gymim tree, the leaf-shadows dancing in the fitful breeze. The large, white moon was unlike the three small moons. Those bright bodies held the welcoming colors of greens and blues, the colors of spring; the white moon hinted at death and sterility. Still, against all tradition, it was the large, white moon that drew her. When it waxed full she could almost feel its living presence, as if a kindly Elder watched over her. She knew a few of the others felt that way, she had heard the whispers over the night-time fires. Why did they stop speaking when she drew near?

She wished she could go to one of her yearmates. Someone she could curl up against and seek the familiar reassurance of warmth and voice. Selené looked up at the moon one last time, then turned to head back into her cohort’s empty home. The crying outside was softer now, the bereaved family drawing strength from one another.

Soon this living space would be turned over to the succeeding cohort, the sixteen children who had been born in the five years following the year of her birth. They would come to live here and be taught their life’s duties. Ages nine to thirteen, they would be old enough to learn, and young enough to form a new kin group, the cohort they could depend upon as they went through life. Her cohort, all thirteen of them, had moved out of this familiar space. A few of the youngest had returned to their families, but most went to join their new pair-mates, ready to start the next phase of life with home making and childbearing. All except for her. Alone again, like she hadn’t been since the death of her mother. Tomorrow she would select a new home for herself from among those that sat empty.

As she settled into bed, from behind her, outside the open door where she had just stood, she heard the sound of a twig snap from the darkness. Selené sighed. It was undoubtedly him. She wished he would just renounce her and be done with it. This skulking about with disapproving glances was wearying.

Iain had made it quite clear to all around that he thought the honored Elder had made a profound mistake pairing the two of them. That the Elders had not made any such errors in anyone’s living memory did not sway him in the least.

The Colony was small, never numbering more than two hundred and forty, and often less, although the current one hundred and sixty was the smallest number any could recall. It was because there were so few that the pairings had become so critical. The Elders knew who could have healthy children, and who would not. How they knew was a mystery, and one that fascinated Selené to no end. Sometimes the pairings seemed too close kin-wise, and other times the ages too far apart. Nonetheless, most pairings were congenial and successful. One never mated within the cohort of course; that would be like pairing with a sibling, but other than that it could be anyone in the cohort older or younger than yours.

Perhaps it was the age difference that displeased Iain? He was the eldest in his cohort, she the youngest in hers. That made for almost a ten-year age difference. He was a man grown at twenty-four. She was barely a woman at fourteen. When the honored Elder had announced their names in the spring two seasons past, Iain had been obviously dismayed, even angered. He called her a woman-child, and he was not far from being wrong. Still, if he would only give her a chance... She had tried to learn his interests, his skills and attributes, but he had shut her out. Selené wished her mother were still alive to go to and ask what to do. Isla, wise in the ways of plants and herbs, had also been very wise in the ways of men; all the women had said so. It was such a sadness that she had died in childbed eight years ago.

Another twig snapped. Selené stopped. She turned around and peered through the archway. The white moonglow made it quite easy for her dark-adapted eyes to see no one was there. Then again, he could easily be hiding in the shadows. Iain was renowned for his hunting prowess. In fact, the snapping of twigs made no sense; unless he was doing so to let her know he was there?

“Iain?”

Out of seemingly nowhere, a tall, lean shadow filled the archway. Selené stepped back in surprise. The moonglow cast the man’s face in deep shadows, although she knew who it was, and knew she had nothing to fear. She held her ground as Iain silently walked up to her and looked down into her eyes, his wary and even... accusing?

“You were in my dreams again.” His voice was flat. Not angry, not pleased, just a statement of fact. Though young, Selené was not unaware of what young men dreamed. Completely unintentionally, a small smile crossed her face, only to fade away when she saw Iain’s expression harden.

“I was hunting for you in a blizzard. I was...” his expression was unreadable, “terrified you were lost.”

Selené was surprised at that. Iain had barely acknowledged her existence until the day the Elder had joined their futures. Why would her well-being be a concern to him? Beyond, of course, that of any adult for a child?

“The night before, I searched a cave trying to find you, knowing you were in great danger. And the night before that, I dreamed of drowning in sea foam, knowing you were just out of reach. Why?”

Selené was drawn to his piercing blue eyes. Everyone in the Colony had light-colored eyes, but she suddenly discovered Iain’s were a shade of blue she had never seen before. Abruptly, he turned and walked away, adroitly avoiding obstacles even in the near dark. She remembered to breath.

“This is absurd. You are a child. I’ll have to wait years before you are old enough to...” He stopped and looked at her again, though this time it was easy to read his embarrassment.

Selené smiled again. Like all who had been through the five years of instruction with her cohort, she knew the details of reproduction. She had even made it her special interest to study animals and how they functioned, finding that the colonists were not so very dissimilar to other living creatures. She prided herself that she knew more than the fundamentals of hygiene and healing; how certain plants helped cure the common maladies that could make a person or animal ill. She had even assisted the midwife at all the births over the past year. And she had helped the healer examine the still, cold little bodies of the babies who had so mysteriously died. Her smile faded, thinking that she would now have to help examine another.

“Selené?”

She almost jumped out of her skin. She had forgotten Iain was still there, much less that he had again walked right up in front of her.

“Have you had any dreams?”

His voice was again carefully neutral. Dreams were important. Those who had the most vivid dreams were often selected to become Elders. One never knew until The Calling, but one could wonder, and worry.

She shook her head, realizing at that moment she was wrong. There had been dreams. Dreams that faded the moment she awoke. His question caused an overwhelming rush of fear, the dark of night robbing her of what she held most dear. Blinded with tears, she reached out her arms. “Come back!”

The fear faded, her vision cleared. Now embarrassed, she found Iain looking at her with wide eyes. The thin, almost woman-like arms reaching out toward the tall man did not seem to be hers. Selené turned away, wrapping her arms back about herself. She felt the presence of the man as he moved up behind her.

‘I will wait for you.”

A moment later, she knew herself alone.

T

he scents on the air warned that false dawn was only a few heartbeats away. It was very dark, darker than usual. It was not often that all four moons averted their faces on the same night. Not a good night to hunt, nor to be out and about, everyone knew that. So, then, where was the girl? Iain stepped lightly, even in the near blackness deftly avoiding that which would make noise if he trod on it.

He approached Lookout Mount’s cliff edge warily giving the sheer dropoff the respect it was due, especially tonight. What was it about this place that attracted the girl? She came here often he had discovered, and since she was not to be found in her new quarters, she was undoubtedly here, black night not withstanding.

She was a pretty little thing, that was a given, with her blue-green eyes and very light brown hair. Her shading was just fair enough to stand out against the uniform brown hair and brown skin of the others, as he did in his own way, although he leaned toward the dark. Her lithe grace bided well for the beauty she would become. All he had to do was wait three or four years.

The first hint of light told Iain he was right. There she was, sitting on the boulder a mere half-pace back from the edge, arms wrapped around her legs, delicately pointed chin resting on her knobby knees, and with her long brown braid hanging down her back. Her long woven tunic and leggings undoubtedly did little to ward off the night’s chill. His anger at the danger she must have placed herself in to reach this place warred with admiration of her courage. He stepped on a twig to warn her of his presence.

“Good morning, Iain. Join me.”

She didn’t even bother herself to look around. She sounded completely calm, as if she knew he would be there. Maybe she did. He approached close enough to see the chill-bumps on her bare arms. He untied his felted, lined cloak and draped its heavy warmth around her shoulders and sat down next to her.

The sun rose on the small Colony below, the purple shadows cast by the far mountains quickly dissipating in the bright morning sun. As they watched, the early risers left their homes and began the morning chores. Iain could see his home on the far side from where they now sat. It was one of sixty identical small, peaked roofed dwellings, each accommodating a family of four to six members. The exteriors were of warm earth colors, dappled to blend into the shadows of trees long since dead. The dwellings were all old, having stood from time immemorial, and often passed down from parent to child, although not always and not recently. Amidst the small family buildings, were larger communal buildings that tradition said were once lived in by extended, multigenerational families with aunts and uncles and cousins all together. Iain could not imagine that.

He had chosen a dwelling on the Colony’s outskirts that overlooked the fields and woods. Such a prime place would normally never have been available to such a young adult, but with their numbers reduced there had been little competition. Even Selené had been able to choose a private dwelling, something their grandparents’ generation would never have found possible.

“There will be another death today.”

Iain turned quickly to look at the woman-child next to him. If she said so, there most likely would be. Selené had a fey ability to predict such things.

“Old Robt.”

Iain nodded, relieved. Not so fey after all. The old healer had been failing for months now. He was almost fifty years old, after all.

“There have been more deaths than births for the last thirty years. Dwellings are standing empty for the first time in living memory, or in any of the Stories that can be recalled.”

Iain shrugged. Old stories never had interested him much. He was one who wanted to see what was over the next hill, to climb the highest tree or bed the prettiest women. Or he had, until being paired with this fey woman-child who knew too much and thought too deep.

“Something has changed, Iain. For as long as we have known, births have followed deaths, cohorts have always numbered sixteen or seventeen, and the land has provided for us.”

Iain looked back down at the Colony. He would be needed to lead a hunt today or tomorrow. The migrating herds of grazers were near and the food larders would need stocking to help feed everyone through the upcoming winter months. The land was plentiful and generous at this time, but Selené was correct. Although fewer colonists meant fewer mouths to feed, it also meant fewer hands to harvest the fields and gather the wild-food they would need to survive the winter ahead. To help make up the shortage, for the past few years Iain had led hunts under leaf bare trees or even in the snows. They had always been successful, he thought with pride, but in the past they had not been needed.

There should be no need to hunt and gather so late in the year. Winter was traditionally a time of drawing together and telling Stories; for creating objects of usefulness or beauty, not worrying about starvation. New pairings often found themselves expecting their first child come spring. Certainly Selené wouldn’t be thinking of spending those long, cold months alone in her dwelling? He knew she had no near family; well, except for him now. She was quiet by nature and he had often found her off in the fields alone, gathering herbs and roots she then used to tend to the ills of the Colony under the guidance of Old Robt. Still, being off alone in winter would be hard. He had made it a winter’s habit to move in with his sister’s family since his cohort had been dispersed. Certainly there would be room for Selené to join them.

How sad to be without family, Iain thought; not a problem he had ever experienced. Although his father had died in the same unforeseen hunting accident that claimed Selené’s father ten years prior, he had always had his mother and sister’s family to look after and look after him.

“We’ll dwindle away to nothing unless something changes.”

Now Iain laughed. Change? There had always been a Colony. For years uncounted they had lived off the land in this place. Their dwellings were old, ancient even, very well made and unalterable. The pattern of life was well established. Babies were born, children played in the fields, learned in their cohorts, paired off, had children of their own, served the community, and then died. Oh, accidents did happen, and the occasional woman did die in childbirth, but most everyone could expect to see fifty or fifty-two passages of the seasons. He was the odd, restless one by wishing to see more of the world. Most were satisfied to live out their ordained span in quiet contentment.

Her expression was slightly hurt at his laughter. He apologized with a smile and, after a quick glance about, picked the late-fall flower still blooming at his feet and offered it to her with a flourish. She reached for it with a smile... then froze. Her eyes widened in fear and she pushed away the red blossoms.

“No...” She shuddered and leaned away from the peace offering, struggling to regain her composure.

“I dreamed last night, Iain.”

That startled him. Only the occasional slip of the tongue hinted that she also Dreamed. He absently placed the rejected flower on the ground next to its fellows. “Oh?” He wanted to look at her, but he had come to realize his gaze could intimidate her for some reason. He knew his eyes were bluer than most, but still, they were only eyes. He asked mildly, “What did you dream?”

“The moon.”

Iain inadvertently glanced up into the dawning sky. “Which one?”

Selené’s lovely forehead creased as she turned to answer him. “The moon. You feel it, I know you do. It calls to me, too.” Her blue-green eyes challenged his, the strength of her conviction a new and fascinating facet of her personality. He was unsure how to reply. He didn’t need to. Leaving his cloak behind, she hopped off their boulder and started to walk away, for all the world acting embarrassed.

Her words came to him even though she did not turn around. “I will be in the forest this morning if you need me. There are roots I need to gather to ease Old Robt.”

She was right about the white moon.

T

he frail old man sat on his padded chair in the large, empty room, his companion standing immediately behind him and resting her slim hand on his shoulder. The desk in front of them was wide and cool under his hands. They were alone in the dim, vaulted space, their voices echoing slightly in the emptiness. He leaned forward, chin resting on now steepled fingers, studying the images of the young couple on the large overhead screen twenty meters in front of them. He reached up and gently patted the warm hand on his shoulder, then idly scratched his forehead. He sighed heavily.

“She’s too young.” He had such hopes.

“Perhaps, but we need her skills.”

“I wasn’t at all certain she would be here for us. I’m still not. This might not be her turn, after all.”

The woman laughed gently. “And when has either of those two not answered the Call?”

“Well, yes. I can’t dispute you there, my dear. She is, though, quite young.”

“And when has age ever been a barrier when one is Called?”

The old man pursed his lips, then nodded in concession to the woman’s point. “And the age difference between them? Ten years is a fair gap, although, I grant, not insurmountable.”

The woman stepped around to the man’s side, spinning the padded chair slightly toward her to catch the man’s attention, and looked down into the careworn, tired old eyes. “You sound as if you wish this not to happen. You have waited years.”

“Yes, I know I have. And now it is all but too late... for me.”

The woman’s blue eyes filled with sadness. “We do need her, though.”

“I know.”

Together they turned back to face the monitor and watch the young couple until it was time for the blue-eyed woman to leave.

T

he day that had begun on the rock on top of the cliff now ended outside the home of Old Robt. The gentle old healer had finally slipped into his final sleep just after the noon meal, his family at his side and Selené sitting by the door, crying quietly. He had been a good friend to her over the past few years since her interest in plant lore and healing had blossomed. In truth, he had been as close to a father as any she could remember. There was another healer, Danl, a man in his middle years, but he was not as welcoming to a child full of questions and always underfoot. Selené knew she would now have to approach him for more training.

“Will you be the one to hold the torch?”

The tears on her face warmed by the late afternoon sunlight, Selené turned around toward Iain’s quiet voice; she had long since stopped being surprised to find him standing behind her. In any case, it was a fair question. No one in Old Robt’s family had the healing gift, and one’s pyre was usually lit by another who shared a common life’s work.

“Probably, but it is Alna’s decision.” Old Robt’s eldest child would let her know soon if it was indeed to be her. The pyre would be lit at sunset, according to tradition, to send Old Robt on his way.

“Come on. You’ve been up since before dawn, and I know you haven’t eaten or taken a rest in all that time. I have something set aside for you.”

Selené looked at her tall companion in frankly. He had been paying that close of attention to her needs? She allowed Iain to cup a hand under her elbow and guide the way to the far side of the Colony. As tired as she was from her bedside vigil, her ever-present curiosity ran high. Was he actually concerned about her?

They arrived at Iain’s home and he led the way in. The place was perfectly typical of every other home, consisting of one large sleeping chamber, two smaller chambers, and a privy facing east, a generous cooking and eating space facing west and a common room in the middle where they now stood. Iain’s place looked very plain to her eyes with unadorned surfaces and colorless walls, and with none of the small clutter that said a family lived here, which of course, none did. With only one man living here, it seemed achingly empty; just like her dwelling.

Iain nodded his head to the low gymim-wood dining table and gestured for her to seat herself on the rug-covered ground as he stepped over to the cooking area. He returned shortly and seated himself next to her, his long legs folding under the low table to accommodate the space she took. On the table in front of her he placed a tightly woven basket filled with fresh bread, a fired-clay vessel still warm from the stew inside, and a clear glass of water. Selené sniffed the air appreciatively, touched at his thoughtfulness. He had somehow obtained her favorite vegetable stew, which she knew he was not partial to.

She pulled her carved eating utensils out of her pocket and cleaned them on a piece of soap weed always left on tables for that purpose. To her surprise, she found herself hungry and dug into the meal eagerly. Quickly finishing her stew, she realized Iain was still sitting quietly near her, resting against the pale, cool rock-wall behind him and watching.

He noticed her pause, leaned forward and picked up a small fired-clay container and passed it to her. It was decorated with tiny blue flowers and filled with a creamy topping made from the pressed oil of the weaver’s weed. It was her favorite bread topping and enjoyed by almost everyone in the Colony. She accepted with a small, tired smile.

“Thank you, Iain, for your care. Where did you find the stew?”

“I made it.”

Selené looked up, again surprised. Iain just shrugged.

“It’s what you always eat when you have a choice, and it’s not all that hard to put together. The bread is from my mother. She likes you, by the way.”

Selené blushed. He had paid that much attention to her?

“Selené, why did Keli’s baby die?”

She turned fretful eyes toward Iain, not really surprised at his question but upset again at her lack of an answer. The death had been two weeks ago and still she had no idea. She and Danl had examined the tiny, perfectly shaped body just after its all-too-brief life was ceremonially recorded and before its cremation. “I don’t know. Nothing inside was formed wrong, but the colors were just... off. I feel like I should understand why, but I just... don’t.”

Iain nodded. She was certain he understood from eviscerating his kills what she meant by the colors, inside an animal at least. The basics were the same, she knew that from her turns helping with cooking.

She finished off her much appreciated meal, although the food now sat heavily in her stomach. Cleaning her utensils slowly to stall for time as she thought of an answer, she finally returned them to her tunic’s pocket. She looked at Iain, trying not to let her fear show. “I need to find out. We can’t keep watching babies die. What if one day it is my child?”

Iain sat with a hunter’s silence, regarding her with his amazingly blue eyes. “What can I do to help?”

It took a moment for what he said to sink into her thoughts. She studied his face carefully. Just when she had finally come to accept the idea that the man she had been paired with did not want her company...

Perhaps she had been premature.

“Truly?” She thought she now saw a hint of impatience on his face, and she hastily waved aside her doubt. She’d accept his offer. “Come with me when I ask an Elder for help.”

I

ain sat perfectly still, shocked to his core at what he’d just heard. Of all the things Selené could have asked, this was the one thing he never would have expected. The Elders came in harvest season to review the progress of the cohorts, summon the children just learning how to speak, or return one of their own for cremation. They came in the spring to see how all had fared over winter, and in those years when a cohort completed its training, to announce new pair-bondings. Once in a great while they came to claim an adult for one of their own; no one ever knew when that would happen, and those who did leave were regarded as if dead to the needs of the Colony.

No one ever asked the Elders for favors; self-sufficiency was understood by all. You made do, puzzled things out, or did without. And truly, how often was outside help needed? Their lives were full and bountiful.

Iain leaned back against the wall, stared off into the distance and thought. Truly, there was no law against what she asked. It just wasn’t done. But why not? That took more reflection, but the answer came quickly. Because it simply wasn’t needful. He looked back at Selené, and his lips twitched in amusement. Her expression was a mix of determination, fear, apprehension, and defiance. He was coming to see the wisdom in the Elder’s selection for his pair-mate. She would be a handful, this one would, and he enjoyed a challenge. In any case, it would be after winter before an Elder came to visit. No one knew where the Elders lived, but all travel through the snow-filled winter months was difficult, and Elders were human after all. Perhaps by then they would understand what was happening, and if not, well, then he would stand by this feisty woman-child’s side as she asked her questions.

“Yes, of course I’ll come.”

T

he fires burned low on the pyre. Selené had lit the flame and stood with the family as Old Robt was paid honor for his service to the Colony. Iain waited in the shadows, watching but not contributing anything more than the expected oral responses. His help was not needed for this. Old Robt had never been a hunter and was not close kin, so Iain had no formal role in this ceremony. He would wait for Selené to be done and then make sure she got well-deserved rest. His home was more than large enough for them both even if they slept in separate rooms as he anticipated; there was no need for her to be alone.

Selené was too tired to do anything but take his offered hand as the crowd dispersed and follow him through the gathering shadows. Once at Iain’s, she gratefully collapsed on the comfortable ligon fur-covered sleeping mat in one of the small bedrooms, asleep before he covered her with a warm felted blanket. He returned to the central room and opened the window to the night sky. Extinguishing the night candle he had lit upon returning with Selené, he looked outside.

The heavens were the usual smooth black, this night sprinkled with a glittering of tiny bright near-winter stars. He looked to the east and saw where the faint crescents of two small moons appeared. Later this night the smallest, fleetest, and brightest moon would fly across the night sky, but he doubted he would still be awake then. The large white moon would not appear for two nights. Selené had been right. The large, white moon was his favorite. He leaned against the window frame to watch the moons’ path across the black sky, losing himself in his thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He awoke with a start.

It was still dark outside, the Colony silent except for the distant footsteps of Kyl, the night watchman on his rounds looking out for a wayward carnivore or scavenger. Iain realized he had all but fallen asleep where he stood. Now straining his senses, his body tense, he sought to understand what had awoken him. He was grateful he had extinguished the small candle; his eyes were fully night adjusted.

“Relax, Iain. No one is here who will hurt you.”

Iain whipped around, muscles still taut, ready to respond against need, to face the soft, feminine voice. Not Selené though. The voice was that of a mature woman. There, standing in the shadows by the door to Selené’s room, stood a slender hooded figure. Iain relaxed.

“I apologize, Elder. I do not mean any insult.”

“None taken. I must apologize to you for entering uninvited, but I didn’t wish to disturb your meditations. I know your day has been long.”

Iain blinked. An Elder apologizing to him?

“I did not realize Robt had died until I arrived. Kyl told me when he sent me here from Selené’s home. I’m glad to see you and she are together.”

As the Elder pushed back her finely-made cowl, Iain could see there was a small smile on the aged but still lovely face. Iain started to protest he would never take advantage of a child, when the woman gently waved aside his protest.

“I understand, and approve. She will be ready for you in good time.”

Iain closed his mouth. This was the Elder who had paired him with Selené, and to whom he had protested so vigorously. Iain simply nodded his head compliantly. There was a rustle from inside Selené’s room, and the Elder turned to look that way. Even obscured by shadow, Iain was surprised to see a smile of joy on the Elder’s face, quickly returning to the usual calm politeness.

“Iain?”

“Here.”

The woman-child walked out, rubbing her eyes. “I was dreaming... oh.”

Seeing the Elder, Selené immediately bowed her head, obviously flustered at the unexpected visit. Recovering her composure with admirable rapidily, Selené walked to Iain’s side. He felt her small hand slip into his and squeezed it gently. “You can ask your question.”

She looked up at him, blue-green eyes wide. “Now?”

Iain had to smile at the crack in her voice. Not quite so bold when Authority was in person, was she? Iain gestured to the patient woman standing still and regarding them thoughtfully, her hands clasped casually and comfortably in front of her grey robe.

“There is an Elder.”

Selené swallowed hard, took a deep breath, slipped her hand out of his, and to Iain’s pride walked up to the Elder, having to look up to see into the older woman’s blue eyes. She bobbed her head in respect, then asked her question.

“Why are so many babies dying? What can we do to make it stop?”

Iain watched as the woman studied Selené carefully, not in disapproval he thought, but rather as if she was measuring the younger person against some standard known only to her. Slowly and without breaking eye contact, the Elder shook her head.

“We don’t know.”

Selené’s face fell in disappointment. Iain moved up to stand closely behind her, providing what support he could, although he too was profoundly disconcerted. The Elder reached out a slender hand and lifted Selené’s chin.

“We do know much, we Elders, but we do not know everything.” The woman paused, smiling gently at the look on Selené’s face, but then continued. “There come times when help is needed. You are asking the right questions, and that is the first step toward learning the answers. Come with me. We will figure it out together.”

Iain inhaled sharply, instinctively moving to place himself between Selené and the Elder. Selené was being Called. Even as he moved, Iain was appalled by his action, but to have Selené taken from him was wrong. The Elder looked up at him and smiled, wryly Iain thought. She seemed to know what he was thinking.

“And you. You are both needed.”

The Elder turned to leave, raising her hands to pull the cowl back up over her head. Selené and Iain exchanged startled looks. Holding even tighter to Iain’s hand, Selené looked back to the Elder. Her face showed fear of the unknown warring with... excitement.

“Me, Elder? I know so little. I have so much to learn.”

“I know.”

“Iain can come, too?”

“Iain must come also. He is needed as much as you.”

“Now?” Selené asked with the same small squeak as before.

Not pausing, the Elder walked away, leaving Iain’s home and stepping into the night. She did not pause her measured steps, but she did turn her head slightly to speak over her shoulder as the darkness swallowed her form.

“Now.”

It was too quick. Iain had not said good-bye to his family. Who would lead the hunt?

“Kyl will let your family know. It is time to leave. Now.” The voice was softer with distance.

And that was that. They bowed their heads in acquiescence.

“Yes, Elder.”

Now the woman did pause still facing away from the Colony, waiting for them to join her. As they neared, the Elder turned and smiled down at Selené, a bit sadly Iain thought.

“My name is Tanya. I ask that you use it. Come, follow me.”

The Elder, Tanya, turned and walked quickly now. Iain sensed Selené’s eyes on him, but his eyes were on the woman, trying to understand his role in this. Selené looked toward the Elder, the woman’s form now obscured by leafy fronds that still waved from her passage. It would be very difficult to honor the Elder’s request, he thought. It seemed to lack respect to call her by her name alone, as if she were a fellow colonist. The thought gave him pause. He had never thought of the Elders as regular people.

What the woman had said still make little sense, but Iain could somehow tell Selené trusted her. Selené glanced up at Iain briefly catching his eye, then followed the Elder away from the Colony.

T

anya led the way through the forest, pushing branches out of her way as the woods became deeper and thicker. When she had walked down the mountain earlier today, the sunlight had been tinged with green from the solid canopy high overhead. Now it was black, except for the light from the smallest moon crossing swiftly overhead. Her hand-held torch was left off until they absolutely needed it; the battery was running low.

Tanya usually enjoyed her visits to the Colony, seeing how the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of her cohort fared. After all these years, the casual friendships of that long ago time were sadly gone, as were the members of her cohort. And her pair-mate. And her two children. Dead, all of them, from old age. Now, everyone she met, including her grandchildren, treated with a reverence that remained unsettling even after all these decades. Still, children will be children no matter what, and she treasured the quiet times sitting amongst the great-grandchildren of her generation. This visit had not had the time for that, however.

Pulling her attention back to the present, she listened for the expected noises behind her. Iain moved with the stealth of an experienced hunter, but Selené, light and careful as she was, still left an audible trail of noise. Tanya smiled to herself. She had known that curious and inquisitive mind could not leave the challenge answered.

F

ollowing Tanya, they walked into the cave’s entrance and up a darkened incline. Selené reached out for Iain’s hand. Tanya led the way confidently, as if she had walked this way before, which Selené had to grant she no doubt had. The walk seemed long, although without the sun or moons to help her judge the passage of time she was uncertain if three hours had passed, or four. She was tired and short winded at the pace Tanya had set. The Elder had ignored repeated requests for rest. The aches in Selené’s leg muscles told her they had been walking uphill, although so gradually she couldn’t appreciate the incline in the tunnels they passed. Tanya’s strange light was just bright enough to lead the way, but not enough to prevent her from stumbling over the occasional rock or scraping a hand against an outcrop of the roughly rounded tunnels. It was too dark to make out any details.

Just as Selené was willing to risk losing honor in Iain’s eyes and ask Tanya yet again for a respite, the tunnel finally leveled out and the walking became easier. Her breathing grew less labored.

“How high have we climbed, Elder?” she asked.

“Tanya, please. As high as the highest mountain around the Colony.”

“Are we inside that mountain?” Iain’s voice was almost directly behind her now as he caught up.

“Yes.”

Selené thought she picked up a hint of approval in the brief answer. She inhaled more deeply. No wonder she was short winded; she was embarrassed not to have realized they were inside a mountain and glad the dimness prevented Iain from seeing her blush. She may not be as woods-wise as the hunters, but she was no innocent, either. No Colonist was.

“Come, we are almost at your new home.” Tanya turned and walked toward what Selené now appreciated was a dim light at the tunnel’s end. Passing into what must be a chamber directly beneath the summit of the mountain, Tanya finally came to a halt. Selené gratefully leaned against the wall and rested. She would have sat, except she could hear, and worse still, feel the small pops of dried rodent skulls under her feet and shuddered to think what else might be in the shadows. She crossed her hands across her chest and tucked her hands in her armpits for warmth. Now that they were no longer exerting themselves, the chill of the mountain was pervasive. Selené looked around.

The chamber was vast, and dimly lit. Realizing that the wall she leaned against did not cause any discomfort to her much scraped and bruised skin, she felt a twinge of curiosity through her fatigue. She reached out a hand and ran it along the surface. The walls were very smooth and resembled the interiors of the buildings back at the Colony. Selené watched as Iain reached out to touch the wall also, running his hand against the unnaturally flat surface. He did not look tired in the least. Selené watched as he looked up toward the ceiling of the cave, and when she followed his gaze she realized, quite to her surprise, she could actually see the ceiling of this vast cavern, and that odder still, there were unwavering and constant shadows tracing unnatural patterns across its arched expanse. Shadows? Tanya’s unusual torch certainly wasn’t bright enough to cast enough light to make such distant shadows, much less explain the shadows’ source. In fact, when Selené looked toward the Elder, she realized the woman had extinguished the light and left it on the ledge by the entrance. Where was the light coming from?

“Tanya, did our ancestors make this place?”

Iain’s voice had a confidence she sorely lacked just now.

The woman nodded, then gestured for them to join her.

Selené wanted to sit and rest. Where was Tanya leading them next? There was nothing here and nowhere to go, except for the tunnel though which they had just arrived. Unless she meant for them to live inside this cave? Surely not.

“How are you doing?” Selené jumped slightly when she realized Iain was standing immediately in front of her. He looked concerned.

“Tired.”

Iain nodded. He gently rubbed her shoulders, then cupped his hand about her elbow and led the way to where Tanya waited. The Elder was watching them with the same non-judgmental look all Elders wore. She motioned them closer, and when they stood shoulder to shoulder, the floor beneath them collapsed.

T

anya sighed. She was glad to be home. The walk back from the Colony grew longer each time. Then again, a fifteen-kilometer up-hill walk was brisk exercise when one was almost sixty-five years old. She studied the two in front of her as the lift dropped five stories. They held their understandable fear in check most commendably. Well, all of this would seem familiar soon enough.

The platform upon which they stood came to a gentle rest at the bottom of the shaft, and doors opened into a white corridor lined with standard Alphan panels. The bright light caused all three of them to blink and squint, and Tanya watched through half closed eyes as Selené sought safety behind Iain’s lean back. She carefully repressed a small smile as she watched the young man deliberately place himself between his companion and the great unknown.

Stepping out of the lift and gesturing for the two to follow her, she paused at the storage unit placed conveniently nearby and built flush with the wall. Pushing the button to slide open the panel, Tanya unbelted and took off her cowled robe, hanging it on the small hook inside the narrow compartment and exchanging it for her belt and commlock. Threading the belt about her waist and absently slipping the commlock into its usual, comfortable position, she fervently wished for a cup of strong, hot tea, but that would have to wait. She unobtrusively watched the two newcomers as they looked about in wonder, Selené lightly running her fingers over the solid door panel that now covered the lift’s entrance.

Tanya tugged her mismatched sleeves, one red, one beige as always, down from where they had ridden up on her arms, and turned to check the status screen on the adjacent computer panel. Keying in an info request provided answers that had her lips thin in worry; there was no time to waste. She looked at Selené and Iain. The girl was tired, there was no mistaking the dark circles under her eyes that were still very wide and panicky from the fright of the descending lift. Iain was holding up much better, but then again he was in excellent condition and obviously used to long days and nights hunting and hiking. She looked back to Selené, her gaze softening.

“Come, you can rest in a little while, but we need to hurry now.”

Iain looked ready to protest on the girl’s behalf, but Tanya held up her hand for silence, for once grateful for the reverence accorded Elders, and Iain subsided respectfully.

“Come.”

She quickly led the way down the corridor to the residential quarters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The status report on Computer worried her. Too many red tell-tales. Tanya knew the old man was failing, but his determination to see things through was legendary. He had insisted he would see the arrival of the next caretakers, and she had harbored no doubt that he would do just that; she would never have left his side otherwise. Still, he was almost eighty years old, and that was the average lifespan for an Elder. Blinking back tears, she knew she simply didn’t want to face the inevitable.

Deep in thought and trusting in Selené and Iain to follow, she almost walked past her quarters. She stopped abruptly, no doubt surprising the pair behind her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and nodded approval to the patiently waiting pair at their attentiveness in the midst of what to them was still strange and overwhelming. She smiled briefly and reassuringly, using her commlock to open the door.

A tired voice welcomed their arrival. “Computer said you had come back. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

The tears nearly blinded her eyes. It was true, but Computer’s warning didn’t prepare her for just how much the old man had withered away in only a day.

Heedless of Elder dignity, she crossed the room in a rush and knelt by the old man’s side. From the care shown with his person, it was obvious that the others had watched over him tenderly in her absence.

Tanya leaned over the elderly man, gently brushing back the wispy, grey hair from his forehead. A smile creased the old face and startlingly clear, blue eyes opened, looking up to the woman who smiled, then nodded in the direction of the Colonists. He turned with effort to look at the new arrivals. He studied the faces of Selené and Iain carefully, a slow smile spreading across the parchment-thin skin.

“Ah, so you were correct.” He smiled fondly at the woman, then turned his piercing gaze back to the newcomers. “We knew to expect someone, but it’s always a bit of a mystery as to who will show up this time round.”

Iain and Selené looked at each other, the confusion quite obvious on their faces.

The old man looked at each of them, settling his gaze on Selené, then clucking his tongue. “So young. Well, time will take care of that deficiency, now won’t it? But, do we have that time?” His breath became short and he gasped a few times.

Tanya’s eyes glistened with unshed tears as she attempted to recapture a smooth demeanor. “Rest now. I’ll do what is needful.” She reached out and smoothed the blue quilt that covered the frail old body against the chill.

“I know you will.” The old man reached out his hand and patted hers. “It’s been a good run this time, hasn’t it? But, we need their skills, not mine, and not even yours, my dear. Just make sure Computer is tucked in tightly, or David will have a snit when he comes back.”

Tanya leaned over and kissed the man’s forehead. “I’ll make sure, but that will be several years yet.”

“Yes, yes, but the time will fly past. It always does.” The old gentleman reached out a palsied hand and smoothed the woman’s graying hair. “I’ve enjoyed your company. I rather imagine Paul or Alan might have objected, though.”

“Well, they are not here to do so, now are they?” Her tone had a distinct note of asperity that caused the old man to chuckle.

“No, no they aren’t.” There was a sad smile on the old face. His breaths were becoming more and more ragged, his color paled and his eyes took on a distant look as he seemed to gaze beyond the small room. Tears ran freely down Tanya’s face. The old man looked up at her. “Now, now, no call for that. It’s my time, is all.” The old man reached out a hand. It was too weak to reach his goal, and fell back to the bed. Tanya gasped and went to her knees. She tenderly picked it up and held it to her face. She leaned forward to catch the next words, almost too faint to be heard. “I’ll not say good-bye, my dear, just... good-night.”

He exhaled, and was still.

I

ain didn’t know what to say, or to do. He would never admit it, but he was confused and nearly overwhelmed. The old one had died. He felt a great loss, but why? He did not recall ever meeting this honorable Elder before. The ancient one certainly had enough years so that this was not a tragic death. But still, there was an ache in his heart he could not explain.

The two watched solemnly and respectfully as Tanya laid her head on the old man’s chest and quietly sobbed. They didn’t know what to do. Usually there were older adults about who stepped in to comfort the grieving family and prepare the body for cremation. Selené and Iain looked at each other. Maybe he should go back to the Colony while Selené stayed to keep the older woman company?

A deep, ragged breath drew their attention back to the woman. They watched as she pushed herself up to her feet and turned to look at them. Her face was profoundly sad, yet calm. “The others will look after him. Come, it has been a very long day. It is time for you to rest.”

She paused long enough to place the old man’s hands on his chest, smooth his hair and kiss his forehead one last time, then, she led the way out.

Iain followed, but turned at the last moment to see the old one’s face as the strange door slid shut.

“Tanya, that old man, who was he?”

Tanya darted a look at Iain, seemingly startled by the question, but then nodded, mostly to herself, Iain thought.

“He was a dear friend. We served here together for over forty years. He was the one who helped me discover my place. My arrival was, in a small measure, a disappointment for him. He so very much wanted it to be you who came, but it was not to be. At least he saw you before he died. I am very grateful for that.”

Iain opened his mouth, but Tanya held up her hand and shook her head slightly and he became silent. One did not interrupt an Elder when she was speaking.

“He was the man behind Moonbase Alpha, its heart and soul. Without him there would have been no Alpha, no survival after Breakaway, and no Colony.” The Elder looked at Selené. “His name was Victor Bergman, and he was your mother’s grandfather.”

S

elene stood rigidly still, her exhaustion cushioning the shock. Her mother’s grandfather? Her mother had never mentioned him. She had always simply assumed he had died like the others. He was an Elder? Her great-grandfather was an Elder?

“Selené?” Iain’s voice was gentle.

She looked at the white walls around her, at Tanya standing in front of them in her strange clothes. The face of the old man lying motionless under an impossibly bright blue blanket swam back into view. It was all too much. She flushed, growing very warm in the cool corridor, her head beginning to swim. She fell, retreating to the safety of unawareness, Iain’s arms barely felt as they broke her fall.

S

he was needed in Medical Center. The trauma cases were overwhelming the on-duty staff and Mathias was calling in all available hands, even the ones who had just completed a thirty-six hour shift. The operating theater was being hurriedly turned over from the last case and should be ready by the time she arrived. An open, sucking chest wound, Bob had quickly summarized. Damn. She didn’t have any formal training in thoracic trauma, but that was irrelevant. Since Breakaway she had pushed her skills until she was competent in just about all the major surgical fields. She rushed into the brightly lit operating suite, scanning the radiographic images of the broken body awaiting her, the nurse quickly gowning her and prepping her hands. There was no time to think, she had to get in there and try her level best to save a life. Her attention narrowed to the open wound in front of her, the blood flooding the field, the heart throbbing just beneath her fingertips....

“Shhh, shhh...”

Thrashing against the restraints holding her down, Selené woke up frantic, panting and gasping for air.

“I’ve got to stop the bleeding, I’ve got to...”

The room was black. Reality seeped in slowly. It was a dream. Just another dream. She breathed in deeply. Was it still night? Had Old Robt just been sent on his way?

“Selené? Are you awake?”

Callused fingers brushed the hair off her face. She knew the warmth next to her was Iain. She wrapped her arm around his waist and snuggled in. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Selené closed her eyes against the unnatural blackness, missing the faint moonglow that most often lit the nights. It was wonderful to have someone next to her again; she dreaded being alone. When she was young there had been her mother, but after Isla’s death, a childless aunt had reluctantly stepped in to care for her. Alsie had certainly provided shelter and food, but the woman had been cool and remote, providing little in the manner of companionship. Warmth and friendship returned after Selené joined her cohort, and she remembered the joy and happiness that had filled her days... until the morning two seasons past when her cohort had been disbanded, as all cohorts inevitably must, to begin the next phase of life. The others had joined their new life-partners, or had returned to their families. Only she had been alone, although she had been aware of Iain lurking ever near. Now he was here.

“Where are we, Iain?”

“In my, our, new quarters, Tanya named them. She said to rest and refresh ourselves. Remember?” Iain shifted over, reaching for something in the dark. There were the sounds of something bumping against a hard surface, and then a pale light appeared across the room.

Quickly assuring herself that Iain was not going to leave, Selené looked around the room. The walls were as white as the walls in the rest of this strange place, and all harshly straight and sharp. The tables and chairs were also an unrelenting white, but had a smooth, rounded look as is they were once water-like and then frozen into curved shapes. There was no wood to be seen.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caused Selené to cease in her assessment of her new quarters, and she watched as Iain turned back to her and resettled on the bed. He raised an arm to allow her to curl up against his warm side. His arm wrapped around her waist was very comforting. They were still dressed in the clothes they had arrived in, and the small amount of growth on Iain’s face was enough to say half a day had passed. She reached out and ran her fingers across the stubble. It was the first time she had touched his face.

“Hungry?” Iain asked, startling Selené out of her tactile exploration of his face. His blue eyes did not look particularly rested, Selené thought. No doubt he had stayed awake on watch.

Selené started to shake her head, but a loud grumble from her stomach put a lie to that. She grinned apologetically. “Yes. But I’d like to bathe first.” Iain smiled down at her. He rolled out of bed and held a hand out to her. Grinning, Selené took that hand and was led to a smaller room that held a most marvelous surprise.

Indoor showers were something she was familiar with; rainwater was collected on roofs and on the cliff and fed into showers and privies throughout the Colony. But the water was cold, tepid at best on a hot day, and limited in the dry season. To have an endless hot shower, well, that was simply an unheard of indulgence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once he heard Selené splashing in the washroom, Iain sat down on the side of the bed rubbing a hand over his stubbly face, his fatigue rolling over him in waves. The miraculous shower Tanya had shown him would have helped, no doubt, but he had not wanted to leave Selené’s side while she slept so fitfully. For once, he was not worried about Selené falling prey to roving carnivores in the woods, or falling off the cliff. If they were not safe here in the midst of the Elders’ home, then nowhere was safe. He had closed his eyes, willing sleep to come, but all that had come was the familiar dream. Not the ones of recent since the Elder had announced Selené’s name at the pair-bonding ceremony, of losing her, but the old dream, the one that had haunted him since he left his cohort...

... they were looking at him to make the decision, always to make decisions in things trivial, and things important. To decide who lived, or died. To keep the three hundred and eleven souls looking to him away from the verge of extinction...

...Iain shook his head. Always the same odd number, well more than ever had been seen in the Colony. He could barely imagine leading so many people. He was well used to leading his hunting team, and to risking his life and those of the hunt, but they never measured more than five or ten. He knew one day he might well be the leader of the Colony, hunt leaders often became so after age robbed them of their reflexes, but to lead so many seemed overwhelming.

He could never make out the faces looking to him, just the sense of urgency, of having to decide now or all would be lost. And somehow the white moon was important. The most vivid dreams occurred when he slept under the full, white moon. He had never told anyone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hot water never did run out. That small miracle said more than anything else they had seen that their lives were now to be very, very different. Iain showered also, and shaved. They dressed in the clothes left out for them, and it seemed to Selené as if someone had been expecting them. The larger outfit, plainly cut for a man, had, like Tanya’s short tunic, one odd colored sleeve. Black. Her outfit, a white sleeve. Iain’s clothes fit admirably well, but her skirt dragged on the ground. Since Tanya’s skirt had ended at mid-calf, she could only assume this was the smallest size they had readily available. Perhaps she could borrow a child’s skirt until she gained her final height. The heavy shoes left out for them were very uncomfortable and they opted to wear their soft, leather moccasins, even if the colors and style did not match the rest of their new clothes.

Now, each clean and dressed, they wondered how to find a meal. As if on cue, there was a most usual sound rather like a chirp of a bird, and then a tapping on the door. After a polite pause, it opened of its own accord, somehow disappearing into the wall of the doorframe and a young man with a purple sleeve walked in.

“Welcome! Ready for lunch?”

T

he food was hot and plentiful, but very different from what they were used to. There were eighteen people sitting at the large, oval and very white table, with chairs for seven more. Their guide had led them to a narrow table set against the far, white wall covered with bowls of food. He had set the example by taking plate and utensils from a stack of the same and helping himself to various dishes. Selené stayed with what was more or less familiar... a bowl of porridge, fresh rolls, and some fresh fruit, with a selection that was impressive and mostly out of season. Iain helped himself to what smelled like a baked meat pie, more of the fresh fruit, and a cup of a hot, bitter-smelling brewed drink. Selené passed on the latter in favor of cold water.

Everything was different, and yet the people sitting at the table dressed in the same odd clothing she now wore, appeared just as she expected- slim, brown-skinned, brown-haired and blue-eyed. The language they used was comfortably familiar, and yet at the same time incomprehensible; she simply couldn’t understand many of the words. She knew these people had come from the Colony, had been Called to serve as Elders, like her great-grandfather. They were familiar, and terrifyingly different. She looked down at her own clothes, and the white sleeve. No one else wore white, but then again, no one else was wearing black except Iain. They sat down next to their guide, at the places where commlocks awaited them. The conversations up and down the table did not pause for their arrival, although a few members present did make eye contact and nod.

“We’ll take the Professor back down tomorrow. That will give Tanya another day to rest before making the hike again. I told her she didn’t need to go, but she insists.”

“What do you expect, Ryan? Of course she’ll go.” A tall, thin woman looked at the man, Ryan, with apparent exasperation.

“I know. It’s just that two hikes in a week is really hard on someone her age.”

Selené realized they were making arrangements to take the old one’s body back to the Colony for honorable cremation. It felt somehow disrespectful to be sitting here eavesdropping on the conversation, even if they were discussing her far-kin. The shock of discovering her great-grandfather had been an Elder was not so acute after a good rest. The Elders came from every family, after all, and almost everyone could claim an Elder as kin within two or three generations. She glanced at Iain and realized his attention was on the conversation going on at the other end of the table, one that was apparently growing more heated by the moment.

“.... their lives are like mayflies. Short, pretty and useless!”

Selené wondered what a mayfly was, but by the tone, not something that was held in high regard. The young orange-sleeved man speaking was flushed with emotion, obviously upset and angry. He was waving a cup in the air as he gestured broadly with his right hand. The woman next to him spoke soothingly, as if to a cranky child.

“Sasha, they have just arrived. Calm down. We’re all in this together.”

That seemed to make the man even angrier. He put his cup down on the table so forcefully that some of the bitter-smelling brew sloshed out onto the table and splashed the woman. He didn’t seem to notice. “And why should I be here? I was never assigned to Alpha. I was diverted from the Space Dock when Koenig called a condition red and ordered all available pilots to break up NDA2. I was right over the bloody area when it blew! I never had a chance!”

The man stood and glared at Iain. “I never even saw Breakaway. I didn’t live long enough! And now here I am, caught in this...”

The door to the room opened and everyone fell silent. Tanya walked in, pausing to glance at the tableau in front of her before walking to the back table and helping herself to a cup of the bitter brew. She walked to an empty chair opposite Selené and sat, smiling kindly in her direction. She took a sip of her drink and then turned to Sasha who by now had sat back down, staring sullenly into his drink.

“Is it really so very bad, Sasha? Here, we all have enough to eat, friends, and productive research. There are no wars or genocides. The Colonists’ lives are short, but they live long enough to see their children grown, and when they do die, it is quickly and for the most part, painlessly.”

Although Tanya’s voice stayed calm, Selené saw her eyes glitter with tears.

“But why...”

Tanya shook her head, and Sasha quieted, although his expression remained stubborn.

“You are right, Sasha. They are too few, their lives too brief, too focused on survival. They are pre-literate with a culture based on oral tradition. We have made it that way and kept it so. But, this is a discussion for another time, Sasha. For now, why don’t you go and check on the progress of the herds over in Theta Valley. The weather should be good for your hang glider, and if you hurry the midday winds will favor your trip.”

Selené watched as Sasha glared at Iain one last time, and then walked out the door, leaving a plate and cup behind on the table. She turned back to see Tanya smiling at a baffled Iain.

“I apologize for Sasha’s poor manners, Iain. He is still fairly new to us and has yet to settle in. He will, given time.”

Iain still wore a puzzled look. “That was Brin. He was Called four years ago. He was a good hunter and a friend.”

Tanya nodded. “And will be a friend again.” She looked at the now empty plates in front of Iain and Selené. “Are you done?” The two nodded. “Spend your day exploring your new home. The outside gardens are still blooming, Ken can show you the airlocks to reach them, or...” Tanya glanced at Selené, “you might wish to start in Medical Center, it is just around the corner.” She now smiled reassuringly at Iain. “You are welcome everywhere, but for today please do not go into rooms unaccompanied. There is nowhere off-limits to anyone here, but there are some areas where you might accidentally injure yourselves, or inadvertently interfere with someone’s experiment. We will again meet after dinner. There are things I must say to you before I leave for the Colony.”

Tanya then stood, leaving her own almost untouched cup behind. She touched each person’s shoulder in passing and with a final nod to Selené and Iain, left.

I

ain looked back through the window into the strange room of flat, narrow raised tables with pillows, blinking lights and strange images of people’s innards. Selené was already deep in conversation with the Elder who also wore a white sleeve, appearing content despite her earlier fears. As if she felt his eyes, Selené glanced up and smiled, her excitement plain to see. He relaxed a little. For all that this place was beyond his understanding, these were the same Elders that had visited the Colony since his birth. Everyone he had seen had been vaguely familiar to him, and they all seemed to know him, although that could simply be because he was the only new man here. Selené settled for the moment, Iain turned and walked through the main doors, again taken aback at how they slid open. That just didn’t seem natural.

The corridor stretched in both directions, clean and bright with light coming from the walls and ceiling. There was a map of sorts in bright colors immediately outside the door he had just exited. It had the same strange characters he now knew was called writing, and which he had been assured would soon make sense. Iain shook his head. The idea of permanently marking down what he was used to hearing, memorizing and reciting, seemed far-fetched; but he could begin to see the wisdom when the numbers of people here were so few. Tanya had said there were only twenty-one Elders ‘on-duty’. He and Selené made twenty-three, or rather twenty-two since the old man had died.

Alright then, Tanya had encouraged him to explore his new home, so explore he would. His hand briefly rested on his new commlock. Selené could contact him when needed. Taking a deep breath, he chose the right hand path and walked on.

“G

loria, how am I to learn all this? It’s too much!” Selené’s head was fit to burst with all the new things she was being shown. She looked at the wise, older woman who had perhaps forty or so years. Gloria knew so very much! Selené still felt it rude to call the Elder by her given name, even if that was what the woman asked. She did find it helped a little, and made Gloria seem less intimidating, if she thought of the slim brown-haired, brown-skinned woman in a proper knee-length colonist’s tunic. The Elder explained that she had been the medical provider here for the past twenty-four years, but that she had been a nurse and had not the training or skills to fathom out what was causing the current health problems among the colonists’ newborns. And, in what was rapidly becoming the most frightening thing of all the strange things to have happened since her arrival in this strange place, Gloria seemed sure that she, Selené, did.

“Yes, it seems that way now, I’m sure.” Gloria smiled, not at all put off by Selené’s unseemly show of temper. “Why don’t you look around, I’ll be here if you need me. Everything here is at your disposal.” She smiled again and left the room.

Selené watched Gloria until the door closed behind her, shifting her gaze then to look through the glazed window into the outer room. Gloria moved about working on things Selené did not understand, but felt she should. Gloria had said she, Selené, was a healer, a doctor. Well, she was in training to become a healer, that was true enough, but what did her plant lore and meager skills count against what this place could so clearly do? Tentatively, Selené sat, perching herself on the edge of a chair, looking in awed bewilderment at the small manikin on the table in front of her. She reached out and caressed its cool, smooth ‘skin’, transparent to show all the inner organs and blood vessels.

She had so much to learn.

I

ain was intrigued. The doors in front of him were much more massive and imposing than any others he had passed, and very, very red; not unlike the spilled blood of a newly killed hoofbeast onto fresh fallen snow. Thought of in those terms, the doors looked somewhat ominous, and yet Tanya had assured him he was welcome everywhere, save, he presumed, the personal quarters of others.

Iain smiled a little to himself. After he had picked up the unconscious Selené from her exhausted collapse, Tanya had shown him to sleeping rooms that had obviously been set aside. He had reluctantly left a sleeping Selené on a bed in her own quarters, but he appreciated the small propriety of separate rooms given Selené’s youth. That she had shown up pale and scared on his threshold only a short time later, escorted by an older woman with a purple sleeve, had been understandable. If he were to admit it to anyone, he was more than a little unnerved by all this, too. He had ushered Selené into his rooms and they had spent the rest of the night curled up together, each finding comfort in the closeness of the other. She was still too young for a true relationship, but he meant to look after her in any way she required.

Lost in thought, he was caught by surprise when the door in front of him slid open in that unearthly quiet fashion common here. Peering inside curiously, Iain could make out a large, enclosed space beyond the doors, the walls covered with more of those monitors he had seen in the Medical Center. Curiosity peaked, he walked through the doors, only to stop when a very old man appeared in front of him. They both stopped short, looking one at the other, the old man wearing a short tunic with a brownish sleeve and a growing look of surprise on his face. Iain bowed his head, thinking of what to say to apologize to this honored Elder for his unexpected appearance. He had earned whatever chastisement the Elder saw fit to administer.

“Commander! Welcome!”

“T

he Professor was fairly certain it’d be you and the Doctor showing up next. It seems the people we need tend to turn up just when we need them. I suppose whoever or whatever it is that is making us live this crazy way doesn’t want us to die out just yet.”

Iain sat in the white chair the older man, Elder Mark Dominix, had offered. Iain was trying hard to understand what was being said. The man seemed to feel they knew each other, although Iain was quite certain they had never met.

“Gloria is a great nurse, but she’s out of her league when it comes to applied research, and to give her credit, she knows it. I knew something was up, though, when she came to dinner very excited a few years back. Well, more than just a few years, more like twenty-one or twenty-two I suppose it was. She normally doesn’t let on who’s who after she runs the scans. That’s on a need-to-know basis, of course, and a good command decision it was, and is.”

Elder Mark nodded firmly in Iain’s direction.

“Still, just because someone is in the Colony certainly doesn’t mean they’ll Awaken. But when all those babies started dying, and the population number started to drop down too close to the viability line, we knew something would happen. And then when she showed up, well, we began taking bets. We knew it was just a matter of time.”

Iain shook his head; none of this made sense. He looked around the cavernous space with the huge dull metal circles on the walls. He had never seen an enclosed room so large, although the large windows on the sloping roof looking out into the bright sky were reassuring.

“Yeah, I know. It’s small compared to the old Nuclear Generator Areas, but here we deal in solar panels, not atoms, and I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping the solar cells in tip-top shape. I don’t know why the reactor doors are there, though, they don’t open, and I can only imagine those reflective surfaces got toned down pretty quick. You can get used to seeing everyone else wearing a different face, but when you see yourself,” and here Elder Mark shuddered dramatically, “well, that’s something a man just can’t get used to.”

Iain was overwhelmed, and confused. It seemed ideas were flitting around in his mind just outside his conscience understanding, like when he noticed girls were different for the first time, but not why. He looked back to the Elder and saw the man now sat silently watching him. Iain stood and politely nodded his head. He needed time to think.

“Thank you, sir, for your time. I will leave you now.”

S

elené studied the chart in front her, deep in thought. From observing Gloria, she had quickly figured out how to move the complicated grid up and down on the screen in front of her. The pattern was complex, and engrossing... and endless. The dance of colors and lines was very important; she knew that, although the meanings behind the patterns seemed just out of reach. Gloria had said that the oval shapes and letters lit in black were people who had died, those lit in a blue-green color, still alive. The blue-green ovals were few. At the very bottom of the complex chart, in the very last row, Selené traced a blue-green oval with the tip of her finger. Hers.

Gloria had pointed out the combination of letters that represented her name, and also that of Iain’s. Selené followed the lines and realized that the names above hers had to be her parents, the names above and next to Iain’s his family. The line linking her name to Iain’s was echoed in the line joining her mother and father. She smiled briefly, a warm flush of pleasure on her face.

Next to Iain’s name were two black boxes. Next to her mother’s were three, and next to Iain’s father there was one. And yes, there was one black box by her name; the symbols for herself and her stillborn sister. She quickly scanned the last twenty rows or so. There were many more black boxes in the last three rows than in the preceding ten rows combined. Selené grew cold. She felt the key was the black boxes, and most of those were empty of any letters. She now knew what they meant.

For each black box there had been a child whose eyes never turned blue.

Selené slowly scrolled back up the long, long chart. There were hundreds and thousands of names. Up until the last few generations, only one in every four was a simple black box. Now the black boxes numbered many, many more than they should.

She pressed the button that turned the monitor off.

I

ain searched the entire compound before he found her. The Computer assured him Selené was alive and well, but it could not tell him why she would not answer his call. Finally, in a small, cold room with two long, rectangular tables made of the metal and covered with cloth blankets, he found her. She stood in the farthest corner, her thin arms wrapped about her chest, her expression remote and chill, staring at the still form of a covered body that rested on one of those tables. She looked up to him as he approached.

“Do you know what happens here?”

Iain looked around. In a place of strangeness, this place seemed only slightly stranger. He shook his head.

“This is where they examine the dead. They open the bodies and see why they no longer work.”

Iain looked at the shape on the table. Death was inevitable, but to have a place dedicated to just opening bodies? Was there so much death here?

She turned huge, wide blue-green eyes up to his.

“They know so much here, Iain. About how bodies work, and what happens when people become ill and die. They understand what happens as a baby grows inside its mother. They know how to prevent illness. I need to learn it all.”

Iain felt a shiver run down his spine. Selené’s eyes had that fey quality that could scare him. She was changing.

“I need to find out why the babies are dying.”

I

ain took Selené outside, into the verdant gardens that supplied much of the Elders’ diet. The sun near its zenith was warm and the plants fragrant and still full of life. Even though it was harvest time everywhere else, somehow here the Elders had plants producing spring berries. Over Selené’s laughing protests that they should ask permission first, he harvested a handful of the pink, sweet berries he knew she loved and gifted them to her. It was good to see her smile again.

They spent the late afternoon wandering in the extensive gardens only to find themselves totally turned about when they reentered the compound. They crossed paths with the middle-aged woman with a purple sleeve who guided them back to the cafeteria. Dinner was a much quieter affair, again with foods that were different but plentiful and tasty. Iain was relieved to see Sasha was not present. He wanted a few more days to better understand what was happening to him before facing his old friend Brin again.

T

anya was tired, so very tired. The rest she had sought after lunch had not come. Victor was gone, and with his death the last of her close friends had died. And Victor had been so much more than just a friend. She dreaded the long walk back to the Colony, and the irony of it all was that Victor would no doubt have chided her for making the trek. Even so, she needed to say goodbye, and as a proper Colonist, even if many years removed, that meant the funeral pyre surrounded by the community. She needed that closure, even if Victor never had. First though, she needed to instruct the newest arrivals. It was her job now as the most senior staff member on duty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

White corridors branched off in all directions. Tanya could still clearly remember her first days here, even now decades later, and how confusing everything had seemed. She had been grief stricken to leave behind her children and her bondmate, and yet once she had Awoken she could no more have stayed in the Colony than Selené. At least Selené had Iain.

They approached the travel tube and Tanya summoned a car with her commlock. The car arrived promptly and the three entered. Tanya sat down and indicated the others do the same. She smiled slightly to see Iain’s wide-eyed response to the tug of acceleration. No doubt he would soon be flying in Sasha’s glider.

The car stopped and they exited. The walk to Main Mission was not long, but long enough for Selené to ask the question that had obviously been bothering her.

“Tanya, where are the children?”

“There are none. You are the youngest here. The youngest that has been Called in many, many years.”

Selené’s eyes went wide; Tanya could understand. The records clearly showed the absence of childish laughter had always bothered Sandra, too; children were ever underfoot in the Colony. Tanya saw the girl flash a stricken look at Iain.

“I won’t be able to have children?”

Tanya felt the girl’s pain and she reached out a hand in sympathetic distress. So much had to be given up after one was Called.

“Our children grow up in the Colony. You know Sylvie’s little girl, of course?”

Selené nodded. Sylvie’s first two children had died with brown eyes. The third, a little girl, was now about six years old, blue-eyed, bright and curious.

“She is the daughter of Ann and Lee.”

The remainder of the walk passed in silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She took them into Main Mission through the Commander’s office, resting her hand briefly on the back of the chair where Victor had so lately sat. Victor had used Koenig’s desk for decades; now it would pass to the hands of the next leader.

Tanya stole a glance to see the expressions on Iain’s and Selené’s faces. She always enjoyed bringing the new ones into Main Mission this way, opening the sliding wall beyond the desk, then leading the way down the shallow stairs into the cavernous room where Victor would be waiting. It simply made a grand impression, and it did not fail this time.

Climbing the stairs back to the large Command desk, Tanya sat in the large, plush chair, feeling close to Victor for just a moment. She watched as Iain explored the large room. She wondered how it seemed to him; with the sunlight streaming in viewports that her memories say should be dark in deep space. Selené remained next to her, less adventurous, though from the questing gaze, no less curious. The girl was the first to ask her questions.

“What is this place, Tanya?”

“Main Mission. This is where we monitor all the experiments we have running, and watch over the Colony.”

“You can see the Colony?” Selené asked, awe in her voice.

“Yes. We have special... tools... up high in the sky that allow us to look down.” Tanya pushed a few buttons and the Big Screen changed from its static resting pattern to one filled with activity. As if from high on a cliff higher than any imaginable, they could see their friends and family carrying out the daily chores.

“You spy on us?” That was Iain, not sounding at all pleased.

“Well, spy is too strong a term. Perhaps, instead, say observed. We do not intrude or interfere, unless we have no choice.”

“Hmm.”

Tanya and Selené exchanged grins at the dubious tone in Iain’s voice as the image on the large, elevated screen again went blank at Tanya’s command.

“Come, sit with me. We must speak.” Tanya rose and walked back down into Main Mission proper. She took her old seat next to Paul’s station, gesturing for the others to collect chairs for themselves. Iain and Selené followed and sat opposite her. She studied their youthful faces. Their Alphan uniforms made them seem older than the years she knew they held. Iain already possessed a strength of character and a quality that drew people to him; Selené still had a hint of child-like trust about her, but her sharp intelligence was obvious.

“How do you find your new home?” she asked the two. She could see the dawning understanding as they registered the simple fact that this was their home now.

“Home? We won’t be able to go back to the Colony anymore, will we?” There were tears in Selené’s eyes. Tanya well knew the girl was being asked to give up all she had ever known.

“To visit, but not to stay. You will soon find being among the Colonists very uncomfortable.”

“Why?” That was Iain

Tanya chose not to answer directly. They would not yet believe the truth. Not quite yet. Not even from an Elder. Tanya purposefully paused, resting her hands in her lap and assuming the opening phrase and air of an Elder telling a Story.

“I ask that you listen carefully to what I have to say.”

Iain and Selené sat up attentively, pulled by long habit into the learning mode they had so often assumed as children.

“We are not from this place, this planet. Our people came from aother world, one unbelievably far away. It took years of travel to reach here. We traveled on a runaway moon, a journey that was not planned but the result of our people’s pride and arrogance.”

Tanya could see their avid curiosity. If she had not already been certain, this in itself would have told her they were ready to Awaken. Those who were not destined to spend their lives here among the Elders would by now be disinterested and bored. It had taken years to understand that; to understand that the selection of who would remember the past and continue the work of research and scholarship, even if only in a limited fashion, was out of Alphan hands.

Victor had always enjoyed the task explaining how they had come to be here to the newly Awoken. He would spin the events of Breakaway and all that followed into a marvelous tale of mystery and wonder. Tanya might not have that gift, but she had done it often enough to do a serviceable job. They all had.

“Let me show you where we used to live after we left the homeworld.” She pushed a small, blinking button on her desk and then nodded toward the Big Screen. “This used to be our home on our long jouney. That is a view of what is happening there and now.”

Iain looked up, studied the image and frowned. The screen showed a room just like the one there were in, down to the blinking button Tanya had just pressed, except it was empty and the viewports were black with night, unlike the bright sunlight that flooded through the viewports here. The Big Screen there showed what appeared to be a huge clear flask over which hung a single minuscule droplet of red fluid. The flask was barely half full.

“Tanya, what is that place?”

“That is the original Main Mission on Moonbase Alpha.”

Iain and Selené looked at each other, then to her for further explanation.

“This place,” and Tanya swept her hand to include everything around them, “all of it... the Medical Center, NGA, the personal quarters... are a copy of Moonbase Alpha.

“When we arrived in this system, our moon assumed orbit about this planet. We were overjoyed. The tests showed we could live and thrive here. We felt our very long journey was finally over. Until we discovered we couldn’t leave Alpha. The Eagles would not work. Nothing we did fixed them, and it took as a while to realize they were not broken.”

Some of the remembered pain of those days was audible in her voice.

“When we understood we could not leave Alpha, that we were trapped more thoroughly than we ever had been, with everything we could have hoped for just within our reach, many people... just gave up. Some even suicided. It was as hard a time as any we experienced.” Tanya fell silent, looking at the images on the Big Screen that changed in a slow rotation showing dark, empty rooms throughout Alpha, all in perfect condition like the day they had been first commissioned, each waiting to be put to use. Remaining silent, Tanya gave Iain and Selené the time they needed.

“You said those pictures show what is happening now?” Iain watched in fascination, hearing what Tanya was saying. Knowledge was returning.

“Yes.”

“It’s on the white moon. That Moonbase Alpha.”

“Yes.” Tanya agreed, hearing Selené inhale sharply.

“They could not get from there to here?” Iain stood and paced to the viewports, and back again, sitting down to face her eye to eye.

“No.”

“We are descended from those people?” Selené interrupted.

Tanya nodded.

“Then how did they get from there to here?” Iain demanded, pointing upwards to the unseen white moon.

She took a deep breath, the memory still very fresh in her mind. “There was a flash of light so bright that everyone was blinded, and a.... sound.... that left everyone frozen in their steps. When sight and movement returned, we were... here, on the planet, all of us.”

“Where the Colony is?” Iain asked.

“No, here.” Tanya gestured to the surroundings about them. “This complex, including the orbiting data satellites above and the Colony in the valley, were waiting for us. Everything was here, although there are no Eagles.”

Tanya sat quietly now, her hands resting in her lap again, watching the pair in front of her. She could almost see their understanding stretching, almost visibly expanding with the story she told. Their background had given them no preparation for this. But then again, that was the point of the Colony.

“Our ancestors were sent here? By whom?” Selené struggled for understanding.

“We don’t know.”

“How was this all made?”

Tanya shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“Why not at least tell us about this? Why not tell us where we came from?” Selené’s confusion was growing. Tanya smiled sadly, shaking her head slightly.

“Well then, what do you know and what can you tell us?” Iain demanded, jumping up and staring down at her, his frustration with the lack of answers overcoming years of placid acceptance. Selené gasped, looking up at Iain, plainly shocked and appalled at the raw emotion being leveled against the Elder.

Finally, for the first time since Iain and Selené arrived in this place, the Elder truly smiled.

Tanya was pleased. This was the beginning of understanding. Selené’s obvious relief and Iain’s blatant surprise at her delighted response made her smile even broader. No doubt Iain realized he had crossed the ultimate line of Colonist propriety. Tanya gestured for the young man to sit down and relax. As he did, Tanya found she had to turn her face slightly so they would not see her laugh. They were both so relieved, as if they had just escaped a fate worse than death. Justice was sweet. How often had she quaked from Koenig’s temperamental outbursts?

Iain and Selené were now ready to listen. Soon they would understand why the Colonists were kept in ignorance, how their collective sanity could be preserved only if they didn’t know how they were being manipulated and what they were being denied. For the Alphans to be able to see the stars and know they would never reach them again, well, that had been a living hell for the first Colonists.

She pulled up a copy of the multi-generational chart that had so fascinated Selené in Medical Center and visually scanned the thousands of entries. Thousands of lifetimes were represented, some long and some so very brief. Tanya studied Selené, and nodded. Yes, the girl was now realizing what had eluded her earlier; the pattern she had almost grasped. The same few names repeating again and again and again.

The names recorded numbered exactly three hundred ten.

A

n hour passed swiftly, and Selené was lost in the immensity of what Tanya explained. She could just about wrap her imagination around the idea their people had come to this planet on a wayward moon torn out of its initial orbit and hurled across space. She could accept that, once here, they had chosen to live a simple, agrarian life. She could even, possibly, accept the concept of a guiding force that had overseen that strange journey. But, reincarnation?

“But.... why?”

“We don’t know,” Tanya cast a wry glance at Iain, “but we have made educated guesses over the years. The journals we have each kept have allowed us to build on what has been learned. It is a very slow process,” she smiled sadly, “but we have had the time.”

Iain had good manners to look embarrassed at his earlier outburst.

“We do know that we number only those of us who were on Alpha at Breakaway. All the pilots are here whether or not they were actually on the lunar surface. It seems as long as they had been assigned to Alpha, no matter how briefly, they have been seen as Alphan.”

“Simmonds?” Iain’s voice was assuming a more confident inflection.

“Yes. He is here. Not right now, but he has lived both as a Colonist and among the Awakened.”

Selené’s forehead furrowed. “Why only three hundred ten? Who is missing?” She saw Tanya’s gaze turn inward, her blue eyes again tired and full of sadness.

“Anton Zoref.”

“Oh.” The memories of what had happened, the strange life form that had subsumed Anton, rushed into Selené’s mind. From the look on Iain’s face, he was experiencing the same.

“Eva still suffers from his loss. Her lives in the Colony are full of pain. She searches and searches for him, not understanding why she is so very lonely. And when she is here, it is even worse; she understands why she can never find Anton.”

Selené studied the generational grid and the familiar repeating names. She noticed that the final three generations still held the names of colonists, not proper Alphan names. She looked at Tanya who answered her unspoken question.

“We do that for our sanity. Only the senior medical person on duty bears the burden of knowing who is alive right now.”

Selené raised an eyebrow and considered that. Yes, that would make sense. Given how few they were, imagine realizing that your son in one life was your father in the next. Or your husband.

Iain shot a glance at Selené, his grin wide. “Imagine Simmonds for a son.” He became more serious. “And this explains our appearance now?” Iain asked, gesturing to his body.

Memories of blonds and brunettes, Occidental, Asian and African features, tall and short bodies, blue, green and brown eyes all whirled like a kaleidoscope in Selené’s awakening memories.

Tanya nodded, now allowing them to put the facts together on their own.

Selené now realized she knew the answer, “Yes, the result of generations of inbreeding, but...” She thought of what illnesses the Colonists suffered from. Very few, she realized, once they survived infancy. They had been bred into a homogeneous population that appeared to have few bad recessives. So, all ethical qualms aside, any pairings among the Colonists should produce viable children. And if that were the case, then the care shown by the Elders on selecting pairs must be based on something else. Compatibility, perhaps? But something still made no sense...

“What?” Iain asked, looking at her.

“Well, I suppose genetic drift could explain why we all have blue eyes, but why are we born with brown eyes that turn blue? That is exactly backwards. And why do the infants whose eyes stay brown die?”

Tanya started to answer, but a yawn interrupted. Selené realized the older woman was very tired, and that she still had a long walk to the Colony tomorrow to see Victor’s body returned. Selené no longer thought of Victor as her lost great-grandfather, but as her dear friend. A wave of sadness coursed through Selené. She now realized exactly how much that loss meant.

“It is the sign of a body unensouled. We used to run bioencephelographic scans at birth to identify each child. The children whose eyes failed to turn blue had no higher brain function, no personality. Knowing that, we now wait to scan until the children are older.”

“They are doomed to die?” Selené closed her eyes, not seeing Tanya’s terse nod of agreement. Suddenly, Selené’s eyes opened wide, abruptly realizing why she had Awoken. She glanced at the generational grid, at the last few lines. “But, now we’re losing too many. More than just the brown-eyed babies. Too many have been dying. Something is wrong, and here I can find out what it is, and stop it!”

“Yes!” Tanya’s eyes lit with a fierce joy as she smiled.

“But why are so many children born only to die?” demanded Iain in a quiet, intense voice. He all too clearly recalled the grief of his mother and sister when their babies had faded and died.

At the sound of the anger and grief in his voice, Tanya’s smile of triumph faded. She faced Iain, studying the blue eyes carefully. Yes, this was the most fundamental question of all.

“You might better ask why is this happening to us at all. Why are we being forced to live again and again, and why is it sometimes we have to be aware of what we must endure? Of what we have lost, who we have lost. To watch our family and friends live their lives in the Colony and yet not be with them? To grow old, only to know the cycle will repeat itself again and again? To see our children taken from us, so they can grow up happy and healthy in the Colony while we are forced to stay here to protect our sanity? Why?”

Tanya closed her eyes against what Selené was coming to realize was an ever-present grief. Tears started coursing down Tanya’s cheeks and Selené gathered the suddenly frail woman in her arms, holding the graying head against her chest. Her own emotions welled up at the thought of her future children being taken away, for their sake, and hers. A lean shadow fell over her and she looked up.

“We are paying for the deaths we caused.” The voice was rough and deep in sudden insight, a newfound maturity present that had not been there just moments before. Helena looked at John in surprise, feeling Tanya nod her head in silent agreement and then heard her anguished whisper.

“Yes. Whether here or in the Colony, we are all living lives of quiet penance.”

Slowly, Helena felt the rightness of what was said, and she nodded, once, in agreement. The memories of her life on Alpha, on Earth, were in reach now. It would take some while to fully Awaken, but now it was only a matter of time.

“Tanya,” Helena spoke very gently to the woman in her arms, “how much longer do we have to live this? Does anyone know?”

Tanya pulled herself slightly apart, dashing the tears from her eyes and turned to face her console. She pulled back up the image of the not-quite half-filled flask on the Big Screen in the original Main Mission. The very, very tiny droplet still appeared poised to fall into the fluid below.

“That image appeared when we arrived here and found we could still see Alpha. The cup was empty then.” She took a deep breath, sharing with John and Helena the saddest fact of all. “A drop falls each time a life ends.”

No one spoke. Hanging above the flask, the tiny droplet had yet to fall. John was the one to ask the question.

“For how long, Tanya?”

Composure regained, acceptance once more on her face, she calmly answered. “Three thousand years.”

Epilogue~ 10 years later

“Status report. Three thousand four hundred eight years after leaving Earth orbit. Doctor Helena Russell recording. This is the annual summary of the events of the past planetary year, the tenth year of my eighth tour of duty.

“Tanya Aleksandr was returned to the Colony at the beginning of the harvest season. She had served for fifty-five years after awaking to her Calling in her nineteenth year. Her death at only seventy-four years old came as a surprise, but she had become very withdrawn over the past few years as John and I fully assumed our duties. Victor’s death affected her more profoundly than even she realized.

“There have been eight births in the Colony over the past year, with only one failing to become ensouled. No one has been lost to trauma. There were three deaths: two Colonist seniors dying of natural deaths– Michael Baxter and Lew Picard– and Eva Zoref at the age of thirty-nine, from grief I believe.

“We welcomed Joan Conway after her Awakening this past summer. She is still overwhelmed at the change in her life and has not yet totally accommodated herself. I will continue to monitor her closely, but expect she will soon become functional enough to assume care of the power facilities. Her arrival allows Mark Dominix to step down, which at age eighty-one is very timely.

“I am gratified to see the ongoing successful baby boom in the Colony since the nutritional aberration was identified and remedied seven years ago. The flax plant from which the butter-substitute is made has been genetically modified and seeded among the Colonists’ gardens; the unnoticed change has been well received and the nutritional deficiency and subsequent genetic aberration remedied. The numbers in the Colony are now on the path to returning to the usual two hundred forty over the next few generations.

“Next spring will see the graduation of the current cohort. Traditionally, it is the senior ranking female Elder that is responsible for announcing the pairings among the young adults, but I will be at the end of my final trimester and John will not allow me to travel the long walk. I’ll miss seeing the children. I will make the trip later in the year, sooner if this pregnancy results in a viable child; however, I suspect this child’s eyes will stay brown. The law of averages favors that. Our three children are doing well in the Colony. Iain’s sister and mother are raising the older two, and the youngest is living with a middle-aged couple whose children all died before their name-days. In any case, the birth of this child is important, even if he or she only lives a few days. Understanding the reasons behind the early deaths does not lessen the pain, but does make it bearable.”

She paused the recording for a moment to wonder how many times a child of hers had died in infancy. She had deliberately never tallied those numbers. She flicked the recorder back on.

“Interestingly, while my memories of the time on Alpha are very clear, and even Earth memories are accessible, the other times I have lived on this planet are not. I can read the journals I kept during those lifetimes, but it is like reading the diaries of another. Perhaps it’s a small kindness being shown to us by whatever or whoever is overseeing this life we must lead.”

The door to Medical Center opened and John walked in. Now in his mid-thirties, he carried his responsibility with the same dedication she could remember from their time drifting through space. His appearance echoed how he had once looked: tall, lean and possessing the most intense blue eyes. His brown hair and brown complexion aside, anyone who had known John Koenig at the time of Breakaway would recognize him again.

She watched him walk toward her with the familiar quick steps; he still had that ever-present restless energy. She knew he accepted the reason why they were here, but still he chafed against their enforced isolation. He had turned that same energy to what exploration of their world was possible, expanding their limited body of knowledge against future need. She knew he wouldn’t be truly happy until they returned to the stars, or at least to Alpha... the real one. She had his faith that one day they would. Helena closed her eyes, allowing herself to believe she was back on old Alpha.

“I could always put shoeblack on my hair if that would help.”

Smiling, Helena gently shook her head. Eyes still closed, she turned toward the man who was always there for her. She held out her arms and waited until he walked to her and folded her in an embrace. His lips nuzzled her ear and she felt his warm breath on her cheek.

“I need your help,” John said quietly. Even his voice had assumed the timbre she recalled so well.

Helena leaned into John’s warmth, her arms wrapping around his waist. She rested her head on his chest enjoying the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. “Hmm?”

“I’ve never been much of a matchmaker. That was always your and Sandra’s job. I just officiated at the weddings.”

Helena chuckled, feeling no desire to open her eyes and destroy her momentary daydream. “You have months before you need to make the announcements.”

John snorted. “Easy for you to say. Alan is in this cohort, and any woman I stick him with better be up to the challenge.”

Laughing, Helena opened her eyes. He was taking this so very seriously. Five years ago he could barely be bothered by the pairings. She had labored over her decisions for months, studying the records kept for more generations than she could truly comprehend, or wanted to comprehend. Genetically, any pairing would work, but emotionally and psychologically an error could condemn their friends to a lifetime of sorrow and torment. She looked into his glorious blue eyes.

“Help me,” he asked, his seriousness taking on a wheedling tone. “I promise to make it worth your while.”

How lucky she was. Her studies of the records she had recorded on prior duty shifts, prior lifetimes stretching over centuries, found the command duty was divided amongst John, Victor, Paul, Alan and occasionally David. There would be overlapping, of course, as one passed the baton to the next, but never more than two of them at a time. Tanya, Sandra, June and herself were the female command staff who rotated with the men. Whoever, or whatever, was supervising their term of penitence evidently had a strong sense of symmetry. Those Awakened for duty always matched male for female.

She had scanned many of the logs left behind by the others. It made for fascinating reading. Not so much for the harvest reports, but for the insights of how the small community of Awakened coped with the knowledge of their penance. Some took it better than others, or coped better when certain others were Awake to help them deal with the interminable sameness of their existence. Alan was the most restless. The women usually had their hands full with him.

She learned back slightly and looked up into John’s face. Of all the possible pairings among the Alphans, there was only one couple that never varied. Oh, there was a definite pattern of which couples appeared together or did well together, but in any cohort she could usually find several ways to pair couples with a fair chance of success. Having over one hundred and seventy generations of data to pull upon, as well as a certain intuition, helped. Still, only one couple was together in each lifetime, always appearing together, and always Called together. But why just them?

There had been an entry in the journals from her fourth tour, a reference to an article by Dr. Weiss, a respected psychiatrist....

“....people are drawn back to the same group of people between lifetimes. "The relationships aren't always the same. Someone you love in one lifetime may be your murderer in another."

So, was this why she and John were always together? Had it been so even before Alpha? She was so profoundly grateful they were always friends and lovers.

Paul had not been so fortunate. Several hundred years ago he had been forced to stand aside and watch as a very young Sandra was blinded in a freak accident in the Colony. The best he could do to help her had been to see her paired with someone to care for her. Alan, she seemed to recall. The pain of watching Sandra struggle in the Colony’s primitive surroundings haunted him and his journal entries for the rest of that life.

She reached up and lightly caressed John’s cheek. “Of course I’ll help you.”

John’s kiss made it all worthwhile. Eventually this unending cycle of rebirth, or ‘recycling’ as Alan had once put in his log, would end. Would they then move on as a people to fulfill Arra’s prophecy, or would they simply grow old and truly die here on this planet? One day, they would know. Until then, she and John would be together, and that wasn’t all that bad, was it? She linked her arm in his and led the way out to the cafeteria for dinner.

“Regina was the youngest in the prior cohort and she’s still available. Alan tends to live longer when Tanya or Sandra are there to steady him, but he seems to have so much fun with Regina. She and Alan will do well together...”

MGK

8 May 2008

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